Nelson (99 page)

Adelaide may have soothed Nelson’s physical infirmities through the warm summer nights, but they could not relieve the pressures that came with the riviera command. The status of the small Genoese harbours behind the enemy lines was increasingly causing him concern. Technically, these havens were open to all on the understanding that no acts of war would be committed within their limits, but all along the Genoese coast they were sheltering enemy supply ships. The French were systematically abusing the system, occupying weakly garrisoned Genoese ports and turning them into French havens. Alassio and Oneglia, in the rear of the French lines, particularly worried Nelson. They were Genoese towns, and supposedly neutral. But while the flag of Genoa still flew from the castle in the centre of Alassio it was
controlled by the French soldiery, who debarred the British from entering and offered the harbour as a bolt hole for their coasters.

Nelson’s response was typically decisive. If neutral ports became belligerent ports the laws of neutrality would be suspended. On 12 August nine boats of the
Agamemnon
rowed towards Alassio, where they paused beyond the blue horizon until darkness allowed them to move in. With muffled oars they slid silently into the harbour under the command of Lieutenants Andrews and Spicer, and at about one in the morning eight vessels at anchor were successfully boarded. Unfortunately, the town soon rang with alarm and as the prizes were being towed out Andrews and Spicer came under fire. Four French gunboats sallied out to recover the prizes, and all but one had to be relinquished; only the timely arrival of the
Mutine
cutter enabled the British to withdraw with their remaining trophy, which they found laden with black pepper and wine.
¹⁶

Not to be thwarted, Nelson was back with a larger force on the 26th, on the lookout for an enemy convoy, and this time he attacked in full daylight. Captain Fremantle was directed to take the
Inconstant
and
Tartar
(Captain Charles Elphinstone) to the town of Languelia on the west side of the bay, while Nelson raided Alassio with the
Agamemnon
, three frigates (the
Meleager
,
Southampton
and
Ariadne
) and the
Speedy
brig. Sitting comfortably beneath the shore batteries at Alassio were six coasters, some if not all Genoese but full of supplies for the French. They were guarded by a French national warship,
La Resolve
, a rakish black polacre of ten long guns, four swivels and eighty-seven men, as well as two galleys armed with five guns or swivels apiece. Nelson wanted to minimise the offence his attack would cause Genoa. Both Cockburn, whose
Meleager
led the line into Alassio, and Fremantle were told in writing to avoid firing upon the inhabitants. Fremantle, for instance, was instructed ‘not to fire on the battery or town [of Languelia] unless fired upon or by signal to engage from me’.
¹⁷

At ten in the morning Nelson’s ships sailed audaciously into Alassio, anchoring with their guns flanking the batteries and beach with springs on their cables for easy manoeuvring. From the
Agamemnon
, Nelson could see the Genoese colours above the castle, but a French flag was also draped over a wall and he had no doubt who really controlled the port. Messages went forward, charging that the French had made the area ‘an enemy coast’. Nelson demanded the surrender of
La Resolve
and warned the Genoese commandant not to interfere. Soon
a party under Andrews had effortlessly boarded the polacre, cut her cable and brought her out with ‘spirited and officer-like conduct’.
¹⁸

Then, as the British boats made for the coasters, Plampin’s
Ariadne
grounded while trying to turn. Nelson had to redirect his men to assist her by lodging the frigate’s best bower anchor in deeper water so that she could be hauled towards it by turns of the capstan. The delay enabled the supply ships to retreat further inshore, to unload some of their cargoes and to orchestrate resistance. About two thousand French soldiers, both horse and foot, were soon crowding the beach on either side of the fort, some solemnly stood beneath their colours ready to withstand attack. The delay had been expensive, but Nelson always defended good officers and reported that Captain Plampin’s difficulty arose solely from his ‘great zeal . . . to do much’.
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After the
Ariadne
had been refloated, French musket balls greeted the return of the British boats, but Nelson swept the beach with artillery fire and drove the bluecoats back. By three o’clock one of the supply ships had been wrecked upon the shore, where enemy cavalry quickly surrounded it, and the rest boarded and brought out. The only British casualty was little William Hoste, who fell down the cable scuttle of one of the prizes and broke a leg. Fremantle, Nelson learned, had been equally successful at Languelia, where a large French gunboat,
La Republique
of six guns and fifty men, had been found protecting two merchantmen. Showing less than his commander’s independence, Fremantle thought it necessary to signal Nelson for permission to cut them out, but once he had the go-ahead he mounted a flawless operation and scooped up the three prizes without suffering a single casualty.
²⁰

Though Nelson had committed hostilities in a neutral port, the Genoese government was also on weak ground because it had allowed the French to reserve Alassio for their own use. Genoa complained to London but did nothing stronger, while in the Mediterranean Nelson’s stock rose in British circles. Hotham commended his services, and Udny wrote approvingly to Drake: ‘I rejoice to hear of Captain Nelson’s successful operation . . . He is the most indefatigable man I know.’
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Active certainly. The day after the attack on Alassio the British drove another French gunboat ashore and would have landed to burn it had a detachment of enemy cavalry not sped up. The triumphs and disappointments of the everyday work of Nelson’s cruisers are well illustrated by a single passage from the log of Captain Charles Brisbane’s
Moselle
for the evening of 27 August:

Saw the
Southampton
’s boats board a tartan and ship at anchor in a small bay to the westward of Genoa. Several muskets were fired from the shore on the boats. At 7 or 8 [o’clock] guns were fired from the
Southampton
[Captain William Shield] for to cover [h]is boats. About 9 PM the boats brought out the tartan and ship. Sent a[n] officer and eleven men on board the ship and one petty officer and one man on board the tartan, which we took in tow . . . Parted company with the
Southampton
. The prizes proved to be Genoese. At 4 AM the officer on board the tartan informed us that the tartan had sprung a leak and that the water was up to the fore and main hatches. Hauled the tartan alongside to pump her out, she having no pumps on board. She went down and was lost before we had time to put a pump on board her.
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Not until the night of 29 August did the riviera squadron take a hit. That evening fifty-four men from the
Southampton
,
Ariadne
and
Agamemnon
scrambled into the two galleys captured at Alassio and pulled out of Vado Bay, steering for Oneglia to cut out a supply ship. The moon was full and the weather warm, and the boats reached their destination without much difficulty, but instead of the reported merchantman they found three large and mysterious lateen-rigged vessels lashed together. Lieutenants Andrews and Spicer ordered a warning shot to be fired in front of the strangers and raised English colours, but there was neither reply nor any flag of identification; only an eerie silence. Andrews put his galley under the quarters of one of the ships to investigate, but a vicious burst of fire suddenly illuminated the blackened ship, riddling the British boat with bullets at close range. Calling for boarders, Andrews flung himself upon the enemy vessel and climbed to the deck, where his party impetuously drove their adversaries overboard with cutlasses and pikes. Cutting the prize free, the British then tried to engage the other two vessels but their ammunition ran out and they were badly outnumbered. They had to retreat with what they had. The prize turned out to be Turkish, but its consorts got safely into Genoa.

An Austrian boat brought the first casualties back to Vado, where Nelson was greatly upset at the loss of seventeen ‘poor brave fellows’ dead or wounded, ‘the best men in my ship’. To fight without colours, as the Turks had done, was barbaric ‘piracy’, and Nelson appealed to Genoa to withdraw its protection from the surviving Turkish ships so that he could take them out. The protest was unsuccessful and Nelson was left to mourn his dead. Three quarterdeck officers of the
Agamemnon
were wounded, Midshipmen Gamble and William D. Williams, and Thomas Withers, then a mate, who underwent a painful operation to have a musket ball removed from his foot. Poor Williams was less lucky. A Plymouth man of twenty-seven, he had risen by merit, serving as able seaman and quartermaster on his way to the rank of midshipman. Now it was over. He lingered until the morning of 1 September and was buried at Vado. Saddened but resigned to the fortunes of war, Nelson wrote to Fanny that ‘they who play at bowls must expect rubbers’.
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Fortunately, there were few such tragedies and Nelson’s confidence increased. Every success raised the
Agamemnon
’s efficiency and reputation, and brought music to her captain’s ears. Comments such as Sir William Hamilton’s ‘your activity and constancy is [are] known all over Europe’ were by no means insincere but had the effect of feeding a growing ego. Nelson’s letters bristled with self-congratulation, some of it understandable and much of it delusory. He exaggerated when he told his brother that his professional opinions had invariably been sound, while his claim to have been ‘pointed out as having been this war one hundred and twelve times engaged against the French, and always successful to a certain degree’ neglected to add that only he had done the counting. Others received similar self-advertisements. Uncle William was informed there was ‘no person so active as myself’, and Drake that the allies were ‘fortunate in having an officer of this character’ on their side. Nelson even persuaded himself that in Genoa he was ‘beloved and respected by both Senate and lower order[s]’, that the Austrians ‘knew my name perfectly’, and that throughout Italy there was ‘not a kingdom or state where my name will be forgot – this is my gazette!’.
²⁴

Braggadocio is hardly endearing, but in Nelson’s case it at least reflected a genuine professional pride and a readiness to back each boast. For a while Nelson hoped to exalt his stock by sharing in a fast-paced, successful campaign against the French, while they were still dispirited by their retreat from Vado in the summer. As usual, Nelson emphasised the moment, and the need to press an advantage before the enemy had time to reform. He fancied that Nice might fall ‘without a blow’ if De Vins pushed forward. Yet the summer temperatures had barely peaked before despondency began to set in. Illness
did not help. Nelson still had a ‘complaint’ in his chest, the remaining vision in his damaged right eye was disappearing and long letters written and read were causing him great pain in the left. ‘I am almost blind,’ he wrote in August. Two days later he was ‘very ill’ – ‘alive, and that’s all’. His physical condition was momentarily so serious that the diplomats and soldiers around him began to worry.
²⁵

Nelson’s growing apprehensions were also rooted in the apparent neglect of Admiral Hotham, whose appreciation fell short of permanent reward or sufficient help. The captain deeply resented Hotham’s failure to authorise him to fly a distinguishing pendant as an acting commodore in charge of a squadron. Even Captain Frederick, a junior officer, had received such a pendant when entrusted with a squadron. Nelson’s new friends sympathised and worked for his promotion through the foreign secretary, William Wyndham, Lord Grenville. ‘The admiral best knows how much Captain Nelson’s abilities, gallantry, good conduct and zeal for the king’s service render him worthy of this distinction,’ wrote Drake, while Trevor chorused, ‘It is hardly possible to do justice to the zeal and intelligence of this excellent officer.’ Unfortunately, that distinguishing pendant Nelson craved did not come.
²⁶

Even more important, Nelson wanted the admiral to bring the fleet to Vado Bay to inspire the allies, as De Vins and Drake urgently requested. Drake agitated for a conference between De Vins and Hotham ‘without loss of time’, but two letters Nelson fired to Hotham on 14 and 16 August produced no movement, even though the admiral was actually passing Vado on his way from Corsica to Leghorn. Nelson went out to the flagship to entreat Hotham to spare a few hours, but ‘nothing could turn him’ from his original course. Not only that but the admiral’s other observations were far from encouraging. Informing Nelson of the Admiralty’s wish that the fleet be kept together, he warned that some of Nelson’s frigates would have to be withdrawn. Hotham did promise to shield the riviera from the Toulon fleet, but given the fact that the French were old hands at giving him the slip and his fleet sat far away in Leghorn ‘as idle as is possible to conceive’, it was not a guarantee that instilled confidence. De Vins was ‘hurt’ at Hotham’s indifference, and so was Nelson. He agreed with Jackson, Trevor’s deputy in Turin, that if the Austrians were looking for an excuse to delay their offensive, Hotham had given them one.
²⁷

The ardour of Baron De Vins himself was more crucial still, but as Nelson beat up and down the coast with his cruisers, he realised that,
for all the rhetoric, the geriatric Austrian commander-in-chief either had little appetite for the war or was the puppet of a supine court. Drake realised this before the end of August, when De Vins failed to seize an opportunity to occupy Savona and secure defensible winter quarters on the coast. De Vins, Drake predicted, ‘must now . . . remain encamped [outside] during the whole of the winter, and a great part of his troop must be employed in guarding a range of bleak mountains where the cold is even now intense’. The next month Sardinia-Piedmont joined the attack, implying that the general’s inaction related to restraining orders from his emperor, something Vienna strongly denied. In reply, apologists for De Vins pointed accusing fingers at Sardinia-Piedmont. De Vins could not advance until the hesitant Sardinians and Piedmontese moved against the French post of Ormea, which threatened the Austrian right. Both allies smelled fear and treachery. The Sardinians suspected the Austrians had no intention of suffering losses to regain Nice, a territory Sardinia had lost; De Vins worried that Sardinia-Piedmont was going to make a separate peace with France and leave him in the lurch. Amid raging recriminations, the campaign atrophied.
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