Prelude to Battle: Finding the Spanish Fleet, December 1796 - February 1797

Nelson arrived at Elba expecting to begin an evacuation of the garrison, but the British army officer General de Burgh had not had any orders to do so, so didn't agree to it.  Impatiently, Nelson sent Captain Thomas Fremantle in the Inconstant to go and get the viceroy, Sir Gilbert Elliot, from Naples.  He arrived on the 22nd January 1797, but he also didn't agree to evacuate the garrison.  In the end, Nelson agreed to take Elliot on La Minerve to Lisbon to speak with Admiral Jervis, and he did manage to take a convoy of naval supplies from the island. 

On the way back to Lisbon, Nelson had a scout about for the enemy fleet.  He had a peek into Toulon, where they were last seen, but they weren't there.  He continued along the coast to the Spanish port of Cartagena, but they weren't there either.  He came to the conclusion that they must be heading for the Straits of Gibraltar.

 

The Spanish Fleet

Meanwhile, in October the Spanish fleet under commander Langara, had joined the French fleet, under Rear-Admiral Pierre Villeneuve (who would appear more than once in the Nelson story!), at Toulon.  The combined fleets were then ordered to leave the Mediterranean and head north to help with the French invasion of Ireland.  

So in December they made a move.  Villeneuve was successful in dodging the British fleets, and got out of the Mediterranean and reached Brest, on the north-west coast of France - but, as it turned out, too late to help with the invasion, which failed. 

But Langara knew that the Spanish ships were in a poor state for a battle so stopped off at Cartagena on 6th December for supplies and repairs.  This action led to him being replaced by an impatient Spanish government, but his successor, Admiral José de Mazarredo, also refused to leave until the problems with ships, supplies and under-manning were solved.  He, too, was therefore replaced, by Admiral José de Córdova y Ramos.  The problem was that Spain didn't dedicate anywhere near enough resources to their navy in order to fight a successful war at sea.  Technically, their ships were some of the largest and finest in the world, but they were under-supplied and their crews were not skilled or trained particularly well.  For example, the Santisima Trinidad was a beast of a ship - with four decks and 130 guns, she was the largest ship in the world at that time.  But only 60 out of her 900 crew had the experience and skill needed to successfully man a ship of war.

In 1793, while captain of the Agamemnon, Nelson had visited Cadiz and had a look round the dockyard.  He wrote to his wife, Frances, concluding that "I am certain if our six barges' crews (which are picked men) had got on board one of their first rates they would have taken her.   Therefore in vain may the Dons make fine ships, they cannot however make men."  

This conclusion probably contributed to giving him the confidence that led to his remarkable actions in the forthcoming battle.

 

Jervis at Gibraltar

Having reached Gibraltar on the 1st December, Jervis' fleet was then caught in a violent storm.  Two of his ships - the Courageux and Zealous - were wrecked.  Another two - the Culloden and Gibraltar - ran aground.  The Culloden was refloated but the Gibraltar was so badly damaged that she had to go back to England for extensive repairs.  HMS Bombay Castle and the St George got stuck on a sandbank, and the latter had to go to Lisbon to repair.  The British fleet had now been reduced to 10 ships.  

As his ships were battered by the storm, Jervis watched the French fleet escape through the Straits and out into the Atlantic.  He assumed that the Spanish were following and worried that they would intercept Nelson and his convoy, so headed to Cape St Vincent to wait for him.  

On the 6th February 1797, Jervis was relieved to be reinforced by Rear-Admiral William Parker with his squadron of five ships, who also brought the news that the Irish invasion had failed and the French fleet were in Brest.  This gave Jervis a little breathing space and he could now focus on the Spanish knowing that the French were out of the way. 

All he had to do now was find them.

On the 1st of February, Córdova was ordered to take his 27 ships-of-the-line and 8 frigates to assist at the siege of Gibraltar.  Crucially, he was also ordered to pick up a convoy from Malaga and take it to Cadiz.  The convoy was made up of 5 'urcas', armed storeships carrying a valuable cargo of mercury.  

On the 5th of February, Córdova detached 3 ships of the line, with launches, into Algeciras, and on the 6th the rest of the fleet reached Cadiz.  But before the mercury ships could get into the port, a gale blew up which forced the whole fleet to stay out at sea for 8 days.  This was Jervis' opportunity to find them.

On the 9th of February, he received a report from the frigate Viper that the Spanish had gone through the Straits on the 5th and gone into Cadiz on the 6th.  But on the 10th, the Emerald reported that they were in fact still at sea.  

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Minerve and Blanche Vs. Santa Sabina and Ceres

Towards the end of 1796, Spain joined the war on the side of revolutionary France.  The British fleet under Admiral John Jervis had far too few ships compared to the combined French and Spanish, so were forced to leave the Mediterranean.  In December, Jervis' fleet reached Gibraltar, where he found Admiralty orders to move his base to Lisbon in neutral Portugal.  He sent Nelson in the frigate Minerve, along with the Blanche, to evacuate the British garrison at Porto Ferrajo on the island of Elba, near Corsica, as the retreat of the British fleet would leave them stranded and at the mercy of the French.

So on the 10th December 1796, Commodore Nelson joined the Minerve, whose captain was George Cockburn, and set off for Elba.

On the 19th, at 10.20pm, Captain D'Arcy Preston in the Blanche saw two Spanish frigates, the Santa Sabina and the Ceres.  Eager to leap into action, Nelson handled Minerve himself (an unusual move for a flag officer, as this would normally be the Captain's job) and got to Santa Sabina's stern, close enough that he could hail the captain and ask him to surrender.  The captain who, surprisingly, spoke very good English, refused with the remarkable reply,

"This is a Spanish frigate and you may begin as soon as you please."

So Nelson began, and the fight was vicious and close-run.  In terms of men and guns, there wasn't much difference between the two frigates.  They remained at such close-range that Nelson was able to hail the captain several more times, but each time received a refusal.  Eventually, however, the Spanish were forced to surrender.  As it turned out, the English-speaking captain of the Santa Sabina was Don Jacobo Stuart, a great grandson of the English king James II!  Taking such a prestigious prisoner was something that Nelson was understandably very proud of.  Meanwhile, the Blanche fought and took the Ceres.

Nelson sent Minerve's 1st Lieutenant John Culverhouse, along with Lieutenant Thomas Hardy, with a boarding party to take possession of the Santa Sabina after they had tied her to La Minerve with a tow rope.  However, another Spanish frigate suddenly appeared and opened fire on Santa Sabina, while the two British lieutenants were on board.  Minerve cast off the tow rope to free herself from the Santa Sabina and so be able to fight the approaching enemy.  But then another two Spanish ships of the line, with two more frigates, appeared.  Minerve was badly damaged and so Nelson and Cockburn were forced to abandon the prize entirely, along with Culverhouse and Hardy, and the prize crew.  But this did mean that the prize crew aboard Santa Sabina were able to hoist English colours and thus distract the Spanish ships, giving Minerve a head start so she was able to get away.

Much later, when the British prisoners had been taken to the Spanish town of Cartagena, Nelson exchanged Don Jacobo Stuart for Lieutenants Culverhouse and Hardy, and sent back all the Spanish prisoners from Elba in exchange for the rest of the British prize crew.

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Commodore Nelson in the Mediterranean, 1793-97: Prologue to the Battle of Cape St. Vincent

These events deserve posts on their own merit, and will get them!  But for now, they serve as an introduction to the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, in which Nelson made his mark and rose to become one of the most talked-about officers in the British navy.

 n 1793, Captain Nelson's long period of unemployment ashore in England was ended when he was given command of HMS Agamemnon, a 64-gun battleship, and sent to join Admiral Lord Hood's fleet in the Mediterranean.  The Agamemnon was by no means the greatest ship in the world, but she would become his favourite.  64s were the smallest class of ship that could be classed as a ship-of-the-line, but what they lacked in firepower they made up for in manoeuverability, which suited Nelson's style down to the ground.  He forever remained fond of her crew, many of whom followed him from ship to ship and who he called his 'old Agamemnons'.

HMS Agamemnon

In 1794, he took part in the capture of Corsica, Bastia and Calvi; in Calvi, he was hit in the face by gravel flung up by a shot on the ground, receiving an injury that left him blind in his right eye for the rest of his life.  On the 13th March 1795, with Admiral Hotham's fleet, he fought in the Battle of the Gulf of Genoa, in which he attacked and helped to capture the Ça Ira, and in July he fought with the fleet at the Battle of Hyères Islands.

As a commodore, Nelson asked to be transferred to HMS Captain as the Agamemnon was badly in need of repairs and was sent home to be refit.  He was granted his request, and in June 1796 was involved in the evacuation of Leghorn when the French invaded the town.   In July, he was detached with a small squadron under his command to Italy, to help the Austrian army against the French.  This involved blockading French ports and, with the help of Gilbert Elliot, the British viceroy in Corsica, taking possession of the neutral fort of Porto-Ferrajo on the island of Elba.  This would prevent the French from using it to invade Corsica after taking Leghorn.

He did so well that he won the respect of Admiral John Jervis, who had become commander in chief of the Mediterranean fleet in the Autumn of 1795 - and he was not a man to give respect lightly.  Soon, Nelson became one of Jervis' most trusted subordinates.

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The Carcass and the Polar Bear

In June 1773, a 14-year-old Horatio Nelson joined a ship named HMS Carcass, bound for the Arctic.  Launched in 1759, the Carcass was an 8-gun bomb vessel which, in the year she was launched, took part in a bombardment of Le Havre, a French town on the Channel coast where boats and supplies had been preparing for an invasion of England.  In 1773, an expedition to the Arctic was planned, to see if there was a way to get to the West Indies from the north.  The Carcass, along with another bomb vessel, the Racehorse, were to carry a team including naturalists and astronomers, and were chosen because bomb vessels had particularly strong hulls in order to withstand the recoil from their massive guns (used to bombard ports and buildings rather than fight other ships) so were better able to withstand the pressure of the ice.  Captain Constantine Phipps commanded the expedition from the Racehorse, and Nelson, with help from the influence of his uncle Maurice Suckling, joined the Carcass as coxswain to Captain Skeffington Lutwidge (a fabulous name!)

 

The Carcass with the Racehorse trapped in the ice.

 

However, the expedition didn't get very far before the ships got trapped in ice.  With the help of rowboats, they were pulled free, but got stuck again.  Eventually they made it to Spitsbergen (near Greenland), and while scientific work was carried out, the crew hunted and had a chance to carry out maintenance on the ships.  The environment was beautiful - the rays of the setting sun and the stars were bright, and there was plenty of wildlife including whales, seals, and polar bears.

 

At one point, Nelson decided it would be a good idea to kill one of these bears, and take the skin home as a present for his father.  He set off with a companion, but when they encountered a bear, his musket misfired.  Luckily for him, the bear was on the other side of a chasm but even so, though his companion tried to pull him back, he still started to climb across with the intention of hitting the bear with the butt end of his gun.  Fortunately for him, a gun was fired from one of the ships, and scared the bear away.

 

This is one of the more famous incidents in Nelson's life, but he didn't mention it in his Sketch of my Life, and it wasn't as heroic as this picture makes it seem!

Nelson attacking the polar bear.  In reality, though, he never got this close to it.

Nelson was given command of one of the boats, with four oars and twelve men and, according to his later mini autobiography, A Sketch of my Life, "I prided myself in fancying I could navigate her better than any other boat in the ship."  It was good practice for his confidence, leadership and seamanship skills.

In August the ships got stuck again, and this time it looked as if they would be stuck for the winter.  The crews began to prepare to abandon ship, and put supplies in the boats.  The boats were then pulled by the men across the ice towards the open sea.  But, fortunately, a couple of days later the ice loosened enough for the Carcass and Racehorse to cut through the ice and reach the open sea themselves.  They made it back to England in late September, and Nelson left the Carcass for the Seahorse.

The Carcass didn't have a very long career after that.  In 1778 she was part of an escort of a convoy carrying troops to the West Indies, and she was sold in 1784.

 

Nelson's First Ship: The Raisonnable

HMS Raisonnable was a 64-gun 3rd rate ship-of-the-line.  Launched in 1768, she was commissioned in 1770 under Captain Maurice Suckling because it was thought a war with Spain was imminent.  

Captain Suckling just happened to be Horatio Nelson's uncle.  At the tender age of 12, Nelson begged his uncle to take him on board his ship.  An amused Suckling wondered, 

"What has poor Horace done, who is so weak, that he, above the rest, should be sent to rough it out at sea?" 

but nonetheless took the young Nelson on board as a midshipman in April 1771.

Nothing much happened while Nelson was with her, however, and he was long gone to another ship by the time the Raisonnable joined the North American station during the American Revolutionary War, from 1776 - 1780.

On the 2nd April 1801 Nelson, all grown-up, led his own division in the Battle of Copenhagen.  His first ship, Raisonnable (captained by John Dilkes), though present at the battle, did not take part because she was in Admiral Hyde Parker's division which, approaching the action slowly against the wind, didn't reach the fighting in time before Hyde Parker decided they ought to withdraw (a signal which Nelson famously ignored by putting the telescope to his blind right eye and declaring "I really do not see the signal!", and, "I have only one eye, I have a right to be blind sometimes.").

In 1803, while Nelson was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean, the Raisonnable was in the Channel Fleet commanded by Admiral Cornwallis, blockading the French fleet in Brest.  In 1805, captained by Josias Rowley, she fought in the Battle of Cape Finisterre against the French fleet under Admiral Villeneuve, which had been running from Nelson from the Med to the West Indies and back again to northern Spain. They had been intercepted by Admiral Robert Calder's fleet, including the Raisonnable, but the result was indecisive as Calder failed to push the action, and the French escaped to Cadiz.

And in 1805, the Raisonnable was with Comm. Sir Home Riggs Popham's squadron during the campaign to take Cape Town from the Dutch, and remained in the area until 1810.  Then, in November that year, she was hulked in Chatham and became a receiving ship (used to house new recruits in a harbour before they were assigned to a ship).  She was eventually broken up in 1815.

Nelson's uncle and captain of the Raisonnable, Maurice Suckling.

Merry Christmas :)

Trafalgar: The Aftermath and the Hurricane

As the Battle of Trafalgar came to an end, the victors did not have much time to celebrate, as they worked to take ships and prisoners, and make rough, hurried repairs to make the ships seaworthy, while mourning the loss of their Commander-in-Chief.  But a storm was quickly brewing, which would prove to be devastating and claim more lives and ships than the battle itself.

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