CHAPTER IV

THE SEARCH FOR THE FRENCH FLEET--AT LAST.

"Now's the day, and now's the hour, See the front of battle lower."--BURNS.

We must now return to our hero Nelson.

In an early chapter of this story I mentioned that the great man had once gone to Paris, and had there met an officer who was somewhat of a dandy, and whose name was Ball.

Nelson had found it impossible to associate bravery and pluck with fine clothes. This dislike to fine clothing he had doubtless picked up in the merchant ship in which he served for a time, and it had clung to him. However, he lived to find out that though first impressions are usually very strong, it does not follow that they are always just and correct.

After joining St. Vincent, about the end of April, the admiral of the fleet got word that the French were getting ready a great expedition at Toulon and Genoa.* It was not known for what this armament was intended, and various conjectures were hazarded. Perhaps the enemy meant to attack Naples or Sicily, or to invade Ireland. However, this armament of theirs must be sought for and destroyed if possible.

* _Vide_ Map.

Now there were many officers senior to Nelson on the station, and on one or other of these--so they thought--ought to have devolved the command of the anti-French squadron.

The Earl of St. Vincent, however, thought different. He _knew_ Nelson; knew what he could dare and what he could do; knew how wise and clever he was, how energetic, bold, and determined; knew that if he undertook a mission of any kind he would, figuratively speaking, "give neither sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids" until he had fulfilled it.

But when the admiral of the fleet appointed him to the search-squadron there was a howl of rage from all quarters, at home as well as abroad. Sir John Orde, a senior in the service to Nelson, let his wrath get such mastery over him that he challenged St. Vincent to fight a duel. St. Vincent was no fool, and I suppose quietly lit a pipe with the challenge. Anyhow, it never came off.

But even a lord of the admiralty condemned the conduct of the admiral of the fleet, who, however, could stand red tape abuse quite as well as he could the fire of the French in battle.

Still so high did popular feeling run in some quarters, that one trembles to think what the fate of our great hero would have been, had he been beaten by the foe when he at last found his fleet. He would certainly have been brought home, tried, and probably executed.

Can you imagine anything more horrible than that would have been, reader--executing Nelson? But the mere possibility of such a thing only proves that the public, which heroes serve so faithfully and well, is after all like a caged lion or tiger, tame to a fault with its keeper, the hero, but a savage creature and a fool in its wrath when crossed or put out of temper. The public will pamper and idolize a man one day, and trample his bleeding body under foot the next.

So Nelson sailed with his ships.

He had orders to requisition stores, food, water, &c., in any port of the Mediterranean he chose. If such stores were not forthcoming, that port was to be treated as an enemy's. One exception only was made; viz., in the case of Sardinia.

Well, this expedition of Nelson's had but a bad beginning; for while crossing the Gulf of Lyons he encountered a terrible storm of wind, which scattered his ships in all directions, and nearly wrecked the _Vanguard_, on which his flag was flying. There is almost as much humour as pathos in the letter he writes to his wife on this occasion.

"Imagine if you can," he says, "a vain-glorious man--your husband--walking his quarter-deck on Sunday evening, with his squadron all around him, who* looked up to their chief to lead them to glory, and in whom this chief placed the firmest reliance that the proudest ships, in equal numbers, belonging to France would have lowered their flags, and with a very rich prize lying by him. Figure to yourself this proud, conceited man when the sun rose on Monday morning, his ship dismasted, his fleet dispersed, and himself in such distress that the meanest frigate out of France would have been a very unwelcome guest."

* The young reader will note that Nelson's grammatical construction of sentences was not always on an even keel.

But, lo! the very man whom Nelson had so despised in France, and dubbed a dandy and a fop, came now to his assistance in the _Alexander_, and at the imminent danger to both ships of foundering, took him in tow to St. Pierre. No wonder that Nelson loved the man from that day forth.

* * * * *

In a few days' time, however, Nelson had undergone repairs, and was able once more to start on his voyage. But, alas! he had lost sight of his frigates.

Britain and France at this time, reader, you must remember were playing at cross purposes to some extent, and great wars usually have been carried on in this way. Britain and France, not content with hitting each other in the face straight from the shoulder whenever they had a chance, did all they could to kick the stools from under each other. For instance, we bolstered up the kingdom of Naples, which has well been stigmatised as one of the most abominable, disreputable, and licentious of European governments. The king was inferior to an English squire. He would have been good in a rat hunt with fox terriers, or in a rabbit coursing match; but he was utterly unfitted either to fight or rule a people. His wife, the queen, was--well, the least said the better. And we, Britain, were to protect the two of them against the revolutionary schemes of France, not, mind you, because we loved them, but because we hated France. This kingdom then was the stool we intended to kick from under France. But kicking is a game both can play at, and France turned her attention to India. They would attack us _there_, just as the Russians will before fifty years are over. May they be as unsuccessful as old Napoleon was.

But before India could be used as a basis of operations against Britain, Egypt must be conquered and occupied.

It must be confessed too, that the French carried out their plans for the invasion of Egypt with consummate skill and boldness, for as your school history tells you, reader, Napoleon, with an army of 30,000 old and well-disciplined troops, managed to hoodwink the British and put to sea _en route_ for Alexandria.

Malta fell in the first off-go.

Napoleon landed in the end of June unopposed near to Alexandria.

The conquest of Egypt followed in rapid course. With such troops, under such a splendid commander, this conquest was all one glorious picnic. So the battle of the Pyramids was fought, and crushed was the pomp and panoply of the great Marmelukes. Cairo fell, and on marched the victorious troops.

So sure of getting his army to India was Napoleon, that as soon as he landed he dispatched secret envoys to Tippoo Saib, son of Hyder Ali, who had built up a great new state in the south of India. These envoys were to inform Tippoo to hold himself in readiness for a _coup de grace_, because the French were on their way to his assistance.

BUT--and please note this is a very important _but_--Napoleon's dreams of further glory in India depended entirely upon his being able to keep up his communications with France, and, says Davenport Adams, "while France held Italy and the Ionian Islands these could not be interrupted, so long as the British armament in the Mediterranean was kept occupied in watching the movements of the French fleet."

The _raison d'etre_ of Nelson's movements will now be easily seen.

Owing to the shilly-shalling and inactivity of the king of Naples, who would neither move hand nor foot to save himself or help to free Italy, Nelson was very much delayed. Meanwhile St. Vincent was reinforced by ships sent from England. His lordship had previously received word that such reinforcement was about to be dispatched, and therefore he had lost not a moment in getting ready another squadron to send to Nelson's assistance, and this consisted of the most powerful ships under his command, under the best of his captains.

No sooner, therefore, were the outcoming fleet visible off Cadiz Bay, than Troubridge's squadron sailed. It was upon the 9th of June that the hero was joined by this squadron.

Then commenced the great game of hide and seek. Nelson had to solve a puzzle somewhat similar to the pictorial advertisement, in which you are presented with an illustration called "The babes of the wood and cock robin." There lie the babes under the trees quietly enough, with a few leaves over them, but where is cock robin? That is what you have to find out. And here was Nelson with his squadron in the Mediterranean--the Mediterranean was all about him, blue and evident enough, but where was the French fleet? That was what the hero had to find out.

The story of Nelson's search for the enemy would make a very pretty and romantic story all by itself.

Nelson, however, was not a man to be very easily disheartened, so he started in pursuit, if such a blindman's buff could be termed pursuit. He learned that the enemy had been seen off Trapani, in Sicily, in the first week in June, and that they were then steering eastwards away.

Troubridge next found out that they had gone to Malta, and Nelson bore up for that city of tumbledown forts and steps and stairs.

Nelson arrived at Malta just too late. So on the 18th of June he steered for Egypt. Had Nelson only had the frigates with him, which he had lost sight of in that unlucky gale in the Gulf of Lyons, it would not have been difficult now to find the French. On his way to Alexandria, however, he overhauled several merchantmen, but could get no tidings of the enemy.

"Have you seen anything of the French fleet?" was the question that seemed to be always put. "Or you? Or you?"

And the answers were always--

"No, no, no."

"Well, they may be at Alexandria," thought Nelson. He arrived off this city on the 28th of June.

"No," was again the answer to his enquiries; the French had not been seen or heard of.

But the governor had received intelligence that the armament prepared by the French was really intended for Egypt.

"It would have been," says Southey, "Nelson's delight to have tried Bonaparte on a wind. It would have been the delight of Europe too, and the blessing of the world, if that fleet had been overtaken with its general on board. But of the myriads and millions of human beings, who would have been preserved by that day's victory, there is not one to whom such essential benefit would have resulted as to Bonaparte himself. It would have spared him his defeat at Acre--his only disgrace; for to have been defeated by Nelson upon the seas would not have been disgraceful, and it would have spared him all his after enormities.

"Hitherto his--Bonaparte's--career had been glorious, the baneful principles of his heart had never yet passed his lips. History would have represented him as a soldier of fortune, who had faithfully served the cause in which he had engaged, and whose career had been distinguished by a series of successes, unexampled in modern times. A romantic obscurity would have hung over the expedition to Egypt, and he would have escaped the perpetration of those crimes that have incarnadined his soul with a deeper dye than that of the purple for which he committed them--those acts of perfidy, midnight murder, usurpation, and remorseless tyranny, which have consigned his name to universal execration now and for ever."

Not finding the French at Alexandria, Nelson steered north for Caramania, and thence along the shores of Candia, "carrying a press of sail both night and day against a contrary wind."

He next returned towards Sicily, only to find that the Government of Naples were too much afraid of the French to give him any assistance in the shape of water and provisions, without which he could not have continued his pursuit of the enemy.

But Nelson had a friend at Court, and after some little vexatious delay he was permitted to re-victual at Syracuse.

Nelson was glad at heart now, and wrote to Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador at Naples, and to Lady Hamilton, as follows: "Thanks to your exertions, we have victualled and watered, and surely, watering at the fountain of Arethusa, we must have victory. We shall sail with the first breeze, and be assured I will return either crowned with laurel or covered with cypress."

He wrote also to St. Vincent, telling him that if the enemy was still above water he should find them; and to the First Lord of the Admiralty, saying, among other things, "but should they be bound to the Antipodes, your lordship may rely upon it that I will not lose a moment in bringing them to action."

* * * * * *

On the 25th of July Nelson got away from Syracuse, and made the Gulf of Coron on the 28th.

One cannot help pitying poor Nelson at this time, lying awake in his bed at night after a few hours of sleep, thinking and worrying till almost ill, asking the officer of the watch again and again what time it was, and peevishly crying, "Will morning never come?"

There was hardly an hour of the day now that he did not lament and bemoan the loss of his frigates, that were no doubt looking for him somewhere, as eager to meet him as he was to catch sight of them.

In this game of hide-and-seek, or blind man's buff, strange as it may seem, the French and British fleets must positively have crossed each other's tracks on the night of June 22nd.

Troubridge now entered the port of Coron, and came back with the news that a whole month before this the French fleet had been observed steering to the south-east from Candia.

Nelson determined, therefore, to once more bear up for Alexandria, convinced in his own mind that the fleet of the enemy would be found there.

Nor was he mistaken.

For on the morning of August the 1st Captain Hood, of the _Zealous_, hoisted the signal to say he had discovered them.

"Thank God!" said Nelson fervently. "At last!"

He had hardly slept or eaten for a week before this, but to-day he dined with his captains, while preparations for battle were being made. As they rose from the table Nelson exclaimed,

"Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey!"