Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers, J. H. Hubback [interesting novels to read .TXT] 📗

some sympathy for the “people on board,” who were captured before they knew that they were fighting.

The winds were naturally less favourable for the return voyage, but by taking a course near Bermuda, and to the Azores, they made much better headway than Villeneuve had managed to do, and reached Gibraltar on July 17. After a few days here they gained intelligence of the doings of the Curieux brig, and sailed northwards to join Admiral Cornwallis off Ushant.

“August 15.—Off Ushant. Lord Nelson saluted Admiral Cornwallis with fifteen guns, returned with thirteen.—Joined the Channel Fleet of twenty-four sail of the line. Answered our signal to follow orders of Admiral Cornwallis in the Ville de Paris.”

“August 16.—Thirty-five sail of the line in company. Victory and Superb parted company for England.”

We read from a contemporary writer that Nelson arrived “filled with mortification, which those who first conversed with him after his arrival state to have amounted almost to anguish, at his disappointment” at having missed Villeneuve in the West Indies.

“August 17.— Ville de Paris made signal to Prince of Wales (Sir R. Calder) to part company, on service previously denoted. Made sail (southwards) in company with squadron of nineteen sail of the line.”

“On 20th Naiad brought intelligence that the French fleet had sailed from Ferrol on the 13th.”

“On 22nd, off Peninsular coast, Admiral Calder signalled ‘Prepare for battle.’”

This was almost on the very spot of his indecisive fight of July 23. Calder’s “order of battle” gives very full details on various contingencies, making a sharp contrast with those signed “Nelson and Bronte,” in which the ships’ stations only are set down, the rest of the orders being given in the plan of attack well known as the “Nelson Touch.”

In the log of 24th “the enemy’s fleet of twenty-eight sail of the line were off Cape St. Vincent on the 18th, when they fell in with and destroyed four sail of merchantmen, under convoy of the Halcyon, which narrowly escaped capture. In the afternoon, the Euryalus, with despatches from V. A. Collingwood, reported that the combined fleet anchored in Cadiz on the 21st, making in all thirty-four sail of the line.”

With the enemy in Cadiz the only thing to be done was to wait until they came out. On the 30th the log records: “Joined Vice-Admiral Collingwood’s squadron of five sail of the line.” The fleet wore and stood off while Canopus, Spencer, Tigre, Leviathan and Donegal were ordered to cruise in sight of Cadiz. This plan of keeping a squadron close in shore was followed throughout September, while the fleet awaited the arrival of Nelson from England, and the enemy watched for an opportunity to get out, either to meet the British fleet or to pass them on the way into the Mediterranean.

An extract from the Naval Chronicle shows something of popular feeling in England at this juncture. The remarks on Nelson as contrasted with those of a few months later, after Trafaigar had been fought and won, are more amusing than instructive.

“The arrival of Lord Nelson and Sir Robert Calder’s action are the principal events of the last month which have occupied the public mind. It has been said that the former, with Sir Sydney Smith, is soon to embark on some desperate project against the enemy, and we most sincerely wish to see his lordship employed at the present moment in the defence of our own shores. Should the mad project of invasion ever be attempted, the public would feel additional security from having the Hero of the Nile off our own coast. But we greatly lament that ill-judged and overweening popularity which tends to make another demigod of Lord Nelson at the expense of all other officers in the Service, many of whom possess equal merit and equal abilities and equal gallantry with the noble Admiral.

“Sir Robert Calder has not yet, even to the Admiralty, given that explanation of his conduct which his country expects and his character demands. With his character and its failings we are well acquainted, but we only wish to regard his talents. The French fleet did certainly not run away; owing to the particular man&eolig;uvres of the action, they may be said even to have pursued us, and this may, perhaps, have been occasioned by some feint of our Admiral in order to attack the French to greater advantage. But the whole is at present merely conjecture, until some further explanation of the action has taken place. The account which the French have published in the Moniteur, allowing for their natural boasting and vanity, contains a greater portion of truth than usual.”

Villeneuve’s letter will give an idea of what that account was. “The battle then began almost along the whole line. We fired by the light of the enemy’s fire, almost always without seeing them. The fog did not abate during the remainder of the evening. At the first peep of dawn I made signal to bear down upon the enemy, who had taken their position at a great distance, and endeavoured by every possible press of sail to avoid renewing the action. Finding it impossible to force them to an engagement, I thought it my duty not to remove further from the line of my destination.”

In consequence of this Sir Robert Calder was recalled and tried by court-martial at Portsmouth in the following December, when he was severely reprimanded for an “error in judgment.” The severity of tone of the Naval Chronicle towards those who were fighting the country’s battles finds its parallel in the French newspapers of the date. Villeneuve was deeply stung by a sneering remark in the Moniteur upon what the conduct of the French fleet might be if commanded by a man of ability—so much so as to induce him to disregard Napoleon’s wishes that he should go to Toulon, collecting forces on the way, and to lead him to come to close quarters with our fleet as soon as a convenient opportunity offered. Of that opportunity and the Battle of Trafalgar to which it led we will speak in the following chapter.

*The “Sea Wolf,” by Jack London, Heinemann.