Part 8

However blameworthy the previous life of Lady Hamilton, Sir William was devoted to her, and said at his death, twelve years later, "My incomparable Emma, you have never, in thought, word, or deed, offended me; and let me thank you, again and again, for your affectionate kindness to me all the time of our ten years' happy union."

On leaving Naples, Nelson was despatched to Corsica and Sardinia, to protect British trade and that of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He wrote to his wife, "This island is to belong to England, to be governed by its own laws, as Ireland, and a viceroy placed here with free ports. Italy and Spain are jealous of our obtaining possession; it will command the Mediterranean."

The town of Bastia was taken by Nelson. "I am all astonishment," he said, "when I reflect on what we have achieved ... four thousand in all, laying down their arms to twelve hundred soldiers, marines, and seamen! I always was of opinion, have ever acted up to it, and never had any reason to repent it, that one Englishman was equal to three Frenchmen."

At the siege of Calvi, by the bursting of a shell in the ground, sand and small gravel destroyed the sight of Nelson's right eye. For two years Nelson was almost constantly active. He wrote his wife, Aug. 2, 1796, "Had all my actions been gazetted, not one fortnight would have passed during the whole war without a letter from me; one day or other I will have a long gazette to myself. I feel that such an opportunity will be given me. I cannot, if I am in the field of glory, be kept out of sight; wherever there is anything to be done, there Providence is sure to direct my steps."

He had been made colonel of marines, and then commodore. The Agamemnon had been sent to Leghorn to refit, so badly had she been damaged by shot.

Corsica was finally evacuated, and Nelson proceeded to Gibraltar. Spain and France had now become allies. Off Cape St. Vincent, on the coast of Portugal, a severe battle was fought, February 14, 1797, between the English and Spanish fleets. The former had fifteen ships-of-the-line, with four frigates, a sloop, and a cutter. The latter had twenty-seven ships-of-the-line, with ten frigates, and a brig. Nelson, in the Captain, was at one time engaged with no less than nine line-of-battle ships. He and his seamen sprang aboard the San Nicolas and the San Josef, he exclaiming, it is recorded, "Westminster Abbey or victory!" received the swords of some of the Spanish officers, and in the midst of falling spars and blinding smoke, showed themselves heroic.

For this successful battle Nelson received the Knighthood and Order of the Bath, and was made Rear-Admiral. The sword of the Spanish admiral given to Nelson on board the San Josef was presented to the mayor and corporation of Norwich, the capital of the county in which he was born. The freedom of the city was voted to him.

His aged father wrote him, "The name and services of Nelson have sounded through this city of Bath--from the common ballad-singer to the public theatre."

His wife begged him "never to board again. _Leave it for captains...._ You have been most wonderfully protected; you have done desperate actions enough."

On the night of July 3. 1797, Cadiz, off the coast of Spain, was bombarded. Nelson was in a most desperate action. In a barge with twelve men, he was attacked by a Spanish barge of twenty-six oars, with thirty in her crew. A hand-to-hand fight ensued. The Spanish commander and his launch were taken, and eighteen of his men were killed. The life of Nelson was saved by a trusted follower, John Sykes, who interposed his own head to receive the blow of a Spanish sabre. He recovered from his dangerous wound, "but did not live long enough," says Southey, "to profit by the gratitude and friendship of his commander."

On July 15 Nelson sailed in the ship Theseus for Teneriffe, off the coast of Africa. On the evening of July 24, he determined to attack the garrison of Santa Cruz. With the help of his step-son, Lieutenant Josiah Nisbet, he burned his wife's letters before starting to row ashore. Seeing that the young man was armed, he begged him to remain in the ship, saying, "Should we both fall, Josiah, what would become of your poor mother? The care of the Theseus falls to you; stay therefore, and take charge of her."

"The ship must take care of herself," said Nisbet; "I will go with you to-night if I never go again."

The expedition was a failure. Several of the boats missed the pier in the darkness, some were struck by shot and their men drowned--ninety-seven men went down in the fog--and Nelson was shot through the right elbow, as he was stepping out of his boat. As he fell young Nisbet placed him in the bottom of the boat, and laid his hat over the arm, lest the sight of the blood should increase Nelson's faintness. Then taking a silk handkerchief from his own neck, he bound it above the elbow, thus saving the life of the admiral. One of the bargemen, Lovel, tore his shirt into shreds to make a bandage for the shattered arm.

When his boat reached the Theseus, Nelson declined to be helped on board, and twisted the rope thrown over the side of the ship round his left hand, saying, "Let me alone; I have yet my legs and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make haste and get his instruments. I know I must lose my right arm; so the sooner it is off, the better."

When asked by the surgeon if he wished the arm embalmed that he might send it to England for burial, he said, "Throw it into the hammock with the brave fellow that was killed beside me," whose body was about to be thrown overboard.

Nelson was greatly depressed after this failure, and said, "A left-handed admiral will never again be considered as useful; therefore the sooner I get to a very humble cottage the better, and make room for a sounder man to serve the state."

He returned to England in September, and went to Bath where his father and Lady Nelson were staying. She tenderly nursed her husband for three months, till his arm was healed. In December, 1797, at his request the following notice was read in St. George's Church, Hanover Square, London: "An officer desires to return thanks to Almighty God for his perfect recovery from a severe wound, and also for the many mercies bestowed on him."

This year, 1797, government settled a pension of a thousand pounds a year on Sir Horatio Nelson, and at St. James's Palace made him Knight Companion of the Bath. The freedom of the city of London was conferred upon him in December, and with it a gold box worth one hundred guineas.

April 1, 1798, he sailed in the Vanguard, of seventy-four guns, to join Lord St. Vincent and the fleet off Cadiz. It was known that Napoleon and the French fleet were preparing for an invasion of some country of the allied forces, either England, Spain, or Italy. Nelson's instructions were to "take, sink, burn, and destroy it." It is now known that Napoleon's expedition was against the East Indian Empire, to cripple England. The Mediterranean was searched for the French ships. Nelson wrote his wife: "I have not been able to find the French fleet.... I yet live in hopes of meeting these fellows; but it would have been my delight to have tried Bonaparte on a bowline, for he commands the fleet as well as the army. Glory is my object and that alone."

After some months of fruitless search, Nelson obtained a fresh supply of provisions in July at Syracuse. A treaty between Naples and France forbade more than two English ships to enter any Neapolitan or Sicilian port, and it is said that Lady Hamilton gained the needed concession from her friend, Queen Maria Caroline, without which Nelson (in his Will, on the last day of his life) declared he could never have gone to Egypt and fought the glorious battle of the Nile.

On the morning of Aug. 1, 1798, Nelson was off the city of Alexandria in Egypt. His force amounted to thirteen seventy-four gun ships, one of fifty guns, and one brig, all carrying 8,068 men, with 1,012 guns. The French had also thirteen ships of the line, with eight frigates, brigs, and bomb vessels. They had 11,230 men, with 1,226 guns. The French had come to anchor in Aboukir Bay, at the mouth of the Nile.

The British were overjoyed at finding the French fleet. Nelson had scarcely eaten or slept for days; but, now that the enemy were in sight, he ordered dinner to be served on the Vanguard, and, on rising from the table, is said to have exclaimed to his officers, "Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey."

After talking over the plan of battle with his officers, one of them said with enthusiasm, "If we succeed, what will the world say?"

"There is no _if_ in the case," replied the admiral; "that we shall succeed is certain; who may live to tell the story is a very different question."

A little after six in the evening, Aug. 1, the fierce battle began. Nelson had six colors flying in different parts of his rigging, lest they should be shot away. The first two ships of the French line were dismasted in a quarter of an hour; the third, fourth, and fifth were taken at half-past eight.

Nelson received a severe wound in the head, which, though he supposed it would prove fatal, Southey says the admiral would not allow touched until the other wounded had been cared for. "I will take my turn with my brave fellows," he said.

About nine the L'Orient, the flagship of the French Admiral de Brueys, of one hundred and twenty guns, was seen to be on fire. Brueys was dead. He had received three wounds, but would not leave his post. A fourth cut him nearly in two. He requested to be left to die on the deck, and expired a quarter of an hour afterwards.

When Nelson saw the ship on fire, he gave orders that boats should be sent to the enemy. About seventy of her crew were saved by the English boats. So heroic were her men that they continued to fire from the upper decks after the lower were in flames. Between ten and eleven the huge ship exploded. Officers and men jumped overboard, and most were lost in that frightful commingling of fire and falling timbers which had been shot high into the air.

Both fleets seemed paralyzed, and for a quarter of an hour no gun was fired. All was darkness and silence save the groans of the dying, and the swell of the ingulfing sea. Among those who perished were Commodore Casabianca and his brave little son of ten or twelve, whom Mrs. Hemans has immortalized in her poem:--

"The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood, A proud, though child-like form."

The battle raged till three in the morning. The French were overwhelmingly defeated. "Victory is not a name strong enough for such a scene; it is a conquest," said Nelson.

Of thirteen French sail-of-the-line, nine were taken and two burned; of the four frigates, one was sunk and another was burned. Of the French, 5,221 were taken, drowned, burned, and missing. The English lost 218 killed and 677 wounded. Long after the battle a great number of bodies floated about the bay in spite of all efforts to sink them. Many were cast up on Nelson's Island, and the sailors raised mounds of sand over them. For four leagues the shore was covered with wrecks. The day after the battle, Aug. 2, at two o'clock, Nelson's ship gave public thanksgiving to God. Other ships were recommended to do the same as soon as convenient.

Part of L'Orient's mainmast was picked up by the English ship Swiftsure, Benjamin Hallowell, captain. A coffin was made from this and presented to Nelson with the note:--

"My lord, herewith I send you a coffin made of part of L'Orient's mainmast, that when you are tired of this life you may be buried in one of your own trophies; but may that period be far distant, is the sincere wish of your obedient and much obliged servant,

BEN HALLOWELL."

Nelson was greatly pleased with this gift, and ordered it placed upright in his cabin. Finally, at the request of his friends, it was carried below. He was eventually buried in it.

The joy at Napoleon's defeat was inexpressible. England made Nelson a baron, with a pension of £2,000 a year while he lived, to descend to his two male successors. The East India Company voted him £10,000, as they had thus been saved from French conquest. The Emperor Paul of Russia sent him his portrait set in diamonds, in a gold box. The Sultan of Turkey sent a pelisse of sable fur valued at five thousand dollars, and a diamond aigrette valued at eighteen thousand dollars, taken from the royal turbans. The Sultan's mother sent a box set in diamonds valued at five thousand dollars; the King of Sardinia a gold box set in diamonds; the King of the Two Sicilies a sword which once belonged to Charles III. of Spain. His friend Alexander Davison sent medals to the officers and men costing £2,000. These were all greatly prized by the men.

Italy was as rejoiced at the defeat of the French as was England. When the news reached Naples, both the queen and Lady Hamilton fainted. Lady Hamilton wrote to Nelson of the queen, "She cried, kissed her husband, her children, walked frantic about the room; cried, kissed and embraced every person near her, exclaiming, O brave Nelson! O God, bless and protect our brave deliverer! O Nelson, Nelson, what do we not owe you! O victor, saviour of Italy! Oh that my swollen heart could now tell him personally what we owe him!" She was the sister of Marie Antoinette, and, of course, felt no love for the people who had put her beautiful sister to death.

On Sept. 22 Nelson and his ships appeared off Naples. Hundreds of boats and barges went out to meet them with music and banners. He describes the scene in a letter to Lady Nelson, "I must endeavor to convey to you something of what passed; but if it were so affecting to those who were only united to me by bonds of friendship, what must it be to my dearest wife, my friend, my everything which is most dear to me in this world? Sir William Hamilton and his wife came out to sea, attended by numerous boats with emblems, etc. They, my most respectable friends, had nearly been laid up and seriously ill; first from anxiety, and then from joy....

"Alongside came my honored friends; the scene in the boat was terribly affecting; up flew her ladyship, and exclaiming, 'O God! is it possible?' she fell into my arms more dead than alive. Tears, however, soon set matters to rights; when alongside came the king. The scene was in its way as interesting; he took me by the hand, calling me his 'Deliverer and Preserver,' with every expression of kindness." ...

The poor of Italy were no less enthusiastic. They brought cages of birds, and opening them, allowed the little creatures to fly about the ship, and alight upon the admiral's shoulder.

Nelson had been very ill, and was taken to the house of Sir William Hamilton, where his wife nursed the admiral back to health. She arranged a celebration for him on his fortieth birthday, Sept. 29. Eighteen hundred people were entertained at a cost of two thousand ducats. "Every ribbon, every button, has Nelson," etc., writes the admiral. "The whole service is marked H. N., Glorious 1st of August!"

Encouraged by the victory of Nelson, a second coalition was now formed against Napoleon, composed of Russia, Austria, England, Portugal, Naples, and Turkey. Ferdinand of Naples engaged to raise eighty thousand soldiers for the common cause. A force of thirty-two thousand Italians were sent to Rome to drive out the French, but were defeated, and the French in turn entered Naples and compelled the royal family to fly for safety to Palermo.

Lady Hamilton, with great skill and courage, after having explored a subterranean passage from the royal palace to the seaside, had two millions and a half of royal treasures, paintings and the like, removed to the English ships. She also assisted the king and his family secretly to reach Nelson's barges on the night of Dec. 21. They were carried to the Vanguard in a heavy sea.

On the night of Dec. 23 the fleet sailed. A dreadful storm arose; Nelson says, "the worst I ever experienced since I have been at sea." Almost all were ill, and Lady Hamilton, who was a good sailor, soothed and comforted them. Sir William sat with a pistol in his hand, prepared to shoot himself if the vessel sank. The little Prince Albert was taken ill on the morning of Dec. 25, and died at seven o'clock that evening in Lady Hamilton's arms.

Naples for a time was transformed by the French into the Parthenopæan Republic, which later was abolished, and the insurgents put to death by Ferdinand. Nelson has been censured, and justly, for the execution, on board one of his ships, the Foudroyant, of Francesco Caracciolo, who belonged to one of the noble families of Naples, and, with others, had been promised protection by a British officer. Caracciolo was tried and condemned as a rebel by officers of his own country, and Nelson decided not to interfere. The prisons of Naples were indeed slaughter pens; but wars are never humane, and struggles between despotism and liberty are rarely bloodless.

Ferdinand rewarded Nelson with the Sicilian dukedom of Brontë, with an estate worth about £3,000 per annum. Nelson at once gave from this estate an annuity of £500 for life to his father. He had already given out of the £10,000 voted him by the East India Company, five hundred pounds each to his father, his brother-in-law, Mr. Bolton, his sister, Mrs. Matcham, and his brothers Maurice and William. When his brother Maurice died in April, 1801, Nelson gave his blind widow £100 a year while he lived, and Lady Hamilton cared for her after his death. He wrote to his wife, "If I were rich I would do more. To my father say everything which is kind. I love, honor, and respect him as a father and as a man, and as the very best man I ever saw. May God Almighty bless you, my dear father, and all my brothers and sisters, is the fervent prayer of your affectionate--Nelson."

The Queen of Naples gave Nelson the king's picture set in diamonds and emeralds. She gave Lady Emma Hamilton her portrait set with diamonds, with the words "Eterna Gratitudine" on the back, hanging it round her neck by a chain of gold; to Sir William a gold snuffbox, with a picture of the king and herself set in diamonds; the king sent Sir William and his wife each a picture of himself richly set in jewels, worth a thousand guineas. Lady Hamilton also received two coach-loads of costly dresses from Queen Caroline, and a superb diamond necklace, with the cipher of the names of all the royal children, ornamented by locks of their hair. Emperor Paul of Russia sent her the cross of the Order of Malta, the first Englishwoman upon whom the honor was ever bestowed.

The Island of Zante sent Nelson a golden-headed sword and a truncheon set round with diamonds, thanking him "for having by his victory preserved that part of Greece from the horrors of anarchy."

The French having been driven out of Italy, Nelson, in poor health, asked to return to England. Sir William Hamilton had been superseded by Hon. Arthur Paget, so he and his wife decided to return at the same time. The queen and some of her children accompanied them to Vienna. Here Prince Esterhazy entertained the party in regal style for four days, a hundred grenadiers, six feet high, waiting at table. At Dresden the party remained eight days, when two vessels were fitted up for their conveyance down the Elbe to Hamburg. Everywhere great crowds gathered to see the hero of the Nile. At Hamburg he met a venerable clergyman who had travelled forty miles to ask the admiral to write in the parish Bible. Here Nelson called upon the poet Klopstock. He also bought some elegant lace trimming for a court dress for his wife.

On Oct. 31 they started for England on a mail packet, and reached Yarmouth Nov. 6, 1800, after an absence of two years and seven months. On landing in a harbor radiant with flags, his carriage was drawn by the eager multitude to the inn; the freedom of the town was given him; and then, with his officers and people of the town, he went to the church to return thanks for his safe return to his country. He reached London Sunday, Nov. 9, and went to Nerot's hotel, King Street, St. James's, where his father and Lady Nelson had come from Norfolk to meet him. On the following day the people took his horses from his carriage and drew him from Ludgate Hill to Guild Hall, where he received the thanks of the common council, and a golden-hilted sword studded with diamonds.

Rumors of Nelson's devotion to Lady Hamilton had already reached England and his wife. She received him coldly. Shortly after this, while Lord and Lady Nelson were with the Hamiltons at the theatre, Lady Nelson, unable to control her feelings, fainted in the box where they were sitting.

For two months Lord Nelson and his wife lived, as might be supposed, most unhappily, when he determined to leave her forever, settling upon her £1,600 per year. He wrote to his friend Davison, "Sooner than live the life I did when last I came to England, I would stay abroad forever." The last time he saw her, Jan. 13, 1801, before he left for the Baltic, he said at parting, "I call God to witness there is nothing in you or your conduct I wish otherwise."

In 1801 England found herself engaged in conflict with Denmark, which had become an ally of Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, in naval rights. On March 12, 1801, a fleet of fifty-two sail was sent into the Baltic from England, Nelson acting as second in command under Sir Hyde Parker. On March 16 the ship Invincible, of seventy-four guns, struck on a sand-bank called Hammond's Knowl, and went down, taking four hundred persons with her.

The harbor of Copenhagen was most strongly fortified. The city was protected by defences which stretched a distance of about four miles. The Danes had removed all the buoys, so that Nelson was obliged to make soundings and replace them.

On the morning of April 1, the British fleet anchored within two leagues of Copenhagen. On April 2, at five minutes past ten in the forenoon, the battle began. Nelson's squadron being received with the fire of more than a thousand guns. As some of his ships had become disabled, Admiral Parker, at a distance, thinking that the fire was too hot for Nelson, threw out the signal to retreat, knowing that if Nelson could possibly continue the battle he would do so.

When told of the signal, Nelson put his glass to his blind eye, saying, "I really do not see the signal! Keep mine for closer battle flying! That's the way I answer such signals. Nail mine to the mast!"

The men fought heroically on both sides. The battle lasted for five hours, men fighting knee-deep among the dead on the decks. The Danes lost 1800 men, including prisoners, 6,000, and the English 253 killed and 688 wounded.

Nelson said, "I have been in one hundred and five engagements in the course of my life, but this has been the most terrible of all."

An armistice was effected, and the Crown Prince of Denmark gave a grand banquet to the Danish commissioners and English officers. At the banquet, Nelson praised the bravery of the Danes, and asked to be introduced to Lieutenant Villemoes, a youth of seventeen, who, on a floating battery or raft, with six small cannon and twenty-four men, came under the very stern of Nelson's ship, the Elephant, and attacked her. Twenty of his men were killed; but the boy-commander, standing up to his waist among his dead comrades, fought till the truce was proclaimed. Southey gives the number of guns as twenty-four, and the men one hundred and twenty.