The Life of Nelson Volume I Part 18

Your affectionate NELSON.

This letter did not reach St. Vincent before he carried his purpose into effect; but Nelson never quite forgave the abandonment of the command at such a moment. In after years he spoke bitterly of it, as a thing he himself could not have done; failing, perhaps, to realize the difference in staying power between forty-five and sixty-five.

On the 2d of June, being then seventy miles southwest of Toulon, St.

Vincent turned over to Keith the command of the twenty ships-of-the-line then with him, and went to Port Mahon. For the moment he retained in his own hands the charge of the station,--continued Commander-in-chief,--with headquarters at Minorca, and two divisions cruising: one of twenty ships, with Keith, between Toulon and Minorca, and one of sixteen, including three Portuguese, under Nelson in the waters of Sicily. Friction between these two began at once. Lord Keith was an accomplished and gallant officer, methodical, attentive, and correct; but otherwise he rose little above the commonplace, and, while he could not ignore Nelson's great achievements, he does not seem to have had the insight which could appreciate the rare merit underlying them, nor the sympathetic temperament which could allow for his foibles. Nelson, exasperated at the mere fact of the other's succession to the command, speedily conceived for him an antipathy which Keith would have been more than mortal not to return; but it is to the honor of the latter's self-command that, while insisting upon obedience from his brilliant junior, he bore his refractoriness with dignified patience.

After St. Vincent left him, Keith continued to stand to the northward and eastward. On the 5th of June he received certain information that the French fleet, now twenty-two ships-of-the-line, was in Vado Bay.

This word he at once sent on to Nelson. Next day his division was so close in with the Riviera, off Antibes, that it was fired upon by the sh.o.r.e batteries; but the wind coming to the eastward, when off Monaco, did not permit it to pa.s.s east of Corsica, and, fearing that the French would take that route and fall upon Nelson, Keith detached to him two seventy-fours, which joined him on the 13th of June.

At the moment of their arrival Nelson had just quitted Palermo for Naples, taking with him the whole squadron. The King of Naples had formally requested him to afford to the royal cause at the capital the a.s.sistance of the fleet, because the successes of the royalists elsewhere in the kingdom rendered imminent an insurrection in the city against the republican party and the French, which held the castles; and such insurrection, unless adequately supported, might either fail or lead to deplorable excesses. Lady Hamilton, whose irregular interference in State concerns receives here singular ill.u.s.tration, strongly urged this measure in a letter, written to the admiral after an interview with the Queen. Nelson consented, took on board seventeen hundred troops, with the Hereditary Prince, who was to represent the King,--the latter not wishing to go,--and was already clear of Palermo Bay when the two ships from Keith appeared. Gathering from their information that the French were bound for Naples or Sicily, in which his own judgment coincided, he returned at once into port, landed the Prince and the troops, and then took the squadron again off Maritimo, where he expected Ball and the two ships off Malta to join him without delay. "The French force being twenty-two sail of the line," he wrote in suppressed reproach to Keith, "four of which are first rates, the force with me being only sixteen of the line, not one of which was of three decks, three being Portuguese, and one of the English being a sixty-four, very short of men, I had no choice left but to return to Palermo."

With this incident of the insufficient reinforcement sent, began the friction with Keith which appears more openly in his correspondence with others. To St. Vincent, still commander-in-chief, he wrote: "I send a copy of my letter to Lord Keith, and I have only stated my regret that his Lordship could not have sent me a force fit to face the enemy: but, as we are, I shall not get out of their way; although, as I am, I cannot think myself justified in exposing the world (I may almost say) to be plundered by these miscreants. I trust your Lordship will not think me wrong in the painful determination I conceived myself forced to make," that is, to go back to Palermo, "for agonized indeed was the mind of your Lordship's faithful and affectionate servant."

Nelson appears to have felt that the return to Palermo, though imperative, in view of the relative forces of himself and the French, would not only postpone and imperil the restoration of the royal family, but would bring discredit upon himself for not seeking and fighting the enemy's fleet. "I shall wait off Maritimo," he wrote Keith, "anxiously expecting such a reinforcement as may enable me to go in search of the enemy's fleet, when not one moment shall be lost in bringing them to battle; for," he continues, with one of those flashes of genius which from time to time, unconsciously to himself, illuminate his writings, "I consider the best defence for his Sicilian Majesty's dominions is to place myself alongside the French." "My situation is a cruel one," he wrote to Hamilton, "and I am sure Lord Keith has lowered me in the eyes of Europe, for they will only know of 18 sail, [Ball having joined], and not of the description of them; it has truly made me ill." But, although not justified in seeking them, he had off Maritimo taken a strategic position which would enable him to intercept their approach to either Naples or Sicily, "and I was firmly resolved," he wrote with another of his clear intuitions, "they should not pa.s.s me without a battle, which would so cripple them that they might be unable to proceed on any distant service." "On this you may depend," he had written to Lady Hamilton, on the first cruise off Maritimo, three weeks before, "that if my little squadron obeys my signal, not a ship shall fall into the hands of the enemy; and I will so cut them up, that they will not be fit even for a summer's cruise."

On the 20th of June, off Maritimo, he received a despatch from St.

Vincent that a reinforcement of twelve ships-of-the-line from the Channel was then approaching Port Mahon, and that Keith, having returned thither, had left again in search of Bruix, whose whereabouts remained unknown. He was also notified that St. Vincent had resigned all his command, leaving Keith commander-in-chief. Nelson was convinced--"I knew," was his expression--that the French intended going to Naples. He determined now to resume his enterprise against the republicans in the city; a decision which caused him great and unexplained mental conflict. "I am agitated," he wrote Hamilton the same day, in a note headed "Most Secret," "but my resolution is fixed.

For Heaven's sake suffer not any one to oppose it. I shall not be gone eight days. No harm can come to Sicily. I send my Lady and you Lord St. Vincent's letter. I am full of grief and anxiety. I must go. It will finish the war. It will give a sprig of laurel to your affectionate friend, Nelson." The cause of this distress can only be surmised, but is probably to be found in the fears of the Queen, and in the differences existing at the time between herself and the King.

Possibly, too, Lady Hamilton's sympathy with the Queen, in a present fear for Sicily, may have led her, contrary to the request so lately made for the admiral to go to Naples, to second an entreaty that the island should not now be exposed; and to refuse her may have caused him pain. On the 21st he was at Palermo, and after two hours'

consultation with their Majesties and Acton, the Prime Minister, he sailed again, accompanied in the "Foudroyant" on this occasion by Sir William and Lady Hamilton, but not by the Hereditary Prince, nor the Sicilian troops. On the 24th, at 9 P.M., he anch.o.r.ed in the Bay of Naples. Flags of truce were at that moment flying on the castles of Uovo and Nuovo, which were in the hands of the Neapolitan republicans, and upon the frigate "Seahorse," whose commander had been the senior British officer present, before Nelson's own appearance.

On the pa.s.sage from Palermo, Nelson had received information that the royalists,--with whom were co-operating some detachments of Russians and Turks, as well as the British naval forces, under Captain Foote, of the "Seahorse,"--had concluded an armistice with the French and their Neapolitan allies, who were in possession of the castles. The terms of the armistice, thus rumored, were that the castles, if not relieved within twenty-one days, should then be surrendered; the garrisons to march out with the honors of war, and to be transported to Toulon in vessels to be furnished by the King of Naples. This report was erroneous in important particulars, especially as to the period of twenty-one days. What really had happened was, that a capitulation had been concluded, which provided that the Neapolitan insurgents should evacuate the two castles held by them--Uovo and Nuovo--as soon as the transports were ready to take them to Toulon, but not before. The French, in the castle of St. Elmo, were not included in the arrangement, their only part being that it required the ratification of their commander before becoming operative. This ratification was given, and, when Nelson's squadron came in sight,[82]

the treaty had received the signature of all the parties interested; the flags of truce indicating a cessation of hostilities until the terms of the capitulation were carried into effect.

Nelson had been given full power by the King of the Two Sicilies to act as his representative. He was also, as commander of the fleet, the representative of the King of Great Britain among the allied forces, which were acting in support of the royalist cause. The double function introduces great confusion into the subsequent transactions, especially as there are on record no formal credentials investing him with the authority he claimed to have from the King of Naples. The omission probably arose from the extreme shortness of his stay in Palermo on the 21st--only two hours and a half elapsing, by the "Foudroyant's" log, between the entering of the ship and her sailing again; a time sufficient for an interview and a clear understanding, but scarcely for drawing up a regular commission. The fact rests upon his own statement, adequately supported, however, by inferences reasonably to be drawn from expressions in letters to him, both from the King and from Acton, the Prime Minister. That his power went so far as to authorize him to remove Cardinal Ruffo, up to that time the King's representative, would alone confirm the a.s.sertion of a man habitually truthful. Sir William Hamilton also, writing to Greville, and alluding to his official despatch by the same mail, says, "We had full powers." It may be accepted that Nelson himself was entirely satisfied that he was authorized at the time to act for the King, when emergency required; and it is certain that letters were speedily sent, empowering him to appoint a new government, as well as to arrest Ruffo and to send him to Palermo in a British ship.

Seeing the flags of truce flying, from the two castles and the "Seahorse," and being under the impression that has been stated as to the terms of an armistice, which he called "infamous," Nelson immediately made a signal annulling the truce, "being determined," he wrote to Keith, "never to give my approbation to any terms with Rebels, but that of unconditional submission." As the execution of the capitulation depended upon the embarkation of the garrisons in the transports which were to be provided, Nelson was entirely master of the situation, so far as force went. Next morning, June 25th, he moved his fleet of eighteen sail nearer in, mooring it in a close line of battle before the city, and at the same time sent for twenty-two gun and mortar vessels, then lying at the islands, with which he flanked the ships-of-the-line. In this imposing array, significant at once of inexorable purpose and irresistible power, he sent to Ruffo his "opinion of the infamous terms entered into with the rebels," and also two papers, to be by him forwarded to the insurgents and to the French. From the latter, who had not treated, was required simply an unconditional surrender; but the message to the insurgents, sent, singularly enough, not from the representative of the King of Naples but from the British admiral, ran as follows:--

His Britannic Majesty's Ship Foudroyant, Naples Bay, 25th June, 1799.

Rear Admiral Lord Nelson, K.B., Commander of His Britannic Majesty's Fleet in the Bay of Naples, acquaints the Rebellious Subjects of His Sicilian Majesty in the Castles of Uovo and Nuovo, that he will not permit them to embark or quit those places. They must surrender themselves to His Majesty's royal mercy.

NELSON.

Ruffo refused to send the papers in, and said decisively that, if Nelson saw fit to break the armistice then existing, between the signature of the capitulation and its execution, he would aid neither with men nor guns. Finally, he went on board the "Foudroyant;" but after an animated discussion, which rose nearly to an altercation, neither party yielded his ground. "I used every argument in my power,"

wrote Nelson, "to convince him that _the Treaty and Armistice was at an end by the arrival of the fleet"_, and this therefore may be taken to summarize his own position. He then gave the Cardinal a written opinion that the treaty was one that "ought not to be carried out without the approbation of His Sicilian Majesty." Neither his powers nor Ruffo's, he argued, extended to granting such a capitulation.

Ruffo, indeed, had been expressly forbidden to do so; a fact which rendered the paper void from the first. "Under this opinion," reported Nelson to Keith, "the Rebels came out of the Castles;" "_as they ought_," he wrote to his friend Davison, "and as I hope all those who are false to their King and Country will, _to be hanged_, or otherwise disposed of, as their sovereign thought proper." They were then placed in transports, which were anch.o.r.ed under the guns of the fleet; and in the end many of them were put to death.

For his action in this case Nelson has been severely blamed. The point at issue is perfectly simple, however it may be decided. Disregarding subordinate considerations, of which there are many, such as the motives which induced Ruffo and Foote to grant terms, and the question whether they would have been justified, which Nelson denied, in conceding them under any conditions, the matter reduces itself to this: When an agreement has been made, one of the parties to which is acting only as a representative, not as a princ.i.p.al, nor accredited for the specific purpose, has the princ.i.p.al, in person or by proxy, a right to annul the agreement, provided, as in this case, it has not pa.s.sed into execution, either total or partial? Nelson admitted that the persons of the insurgents would have been ent.i.tled to the immunity stipulated, if they had already delivered up the castles. They had not done so; the flags of truce marked only a cessation of hostilities, not the completion of the transaction. By the terms, the evacuation and embarkation were to be simultaneous: "The evacuation shall not take place until the moment of embarkation." The status of the opponents was in no wise altered by a paper which had not begun to receive execution. The one important circ.u.mstance which had happened was the arrival of the British squadron, instead of Bruix's fleet which all were expecting. It was perfectly within Nelson's competence to stop the proceedings at the point they had then reached.

[After writing the above, the author, by the courtesy of the Foreign Office, received a copy of Sir William Hamilton's despatch of July 14, 1799, giving his account of the events happening after June 20th, the date when Nelson left Palermo for Naples. In this occurs a statement which would seriously modify, if not altogether destroy, the justification of Nelson's conduct in annulling the capitulation, which rests upon the condition that it had not received any substantial execution. Hamilton says: "_When we anch.o.r.ed in this Bay the 24th of June the capitulation of the castles had in some measure taken place_.[83] Fourteen large Polacks or transport vessels _had taken on board_ out of the castles the most conspicuous and criminal of the Neapolitan Rebels, that had chosen to go to Toulon, the others had _already_ been permitted with their property to return to their own homes in this kingdom, and hostages selected from the first royalist n.o.bility of Naples had been sent into the castle of St. Elmo that commands the city of Naples, and where a French garrison and the flag of the French Republic was to remain until the news of the arrival of the Neapolitan Rebels at Toulon.... There was no time to be lost, _for the transport vessels were on the point of sailing for Toulon_, when Lord Nelson ordered all the boats of his squadron to be manned and armed, and to bring those vessels, with all the Rebels on board, directly under the sterns of his ships, and there they remain, having taken out and secured on board His Majesty's ships the most guilty chiefs of the rebellion."

Occurring in an official despatch, from a minister of Nelson's sovereign, his own warm personal friend and admirer, closely a.s.sociated with him throughout the proceedings, and his colleague and adviser in much that was done, the words quoted, if they could stand accepted as an accurate statement of occurrences, would establish that Nelson had secured the persons of men who had surrendered on the faith of a treaty, and had held them, subject to the tender mercies of the King of the Two Sicilies. They were in his power (accepting Hamilton's statement), only because the King's Vicar-General, his representative so far as they knew, had guaranteed their safety if they came out of the castles. The least they were ent.i.tled to, in such case, was to be restored to the castles--not yet evacuated--to be placed as they were before surrendering. It is true that, as the terms of the treaty made embarkation and evacuation coincident, and as the latter had certainly not taken place, it may be argued that they had no claim to immunity when they had precipitated their action, and left the castle of their own motion before the formal evacuation and embarkation; but one would prefer not to rest on such a technical plea the justification of a character generally so upright in his public acts as Lord Nelson.

Fortunately for his fame, there is adequate reason to believe--to be a.s.sured--that Hamilton's despatch is very inaccurate in details, and specifically in this one, so damaging as it stands. The incident of arming the boats and bringing out the vessels took place, according to the log of the "Foudroyant," not when the fleet moored, on the morning of June 25th, or even shortly afterwards, but on the morning of the 28th; two days after the castles, as shown by the logs of both the "Foudroyant" and "Seahorse," surrendered and were taken possession of.

Miss Helen Maria Williams, whose account of the affair was strongly tinged with sympathy for the revolutionists, says: "While the two garrisons, to the number of fifteen hundred, _were waiting for the preparing and, provisioning of the vessels_ which were to convey them to France, Lord Nelson arrived with his whole fleet in the Bay of Naples [June 24-25]. On the evening of the twenty-sixth of June, the patriots evacuated their forts, and embarked on board the transports prepared for their conveyance to France. _The next day_ [June 27], the transports were moored alongside the English fleet, each under the cannon of an English vessel."[84] These several witnesses may be confidently accepted, and prove that the embarkation and removal of the garrisons took place after Nelson's declaration to them, dated June 25th, in which he said "he would not permit them to embark or quit those places. They must surrender themselves to His Majesty's Royal mercy." Captain Foote, who had signed the capitulation that Nelson condemned, affords evidence which, though not conclusive, is corroborative of the above. Writing to Nelson at 7 A.M. of the 24th of June, fourteen hours before the fleet anch.o.r.ed, but only eight before he knew of its approach, he says: "the Republicans are about to embark," and again, "when the Capitulation is put into effect;" both which expressions show that up to that moment the agreement had not begun to receive execution. On the 22d of June Ruffo wrote to Foote that there were no vessels in Naples on which to embark the revolutionists, and requested him to furnish them; a request that Foote referred to Count Thurn, the senior Neapolitan naval officer, for compliance. It is therefore antecedently probable that the vessels could not have been collected from other ports, and prepared for an unexpected voyage of at least a week's duration, before Nelson arrived, forty-eight hours later.

Hamilton's despatch contains another mistake, affecting the order of events, so circ.u.mstantial that, taken with the one just discussed, it shows his accuracy on such points was more than doubtful. "Admiral Caracciolo," he says, was hanged, "the day after the King's squadron came to Naples;" the fact being that the squadron arrived on the night of June 24-25, and that Caracciolo was executed on the evening of the 29th. This error was not a slip of the pen, for he characterizes the alleged fact as "so speedy an act of justice" as to elicit loud applause from the concourse of spectators surrounding the ship in boats.

Hamilton was not only nearly seventy, but he was worn out in health and const.i.tution. Writing a fortnight after the events, and having pa.s.sed that time in the turmoil and confusion attending the re-establishment of order in Naples, it is not wonderful that he ran together incidents that happened in rapid succession, and failed to realize the importance which might afterwards attach to the date of their occurrence. "I am so worn out," he tells Greville, "by the long despatch I have been obliged to write to-day to Lord Grenville that I can scarcely hold my pen;" and again, "My head is _so confused_ with long writing on this subject that I must refer you to my letter to Lord Grenville.... You will find me much worn and am little more than skin and bone, as I have very little stomach."

Although they were on board ship together, Nelson cannot have seen Hamilton's despatch, or he must have corrected a misstatement which directly contradicted his own account of June 27 to Lord Keith, as well as that he was sending by the same messenger, in a private letter to Earl Spencer. The latter ran thus: "Your Lordship will observe my Note (No. 1), and opinion to the Cardinal (No. 2). _The Rebels came out of the Castles with this knowledge_, without any honours, and the princ.i.p.al Rebels were seized and conducted on board the ships of the squadron. The others, embarked in fourteen polacres, were anch.o.r.ed under the care of our ships."

Hamilton's statement remaining uncorrected, and being so circ.u.mstantial, though erroneous, has made necessary a fuller discussion of the evidence on this point than otherwise might have been required.

Although, in the author's judgment, Nelson acted within his right in disallowing the capitulation, it is essential to note that a fortnight later, when fully cognizant of all the circ.u.mstances, he characterized it in a letter to Lord Spencer as "infamous." "On my fortunate arrival here I found a most infamous treaty entered into with the Rebels, in direct disobedience of His Sicilian Majesty's orders."[85] Such an adjective, deliberately applied after the heat of the first moment had pa.s.sed, is, in its injustice, a clear indication of the frame of mind under the domination of which he was. Captain Foote with his feeble squadron, and the commanders of the undisciplined mob ash.o.r.e known as the Christian army, expected, as did Nelson himself, the appearance of the French fleet at Naples. In view of that possibility, it was at the least a pardonable error of judgment to concede terms which promised to transfer the castles speedily into their own hands. The most censurable part of the agreement was in the failure to exact the surrender of St. Elmo, which dominates the others. It is to be regretted that Captain Foote, who naturally and bitterly resented the word "infamous," did not, in his "Vindication," confine himself to this military argument, instead of mixing it up with talk about mercy to culprits and Nelson's infatuation for Lady Hamilton.]

On the 27th of June, the day following the surrender of Uovo and Nuovo, Troubridge landed with thirteen hundred men to besiege the French in St. Elmo, an undertaking in which he was joined by five hundred Russians and some royalists. Forty-eight hours later Nelson felt called upon, as representative of the King of the Two Sicilies, to take action more peremptory and extreme than anything he had hitherto done.

On the 29th of June, Commodore Francesco Caracciolo, lately head of the Republican Navy, was brought on board the "Foudroyant," having been captured in the country, in disguise. This man had accompanied the royal family in their flight to Palermo; but after arrival there had obtained leave to return to Naples, in order to avert the confiscation of his property by the Republican government. He subsequently joined the Republicans, or Jacobins, as they were called by Nelson and the Court. His reasons for so doing are immaterial; they were doubtless perfectly sound from the point of view of apparent self-interest; the substantial fact remains that he commanded the insurgent vessels in action with the British and Royal Neapolitan navies, firing impartially upon both. In one of these engagements the Neapolitan frigate "Minerva" was struck several times, losing two men killed and four wounded. Caracciolo, therefore, had fully committed himself to armed insurrection, in company with foreign invaders, against what had hitherto been, and still claimed to be, the lawful government of the country. He had afterwards, as the republican cause declined, taken refuge with the other insurgents in the castles. When he left them is uncertain, but on the 23d of June he is known to have been outside of Naples, and so remained till captured.

It is not easy to understand in what respect his case differed from that of other rebels who surrendered unconditionally, and whom Nelson did not try himself, but simply placed in safe keeping until the King's instructions should be received, except that, as a naval officer, he was liable to trial by court-martial, even though martial law had not been proclaimed. It was to such a tribunal that Nelson decided instantly to bring him. A court-martial of Neapolitan officers was immediately ordered to convene on board the "Foudroyant," the precept for the Court being sent to Count Thurn, captain of the "Minerva," who, because senior officer in the bay, was indicated by custom as the proper president. The charges, as worded by Nelson, were two in number, tersely and clearly stated. "Francisco Caracciolo, a commodore in the service of His Sicilian Majesty, stands accused of rebellion against his lawful sovereign, and for firing at his colours hoisted on board his Frigate, the Minerva." The court a.s.sembled at once, sitting from 10 A.M. to noon. The charges being found proved, sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced; and Caracciolo, who had been brought on board at 9 A.M., was at 5 P.M., by Nelson's orders, hanged at the foreyard-arm of the "Minerva." He was forty-seven years old at the time of his death.

The proceedings of the court-martial were open, but the record, if any was drawn up, has not been preserved. It is impossible, therefore, now to say whether the evidence sustained the charges; but the acts alleged were so simple and so notorious, that there can be little doubt Caracciolo had fairly incurred his fate. Even in our milder age, no officer of an army or navy would expect to escape the like punishment for the same offence; if he did, it would be because mercy prevailed over justice. As regards the technicalities of the procedure, it would seem probable that Nelson's full powers, especially when committed to a military man, included by fair inference, if not expressly, the right of ordering courts-martial; whereas he had not at hand the machinery of judges and civil courts, for proceeding against the civilians who had joined in the insurrection. Despite his fearlessness of responsibility, he was always careful not to overpa.s.s the legal limits of his authority, except when able to justify his action by what at least appeared to himself adequate reasons. The Portuguese squadron, for instance, was absolutely under his orders, so far as its movements went; but, when a case of flagrant misconduct occurred, he confined himself to regretting that he had not power to order a court. Anomalous as his position was in the Bay of Naples, before the arrival of the King, and regrettably uncertain as is the commission under which he acted, there is no ground for disputing that he had authority to order a court-martial, and to carry its sentence into execution, nor that Caracciolo came within the jurisdiction of a court-martial properly const.i.tuted. Having regard, therefore, to the unsettled conditions of things prevailing, no fatal irregularity can be shown either in the trial or execution of this prisoner.

But, while all this is true, the instinctive aversion with which this act of Nelson's has been regarded generally is well founded. It was not decent, for it was not necessary, that capture should be followed so rapidly by trial, and condemnation by execution. Neither time nor circ.u.mstances pressed. The insurrection was over. Except the siege of St. Elmo, hostilities near Naples were at an end. That Caracciolo's judges were naval officers who had recently been in action with him would be, with average military men, rather in the prisoner's favor than otherwise; but it was very far from being in his favor that they were men in whom the angry pa.s.sions engendered by civil warfare, and licentious spoliation, had not yet had time to cool. Neither the judges nor the revising power allowed themselves s.p.a.ce for reflection.

Nelson himself failed to sustain the dispa.s.sionate and magnanimous att.i.tude that befitted the admiral of a great squadron, so placed as to have the happy chance to moderate the excesses which commonly follow the triumph of parties in intestine strife. But, however he then or afterwards may have justified his course to his own conscience, his great offence was against his own people. To his secondary and fact.i.tious position of delegate from the King of Naples, he virtually sacrificed the consideration due to his inalienable character of representative of the King and State of Great Britain. He should have remembered that the act would appear to the world, not as that of the Neapolitan plenipotentiary, but of the British officer, and that his nation, while liable like others to bursts of unreasoning savagery, in its normal moods delights to see justice clothed in orderly forms, unstained by precipitation or suspicion of perversion, advancing to its ends with the majesty of law, without unseemly haste, providing things honest in the sight of all men. That he did not do so, when he could have done so, has been intuitively felt; and to the instinctive resentment thus aroused among his countrymen has been due the facility with which the worst has been too easily believed.

Commander Jeaffreson Miles of the British Navy, writing in 1843, was one of the first, if not the very first, to clear effectually Nelson's reputation from the stigma of treachery, and of submission to unworthy influences, at this time. He has sought also to vindicate his hasty action in Caracciolo's case, by citing the swift execution of two seamen by Lord St. Vincent, at a time when mutiny was threatening. It cannot be denied that, for deterrent effect, punishment at times must be sudden as well as sharp; but the justification in each case rests upon attendant circ.u.mstances. In the instances here compared, we have in the one a fleet in which many ships were seething with mutiny, and the preservation of order rested solely upon the firmness of one man,--the commander-in-chief,--and upon the awe inspired by him. In the other, we see rebellion subdued, the chief rebels in confinement, the foreign enemy, except three small isolated garrisons, expelled beyond the borders of the kingdom six weeks before, and a great British fleet in possession of the anchorage. Punishment in such case, however just, is not deterrent, but avenging. True, Nelson was expecting the appearance of Bruix's fleet; but he himself characterized as "infamous" the capitulation granted by Ruffo and Foote, to which they were largely moved by the same expectation, when wielding a much smaller force than he did. The possible approach of the French fleet did not necessitate the hasty execution of a prisoner.

That Nelson yielded his convictions of right and wrong, and consciously abused his power, at the solicitation of Lady Hamilton, as has been so freely alleged, is not probably true,--there is no proof of it; on the contrary, as though to guard against such suspicion, he was careful to see none but his own officers during Caracciolo's confinement. But it is true that he was saturated with the prevalent Court feeling against the insurgents and the French, which found frequent expression in his letters. After living in the Hamiltons'

house for four months, during which, to use his own expression, "I have never but three times put my foot to the ground, since December, 1798," in daily close contact with the woman who had won his pa.s.sionate love, who was the ardent personal friend of the Queen, sharing her antipathies, and expressing her hatred of enemies in terms which showed the coa.r.s.eness of her fibre,[86] Nelson was steeped in the atmosphere of the Court of Naples, and separated from that of the British fleet, none of whose strongest captains were long with him during that period. The att.i.tude more natural to men of his blood is shown in a letter signed by the officers of the "Leviathan,"

Duckworth's flagship. Coming from Minorca, they were out of touch with Neapolitan fury, and they addressed Lady Hamilton, interceding for a family engaged in the rebellion; a fact which shows the prevailing impression--whether well founded or not--of the influence in her power to exert. "We all feel ourselves deeply impressed with the horrid crime of disaffection to one's lawful sovereign, ... but when we consider the frailty of human nature," &c. "Advise those Neapolitans not to be too sanguinary," wrote Keith to Nelson, apparently immediately after receiving the news of Caracciolo's hanging.

The abrupt execution of Caracciolo was an explosion of fierce animosity long cherished, pardonable perhaps in a Neapolitan royalist, but not in a foreign officer only indirectly interested in the issues at stake; and hence it is that the fate of that one sufferer has aroused more attention and more sympathy than that of the numerous other victims, put to death by the King's command after ordinary processes of law. It stands conspicuous as the act of an English officer imbued with the spirit of a Neapolitan Bourbon official.

"Could it ever happen," he wrote to Acton, some months after this, "that any English minister wanted to make me an instrument of hurting the feelings of His Sicilian Majesty, I would give up my commission sooner than do it.... I am placed in such a situation--a subject of one King by birth, and, as far as is consistent with my allegiance to that King, a voluntary subject of His Sicilian Majesty--that if any man attempted to separate my two Kings, by all that is sacred, I should consider even putting that man to death as a meritorious act."[87] On the other hand, it must be considered that Nelson, though humane, tended even in his calmest moments to severity towards military offenders. Writing with reference to a captain convicted of misbehavior before the enemy, he said, "If a man does not do his utmost in time of action, I think but one punishment ought to be inflicted;" and it may be inferred that he would have approved Byng's execution, where cowardice was not proved, but grave military dereliction was.

On the 10th of July the King of the Two Sicilies arrived from Palermo in the Bay of Naples, and went on board the "Foudroyant," which, for the whole time he remained,--about four weeks,--became practically his seat of government. There the royal standard was hoisted, there the King held his levees, and there business of State was transacted. In and through all moved the figures of Sir William and Lady Hamilton, the latter considering herself, and not without cause, the representative of the Queen. The latter had remained in Palermo, being out of favor with the Neapolitans, and with her husband, who attributed to her precipitancy the disasters of the previous December.

The two women corresponded daily; and, if the minister's wife deceived herself as to the amount and importance of what she effected, there is no doubt that she was very busy, that she was commonly believed to exert much influence, and that great admiration for one another was expressed by herself, Hamilton, and Nelson, the _"Tria juncta in uno"_ as the latter was pleased to style them. "I never saw such zeal and activity in any one as in this wonderful man [Nelson]," wrote she to Greville. "My dearest Sir William, thank G.o.d! is well, and of the greatest use now to the King." "Emma has been of infinite use in our late very critical business," said Hamilton to the same correspondent.

"Ld. Nelson and I cou'd not have done without her. It will be a heart-breaking to the Queen of N. when we go"--back to England, as was then expected. "Sir William and Lady Hamilton are, to my great comfort, with me," wrote Nelson to Spencer; "for without them it would have been impossible I could have rendered half the service to his Majesty which I have now done: their heads and their hearts are equally great and good."

The execution of Caracciolo was shortly followed by another very singular incident, which showed how bia.s.sed Nelson had become towards the interests of the Neapolitan Court, and how exclusively he identified them--confused them, would scarcely be too strong a word--with the essential interests of the Allied cause and the duties of the British Navy. On the 13th of July the castle of St. Elmo was surrendered by the French, the whole city of Naples thus returning under the royal authority. On the same day, or the next, Troubridge, with a thousand of the best men that could be sent from the squadron, marched against Capua, accompanied by four thousand troops. A letter had already been received from the Commander-in-chief, Keith, to Nelson, intimating that it might be necessary to draw down his vessels from Naples to the defence of Minorca. "Should such an order come at this moment," wrote Nelson to the First Lord, forecasting his probable disobedience, "it would be a cause for some consideration whether Minorca is to be risked, or the two Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily? I rather think my decision would be to risk the former;" and he started Troubridge off with a detachment that seriously crippled the squadron.

Capua is fifteen to twenty miles inland from Naples.

On the 13th--it is to be presumed after closing his letter to Spencer just quoted--an order reached him from Keith, in these words: "Events which have recently occurred render it necessary that as great a force as can be collected should be a.s.sembled near the island of Minorca; therefore, if your Lordship has no detachment of the French squadron in the neighbourhood of Sicily, nor information of their having sent any force towards Egypt or Syria, you are hereby required and directed to send such ships as you can possibly spare off the island of Minorca to wait my orders." The wording was so elastic, as regards the numbers to be sent, as to leave much to Nelson's judgment, and he replied guardedly the same day: "As soon as the safety of His Sicilian Majesty's Kingdoms is secured, I shall not lose one moment in making the detachment you are pleased to order. At present, under G.o.d's Providence, the safety of His Sicilian Majesty, and his speedy restoration to his kingdom, depends on this fleet, and the confidence inspired even by the appearance of our ships before the city is beyond all belief; and I have no scruple in declaring my opinion that should any event draw us from the kingdom, that if the French remain in any part of it, disturbances will again arise, for all order having been completely overturned, it must take a thorough cleansing, and some little time, to restore tranquillity."

When Keith wrote this first order, June 27, he was at sea somewhere between Minorca and Toulon, trying to find Bruix's fleet, of which he had lost touch three weeks before, at the time he sent to Nelson the two seventy-fours, whose arrival caused the latter's second cruise of Maritimo. He had lost touch through a false step, the discussion of which has no place in a life of Nelson, beyond the remark that it was Keith's own error, not that of Lord St. Vincent, as Nelson afterwards mistakenly alleged; querulously justifying his own disobedience on the ground that Keith, by obeying against his judgment, had lost the French fleet. What is to be specially noted in the order is that Keith gave no account of his reasons, nor of the events which dictated them, nor of his own intended action. No room is afforded by his words for any discretion, except as to the number of ships to be sent by Nelson, and, though the language of the latter was evasive, the failure to move even a single vessel was an act of unjustifiable disobedience. To Keith he wrote privately, and in a conciliatory spirit, but nothing that made his act less flagrant. "To all your wishes, depend on it, I shall pay the very strictest attention."

Conscious of the dangerous step he was taking, Nelson wrote on the same day, by private letter,[88] to the First Lord of the Admiralty.

"You will easily conceive my feelings," he said, "but my mind, your Lordship will know, was perfectly prepared for this order; and more than ever is my mind made up, that, at this moment, I will not part with a single ship, as I cannot do that without drawing a hundred and twenty men from each ship now at the siege of Capua, where an army is gone this day. I am fully aware of the act I have committed; but, sensible of my loyal intentions, I am prepared for any fate which may await my disobedience. Do not think that my opinion is formed from the arrangements of any one," an expression which shows that he was aware how talk was running. "_No;_ be it good, or be it bad, it is all my own. It is natural I should wish the decision of the Admiralty and my Commander-in-chief as speedily as possible. To obtain the former, I beg your Lordship's interest with the Board. You know me enough, my dear Lord, to be convinced I want no screen to my conduct."

On the 9th of July, Keith wrote again, from Port Mahon, a letter which Nelson received on the 19th. He said that he was satisfied that the enemy's intentions were directed neither against the Two Sicilies, nor to the reinforcement of their army in Egypt; that, on the contrary, there was reason to believe they were bound out of the Straits. "I judge it necessary that all, or the greatest part of the force under your Lordship's orders, should quit the Island of Sicily, and repair to Minorca, for the purpose of protecting that Island during the necessary absence of His Majesty's squadron under my command, or for the purpose of co-operating with me against the combined force of the enemy, wherever it may be necessary." The commander-in-chief, in short, wished to ma.s.s his forces, for the necessities of the general campaign, as he considered them. Nelson now flatly refused obedience, on the ground of the local requirements in his part of the field.

"Your Lordship, at the time of sending me the order, was not informed of the change of affairs in the Kingdom of Naples, and that all our marines and a body of seamen are landed, in order to drive the French scoundrels out of the Kingdom, which, with G.o.d's blessing will very soon be effected, when a part of this squadron shall be immediately sent to Minorca; but unless the French are at least drove from Capua, I think it right not to obey your Lordship's order for sending down any part of the squadron under my orders. I am perfectly aware of the consequences of disobeying the orders of my commander-in-chief." It cannot be said that the offensiveness of the act of disobedience is tempered by any very conciliatory tone in the words used. The reason for disobedience makes matters rather worse. "As I believe the safety of the Kingdom of Naples depends at the present moment on my detaining the squadron, I have no scruple in deciding that it is better to save the Kingdom of Naples and risk Minorca, than to risk the Kingdom of Naples to save Minorca." When he thus wrote, Nelson knew that Bruix had joined the Spanish fleet in Cartagena, making a combined force of forty ships, to which Keith, after stripping Minorca, could oppose thirty-one.

None of Nelson's letters reached Keith until long after he had left the Mediterranean, which probably prevented the matter being brought to a direct issue between the two, such as would have compelled the Admiralty to take some decisive action. On the 10th of July the commander-in-chief sailed from Port Mahon for Cartagena, following on the tracks of the allied fleets, which he pursued into the Atlantic and to Brest, where they succeeded in entering on the 13th of August, just twenty-four hours before the British came up. The narrow margin of this escape inevitably suggests the thought, of how much consequence might have been the co-operation of the dozen ships Nelson could have brought. It is true, certainly, as matters turned out, that even had he obeyed, they could not have accompanied Keith, nor in the event did any harm come to Minorca; but there was no knowledge in Nelson's possession that made an encounter between the two great fleets impossible, nor was it till three days after his former refusal to obey, that he knew certainly that Keith had given up all expectation of a junction with himself. Then, on the 22d of July, he received two letters dated the 14th, and couched in tones so peremptory as to suggest a suspicion that no milder words would enforce obedience--that his Commander-in-chief feared that nothing short of cast-iron orders would drag him away from the Neapolitan Court. "Your Lordship is hereby required and directed to repair to Minorca, with the whole, or the greater part, of the force under your Lordship's command, for the protection of that island, as I shall, in all probability, have left the Mediterranean before your Lordship will receive this. Keith." The second letter of the same date ended with the words: "I therefore trust the defence of Minorca to your Lordship, and repeat my directions that the ships be sent for its protection."

On the receipt of these, though Capua had not yet surrendered, Nelson at once sent Duckworth with four ships-of-the-line to Minorca, detaining only their marines for the land operations.

It seems scarcely necessary to say that, while an officer in subordinate command should have the moral courage to transcend or override his orders in particular instances--each of which rests upon its own merits, and not upon any general rule that can be formulated--it would be impossible for military operations to be carried on at all, if the commander-in-chief were liable to be deliberately defied and thwarted in his combinations, as Keith was in this case. It does not appear that Nelson _knew_ the circ.u.mstances which Keith was considering; he only _knew_ what the conditions were about Naples, and he thought that the settlement of the kingdom might be prevented by the departure of several of his ships. In this opinion, in the author's judgment, his views were exaggerated, and colored by the absorbing interest he had come to take in the royal family and their fortunes, linked as these were with the affections of a particular woman; but, even granting that his apprehensions were well founded, he was taking upon himself to determine, not merely what was best for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but what was best for the whole Mediterranean command. It was not within his province to decide whether Minorca or Naples was the more important. That was the function of the commander-in-chief. Had the latter, while leaving Nelson's force unchanged, directed him to follow a particular line of operations in the district committed to him, it is conceivable that circ.u.mstances, unknown to his superior, might have justified him in choosing another; but there was nothing in the conditions that authorized his a.s.sumption that he could decide for the whole command.