The Boys' Nelson. Harold Wheeler
December 8th:—I have been in sight of the French Squadron all day, at anchor; they cannot be induced to come out, notwithstanding their great superiority....”
On the 19th of the same month Lord Hood vacated Toulon.12 The troops of the National Convention, aided by the consummate skill of Napoleon Bonaparte, a young officer then beginning his amazing career, had proved too powerful for the British, Spanish, Piedmontese and Neapolitan forces. The British fleet carried away no fewer than 14,000 fugitives from the doomed city, which for hours afterwards was given up to pillage. “Everything which domestic Wars produce usually, is multiplied at Toulon,” Nelson writes to his wife. “Fathers are here [i.e. Leghorn] without their families, families without their fathers. In short, all is horror.... Lord Hood put himself at the head of the flying troops, and the admiration of every one; but the torrent was too strong. Many of our posts were carried without resistance; at others, which the English occupied, every one perished. I cannot write all: my mind is deeply impressed with grief. Each teller makes the scene more horrible. Lord Hood showed himself the same collected good Officer which he always was.” The siege of Toulon was a qualified success. The place was lost, but a dozen French ships and the naval stores were set on fire, and four sail-of-the-line, three frigates, and several smaller vessels were secured as prizes. To cripple the French navy was the most desired of all objects.
Meanwhile Nelson’s division was blockading Corsica, which had passed from the Republic of Genoa into the hands of the French in 1768, to the disgust of the patriotic party headed by Pascal Paoli. It was arranged that Hood should assist the latter to rid the island of the hated “tyrants,” and that in due course it should be ceded to Great Britain. In the preliminary negotiations Nelson was represented by Lieutenant George Andrews, brother of the young lady to whom Nelson had become attached during his visit to France in 1783;13 the final arrangements were made by a commission of which the gallant Sir John Moore was a member. Hood joined Nelson on the 27th January 1794, and on the following day the fleet encountered “the hardest gale almost ever remembered here.” The Agamemnon “lost every sail in her,” her consorts were dispersed “over the face of the waters.” This delayed the landing of the troops Hood had brought with him, but Nelson had already made a preliminary skirmish on his own account near San Fiorenzo, the first object of the admiral’s attack. He landed 120 soldiers and seamen, emptied a flour storehouse, ruined a water-mill, and returned without the loss of a man, notwithstanding the efforts of the French gunboats to annihilate the little force. Similar expeditions were undertaken at the beginning of February, when four polaccas, loaded with wine for the enemy’s fleet, were burned, four other vessels set on fire, a similar number captured, and about 1,000 tuns of wine demolished.
On the 7th of the same month the inhabitants of Rogliani showed National colours, and the Tree of Liberty—the emblem of the French Revolution—was planted. Nelson struck a flag flying on the old castle with his own hand, and ordered the tree to be cut down. More craft and wine were destroyed. Paoli was highly gratified by this performance, carried out in the true Nelson spirit, and shortly afterwards the Captain tells his wife with conscious pride, “I have had the pleasure to fulfil the service I had been employed upon, since leaving Tunis, neither allowing provisions nor troops to get into Corsica,”—which he describes later as “a wonderfully fine Island”—“nor the Frigates to come out.”
Hood now took over the command at San Fiorenzo and sent Nelson to blockade Bastia. The latter calculated that “it would require 1000 troops, besides seamen, Corsicans, etc., to make any successful attempt” against the place. Lieutenant-General David Dundas, the commander of the military forces, refused his aid unless considerable reinforcements came to hand, although he had at his disposal over 1700 regulars and artillerymen. Hood, relying on Nelson’s statements to a certain extent, endeavoured to persuade Dundas that the task was by no means so difficult as he imagined, but the military authority positively refused to listen to the project. The General entered into the arrangements for the capture of San Fiorenzo with more goodwill, for in his opinion it was a less formidable undertaking. Without in any way disparaging the exertions of the troops it must be admitted that the gallant conduct of the sailors, who dragged heavy guns up the heights in order to place them in a position to cannonade the tower of Mortello, which commanded the situation, contributed largely to the success of the operation. Dundas and Linzee attacked this formidable fortification from the bay with a sail-of-the-line and a frigate on the 8th February with ill success. Its defenders hurled hot shot at the vessels with such precision that they were obliged to move to a less dangerous position. The tower was bombarded from the steeps for two days before its garrison surrendered. Meanwhile Lieutenant-Colonel John Moore had carried the batteries of Fornelli, which led directly to the fall of San Fiorenzo on the 17th instant. The French retreated to Bastia, on the opposite side of the promontory, where Nelson was exerting himself to the utmost. The British troops marched to within three miles of the town, as noted below, and were then ordered to return to San Fiorenzo.
On the 23rd February the Agamemnon and two frigates dislodged the French from a battery of six guns; “they to a man quitted the works.” For Lord Hood’s encouragement he sent him word that shot and shells had been hurled at the vessels “without doing us any damage of consequence: our guns were so exceedingly well pointed, that not one shot was fired in vain.... Indeed, my Lord, I wish the troops were here: Bastia, I am sure, in its present state, would soon fall.”
In describing “our little brush” to his wife, he says it “happened at the moment when part of our Army made their appearance on the hills over Bastia, they having marched over land from St Fiorenzo, which is only twelve miles distant. The General sent an express to Lord Hood at Fiorenzo to tell him of it. What a noble sight it must have been! indeed, on board it was the grandest thing I ever saw. If I had carried with me five hundred troops, to a certainty I should have stormed the Town, and I believe it might have been carried.... You cannot think how pleased Lord Hood has been with my attack on Sunday last, or rather my repelling of an attack which the Enemy made on me.”
Nelson’s ardent temperament, his longing to be up and doing, made him think bitter things of Dundas. He confides to his Journal on the 3rd March 1794 that it is his firm opinion that if the Agamemnon and the attendant frigates could batter down the sea-wall and then land 500 troops they would “to a certainty carry the place.” “God knows what it all means,” he writes to his wife with reference to the general’s retreat. “Lord Hood is gone to St Fiorenzo to the Army, to get them forward again.... My seamen are now what British seamen ought to be, to you I may say it, almost invincible: they really mind shot no more than peas.”
The delay was simply playing into the hands of the enemy, who occupied the time in adding to the defences of the town. One can imagine with what glee Nelson scribbled in his Journal, under date of the 11th March, “Romney joined me from Lord Hood: brought me letters to say that General Dundas was going Home, and that he hoped and trusted the troops would once more move over the Hill.” The crew of the Agamemnon suffered no little privation. “We are absolutely without water, provisions, or stores of any kind, not a piece of canvas, rope, twine, or a nail in the Ship; but we cheerfully submit to it all, if it but turns out for the advantage and credit of our Country.”
Dundas was succeeded by General Abraham D’Aubant, an appointment which gave the Captain of the Agamemnon no satisfaction, for he also thought it improper to attack Bastia. Not to carry to a finish a project already begun was considered by Nelson “a National disgrace.” Hood determined to act contrary to the opinions of his military colleague. “I am to command the Seamen landed from the Fleet,” Nelson tells his brother. “I feel for the honour of my Country, and had rather be beat than not make the attack. If we do not try we never can be successful. I own I have no fears for the final issue: it will be conquest, certain we will deserve it.” “When was a place ever yet taken without an attempt?” he asks Sir William Hamilton. “We must endeavour to deserve success; it is certainly not in our power to command it.... My dear Sir, when was before the time that 2,000 British troops, as good as ever marched, were not thought equal to attack 800 French troops, allowing them to be in strong works? What would the immortal Wolfe have done? as he did, beat the Enemy, if he perished in the attempt. Our Irregulars are surely as
More detailed particulars of this thrilling siege will be found in the author’s companion volume, “The Story of Napoleon,” pp. 60–64.
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