Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

finest in the Mediterranean) from its sovereign, who did not receive £5,000 a year from it, after its wretched establishment was paid. There was reason to think that France was preparing to possess herself of this important point, which afforded our fleet facilities for watching Toulon, not to be obtained elsewhere. An expedition was preparing at Corsica for the purpose; and all the Sardes, who had taken part with revolutionary France, were ordered to assemble there. It was certain that if the attack were made, it would succeed. Nelson thought that the only means to prevent Sardinia from becoming French was to make it English, and that half a million would give the king a rich price, and England a cheap purchase. A better, and therefore a wiser policy, would have been to exert our influence in removing the abuses of the Government; for foreign dominion is always, in some degree, an evil, and allegiance neither can nor ought to be made a thing of bargain and sale. Sardinia, like Sicily, and Corsica, is large enough to form a separate state. Let us hope that these islands may, ere long, be made free and independent. Freedom and independence will bring with them industry and prosperity; and wherever these are found, arts and letters will flourish, and the improvement of the human race proceed.

The proposed attack was postponed. Views of wider ambition were opening upon Buonaparte, who now almost undisguisedly aspired to make himself master of the continent of Europe; and Austria was preparing for another struggle, to be conducted as weakly, and terminated as miserably, as the former. Spain, too, was once more to be involved in war by the policy of France, that perfidious Government having in view the double object of employing the Spanish resources against England, and exhausting them, in order to render Spain herself finally its prey. Nelson, who knew that England and the Peninsula ought to be in alliance for the common interest of

66

both, frequently expressed his hopes that Spain might resume her natural rank among the nations. 'We ought," he said, "by mutual consent, to be the very best friends, and both to be ever hostile to France.' But he saw that Buonaparte was meditating the destruction of Spain; and that, while the wretched court of Madrid professed to remain neutral, the appearances of neutrality were scarcely preserved. An order of the year 1771, excluding British ships of war from the Spanish ports, was revived and put in force, while French privateers from these very ports annoyed the British trade, carried their prizes in, and sold them even at Barcelona. Nelson complained of this to the captain-general of Catalonia, informing him that he claimed, for every British ship or squadron, the right of lying, as long as it pleased, in the ports of Spain, while that right was allowed to other powers. To the British ambassador he said: "I am ready to make large allowances for the miserable situation Spain has placed herself in; but there is a certain line beyond which I cannot submit to be treated with disrespect. We have given up French vessels taken within gunshot of the Spanish shore, and yet French vessels are permitted to attack our ships from the Spanish shore. Your Excellency may assure the Spanish Government, that in whatever place the Spaniards allow the French to attack us, in that place I shall order the French to be attacked.

During this state of things, to which the weakness of Spain, and not her will, consented, the enemy's fleet did not venture to put to sea. Nelson watched it with unremitting and almost unexampled perseverance. The station off Toulon he called his home. "We are in the right fighting trim," said he; let them come as soon as they please. I never saw a fleet, altogether, so well officered and manned: would to God the ships were half as good! The finest ones in the service would soon be destroyed by such terrible weather. I know well enough, that if I were

66

to go into Malta I should save the ships during this bad season: but, if I am to watch the French, I must be at sea; and, if at sea, must have bad weather: and if the ships are not fit to stand bad weather, they are useless." Then only he was satisfied, and at ease, when he had the enemy in view. Mr. Elliot, our minister at Naples, seems, at this time, to have proposed to send a confidential Frenchman to him with information. "I should be very happy," he replied, "to receive authentic intelligence of the destination of the French squadron, their route, and time of sailing. Anything short of this is useless; and I assure your Excellency, that I would not, upon any consideration, have a Frenchman in the fleet, except as a prisoner. I put no confidence in them. think yours good; the queen thinks the same: I believe they are all alike. Whatever information you can get me, I shall be very thankful for; but not a Frenchman comes here. Forgive me, but my mother hated the French."

[ocr errors]

You

M. Latouche Treville, who had commanded at Boulogne, commanded now at Toulon. "He was sent for on purpose," said Nelson, as he beat me at Boulogne, to beat me again: but he seems very loath to try. One day, while the main body of our fleet was out of sight of land, Rear-Admiral Campbell, reconnoitring with the Canopus, Donegal, and Amazon, stood in close to the port; and M. Latouche, taking advantage of a breeze which sprung up, pushed out, with four ships of the line and three heavy frigates, and chased him about four leagues. The Frenchman, delighted at having found himself in so novel a situation, published a boastful account, affirming that he had given chase to the whole British fleet, and that Nelson had fled before him! Nelson thought it due to the Admiralty to send home a copy of the Victory's log upon this occasion. "As for himself," he said, "if his character was not established by that time for not being apt to run away, it was not worth his

while to put the world right.' "If this fleet gets fairly up with M. Latouche," said he to one of his correspondents, "his letter, with all his ingenuity, must be different from his last. We had fancied that we chased him into Toulon; for, blind as I am, I could see his water-line, when he clued his topsails up, shutting in Sepet. But, from the time of his meeting Captain Hawker, in the Isis, I never heard of his acting otherwise than as a poltroon and a liar. tempt is the best mode of treating such a miscreant. In spite, however, of contempt, the impudence of this Frenchman half angered him. He said to his brother : You will have seen Latouche's letter; how he chased me, and how I ran. I keep it and if I take him, by God he shall eat it.”

[ocr errors]

Con

Nelson, who used to say that in sea affairs nothing is impossible and nothing improbable, feared the more that this Frenchman might get out and elude his vigilance, because he was so especially desirous of catching him, and administering to him his own lying letter in a sandwich. M. Latouche, however, escaped him in another way. He died, according to the French papers, in consequence of walking so often up to the signal-posts upon Sepet, to watch the British fleet. "I always pronounced that would be his death," said Nelson. If he had but come out and fought me, it would, at least, have added ten years to my life. The patience with which he had watched Toulon, he spoke of, truly, as a perseverance at sea which had never been surpassed. From May, 1803, to August, 1805, he himself went out of his ship but three times: each of those times was upon the king's service, and neither time of absence exceeded an hour. The weather had been so unusually severe, that, he said, the Mediterranean seemed altered. It was his rule never to contend with the gales, but either run to the southward to escape their violence, or furl all the sails, and make the ships as easy as possible. The men, though he said flesh and blood

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

could hardly stand it, continued in excellent health, which he ascribed, in great measure, to a plentiful supply of lemons and onions. For himself, he thought he could only last till the battle was over. One battle more it was his hope that he might fight. "However," said he, "whatever happens, I have run a glorious race." He was afraid of blindness, and this was the only evil which he could not contemplate without unhappiness. More alarming symptoms he regarded with less apprehension, describing his own 66 shattered carcass as in the worst plight of any in the fleet and he says, I have felt the blood gushing up the left side of my head, and the moment it covers the brain, I am fast asleep.' The fleet was in worse trim than the men, but when he compared it with the enemy's, it was with a right English feeling. "The French fleet yesterday," said he, in one of his letters, was to appearance in high feather, and as fine as paint could make them, but when they may sail, or where they may go, I am very sorry to say is a secret I am not acquainted with. Our weather-beaten ships, I have no fear, will make their sides like a plumpudding."

66

[ocr errors]

Hostilities at length commenced between Great Britain and Spain. That country, whose miserable Government made her subservient to France, was once more destined to lavish her resources and her blood in furtherance of the designs of a perfidious ally. The immediate occasion of the war was the seizure of four treasure-ships by the English. The act was perfectly justifiable, for those treasures were intended to furnish means for France; but the circumstances which attended it were as unhappy as they were unforeseen. Four frigates had been despatched to intercept them. They met with an equal force. Resistance, therefore, became a point of honour on the part of the Spaniards, and one of their ships soon blew up, with all on board. Had a stronger squadron been sent, this deplorable catastrophe might have been

« НазадПродовжити »