The Life of Nelson, Volume 1. Alfred Thayer Mahan

      In another respect the appointment to the "Lowestoffe" was fortunate for Nelson. The ship was destined to the West Indies—or, to speak more precisely, to Jamaica, which was a command distinct from that of the eastern Caribbean, or Lesser Antilles, officially styled the Leeward Islands Station. Great Britain was then fully embarked in the war with her North American colonies, which ended in their independence; and the course of events was hastening her to the rupture with France and Spain that followed within a year. In this protracted contest the chief scene of naval hostilities was to be the West Indies; but beyond even the casualties of war, the baneful climate of that region insured numerous vacancies by prostration and death, with consequent chances of promotion for those who escaped the fevers, and found favor in the eyes of their commander-in-chief. The brutal levity of the old toast, "A bloody war and a sickly season," nowhere found surer fulfilment than on those pestilence-stricken coasts. Captain Locker's health soon gave way. Arriving at Jamaica on the 19th of July, 1777, we find Nelson in the following month writing to him from the ship during an absence produced by a serious illness, from which fatal results were feared. The letter, like all those to Locker, was marked by that tone of quick, eager sympathy, of genial inclination always to say the kindest thing, that characterized his correspondence, and, generally, his intercourse with others,—traits that through life made him, beyond most men, acceptable and beloved. He was, from first to last, not merely one of those whose services are forced upon others by sheer weight of ability, because indispensable,—though this, too, he was,—but men wanted him because, although at times irritable, especially after the wounds received in later years, he was an easy yoke-fellow, pleasant to deal with, cordial and ready to support those above him, a tolerant and appreciative master to subordinates. It may even be said that, in matters indifferent to him, he too readily reflected the feelings, views, and wishes of those about him; but when they clashed with his own fixed convictions, he was immovable. As he himself said in such a case, "I feel I am perfectly right, and you know upon those occasions I am not famous for giving up a point."

      Of his connection with the "Lowestoffe" he himself, in the short autobiographical sketch before quoted, mentions two circumstances, which, from the very fact of their remaining so long in his memory, illustrate temperament. "Even a frigate," he says, "was not sufficiently active for my mind, and I got into a schooner, tender to the Lowestoffe. In this vessel I made myself a complete pilot for all the passages through the [Keys] Islands situated on the north side Hispaniola." This kind of service, it will be noted, was in direct sequence, as to training, to his handling of the "Triumph's" long-boat in the lower waters of the Thames, and would naturally contribute to increase that "confidence in himself among rocks and sands," which was afterwards to be so "great a comfort" to him. In his later career he had frequent and pressing need of that particular form of professional judgment and self-reliance for which these early experiences stood him in good stead. As he afterwards wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty, when pleading the cause of a daring and skilful officer who had run his ship ashore: "If I had been censured every time I have run my ship, or fleets under my command, into great danger, I should long ago have been out of the service, and never in the House of Peers." At the critical instants of the Nile and Copenhagen, as well as in the less conspicuous but more prolonged anxieties of the operations off Corsica and along the Riviera of Genoa, this early habit, grafted upon the singularly steady nerve wherewith he was endowed by nature, sustained him at a height of daring and achievement to which very few have been able to rise.

      The other incident recorded by him as happening while on board the "Lowestoffe," he himself cites as illustrative of temperament. "Whilst in this frigate, an event happened which presaged my character; and, as it conveys no dishonour to the officer alluded to, I shall insert it. Blowing a gale of wind, and a very heavy sea, the frigate captured an American letter-of-marque. The first Lieutenant was ordered to board her, which he did not do, owing to the very heavy sea. On his return, the Captain said, 'Have I no officer in the ship who can board the prize?' On which the Master ran to the gangway, to get into the boat: when I stopped him, saying, 'It is my turn now; and if I come back, it is yours.' This little incident," he continues, "has often occurred to my mind; and I know it is my disposition, that difficulties and dangers do but increase my desire of attempting them." An action of this sort, in its results unimportant, gives keener satisfaction in the remembrance than do greater deeds, because more purely individual,—entirely one's own. It is upon such as this, rather than upon his victories, that Nelson in his narrative dwells caressingly. His personal daring at St. Vincent, and against the gunboats off Cadiz, ministered more directly to his self-esteem, to that consciousness of high desert which was dear to him, than did the Battle of the Nile, whose honors he, though ungrudgingly, shared with his "band of brothers."

      When the "Lowestoffe" had been a year upon the station, it became very doubtful whether Locker could continue in her, and finally he did go home ill. It was probably due to this uncertainty that he obtained the transfer of Nelson, in whom he had become most affectionately interested, to the "Bristol," flagship of Sir Peter Parker, the commander-in-chief. Here, under the admiral's own eye, warmly recommended by his last captain, and with a singular faculty for enlisting the love and esteem of all with whom he was brought into contact, the young officer's prospects were of the fairest; nor did the event belie them. Joining the "Bristol" as her third lieutenant, not earlier than July, 1778, he had by the end of September risen "by succession"—to use his own phrase—to be first; a promotion by seniority whose rapidity attests the rate at which vacancies occurred. Both Parker and his wife became very fond of him, cared for him in illness, and in later years she wrote to him upon each of the occasions on which he most brilliantly distinguished himself—after St. Vincent, the Nile, and Copenhagen. "Your mother," said she after the first, "could not have heard of your deeds with more affection; nor could she be more rejoiced at your personal escape from all the dangers of that glorious day;" and again, after the Nile, "Sir Peter and I have ever regarded you as a son." The letter following the victory at Copenhagen has not been published; but Nelson, whose heart was never reluctant to gratitude nor to own obligation, wrote in reply: "Believe me when I say that I am as sensible as ever that I owe my present position in life to your and good Sir Peter's partiality for me, and friendly remembrance of Maurice Suckling."

      This last allusion indicates some disinterestedness in Parker's patronage, and its vital importance to Nelson at that time. Captain Suckling had died in July, 1778, and with him departed the only powerful support upon which the young lieutenant could then count, apart from his own merits and the friends obtained by them. There was in those days an immense difference in prospects between the nephew of the Comptroller of the Navy and a man unknown at headquarters. By what leading principles, if any, Sir Peter Parker was guided in the distribution of his favors, can scarcely now be ascertained; but that he brought rapidly forward two men of such great yet widely differing merit as Nelson and Collingwood, is a proof that his judgment was sound and the station one where vacancies were frequent. Collingwood, who was then a lieutenant on board a sloop-of-war, went to the "Lowestoffe" in Nelson's place. When the latter, in December, 1778, was made commander into the brig "Badger," the other was transferred to the vacant room in the "Bristol;" and when Nelson, on the 11th of June, 1779, became post-captain in the "Hinchinbrook" frigate, Collingwood again followed him as commander of the "Badger." Finally, when through a death vacancy a better frigate offered for Nelson, Collingwood also was posted into the "Hinchinbrook;" this ship thus having the singular distinction of conferring the highest rank obtainable by selection, and so fixing the final position of the two life-long friends who led the columns at Trafalgar, the crowning achievement