Life of Nelson by Robert Southey

First published: 1813

Type of work: Biography

Time of work: 1758-1805

Locale: England, the British colonies, the Continent, the high seas

Principal Personages:

• Viscount Horatio Nelson, English naval hero
• Edmund Nelson, his father
• Lady Emma Hamilton, his mistress
• Lady Frances Nelson, his wife
• Maurice Suckling, Nelson’s uncle, a naval captain, later Comptroller of the Navy
• Sir William Hamilton, English ambassador to Naples
• Thomas Troubridge,
• Alexander Ball,
• Samuel Hood,
• Benjamin Hallowell,
• Hyde Parker,
• Thomas Graves,
• Earl St. Vincent (Sir John Jervis), and
• Cuthbert Collingwood, English naval officers

Analysis

“What has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he, above all the rest [of your children], should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come, and the first time we go into action, a cannonball may knock off his head, and provide for him at once.”

Had Nelson’s uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, been prophetic in this letter to Nelson’s father, the course of English history subsequent to the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) might well have been quite different from what it has been. The weakness of the twelve-year-old Horatio that Captain Suckling referred to was only physical. Weak though he was, Nelson had already given proof of the resoluteness of heart and nobleness of mind that were to characterize his distinguished career.

Always a stranger to fear and a companion of honor, Nelson led the exemplary life that his father foresaw for his son. Nelson’s father had always marked him for success in whatever profession he might follow. Through his indomitable spirit, his seafaring abilities, and his acumen in personal relationships, Nelson was a lieutenant at nineteen, a captain at twenty-one, and an admiral before he was thirty.

From his maiden voyage to India early in his career, Nelson, reduced almost to a skeleton by tropical disease, was returned home. Dejected by his physical condition and the diminished promise of success in his career, he considered suicide for a time. But from this state of mind he suddenly rallied with a feeling bordering on the religious, so obsessed was he by the “sudden glow of patriotism . . . presented by king and country as my patron.”

Southey’s explanation of this fervor and determination that spurred Nelson on to become a hero is compatible in its beauty with the exquisite qualities of a man who surmounted obstacles to have his name become as well known as that of the country for which he achieved heroism:

He knew to what the previous state of dejection was to be attributed; that an enfeebled body, and a mind depressed, had cast this shade over his soul; but he always seemed willing to believe, that the sunshine which succeeded bore with it a prophetic glory, and that the light which led him on was “light from heaven.”

Though heroes are often seen in an aura of celestial light and divine guidance, Nelson was most cognizant of mundane matters that need attending to, even though one confides in Providence. His readiness in political strategy was a factor in the first of his three greatest naval successes, the defeat of Napoleon’s fleet at Aboukir in 1798. For more than a month Nelson’s fleet had sought the French fleet in the Mediterranean. Thwarted at every attempt to get information concerning the French position or to secure supplies, Nelson turned at last to Lady Emma Hamilton, the wife of the English ambassador to Naples. Through her influence with the Queen of Naples, Nelson secured supplies at Syracuse and began again his pursuit of the French.

Contrary to his command to his men that they obey orders implicitly without questioning their propriety, Nelson, sometimes seeing circumstances in a different light from that of his superiors, did not always obey orders. In the victory at Copenhagen, in 1801, against the armed neutrality of the Baltic, Nelson, second in command, ignored his commander’s order to cease action. Putting his telescope to his blind eye when he was told the signal giving the order had been raised (Nelson had lost the sight of one eye in battle at Calvi), he continued the attack, saying he could not see the signal.

Acting without orders from his commander, Sir John Jervis, Nelson was largely responsible for the defeat of the Spanish fleet at Cape St. Vincent (1797). In that engagement the enemy fleet far outnumbered the English ships, twenty-seven to fifteen. This victory destroyed a threatened invasion of England.

Another practical personal qualification contributing to Nelson’s success was his ability as a leader, especially his attention to effective communication. He had marked confidence in his officers’ abilities, but he was sure in every case possible that everyone knew his principles of tactics.

In keeping with his confidence in Providence, Nelson seemed obsessed with the assurance of victory. This attribute was inculcated into his men. Quite pleased with the scope of the plan of an attack against the French, one of Nelson’s captains asked, “If we succeed, what will the world say?” “There is no if in the case,” Nelson exclaimed. “That we shall succeed is certain: who may live to tell the story is a very different question.”

After destroying thirteen French ships at Aboukir, making useless the French army in Egypt, placed there in preparation for Napoleon’s projected conquest of the East, Nelson became an international hero. He was showered with congratulations, rewards, and honors by all countries which, because of his military success, had escaped Napoleon’s aggression. Such accolades, received before he was thirty, were to become commonplace to England’s greatest naval hero.

Southey’s biography is no mere chronological recital of events. His descriptions of naval battles are sufficiently developed and detailed enough to provide the excitement of adventure stories. But in these, as in the more ordinary incidents, emphasis is on persons—their abilities and weaknesses, their hopes and disappointments. The writing has a poet’s tone and spirit without poetic devices. This quality in the prose serves to convey the spirit of self-reliance, nonconformity, and courage that constitutes a hero. Clarity and conciseness are the keynotes of the style.

In his choice of biographical detail, Southey never lost sight of the fact that Nelson was first a man and then a naval hero. The strong bond of love and admiration between Nelson and his father, for example, is a warming thread throughout the book. The son’s deliberate adherence to his father’s counsel and the father’s pride in the son’s accomplishments add to the stature of the hero. It was fitting, in the light of this lifelong devotion between Nelson and his father, that a few months before the father’s death the older Nelson came to accept Nelson’s affair with Lady Hamilton. Perhaps in blind love for his son, he saw in his son’s mistress a woman described by Southey as “a character which, both in its strength and in its weakness, resembled his own.” This reconciliation meant much to Nelson because his association with Lady Hamilton had brought sorrow and displeasure to his father, especially when Nelson was separated from Lady Nelson.

Southey treats Nelson’s marital situation in a matter of fact manner as another facet of the admiral’s life. This is no love idyl, developed by a poet.

The affair began in Naples, where Sir William Hamilton was English ambassador and Nelson was in charge of a squadron during the French occupation of Naples (1798-1799). Nelson and the Hamiltons became inseparable friends; they returned to England together in 1800. At Sir William’s death, he was holding Nelson’s hand and entrusting Lady Hamilton to his care.

Nelson did arrange a pension for Lady Hamilton and Horatia Nelson Thompson, “believed to be his [Nelson’s] daughter,” as Southey discreetly identified the child, born to Lady Hamilton about the time Nelson was separating from Lady Nelson.

Nelson’s third and last great victory was the sea battle fought off Cape Trafalgar, where in 1805 he destroyed both the French and Spanish fleets. This success culminated two years of strategic naval maneuvering and warfare, with Nelson in command of the fleet in the Mediterranean. During that time he blockaded the French fleet at Toulon for twenty-two months. The English victory at Trafalgar resulted in the capture of twenty enemy ships—not an English vessel was lost—and the end of Napoleon’s power of the sea. But in that battle Nelson lost his life. His immortal words “England expects that every man will do his duty” were among his last.

Nelson’s stature is admirably established in Southey’s description of his death:

The most triumphant death is that of the martyr; the most awful, that of the martyred patriot; the most splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory; and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson’s translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not indeed his mantle of inspiration, but a name and an example, which are at this hour inspiring hundreds of the youth of England: a name which is our pride, and an example which will continue to be our shield and our strength.

The eminence of the subject and the cogency of Southey’s writing make it easy to see why the American government published a special edition of the LIFE OF NELSON and issued a copy to every seaman and officer in the American navy.

Although Southey was poet laureate of England for thirty years, he is remembered for only a few of his vigorous short poems, “The Battle of Blenheim” being one of his best. Ironically, the poet is best known today for his prose writing, this model among short biographies and a classic in English literature.