The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson Volume II Part 9

"Right Honourable Lord Keith, K. B."

"Foudroyant, Naples Bay, 1st August 1799.

"SIR,

"I have the honour to transmit you copies of my letter to the commander in chief, with it's several enclosures: and most sincerely congratulate their lords.h.i.+ps on the entire liberation of the kingdom of Naples from the French robbers; for by no other name can they be called, for their conduct in this kingdom. This happy event will not, I am sure, be the less acceptable, from being princ.i.p.ally brought about by part of the crews of his majesty's s.h.i.+ps under my orders, under the command of Captain Troubridge. His merits speak for themselves. His own modesty, makes it my duty to state that, to him alone, is the chief merit due. The recommendation bestowed on the brave and excellent Captain Hallowell, will not escape their lords.h.i.+p's notice, any more than the exceeding good conduct of Captain Oswald, Colonel Strickland, and Captain Cresswell, to whom I ordered the temporary rank of major; and all the officers and men of the marine corps: also, the party of artillery, and the officers and men landed from the Portuguese squadron.

"I must not omit to state, that Captain Hood, with a garrison of seamen, in Castle Nuovo, has for these five weeks very much contributed to the peace of the capital; and Naples, I am told, was never more quiet than under his directions.

"I send Captain Oswald, of the Perseus bomb, with this letter; and I have put Lieutenant Henry Compton, who has served with me ever since January 1796, as a lieutenant, into the Perseus: and I beg leave to recommend these two officers, as highly meriting promotion.

"I have the honour to be, &c.

"Nelson."

"Evan Nepean, Esq."

In his lords.h.i.+p's private letter to Earl Spencer, of the same date, which accompanied the dispatches to England, he thus expresses himself--"I certainly, from having only a left hand, cannot enter into details which may explain the motives that actuate my conduct, and which may be necessary for a commanding officer who may wish to have every subject of duty detailed by those under his command. My principle, my dear lord, is--to a.s.sist in driving the French to the devil, and in restoring peace and happiness to mankind. I feel, that I am fitter to do the action, than to describe it; therefore, briefly, all the French being forced to quit this kingdom, and some order restored, two more s.h.i.+ps of the line are to sail this evening for Minorca, which I will take care of." Having thus demonstrated that he was embracing the earliest opportunity to comply with Lord Keith's former orders, his lords.h.i.+p proceeds to state that he is going to send five hundred marines, with six hundred excellent Swiss, for the attack of Civita Vecchia, and to a.s.sist the insurrection in the Roman state: the sea part of this business to be under the direction of Captain Louis of the Minotaur, and the land part under Captain Hallowell of the Swiftsure; a.s.sisted by an excellent officer, Captain Cresswell of the marines, whom it has been necessary to give the temporary rank of major, which he wishes the board to confirm. His lords.h.i.+p also trusts to the earl's goodness, for the promotion of Lieutenant Compton. At the time of writing this letter, Lord Nelson had not heard that the French and Spanish fleets were returning to Brest; for he congratulates the earl on the happy arrival of the combined fleets at Cadiz; having, he says, been fearful that, as they had escaped the vigilance of Lord Keith, they would get to Brest. On the state of affairs at Naples, his lords.h.i.+p remarks that, his Sicilian Majesty, having settled a certain degree of order, will return to Palermo on the 7th. "I send you," adds his lords.h.i.+p, "a letter of Sir John Acton to me, which gives reasons for continuing the cardinal at the head of affairs in this country. My opinion of him has never altered. He is now only lieutenant-general of the kingdom; with a council of eight, without whose consent no act is valid: but, we know, the head of every board must have great weight.

This man must soon be removed; for all about him have been, and are, so corrupt, that there is nothing which may not be bought. Acton, and Belmonte, seem to me the only uncorrupted men in the kingdom."

Lord Nelson's opinion of Cardinal Ruffo has been already seen, in his letter to Captain Troubridge: his lords.h.i.+p used facetiously to denominate him, the Great Devil who commanded the Christian Army; and, though he did not seriously think him a traitor, he probably considered him as not altogether incorruptible. To an ambitious cardinal, the tiara might have proved a dangerous temptation.

Captain Louis, who had been sent to the French governor of the fortress of Gaieta, with the terms of capitulation entered into between Lord Nelson and the commandant of Capua for the surrender of Gaieta, was to have immediate possession of the gates; and, within twenty-four hours, to embark the garrison. Some objections, however, being raised by the governor, which he expressed in writing, Captain Louis was induced to send them to his lords.h.i.+p; who instantly returned, for answer, that he was hurt, and surprised, the capitulation had not been complied with.

"It shall be," said his lords.h.i.+p, "and the commander has agreed to it. I have not read your paper inclosed. You will execute my orders, or attack it. The Fellow ought to be kicked, for his impudence."

This French governor, it seems, with true Gallic insolence, had the audacity to require, among other unreasonable conditions, that they should embark horses for France, as well as carry away all the pillaged property; but Lord Nelson was not thus to be trifled with. "The greatest care," said his lords.h.i.+p, in a letter of the 3d of August, to Captain Darby, "is to be taken that no property, which they did not bring with them into the country can be theirs, or is suffered to be carried away.

We are to send them to France: and will, properly; but, not as they dictate. As to horses, it is nonsense; as well might they say--_We will carry a house_! If the fellow is a scoundrel, he must be threshed."

A letter of this date, however, from Captain Louis, informed his lords.h.i.+p that the matter was settled; in answer to which, he thus expresses himslef--"i was sorry that you had entered into any altercation with the scoundrel. The capitulation once signed, there could be no room for dispute. There is no way of dealing with a Frenchman, but to knock him down. To be civil to them, is only to be laughed at, when they are enemies."

We tremble, in this age of refinement, for the fate of so rough a sentiment; but, perhaps, we ought rather to tremble for that of the age which is become so refined. It will, at least, not be disputed, by posterity, that no man ever knew better than Lord Nelson, how to deal properly with Frenchmen.

Besides a.s.sisting the councils of his Sicilian Majesty, with regard to the necessary arrangements for Naples, Lord Nelson was actively engaged in making a proper distribution of the squadron under his command, and directing the various operations already commenced, or in immediate contemplation. He had already ordered the Bellerophon, Captain Darby, and the Zealous, Captain Hood, to Minorca: and Captain Martin, in the Northumberland, was now detached, with the San Leon, Captain Harward, with orders to proceed off Civita Vecchia; looking out for Captain Nisbet of the Thalia, who had been seen cruizing off that place, and was to join them. From thence, Captain Martin had instructions to proceed into Leghorn Roads, and send a boat on sh.o.r.e for intelligence respecting the affairs of the north of Italy, and the situation of the allied armies: and, should he fall in with Captain Foote, of the Seahorse, to take that officer under his orders; and, proceeding to the Gulph of Genoa, co-operate with Field-Marshal Suwarrow, for the annoyance of the enemy, and the good of the common cause.

The following kind letter, which was written by Lord Nelson to Captain Nisbet, at this period, will evince the truly paternal anxiety which his lords.h.i.+p felt for the welfare of his son-in-law,

"Foudroyant, Naples Bay, 3d August 1799.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"I herewith inclose you a letter received some days ago: and, on the receipt of this, you will keep a good look out for the Northumberland, who is coming your way; and join her as soon as you can, Captain Martin having letters for you. I am sorry to find, you have been cruizing off Civita Vecchia; I was in hopes of your being on the north coast of Italy: but, I am persuaded, it was done for the best. I here inclose you the copy of a letter, sent open to me, from Mr. Smith, at Constantinople; respecting some supplies furnished La Bonne Citoyenne, at the Dardanelles: and request, that you will give the necessary directions to have it settled; or explain it to me, that it may be settled. Mr. Tyson has written to the purser, Mr. Isaacson, to desire he will draw out bills for the amount; and fresh vouchers for your signature, and the settlement of his account.

"I am, wis.h.i.+ng you every success, your's very affectionately,

"Nelson."

"Captain Nisbet."

This letter cannot require any comment; it must produce decisive convictions in the mind of every intelligent reader, respecting the true characteristics of both parties. It forms, indeed, a genuine picture of paternal solicitude.

On the 5th of August, Lord Nelson wrote to inform Lord Keith, as well as Earl Spencer and the Board of Admiralty, that being then about to proceed, in the Foudroyant, with his Sicilian Majesty on board, for Palermo; and, finding it necessary the command of the squadron in Naples Bay, and along the coast, should be left with an officer above the rank of post-captain--especially, as the Russian and Turkish squadrons were soon expected in the bay--he had thought it right to give Captain Troubridge an order to wear a broad red pendant at the main top-gallant mast-head of the Culloden, which he hoped their lords.h.i.+ps would, respectively, approve and confirm.

Having thus generously promoted his friend Troubridge, he left under the command of the new commodore, besides the Culloden, the Audacious, Goliath, and Swiftsure, British line of battle s.h.i.+ps, with two Portuguese, and smaller vessels of war: directing him to co-operate with Cardinal Ruffo, the lieutenant-general of the kingdom of Naples, in all things necessary for it's safety, and the peace and quiet of the capital; with liberty, should he find it necessary, to detach a part of the squadron along the Roman coast, to the northward, as far as Leghorn, in order to prevent the French from carrying off the plunder of Rome.

This and every other requisite arrangement being completed, for the peace and security of his Sicilian Majesty's Neapolitan dominions, and the due distribution of the British squadron under Lord Nelson's command, his lords.h.i.+p immediately sailed for Palermo, with the king and his princ.i.p.al ministers, and his friends Sir William and Lady Hamilton; all impatient personally to acquaint the queen with the particulars of those joyful events which had filled every bosom with sensations of the purest delight. Her majesty, indeed, had been regularly apprised of the various transactions, immediately as they occurred: but, in an affair of such variety and importance as the recovery of a wrested kingdom from foreign and domestic enemies, ten thousand little occurrences, often most powerfully interesting to souls of genuine grandeur, and forming the chief charm for minds of a delicate and tender susceptibility, may be supposed to have attracted those who were present amidst these impressive scenes, absolutely incommunicable by the most practised and facile pen, and only to be successfully detailed with the many advent.i.tious aids of personal elocution. The feelings of the king, as he benignantly eyed his n.o.ble benefactors; of the ill.u.s.trious hero, and his two estimable friends, who were the honoured objects of his majesty's just regards; must be left to the conception of the reader: it would be difficult to decide, which enjoyed, on this occasion, the greatest portion of substantial felicity; the grateful monarch thus happily restored to his rightful throne, or the generous friends who had so disinterestedly and successfully accomplished the arduous task of replacing him.

Fraught with these dignified sentiments, they no sooner arrived off Palermo, on the 8th inst. than the queen, and royal offspring, sympathetically replete with equally exalted sensations, and who had impatiently awaited the happy return of his majesty, came out, in the royal barge; attended by innumerable pleasure-boats filled with loyal Sicilians of all ranks, who hailed their beloved sovereign with acclamations of the sincerest joy. Her majesty, overwhelmed with delight, no sooner got on board the Foudroyant, than she embraced Lady Hamilton, who had respectfully hastened to receive the queen; and, at the same instant, hung round her ladys.h.i.+p's neck a rich chain of gold, to which was suspended a beautiful portrait of herself, superbly set in diamonds, with the motto--"_Eterna Grat.i.tudine!_"--"Eternal Grat.i.tude!"--inscribed at the back of the picture. To Lord Nelson, her majesty also united with the king in the highest degree of grateful regard which it is possible for language to convey. He was addressed as their preserver, their deliverer, their restorer; and it was easy to perceive that, even when they were silent, their great minds meditated some n.o.ble reward. Nor were the substantial services of Sir William Hamilton, though of a less brilliant nature than those of his heroic friend, pa.s.sed over without the most grateful acknowledgments of their Sicilian Majesties; whose interests that wise and worthy minister had uniformly promoted, for a long series of years, with a zeal little less ardent than that which he is well known to have constantly exerted for the honour and advantage of his own sovereigns, whom himself and lady so splendidly and munificently represented at the Neapolitan court.

A few days after their arrival at Palermo, Lord Nelson received the royal remuneration of his transcendent services, in a stile far surpa.s.sing any expectation which his lords.h.i.+p could possibly have formed on the subject; and of which, so rare is any excess of human grat.i.tude, history scarcely affords a single similar instance.

Indeed, when Lady Hamilton, by desire of the Queen of Naples, first announced to his lords.h.i.+p, on the second day after their arrival, that it was the determination of his Sicilian Majesty to create him Duke of Bronte, and to confer on him all the valuable estate and princely privileges attached to that most distinguished and appropriate t.i.tle; such were his lords.h.i.+p's nice notions of honour, that he positively protested against receiving any reward from that sovereign, for what he considered as a mere faithful discharge of the duty which he owed to his own. It was not the formal "_Nolo episcopari!_"--"I am unwilling to become a bishop, or to take on myself the episcopal character!"--of every new bishop; who is injudiciously constrained, by a singular perversion of propriety, to prepare for the exercise of the most sacred of all functions, by making a declaration which, though it ought, in a spiritual sense, to be strictly correct, is extremely subject, at best, to be considered as not altogether sincere: but, in truth, the spontaneous and felt sense of that dignified delicacy of honourable conduct, by which his lords.h.i.+p was ever directed; and of which persons of vulgar intellect, who are by no means fitted to form any just estimate of the actions of so exalted a character, will probably be weak enough still to doubt the actual existence. It is certain, nevertheless, that Lord Nelson resolutely held out against the acceptance of these elevated dignities, and their annexed emoluments, for two or three days, at least, notwithstanding all the intreaties of Sir William and Lady Hamilton: nor did this incomparable man finally agree to receive them--maintaining, to the last, that he could not do so without subjecting the purity of his motives, in what he had happily effected, to the opprobrium of unjust suspicion--till Lady Hamilton, at the express instance of the queen, solicited the inflexible hero, even on her knees, to consent to the wishes of these truly amiable and most munificent sovereigns; as requisite to demonstrate that, amidst the too rigid sense which he evidently entertained of what might seem to him proper for the maintenance of his own honour, he was not altogether unregardful of what the world, as well as themselves, must ever consider as absolutely necessary for the preservation of their's. The exquisite address of this argument, as suggested by her Sicilian Majesty, and pressed by the unaffected eloquence of her ladys.h.i.+p, was too powerful to be opposed. His lords.h.i.+p could offer nothing sufficiently substantial against such persuasive wisdom; and, being unable longer to reason, he could no longer continue to resist. Should the scornful insolence, that is ever awakened, in low and vicious minds, by even the slightest mention of virtuous deeds, endeavour to interpose the mean malignity of it's cold suspicions on hearing this recital; let the humbler bosom, that cherishes more generous sentiments, reflect but for a moment, that his lords.h.i.+p had recently risked even a disobedience of orders from his temporary commander in chief, while promoting the interests of their Neapolitan Majesties, and it will feel sufficient reasons for our hero's delicate repugnance to the ready acceptance of any undesired aggrandizement, however highly merited, on this particular occasion.

On the 13th, therefore, in consequence of this acquiescence, the King of Naples sent his lords.h.i.+p a superb diamond-hilted sword, with a most affectionate letter; thanking him for having reconquered his majesty's kingdom, and again placed him on the throne of his ancestors. The value of this present, estimated at four thousand guineas, was incalculably enhanced by the very appropriate circ.u.mstance of it's being the identical sword which had been given to the King of Naples, by Charles the Third, on that monarch's memorable departure to Spain, accompanied by the following most remarkable declaration--"With this sword, I conquered the kingdom which I now resign to thee. It ought, in future, to be possessed by the first defender of the same; or, by him who shall restore it to thee, in case it should ever be lost." At the same time, Lord Nelson received an official letter from his Excellency the Prince Di Luzzi, informing him that his Sicilian Majesty had that day been graciously pleased to create his lords.h.i.+p Duke of Bronte, in Sicily, and to confer on him all the valuable estate and privileges attached to that most honourable t.i.tle.

When it is considered, that the word _Bronte_ signifies, in the Greek language, _Thunder_; that the fabulous forger of the thunder of Jupiter was said to be one of the Cyclops, named _Bronte_, who resided at Etna in the Island of Sicily, where the Dukedom of Bronte is situated; and that the military guard of honour, appertaining to the Dukes of Bronte, still actually wear, in allusion to the fabled Cyclops, sons of Neptune and Amphitrite, who had one large eye in the middle of their foreheads, the representation of an eye on the front of their caps; there could not, every person must admit, have been a more appropriate dignity bestowed on our incomparable hero, by his Sicilian Majesty, than that which he had thus liberally and judiciously been induced to confer.

Lord Nelson, penetrated with unutterable grat.i.tude, by his majesty's most generous munificence, instantly wrote the following letter to the minister who had made this interesting communication.

"Palermo, 13th August 1799.

"SIR,

"I have this moment received the honour of your excellency's letter, conveying to me his Sicilian Majesty's most gracious approbation of my conduct; and, also, that his majesty had been pleased to confer upon me the t.i.tle of Duke of Bronte, together with the estate attached to it. I request that your excellency will lay me, with all humility, and full of grat.i.tude, at his majesty's feet: express, to him, my attachment to his sacred person, the queen, and royal family; and that it shall be the study of my life, by following the same conduct which has gained me his royal favours, to merit the continuance of them.

"I sincerely thank your excellency for the very handsome manner in which you have executed the royal commands; and believe me, with the highest respect, your excellency's most obliged and obedient servant,

"Bronte Nelson".

"His Excellency Prince Di Luzzi."

Immediately after, his lords.h.i.+p penned also the following admirable letter for the sovereign by whom he had been thus bountifully honoured, which was instantly transmitted to that generous monarch.

"Palermo, 13th August 1799.

"SIRE,

The bounty of your majesty has so overwhelmed me, that I am unable to find words adequate to express my grat.i.tude: but it shall be my study to continue in the same line of conduct which your majesty has been pleased to approve, and to mark with such very extraordinary proofs of your royal favour; and which has also gained me the approbation of my own most gracious sovereign, your majesty's most faithful ally. That the Almighty may pour down his choicest blessings on your sacred person, and on those of the queen and the whole royal family, and preserve your kingdoms in peace and happiness, shall ever be the fervent prayer of your majesty's faithful servant,

Bronte Nelson.