The Life of Nelson, Volume 1. Alfred Thayer Mahan
are, on the contrary, constantly disfigured by awkward expressions and bad English. There was rarely, however, danger of mistaking his meaning, as was sometimes charged against Lord Howe.
Here, before fairly parting with the humble home life, of which the motherless boy had seen, and was throughout his career to see so little, is a fit place to introduce two anecdotes associated with those early days which his biographers have transmitted to us. We of these critical times have learned to look with incredulity, not always unmixed with derision, upon stories relating to the childhood of distinguished men; but it can safely be said that the two now to be given are in entire keeping, not merely with particular traits, but with the great ruling tenor of Nelson's whole life. He and his elder brother were going to school one winter day upon their ponies. Finding the snow so deep as to delay them seriously, they went back, and the elder reported that they could not get on. The father very judiciously replied: "If that be so, I have of course nothing to say; but I wish you to try again, and I leave it to your honour not to turn back, unless necessary." On the second attempt, the elder was more than once for returning; but Horatio stuck it out, repeating continually, "Remember it was left to our honour," and the difficult journey was accomplished.
The children in this instance seem to have felt that there was danger in going on. The other recorded occurrence shows in the lad that indifference to personal benefit, as distinguished from the sense of conspicuous achievement, which was ever a prominent characteristic of the man. The master of his school had a very fine pear-tree, whose fruit the boys coveted, but upon which none dared hazard an attempt. At last Nelson, who did not share their desires, undertook the risk, climbed the tree by night, and carried off the pears, but refused to eat any of them,—saying that he had taken them only because the others were afraid.
Trivial though these incidents may seem, they are so merely because they belong to the day of small things. To those accustomed to watch children, they will not appear unworthy of note. Taken together, they illustrate, as really as do his greatest deeds, the two forms assumed at different times by the one incentive which always most powerfully determined Nelson's action through life,—the motive to which an appeal was never made in vain. No material considerations, neither danger on the one hand, nor gain on the other, ever affected him as did that idealized conception which presented itself, now as duty, now as honor, according as it bore for the moment upon his relations to the state or to his own personality. "In my mind's eye," said he to his friend Captain Hardy, who afterwards bent over him as his spirit was parting amid the tumult of his last victory, "I ever saw a radiant orb suspended which beckoned me onward to renown." Nelson did not often verge upon the poetical in words, but to the poetry of lofty aspiration his inmost being always answered true.
To the young naval officer of a century ago, especially if without political or social influence, it was a weighty advantage to be attached to some one commanding officer in active employment, who by favorable opportunity or through professional friendships could push the fortunes of those in whom he was interested. Much of the promotion was then in the hands of the admirals on foreign stations; and this local power to reward distinguished service, though liable to abuse in many ways, conduced greatly to stimulate the zeal and efforts of officers who felt themselves immediately under the eye of one who could make or mar their future. Each naval captain, also, could in his degree affect more or less the prospects of those dependent upon him. Thus Suckling, though not going to sea himself, continued with intelligent solicitude his promised care of the young Nelson. When the "Raisonnable" was paid off, he was transferred to the command of the "Triumph," of seventy-four guns, stationed as guard-ship in the river Medway; and to her also he took with him his nephew, who was borne upon her books for the two following years, which were, however, far from being a period of inactive harbor life. Having considerable professional interest, he saw to the lad's being kept afloat, and obtained for him from time to time such service as seemed most desirable to his enterprising spirit.
The distinction between the merchant seaman and the man-of-war's man, or even the naval officer, in those days of sailing ships and simple weapons was much less sharply marked than it has since become. Skill in seamanship, from the use of the marlinespike and the sail-needle up to the full equipping of a ship and the handling of her under canvas, was in either service the prime essential. In both alike, cannon and small arms were carried; and the ship's company, in the peaceful trader as well as in the ship of war, expected to repel force with force, when meeting upon equal terms. With a reduced number of naval vessels in commission, and their quarter-decks consequently over-crowded with young officers, a youth was more likely to find on board them a life of untasked idleness than a call to professional occupation and improvement. Nelson therefore was sent by his careful guardian to a merchant-ship trading to the West Indies, to learn upon her, as a foremast hand, the elements of his profession, under conditions which, from the comparative fewness of the crew and the activity of the life, would tend to develop his powers most rapidly. In this vessel he imbibed, along with nautical knowledge, the prejudice which has usually existed, more or less, in the merchant marine against the naval service, due probably to the more rigorous exactions and longer terms of enlistment in the latter, although the life in other respects is one of less hardship; but in Nelson's day the feeling had been intensified by the practice of impressment, and by the severe, almost brutal discipline that obtained on board some ships of war, through the arbitrary use of their powers by captains, then insufficiently controlled by law. In this cruise he seems to have spent a little over a year; a time, however, that was not lost to him for the accomplishment of the period of service technically required to qualify as a lieutenant, his name continuing throughout on the books of the "Triumph," to which he returned in July, 1772.
Suckling's care next insured for him a continuance of active, semi-detached duty, in the boats of the "Triumph,"—an employment very different from, and more responsible than, that in which he had recently been occupied, and particularly calculated to develop in so apt a nature the fearlessness of responsibility, both professional and personal, that was among the most prominent features of Nelson's character. "The test of a man's courage is responsibility," said that great admiral and shrewd judge of men, the Earl of St. Vincent, after a long and varied experience of naval officers; and none ever shone more brightly under this supreme proof than the lad whose career is now opening before us. It may be interesting, too, to note that this condition of more or less detached service, so early begun, in which, though not in chief command, he held an authority temporarily independent, and was immediately answerable for all that happened on the spot, was the singular characteristic of most of his brilliant course, during which, until 1803, two years before Trafalgar, he was only for brief periods commander-in-chief, yet almost always acted apart from his superior. Many a man, gallant, fearless, and capable, within signal distance of his admiral, has, when out of sight of the flag, succumbed with feeble knees to the burden of independent responsible action, though not beyond his professional powers. This strength, like all Nature's best gifts, is inborn; yet, both for the happy possessor and for the merely average man, it is susceptible of high development only by being early exercised, which was the good fortune of Nelson.
Of these two years of somewhat irregular service, while nominally attached to the "Triumph," it will be well to give the account in his own words; for, having been written a full quarter of a century later, they record the deepest and most lasting impressions made upon him during that susceptible period when first becoming familiar with the calling he was to adorn:—
"The business with Spain being accommodated, I was sent in a West India ship belonging to the house of Hibbert, Purrier, and Horton, with Mr. John Rathbone, who had formerly been in the Navy, in the Dreadnought with Captain Suckling. From this voyage I returned to the Triumph at Chatham in July, 1772; and, if I did not improve in my education, I returned a practical Seaman, with a horror of the Royal Navy, and with a saying, then constant with the Seamen, 'Aft the most honour, forward the better man!' It was many weeks before I got the least reconciled to a Man-of-War, so deep was the prejudice rooted; and what pains were taken to instil this erroneous principle in a young mind! However, as my ambition was to be a Seaman, it was always held out as a reward, that if I attended well to my navigation, I should go in the cutter and decked long-boat, which was attached to the Commanding officer's ship at Chatham. Thus by degrees I became a good pilot, for vessels of that description, from Chatham to the Tower of London, down the Swin, and the North Foreland; and confident of myself amongst rocks and sands, which