However much Nelson may have appreciated the visits to London, Box Hill, and Staines, which he now made in the company of Sir William and Lady Hamilton, it was soon evident that his stay on shore would be short. No home ties were severed when he was appointed to a special service on the 24th July 1801, for he had finally separated from his wife six months before. It was a mistaken match in every way. Although it is often said that people of opposite temperaments make the best partners in marriage, it certainly was not so in the case of Nelson and Mrs Nisbet. Some of the reasons for the unhappiness of both have been given in a previous chapter, the prime cause was Lady Hamilton, for whom Nelson continued to entertain a mad infatuation until the day he died. Quite naturally and legitimately Lady Nelson resented the conduct of her husband. Any woman would have done the same. Angry words were spoken on both sides, leading to the final and irrevocable breach, but it is characteristic of Nelson’s generous nature that on their last interview he said: “I call God to witness there is nothing in you or your conduct I wish otherwise.” He was no less generous in the allowance which he made to her.

For some months Napoleon had been intent on the building of a flotilla for the invasion of England. All manner of wild rumours had spread throughout the country as to the imminent peril of the United Kingdom, but we now know that the First Consul’s scheme was comparatively insignificant when compared to his enormous ship-building programme of 1803–5 for the same purpose.60 Indeed, a month before Lord St Vincent, then First Lord of the Admiralty, communicated to Admiral Lutwidge, the Commander-in-chief in the Downs, that his command would be impinged upon to some extent by Nelson’s new post, and that the enemy’s preparations were “beginning to wear a very serious appearance,” Napoleon had already postponed his plan. This is made abundantly clear by the First Consul’s order of the 23rd June to Augereau, in command of the Army of Batavia: “You will receive instructions for the formation at Flushing of five divisions of gunboats, which, added to the sixteen divisions in Channel ports, will impose on England.” Napoleon perfectly understood that the moment for “leaping the ditch” had not yet arrived. Of the Navy proper at the beginning of 1801 Great Britain had no fewer than 127 sail-of-the-line in commission; France had forty-nine, many in an almost unseaworthy condition. The Admiralty was not to know of the letter to Augereau or of the exact state of the French marine. Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk, the ports of concentration, sheltered some 150 boats of various descriptions for the purpose of the projected expedition, and England could afford to run no risks.

Nelson’s command extended from Orfordness, in Suffolk, to Beachy Head, in Sussex. The specific purpose of his squadron was to defend the mouths of the Thames and Medway, and of the coasts of Sussex, Kent, and Essex. He speedily grasped the situation, and surmising that London ought to be the enemy’s object, informed the Admiralty that not only should “A great number of Deal and Dover Boats” be available off Boulogne to “give notice of the direction taken by the enemy,” but that gunboats and flat boats should be kept near Margate and Ramsgate, between Orfordness and the North Foreland, and in Hollesley Bay, these to be aided by floating batteries. “If it is calm when the Enemy row out, all our Vessels and Boats appointed to watch them, must get into the Channel, and meet them as soon as possible: if not strong enough for the attack, they must watch, and keep them company till a favourable opportunity offers. If a breeze springs up,” he goes on, “our Ships are to deal destruction; no delicacy can be observed on this great occasion. But should it remain calm, and our Flotilla not fancy itself strong enough to attack the Enemy on their passage, the moment that they begin to touch our shore, strong or weak, our Flotilla of Boats must attack as much of the Enemy’s Flotilla as they are able—say only one half or two-thirds; it will create a most powerful diversion, for the bows of our Flotilla will be opposed to their unarmed sterns, and the courage of Britons will never, I believe, allow one Frenchman to leave the Beach.” When the enemy comes in sight the various divisions of the flotilla “are to unite, but not intermix.” “Never fear the event.” These notions, embodied in a lengthy Memorandum to the Admiralty, are remarkable because Nelson prophesies “a powerful diversion by the sailing of the Combined Fleet,” a plan developed by Napoleon in the later phase of his gigantic preparations for the invasion of our country. Whatever may have been in his mind in 1801 regarding this scheme he certainly did not confide to any of his admirals or military commanders.

Nelson hoisted his flag on the UnitÉ frigate at Sheerness on the 27th July. Additional evidence of the humorous turn of his mind is afforded in a note bearing the same date addressed to Lady Hamilton. “To-day,” he writes, “I dined with Admiral GrÆme, who has also lost his right arm, and as the Commander of the Troops has lost his leg, I expect we shall be caricatured as the lame defenders of England.” Most people who have the misfortune to lose a limb are inclined to resent any reference to the fact on the part of another and to rigidly ignore the misfortune in their own remarks, but Nelson rather gloried in his dismembered state than otherwise. It was visible proof of his service to his country.

Lord St Vincent did not altogether agree with Nelson’s plans. In his opinion, “Our great reliance is on the vigilance and activity of our cruisers at sea.” When Nelson urged upon the Sea Fencibles61 to man the coast-defence vessels he was speedily disillusioned. Of the 2600 men enrolled on that part of the coast under his jurisdiction only 385 offered themselves for active service. However, he determined to do his best with the raw material at hand, and went so far as to tell the First Lord of the Admiralty that: “Our force will, by your great exertions, soon get so formidable, that the Enemy will hardly venture out.” A week after he had assumed command, he says: “It is perfectly right to be prepared against a mad Government; but with the active force your Lordship has given me, I may pronounce it almost impracticable.”

On the 2nd August Nelson was off the coast of France, “looking at Boulogne,” and observed the soldiers erecting guns and mortars “as if fearful of an attack.” Forty-eight hours later a number of bomb-vessels were anchored abreast of the port, and the shipping was fired on without much loss on either side, although several French gunboats were destroyed. He himself admitted: “The whole of this business is of no further moment than to show the Enemy, that, with impunity, they cannot come outside their Ports. I see nothing but a desire on the part of our Officers and men to get at them.” A vast crowd of people collected on the cliffs at Dover and watched the spectacle. The Moniteur, the official organ of the French Government, reported the occurrence as follows:

“At dawn Nelson with thirty vessels of all sizes appeared before Boulogne. A division of our flotilla was at anchor slightly in front of the harbour. Their bomb-ketches opened fire and ours returned it. Several times the enemy’s line tried to advance and our soldiers asked to be allowed to board, but the flotilla’s fire prevented the forward movement and ultimately compelled the enemy to retire. Nine hundred bombs were fired during the day without killing or wounding any one. Two gun-sloops were slightly damaged but returned to service without loss of time.... This is the first fight in sight of both shores.” Nelson reported that three of the flat-bottom boats and a brig were sunk, and that six went on shore “evidently much damaged,” of which five were eventually salved. A captain of the Royal Artillery and three British seamen were wounded.

Having had the opportunity to see the preparations of the enemy Nelson was inclined to believe that Napoleon really meant business. “There can be no doubt of the intention of the French to attempt the Invasion of our Country,” he tells four of the captains under his command. “I have now more than ever reason to believe,” he confides to Lord St Vincent, “that the Ports of Flushing and Flanders are much more likely places to embark men from, than Calais, Boulogne, or Dieppe; for in Flanders we cannot tell by our eyes what means they have collected for carrying an Army.” “My Flotilla, I hope, will be finished by Wednesday,” he writes to the worthy Sea Lord, under date of the 7th August, “and I am vain enough to expect a great deal of mischief to the Enemy from it. I am sure that the French are trying to get from Boulogne; yet the least wind at W.N.W. and they are lost. I pronounce that no embarkation can take place at Boulogne; whenever it comes forth, it will be from Flanders, and what a forlorn undertaking! consider cross tides, etc., etc. As for rowing, that is impossible.” This communication was shortly followed by another: “We are so prepared at this moment, on the Enemy’s Coasts, that I do not believe they could get three miles from their own shore.” Again, “Our active force is perfect, and possesses so much zeal, that I only wish to catch that Buonaparte on the water, either with the Amazon or Medusa; but himself he will never trust.” The Admiral was far from enjoying his new post. He was “half sea-sick,” and his one desire was “to get at a proper time clear of my present command, in which I am sure of diminishing my little fortune, which at this moment does not reach 10,000 l.; and never had I an idea of gaining money by accepting it.” It would be wrong to infer from this isolated passage that Nelson was particularly fond of money. He was not, and the present writer is convinced that whenever he grumbled about financial matters he thought considerably more of justice than lucre. He could not bear to think he was being “done.” In the present instance it is clear that he found his command trivial and unprofitable from a national point of view. Nelson was essentially the man for a big theatre of action; if he did not actually despise a confined stage he hated it as paltry and beneath him. He gloried in a battle, not in a sham-fight; as he himself complained, “there is nothing to be done on the great Scale.” He appeals pathetically to Lord St Vincent in the letter from which the above extract is taken: “Do you still think of sending me to the Mediterranean? If not, I am ready to go, for the spur of the occasion, on the Expedition which is in embryo, but to return the moment it is over, for I am afraid of my strength. I am always ready, as far as I am able.” “As far as September 14th, I am at the Admiralty’s disposal;” he tells Lady Hamilton, “but, if Mr Buonaparte does not choose to send his miscreants before that time, my health will not bear me through equinoctial gales.” The Admiral is just a little uncertain as to the fate of Napoleon’s flotilla. “I do not believe they could get three miles from their own shore,” he says on the 9th August; on the 10th his “well-grounded hope” is that the enemy will be “annihilated before they get ten miles from their own shores.”

Nelson considered Flushing as his “grand object” of attack, but hesitated to venture before consulting the Admiralty because “the risk is so great of the loss of some Vessels.” It would be “a week’s Expedition for 4000 or 5000 troops.” To aid his own arguments he appeals to history: “To crush the Enemy at home was the favourite plan of Lord Chatham, and I am sure you think it the wisest measure to carry the war from our own doors.... I own, my dear Lord, that this Boat warfare is not exactly congenial to my feelings, and I find I get laughed at for my puny mode of attack. I shall be happy to lead the way into Helvoet or Flushing, if Government will turn their thoughts to it: whilst I serve, I will do it actively, and to the very best of my abilities. I have all night had a fever, which is very little abated this morning; my mind carries me beyond my strength, and will do me up; but such is my nature. I have serious doubt whether I shall be able, from my present feelings, to go to the Mediterranean; but I will do what I can—I require nursing like a child. Pray God we may have peace, and with honour, and then let us start fair with the rest of Europe.” To other correspondents he says, “I am very much fagged”; “I am still very unwell, and my head is swelled.”

Notwithstanding the weighty arguments brought forward by Nelson to support his projected attempt on Flushing, the Lords of the Admiralty could not see their way to grant the requisite permission. Nelson was so confident in his belief that he appealed to the Prime Minister. “Lord St Vincent,” he writes, “tells me he hates Councils, so do I between Military men; for if a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting; but that is not the case at present, and I own I do want good council. Lord St Vincent is for keeping the Enemy closely blockaded; but I see that they get along shore inside their Sandbanks, and under their guns, which line the Coast of France. Lord Hood is for keeping our Squadrons of Defence stationary on our own shore, (except light Cutters, to give information of every movement of the Enemy;) for the time is approaching when a gale of westerly wind will disperse our light Squadrons.... When men of such good sense, such great Sea Officers, differ so widely, is it not natural that I should wish the mode of defence to be well arranged by the mature considerations of men of judgment? I mean not to detract from my judgment; even as it is, it is well known: but I boast of nothing but my zeal; in that I will give way to no man upon earth.”

On the night of the 15th August Nelson renewed his attempt on the Boulogne flotilla. His plan of attack shows that he took elaborate precautions to preclude the possibility of failure. La Touche TrÉville, in command at Boulogne, had also profited by his recent experience with the British, and had fitted out additional bomb-ketches and placed mortars on smacks for the purpose of defence. Nelson arranged that four divisions of ships’ boats should be employed, each accompanied by one or two flat boats armed with either an 8-inch howitzer or a 24-pound carronade. Two boats of each division were to be prepared for cutting the enemy’s cable and sternfast and to be provided with stout hook-ropes for the purpose of towing the prizes. “When any Boats have taken one Vessel, the business is not to be considered as finished; but a sufficient number being left to guard the Prize, the others are immediately to pursue the object, by proceeding on to the next, and so on, until the whole Flotilla be either taken, or totally annihilated; for there must not be the smallest cessation until their destruction is completely finished.” Pikes, cutlasses, tomahawks, axes, and all the paraphernalia of war were to be placed on the boats. Fast-sailing cutters were to keep close in shore so as to be ready to tow out any vessels which might be captured. “The greatest silence is to be observed by all the people in the Boats, and the oars to be muffled.” The watchword was “Nelson,” the answer “BrontÉ.”

The attack was a failure. The brave fellows found the vessels not only full of soldiers but defended by sharp spikes of iron and netting placed round the hulls in a similar manner to the torpedo netting of modern naval warfare. It was said by the attacking party that the French boats were secured to the shore by stout cables, a belief entertained by Nelson, but La Touche TrÉville indignantly denied the accusation in his official report. The British seamen went into a veritable halo of fire, the soldiers on the boats being assisted by comrades stationed on the heights. It was an unequal contest in every way, and when the second division of boats, under Captain Parker, closed with the enemy, it is stated that the French commander plainly said so. “You can do nothing here,” he shouted, “and it is only useless shedding the blood of brave men to make the attempt.”62 Parker’s thigh was shattered while attempting to board the French Commodore’s boat, another officer was shot through the leg, and the killed and wounded were numbered at 172. Officially the French casualties were returned at ten killed and thirty wounded, probably a low estimate. “No person can be blamed for sending them to the attack but myself;” the Commander-in-chief writes to Lord St Vincent, “I knew the difficulty of the undertaking, therefore I ventured to ask your opinion.” He attributed the failure to the divisions not having arrived “at the same happy moment with Captain Parker.” “More determined, persevering courage, I never witnessed.” “I long to pay them, for their tricks t’other day,” he writes to Lady Hamilton, “the debt of a drubbing, which, surely, I’ll pay: but when, where, or how, it is impossible, your own good sense must tell you, for me or mortal man to say.”

Nelson was deeply attached to Captain Parker, whom he calls “my child, for I found him in distress.” His correspondence at this time is replete with references to the condition of the patient. “Would I could be useful,” he tells the doctor, “I would come on shore and nurse him.” When the gallant officer died at Deal on the 28th September, the Admiral begged that his friend’s hair might be cut off; “it shall remain and be buried with me.” Again we see the wistful, woman-like emotionalism of Nelson’s nature. He calls it “a happy release,” and says in the same sentence, “but I cannot bring myself to say I am glad he is gone; it would be a lie, for I am grieved almost to death.” When “the cleverest and quickest man and the most zealous in the world” was buried at Deal, Nelson attended the ceremony. It is recorded that the man who could stare Death in the face without flinching, who was “in perils oft” and enjoyed the experience, was visibly affected. The Admiral’s grief was expressed in a practical way. Finding that the deceased Captain had left his finances in a most unsatisfactory condition he paid the creditors in full.

The war with France had lasted eight weary years. Great Britain had more than maintained her own on the sea; Napoleon had proved his consummate skill in the manipulation of land forces. Overtures for peace were mooted, then definitely made through M. Otto, a French agent in London for the exchange of prisoners. The cessation of hostilities became the topic of the hour. After innumerable delays the preliminaries were signed in London on the 1st October 1801, to the joy of the populace on both sides of the Channel. Nelson was not convinced as to Napoleon’s bon fides. He loathed the French and took no pains to disguise the fact. In writing to a friend a fortnight or so before he received news of the event mentioned above, he admits, “I pray God we may have Peace, when it can be had with honour; but I fear that the scoundrel Buonaparte wants to humble us, as he has done the rest of Europe—to degrade us in our own eyes, by making us give up all our conquests, as proof of our sincerity for making a Peace, and then he will condescend to treat with us.” The Admiral was not far wrong, as subsequent events proved. In a letter dated the 14th September, two days later than the one from which the above quotation is made, he looks forward “with hope but will not be too sanguine. I yet hope the negotiation is not broken entirely off, for we can never alter the situation of France or the Continent, and ours will become a War of defence; but I hope they will do for the best.” Three days after the signature of the preliminaries of peace he warns the commanders of the various squadrons that they are to be “very vigilant in watching the Enemy, and, on no account to suffer them to put into the Channel, as hostilities have not yet ceased.” Napoleon confirmed the treaty on the 5th October, the ratifications were exchanged on the 10th,

as a poetaster sang in a contemporary periodical. Nelson referred to it as “good news,” but received a note from Addington warning him that his flag must be kept flying until the Definitive Treaty had been signed.

When he heard that the mob had unharnessed the horses and drawn the carriage of General Lauriston, Napoleon’s first aide-de-camp who had brought the document to London, the Admiral was furious. “Can you cure madness?” he asks Dr Baird, “for I am mad to read that ... scoundrels dragged a Frenchman’s carriage. I am ashamed for my Country.” On the 14th October he formally asked the Admiralty to give him permission to go on shore. He was then suffering from “a complaint in my stomach and bowels,” probably caused by sea-sickness and cold. This request was not immediately complied with, but towards the end of the month he was released, and wrote to Lady Hamilton, “I believe I leave this little Squadron with sincere regret, and with the good wishes of every creature in it.” One wonders whether there could be a more restless nature than Nelson’s, which made him yearn for the land when at sea, and for the sea when on land.

He retired to Merton Place, a little estate in Surrey and “exactly one hour’s drive from Hyde Park.” This had been purchased on his behalf by Lady Hamilton, who took up her quarters there with her husband. The first mention of it in Nelson’s “Dispatches and Letters,” as edited by Sir Harris Nicolas, is in a note to his friend Alexander Davison of Morpeth, on the last day of August 1801. “So far from making money, I am spending the little I have,” he tells him. “I am after buying a little Farm at Merton—the price £9000; I hope to be able to get through it. If I cannot, after all my labours for the Country, get such a place as this, I am resolved to give it all up, and retire for life.” In thanking Mr Davison for his offer of assistance in purchasing “the Farm,” Nelson goes a little deeper into the question of his personal expenditure. It will “take every farthing I have in the world,” and leave him in debt. “The Baltic expedition cost me full £2000. Since I left London it has cost me, for Nelson cannot be like others, near £1000 in six weeks. If I am continued here (i.e. in the Downs) ruin to my finances must be the consequence, for everybody knows that Lord Nelson is amazingly rich!”

The Admiral took his seat in the House of Lords as a Viscount on the 29th October, and made his maiden speech in the upper chamber on the following day. Appropriately enough it was to second the motion “That the Thanks of this House be given to Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez, K.B., for his gallant and distinguished conduct in the Action with the Combined Fleet of the Enemy, off Algeziras, on the 12th and 13th of July last.” The battle was fought with a French and Spanish squadron in the Gut of Gibraltar, details of which were entered into by Nelson, doubtless to the considerable enlightenment of the House. During the following month he was also able to pay a similar tribute to Keith and his officers for their services in Egypt. With characteristic thoroughness he also remarked on the part the Army had played in the defeat of Napoleon’s expedition.

He was feasted and feted for his own splendid work, but he fell foul of the Corporation of the City of London, because that body had seen fit to withhold its thanks for the victory of Copenhagen, conduct which he deemed “incomprehensible.” He certainly never forgave the Government for refusing to grant medals for the same battle. Nelson brought up the question before the authorities with pugnacious persistence, and some of the officers renewed their application over a quarter of a century later, but the Copenhagen medal still remains to be struck. “I am fixed never to abandon the fair fame of my Companions in dangers,” he avers. “I may offend and suffer; but I had rather suffer from that, than my own feelings.” He fought for pensions and appointments for all manner of officers and men, watched the list of vacancies and appealed that they might be filled by those who deserved well of their country.