The Life of Nelson, Volume 1

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Alfred Thayer Mahan. The Life of Nelson, Volume 1

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

CHAPTER II. THE CRUISE OF THE "BOREAS."—CONTROVERSY OVER THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE NAVIGATION ACT.—RETURN TO ENGLAND.—RETIREMENT UNTIL THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.—APPOINTED TO COMMAND THE "AGAMEMNON," 64

CHAPTER III. NELSON'S DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND IN THE "AGAMEMNON."—SERVICES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN UNTIL THE RECOVERY OF TOULON BY THE FRENCH.—LORD HOOD IN COMMAND

CHAPTER IV. REDUCTION OF CORSICA BY THE BRITISH.—DEPARTURE OF LORD HOOD FOR ENGLAND.—THE "AGAMEMNON" REFITTED AT LEGHORN

CHAPTER V. NELSON'S SERVICES WITH THE FLEET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN UNDER ADMIRAL HOTHAM.—PARTIAL FLEET ACTIONS OF MARCH 13 AND 14, AND JULY 13.—NELSON ORDERED TO COMMAND A DETACHED SQUADRON CO-OPERATING WITH THE AUSTRIAN ARMY IN THE RIVIERA OF GENOA

CHAPTER VI. NELSON'S COMMAND OF A DETACHED SQUADRON ON THE RIVIERA OF GENOA, UNTIL THE DEFEAT OF THE AUSTRIANS AT THE BATTLE OF LOANO.—SIR JOHN JERVIS APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

CHAPTER VII. NELSON'S SERVICES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN DURING THE YEAR 1796.—BONAPARTE'S ITALIAN CAMPAIGN.—THE BRITISH ABANDON CORSICA, AND THE FLEET LEAVES THE MEDITERRANEAN

CHAPTER VIII. THE EVACUATION OF ELBA.—NIGHT COMBAT WITH TWO SPANISH FRIGATES.—BATTLE OF CAPE ST. VINCENT.—NELSON PROMOTED TO REAR-ADMIRAL.—SERVICES BEFORE CADIZ

CHAPTER IX. THE UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT AGAINST TENERIFFE.—NELSON LOSES HIS RIGHT ARM.—RETURN TO ENGLAND.—REJOINS ST. VINCENT'S FLEET, AND SENT INTO THE MEDITERRANEAN TO WATCH THE TOULON ARMAMENT

CHAPTER X. THE CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF THE NILE

CHAPTER XI. NELSON'S RETURN FROM EGYPT TO NAPLES.—MEETING WITH LADY HAMILTON.—ASSOCIATION WITH THE COURT OF NAPLES.—WAR BETWEEN NAPLES AND FRANCE.—DEFEAT OF THE NEAPOLITANS.—FLIGHT OF THE COURT TO PALERMO

CHAPTER XII. NELSON'S CAREER, AND GENERAL EVENTS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND ITALY, FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT IN NAPLES TO THE INCURSION OF THE FRENCH FLEET UNDER ADMIRAL BRUIX

CHAPTER XIII. FROM THE INCURSION OF THE FRENCH FLEET UNDER BRUIX TO THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL AUTHORITY AT NAPLES.—THE CARACCIOLO EXECUTION.—NELSON'S DISOBEDIENCE TO ADMIRAL LORD KEITH

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It is the appointed lot of some of History's chosen few to come upon the scene at the moment when a great tendency is nearing its crisis and culmination. Specially gifted with qualities needed to realize the fulness of its possibilities, they so identify themselves with it by their deeds that they thenceforth personify to the world the movement which brought them forth, and of which their own achievements are at once the climax and the most dazzling illustration. Fewer still, but happiest of all, viewed from the standpoint of fame, are those whose departure is as well timed as their appearance, who do not survive the instant of perfected success, to linger on subjected to the searching tests of common life, but pass from our ken in a blaze of glory which thenceforth forever encircles their names. In that evening light break away and vanish the ominous clouds wherewith human frailties or tyrant passions had threatened to darken their renown; and their sun goes down with a lustre which the lapse of time is powerless to dim. Such was the privilege of the stainless Wolfe; such, beyond all others, that of Nelson. Rarely has a man been more favored in the hour of his appearing; never one so fortunate in the moment of his death.

Yet, however accidental, or providential, this rarely allotted portion, this crowning incident of an heroic career, it is after all but an incident. It the man has not contrived; but to it he has contributed much, without which his passing hour would have faded to memory, undistinguished among those of the myriads, great and small, who have died as nobly and are forever forgotten. A sun has set; but before its setting it has run a course, be it long or short, and has gathered a radiance which fixes upon its parting beams the rapt attention of beholders. The man's self and the man's works, what he was and what he did, the nature which brought forth such fruits, the thoughts which issued in such acts, hopes, fears, desires, quick intuitions, painful struggles, lofty ambitions, happy opportunities, have blended to form that luminous whole, known and seen of all, but not to be understood except by a patient effort to resolve the great result into its several rays, to separate the strands whose twisting has made so strong a cord.

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In January, 1780, an opportunity for service offered, which ended in no conspicuous or permanent result, but nevertheless conferred distinction upon one who, to use his own expression, was determined to climb to the top of the tree, and to neglect no chance, however slight, that could help him on. War with Spain had then been about seven months declared, and the British governor of Jamaica had sagaciously determined to master Lake Nicaragua, and the course of the river San Juan, its outlet to the Caribbean Sea. The object of the attempt was twofold, both military and commercial. The route was recognized then, as it is now, as one of the most important, if not the most important, of those affording easy transit from the Pacific to the Atlantic by way of the Isthmus. To a nation of the mercantile aptitudes of Great Britain, such a natural highway was necessarily an object of desire. In her hands it would not only draw to itself the wealth of the surrounding regions, but would likewise promote the development of her trade, both north and south, along the eastern and western coasts of the two Americas. But the pecuniary gain was not all. The military tenure of this short and narrow strip, supported at either end, upon the Pacific and the Atlantic, by naval detachments, all the more easily to be maintained there by the use of the belt itself, would effectually sever the northern and southern colonies of Spain, both by actual interposition, and by depriving them of one of their most vital lines of intercommunication. To seek control of so valuable and central a link in a great network of maritime interests was as natural and inevitable to Great Britain a century ago, as it now is to try to dominate the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, which fulfil a like function to her Eastern possessions and Eastern commerce.

Preoccupied, however, with numerous and more pressing cares in many quarters of the world, and overweighted in a universal struggle with outnumbering foes, Great Britain could spare but scanty forces to her West India Islands, and from them Governor Dalling could muster but five hundred men for his Nicaraguan undertaking. Nelson was directed to convoy these with the "Hinchinbrook" to the mouth of the San Juan del Norte, where was the port now commonly called Greytown, in those days a fine and spacious harbor. There his charge ended; but his mental constitution never allowed him to look upon a military task as well done while anything remained to do. In the spirit of his famous saying, fifteen years later, "Were ten ships out of eleven taken, I would never call it well done if the eleventh escaped, if able to get at her," he determined to go with the troops. With his temperament it was impossible to turn his back upon the little body of soldiers, whose toilsome advance up the tropical stream might be aided and hastened by his ready seamen.

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