Admiral Horatio Nelson - From Boy to Frigate (Part 1)

Well, the second of this month's Patreon-requested videos is the life and times of Admiral Horatio Nelson. So this should be quite the interesting feat, trying to fit that particular career into something vaguely resembling a reasonable video length, but we'll see how we go. So Horatio Nelson was born in September 1758 in Norfolk in England. He was roughly in the middle of a fairly large family of eleven, and he didn't initially seem to come, at least at first glance, from a family that might bring up a good naval officer, seeing as his father was a religious man, a reverend, the Reverend Edmund Nelson. However, a close examination of the background of his family does probably show a certain naval bent. His uncle was in the navy. His more distant relatives on his mother's and father's side, especially his mother's side, were connected to both the government and the navy, so whilst his family in and of itself was not particularly high up the social pecking order, they did have connections, and that will come up later on in his life. Now, rather interestingly, given how their fates would eventually end up being tied together, Nelson was born in the same year that HMS Victory was ordered, although Victory's gestation period would be slightly longer than Nelson's, thanks to the end of the Seven Years' War. At around the age of twelve, Nelson decided that he wanted to go to sea, and this was where his family connections began to take hold, because his mother's brother, so his maternal uncle, was at the time Captain Maurice Suckling, who happened to be, as the name suggests, a captain in the Royal Navy, and would go on to fairly high rank. And so, as was the habit of the Royal Navy of the day, Nelson wrote his uncle, expressing a desire to join him aboard his ship, and upon receipt of, shall we say, a qualified acceptance, Nelson set out for the docking area of HMS Raisonnable, which was Suckling's ship. Now, when I say qualified, I think it's best to actually take an extract from the letter that was sent. Obviously, his father sent the letter on behalf of Horatio, and Captain Suckling replied with a letter that included the following phrase, What has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he, above all the rest, should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come, and the first time we go into action, a cannonball may knock off his head, and provide for him at once. Yes, of all aspiring seamen and officers in the Royal Navy, Nelson did not cut a particularly dashing or imposing figure. He was relatively slight, and, well, it was basically his family connections that got him aboard a ship. Although, amusingly enough, once he'd been left in the dockyard with Raisonnable, he managed to eventually find his way to the ship and aboard, where everyone promptly ignored him, as no one had been told that he was coming, because the only one who knew he was coming was his uncle, and his uncle hadn't arrived at the ship at that point. So, he spent the first day just wandering around on the deck of the ship, looking a bit lost, and, according to his own account, it was on the second day that someone actually deigned to notice him, and give him somewhere to sleep and a bit of food. So, yeah, operational security aboard warships in Royal Navy dockyards in the 1700s was probably not necessarily the world's best. Nonetheless, the ship was in commission for about five months, and Nelson sailed with it. However, the reason for the ship's activation had been a rising period of tension with Spain, which passed, and so the ship was put back into reserve and paid off. Now, Suckling was technically promoted to command a much larger ship, HMS Triumph, but HMS Triumph was assigned as a guard ship to the Knorr Anchorage in the Thames Estuary, which would be a relatively calm and quiet posting. Nelson was not particularly enthused with this, and so, again, with his uncle's influence, he sailed on a merchant vessel, the Mary Ann, and would do a couple of voyages out to the West Indies, along with some other men who had served under his uncle who were looking after him. This was perhaps a point where England could have lost its most notable sailor, as by the time he returned from the merchant navy, he actually had something of a distaste for military life, and again, in his own words, he says, I returned from the voyage a practical seaman with a horror of the Royal Navy, and with a saying, then constant, with the seaman, after the most honour, forward the better man. That being because the officers would sleep in the aft quarters of the ship, and the more regular men tended to sleep forward, especially in, obviously, merchant ships, where the centre area, where on a warship you might find a gun deck, was most often occupied by cargo. It took a few months to break the impressionable young Nelson of this particular point of view, but he would then commit himself to enhancing his navigational skills, working amongst the ships docked near Chatham. Now, of course, Chatham is near the Medway, as well as the Thames, and so this is where Nelson would have a second run in with the great first great HMS Victory, as he would be navigating both of those rivers as part of his navigational training, both for navigating by the sun and stars, and also learning about currents, rocks, shoals, and sandbanks, and HMS Victory was laid up in ordinary on the Medway around this time, so he would have passed the ship quite regularly, albeit obviously in her red paint scheme. It was at this point in his training that an expedition to the North Pole, or more accurately trying to find the North East Passage, had been arranged. This used two converted bomb vessels, HMS Carcass and HMS Racehorse, and although what were classified as boys were not supposed to go on this voyage, Nelson again begged the captain of the Carcass to allow him aboard, and the captain was prevailed upon to allow Nelson to accompany him. This was not necessarily quite as suicidal as it might sound. The ships were actually very well equipped, and the reason that bomb vessels had been chosen was because these ships were pretty much the strongest built warships in the Royal Navy. They might not have been the largest, but remember as bomb vessels they had to withstand the firing of heavy mortars with the recoil going straight down into their frames, so of all the ships that might stand up to the ice flows of the Arctic Ocean, these were probably the best. So they set off and promptly became trapped in the ice, which didn't seem to be too much of a problem until the local guides pointed out it was very late in the season, the ice was getting significantly worse, and they woke up one morning to find what had been a two ship length gap between Racehorse and Carcass of nice flat ice was now something resembling a mountainscape with massive ice sheets pushed up higher than the ship's main masts due to the movement of the heavy ice. The fact that the vessels weren't immediately crushed by the forces that were able to snap a 12 foot thick slab of ice in half and shove it several dozen feet up into the sky is perhaps testament to the build strength of the vessels. As a trained navigator who had been almost immediately promoted by his uncle from ordinary seaman to midshipman, i.e. the lowest class of officer, back on the Raisonnable, Nelson was given his very first command, a four oared cutter, that was sent out to rescue one of the boats of the Racehorse as there was a small opening in the ice and they'd gone off hunting. Unfortunately by Nelson's account they'd managed to find a relatively large walrus, and upon shooting it in the face they discovered that this particular walrus was particularly tough and possibly also the gun was not necessarily as powerful as they thought, and all they managed to do was annoy it. The wounded walrus dived, came back up with a bunch of friends, and decided to try and attack the boat, and they persisted in this until Nelson's boat showed up, at which point apparently they dispersed having realized that there was more than one of these annoying creatures, as far as I suppose walruses determine what humans and boats are. Now it was a few days after this that Nelson again almost deprived England of what would eventually become one of its best admirals, as when a small patch of ice fog lifted he spotted an especially large polar bear and decided he wanted to have the skin for his father. So he sent out with with one of his companions with an old rusty musket and decided to try and hunt the thing. The fog descended and everyone got a bit worried when the fog lifted again they saw quite some way away that Nelson had just taken a shot at the bear only to find that, well, an old rusty musket was fairly unreliable, the powder in its pan had flashed and there'd been no discharge, so with the the pan powder gone there was no way of reloading it and, well, I don't really fancy two people in melee against a large polar bear. Nelson however was of a different view and decided that against the advice of his companion he was going to try and attack it with the back end of the musket and club it to death. This rather understandably didn't go quite as well as planned and the rather enraged polar bear set off after Nelson who was now faced with using the back end of the musket to try and fend it off long enough to hopefully regain the ship, although it wasn't looking like that was going to be a possibility. But luckily aboard the carcass they spotted the plight of the young officer and fired one of the ship's guns, the discharge being sufficient to scare the polar bear away and Nelson thus to regain the ship, although he did get something of a stern dressing down for putting himself unnecessarily at risk, as well as ignoring his companion when his companion had rightly pointed out that perhaps attacking a bear with an enlarged stick was probably not the best of ideas. Having reached a latitude of 81 degrees and thus within nine degrees of the north pole, the ships were eventually freed in August of the following year when the wind blew up from the north, although there wasn't that much room of the north for the wind to blow up from to be honest, but combined with increased temperatures the ice began to break up and the ships were able to make their way south having convinced themselves that the northeast passage was basically unattainable, at least at that time. Having thus developed something of a dislike for the extremely cold but still wanting to be an active officer at sea, Nelson returned to England briefly before he prevailed on his uncle again to prevail on another captain to assign him to HMS Seahorse, one of a small squadron that was about to set sail for India and the East Indies. Aboard this ship he would have his first taste of true midshipman duties and apparently acquitted himself very well in this regard, being given a number of responsibilities that would be more properly the roles for a lieutenant, but at least in the lower echelons of the Royal Navy, meritocracy was still pretty much in effect. As was the job of a midshipman who was obviously aiming to be a lieutenant pretty quickly, Nelson focused on enhancing further his navigation and ship handling skills as the Seahorse engaged in various convoy escort duties as well as seeing his first taste of battle, albeit briefly, as a couple of catchers attacked Seahorse which drove them off with a couple of volleys of cannon fire, so not the world's greatest engagement but still an icebreaker. But Nelson would experience yet another brush with death as he managed to contract malaria. Having spent the past several years building up his figure from the slight and rather unassuming form that he'd had at age 12, he reportedly now lost pretty much all of that and became reduced to practically a walking skeleton which necessitated his discharge and return to England aboard HMS Dolphin. Whilst he would recover during the approximately six months it took Dolphin to get back to England, he never would regain the sailor body type and would remain a relatively slight and unassuming character for the rest of his life. Basically being back in fighting condition, Nelson was appointed acting lieutenant and assigned to the 64-gun HMS Worcester, a somewhat larger vessel than the Seahorse, and sent off to run convoy escort duty down to Gibraltar. This went relatively well and upon his return to England he was due to take his full lieutenant's examination. The board consisted of two captains and his uncle, however his uncle did not reveal that Nelson was related to him, so you might think oh well obviously be easy because his uncle's obviously going to pass him, but the now Comptroller of the Navy Suckling did not want to favour Nelson unduly and so did not actually reveal his relation to Nelson until after the other two captains recommended that he be promoted to full lieutenant, at which point he stood up and revealed the relationship. When they expressed surprise that he hadn't done so before, obviously expecting the somewhat nepotistic promotion practices of the Royal Navy to have kicked in, Suckling is reported to have stated, Something of a far cry from hoping his first action would have a cannonball knock his head off. Thus promoted, he was assigned to HMS Lowestoff as its second lieutenant under Captain William Locker and sent to the Caribbean. Whilst on what was at the time called the Jamaica Station, the American War of Independence broke out and the UK gradually found itself at war with eventually practically everybody in the region. Lowestoff taking a number of prizes including one, the so-called Little Lucy, which Nelson would command for a while as well as undertaking a number of cruises alongside Lowestoff looking for prizes. The Little Lucy was also able to a few independent actions including a few scientific expeditions which were all rage for officers when there wasn't a war on. It was during this time as well that Captain Locker passed down invaluable words of advice to Nelson who would really take them to heart, Whilst Captain Locker fell ill, he did recommend Nelson's excellent services to HMS Bristol, the flagship of Sir Peter Parker, the commander-in-chief, who took this recommendation to heart and brought Nelson aboard as third lieutenant. Nelson's skills saw him rapidly advanced to first lieutenant during a number of voyages that Bristol would undertake and with the prizes that the ship netted bringing in Nelson around £400 of prize money, which was not an inconsiderable sum, he was doing pretty well for himself. Just to give you some idea of what kind of money we're talking about, if you want to measure £400 by today's value in terms of your ability to buy things, that's actually closer to about £50,000 and if you want to go via relative income, i.e. how much it's actually worth in the larger economy, you're talking closer to two-thirds of a million. So yeah, Nelson, whichever way you take it, had got a pretty nice additional paycheck from this particular aspect of his career. With Nelson now only having reached 21, he unfortunately had lost his uncle, Comptroller Maurice Suckling, who had died in 1778, but Admiral Parker was now his new patron and at the tender age of 21, he found himself promoted to commander and assigned away from Bristol to take his first proper command, that of the brig HMS Badger. A brief tour on the Badger was not especially successful, but he handed command of this ship over to another officer who would rise very highly in the Royal Navy, one Cuthbert Collingwood, whilst he awaited the arrival of his new command, for he had, whilst at sea in the Badger, been promoted to post-captain and was thus being given command of the 28-gun frigate HMS Hinchinbrook, a former French privateer now in British service. Nelson had only actually spent six months as a commander before being promoted to post-captain, quite possibly one of the fastest promotions ultimately from lieutenant through to post-captain in Royal Navy history, but one that seems to be fairly justified by his achievements in the Caribbean. Awaiting at home for him, he learned by letter, was his uncle's sword, which had come from the Walpole family, which Captain Suckling had married into, and was apparently quite an old weapon, having seen action with a number of Walpoles before passing to Suckling upon the occasion of his marriage, and now being left to Nelson. It was viewed as something of a lucky family omen and a very good quality sword, and certainly would serve Nelson well in the future. But receipt of a literal ancestral weapon was for the future, and for the minute he found the Hinchinbrook sailing off to try and capture some of the Spanish colonies in Central America, as both the Spanish and the French had fully joined in the war at this point, and as well as picking up a number of prizes, the Hinchinbrook managed to take part in the taking of the fort on the San Juan River, Castillo Viejo, but disease began to take a toll and they were forced to withdraw after blowing it up. Nelson's efforts however did get noted once more, and he was upgraded to a new ship, the much heavier 44 gun frigate HMS Janus. His time aboard this ship would however be brief, as he also fell ill with a recurrence of malaria, and had to be sent back to the UK aboard HMS Lion. This time it would take Nelson slightly longer to recover from the illness, but by summer 1781 he judged himself fit enough to ask for another command, and was duly granted the frigate HMS Albemarle, this a 28 gun ship slightly smaller than the 44 gun Janus, but also the leader of a small squadron. These consisted of HMS Enterprise of a similar size to the Albemarle, but also HMS Argo, which paradoxically was a much larger 44 gun frigate, but never mind. Nelson would then take the Albemarle over to Canada on more convoy escort duty, although not without an amount of incident back at home. At one point a gale blew up and almost blew Albemarle back out to sea while she was in port. Nelson, who'd been ashore visiting a at the time, was immediately making the attempt to try and get back aboard the Albemarle. Most of the boatmen refused to even try since they thought it would be suicide. He eventually managed to pay the rather princely sum of 15 guineas to one boatman who said he'd give it a go, and promptly set out in the middle of a howling gale in a tiny rowboat, managing to reboard the ship and bring it back to safety with only a few masts and spars lost. Having successfully conveyed the convoy to Canada, he then detached with his squadron to go hunting for privateers, but didn't find too many, although did recover a number of ships that had been captured by the privateers and were sailing back for American ports, thus restoring them to the British Merchant Marine. Whilst he was in Boston Bay, he realized that nobody actually had any up-to-date charts or detailed knowledge about how to navigate the area, and so found a small schooner that was nearby and compelled it into service, rather obviously three frigates versus a small fishing schooner being something of an unequal fight. There now followed a series of events which showed both Nelson's humanity and also his good fortune, because for obvious reasons, if the captain of an American schooner was seen to be helping a British warship navigate through Boston Bay, he probably wouldn't have that warmer Now, Nelson obviously was compelling him to do so, but these kinds of things don't go down too well amongst the rumour mills ashore, where nothing can be verified directly. And so, once the pilotage had been conducted with good service, Nelson gave the ship's master, the schooner's master, a certificate to take back with him, which reads as follows. That's Plymouth in the USA. This gave the master of the schooner every reason to justify what he had been doing, as it was a signed official paper on the honour of Nelson that the harmony, the schooner, had been taken by force, and thus the poor old ship's master had had no choice but to comply. This measure, allowing the master of the schooner to salvage his honour ashore, would have two directly beneficial effects. Firstly, shortly thereafter, the schooner reappeared with some supplies, livestock and fresh fruit and vegetables, by means of gratitude. This was very fortunate, as scurvy was rampant amongst the Albemarle, and so Nelson was able to distribute the fresh fruit and vegetables in particular to his men, thus alleviating that particular scourge. Then, shortly thereafter, a squadron of Frenchmen hove into view, and Nelson's Albemarle, which at this point was detached, was significantly outgunned. With four ships of the line and a frigate bearing down on him, Nelson, having taken the lessons of the bay to heart from the schooner's master, set the Albemarle off at a clip, racing through the St George's bank shoals, which any local of Boston will tell you is probably near enough suicidal unless you know exactly what you're doing. The Albemarle not being the world's fastest vessel, but nonetheless setting a fairly merry clip, rather discouraged the Frenchmen from following, and so with the French ships gradually falling back, as they did not particularly wish to run aground, Nelson exploited the knowledge that his kindness had bought him, and managed to get away aboard his vessel. After transporting another convoy of troops to New York, Nelson found a detachment of the West Indies station forces under Admiral Hood, and prevailed upon him to reassign the Albemarle from the Canadian and North American station to the West Indies force, and thus Albemarle transitioned down to warmer climates, where he became one of the scout ships for Hood's fleet. After capturing a number of prizes, they were informed that the war was over, and so the Albemarle and Nelson returned to Britain in summer of 1783. There now followed a period of peace, which was not particularly to Nelson's liking, nevertheless he did find himself in command of another frigate, this time HMS Boreas, assigned to enforce the Navigation Acts, something that was not helped by the fact that the squadron commander had rather different interpretations of the Navigation Acts to Nelson, and after a fairly lengthy legal furor, where various seized vessels captains tried to sue him, he was eventually acquitted in court after about eight months, and the situation blew over. During this time he also came across Francis Nisbet, whom he would marry shortly thereafter, with both Nelsons now returning to England at the conclusion of the Boreas' commission. For the following four to five years, life was relatively quiet as they settled down in Nelson's ancestral home in Norfolk, and he set about both ensuring that his previous crews had got their pay, and also trying to persuade the Admiralty to give him a new command. However, with so many ships put back into reserve with a conclusion of hostilities, there wasn't really anything much to go around. But towards the end of 1792, the French Revolution was in full swing, and France was beginning something of an expansionist phase, starting off with taking the area which is now known as Belgium. The Admiralty saw war on the horizon, and began to recall some of its better officers to command, Nelson in particular being given command of the largest ship he'd been in charge of so far, and ostensibly what would become his favorite command, the 64-gun HMS Agamemnon, which he assumed command of in January 1793, one month before France formally declared war. Taking his son-in-law Josiah aboard as a midshipman, he addressed the ship's company at Chatham shortly before they left with the following There are three things, young gentlemen, which you are constantly to bear in mind. First, you must always implicitly obey orders without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king. And thirdly, you must hate a Frenchman as you do the devil. Pretty standard fare for the Royal Navy of the time, really. Whilst Admiral Hood would lead the majority of the fleet, the Agamemnon would sail under Admiral Hotham with an advanced force led by the Britannia of 110 guns, along with Colossus, Fortitude and Correjo of 74 guns, Agamemnon of course of 64 guns, and then two frigates, the Maliga and Lowestoft. Joined by Admiral Hood's 19 ships of the line, they then entered the Mediterranean from Gibraltar heading for Toulon, which was under the control of various royalists and slightly less bloodthirsty members of the Republican movement. And the National Convention, then the people in charge of the French Revolution, had decided to retake the city. They obviously appealed for protection from the British, and so Hood went in with his fleet. With the port thus invested, Nelson was sent aboard Agamemnon on a number of shuttle runs back and forth to Sardinia and Naples to ask for reinforcements, as whilst Hood's fleet was fairly impressive at sea, it didn't carry all that many marines who could be spared for the land-based defence of the city, and there was a fairly large French force incoming. Nelson's efforts were somewhat successful in that several thousand troops and a few more ships were mustered and sent over to Toulon. The Agamemnon was assigned to a squadron patrolling off Sardinia, and at the end of October 1793 the Agamemnon sighted some sails. Nelson decided to close in with these ships and discovered that they were a French squadron consisting of three large frigates, the Melpomene, La Minerve and Le Fouchet, along with a brig. He engaged the Melpomene in a running gunfight and managed to bring it to heel, only for the other ships to turn around and come back to the aid of the crippled ship. The Agamemnon had had its rigging and sails badly shot up in exchange, and upon taking the advice of his officers who concluded that with a ship heavily outnumbered and unable to make effective manoeuvres, it would be fairly foolish to continue the engagement, Agamemnon hauled away. The French ships appeared to have more concern for the Melpomene than they did for chasing after the Agamemnon, and so the action was broken off. After repairs, Agamemnon was granted a small squadron to take with it of three frigates and a sloop, and sent to blockade Corsica. This was because Toulon had fallen to the French Republicans in no small part thanks to a certain artillery officer by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, and Nelson was now tasked with assaulting Corsica to provide a naval base close to southern France in the Mediterranean. For this purpose he was reinforced with additional ships in January 1794. After a number of raids at enemy positions on shore, the fall of a tower, and a number of frigates being assigned to harass and take enemy coastal shipping, Nelson was pressing for an assault on the town of Bastia on the northern Corsican coast. Nelson was quite convinced that between Agamemnon and his squadron of frigates, he could lay them alongside the town, demolish anything that had been fortified with gunnery, and use the marines available, plus a few hundred other men, to invest the town and take it. Admiral Hood broadly agreed with him, and mentioned that if he assigned three more ships of the line to Nelson, then the town would probably be taken. However, there was an army contingent in the offing, and whilst it would be possible to take the town using the navy alone, Hood preferred not to throw away his own marines and sailors, when there was a perfectly good army lying around. The army however had something of a more conservative view, and initially refused to take part in the assault, as they thought it would be too dangerous. There followed a bit of wrangling, but eventually Nelson's view won out, and artillery positions were set up overlooking the town, and after just over a month of bombardment and attacks, the town fell. Incidentally, Nelson had another encounter with HMS Victory, as by this point she was back in service, and serving as Hood's flagship. Next up was the town of Calvey, also in Corsica. Here a similar approach was taken, but the defenders proved remarkably adept and accurate with their gunfire. Although relatively few British personnel were killed, quite a number were wounded, and amongst these was Nelson, who was operating with the land-based forward gun batteries, complaining about having the fifth gun dismounted by accurate fire from the defensive batteries, when another shot smashed into the revetment protecting the gun he was standing nearby, spraying a large number of stones and sand as well as iron fragments around at high speed. Nelson was hit by some of this debris on the right side of his face, and forced to withdraw back to the ship for medical treatment, and whilst the defensive position was eventually stormed and captured, and then Calvey, now unprotected, bombarded and forced to surrender, Nelson gradually lost the sight in his right eye as a result of this encounter. Nelson himself seemed relatively unperturbed by having half his face shot up, as can be evidenced in this letter which he sent to the Viceroy. You may possibly, my dear sir, hear both from Lord Hood and General Stewart of our operations, therefore I shall say little more of them other than that success I have no doubt will attend the General, and no officer ever deserved it more. The place is strong, and access to it is difficult, but the principal obstacles are, I hope, overcome. The Mazzello, that's the tower, will be stormed this night, two breaches are made in it. The great fatigue General Stewart has undergone since our landing has rather injured his health, yet nothing stops him from seeing everything done himself. Our loss has been trifling, not twenty killed and wounded, amongst the former is Captain Seracold, and amongst the latter, in a slight manner, myself, my head being a good deal wounded and my right eye cut down, but the surgeon flatters me that I shall not entirely lose the sight, which I believe, for I can clearly distinguish light from darkness. It confined me, thank God, only one day, and at a time when nothing in particular happened to be going on. So yes, Nelson, despite having half his face blown off by flying gravel, was more concerned with missing out on the rest of the action. To be honest, the more and more you read about his career, the more and more I'm fairly convinced he wasn't so much Captain Horatio Nelson, Royal Navy, as he was a time travelling version of Captain Leroy Jenkins, Royal Navy. With Corsica occupied, Hood sent Nelson to open diplomatic relations with Genoa, which was at this point still independent, and would become a, hopefully, relatively important ally. Hood was recalled to England to deal with other duties, and Admiral Hotham, formerly his subordinate, was made commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean. On October 15th, 1794, Nelson was pleased to write back to home that two of his erstwhile opponents, the La Minerva and La Melpomene, were now in British hands, as on one of the cruises that Agamemnon took part in, whilst it was being repaired and its crew being reinforced and reinvigorated, those two ships, along with the rest of their squadron, had fallen in with a much larger British force and been taken. Nelson noting that, I have been fortunate to be present at the taking and destroying of that whole squadron, and which, but for our disabling them, intended to have returned to France, they are now better disposed of. The French realised that Corsica was potentially a major thorn in their side, as was having been former French territory that had rebelled against Republican rule, and so were rather eager to get it back. Thus, after a number of cruises by Hotham's force, along with Agamemnon, as the year turned from 1794 to 1795, the spring of 1795 brought news that a large French fleet was at sea, along with numerous troop transports, and they were heading for Corsica. With 124 transports full of troops, the French were somewhat understandably reluctant to engage Hotham's fleet, although they did manage to take the Berwick, which they caught alone, as it was trying to rejoin the main English force. The French fleet was sighted on the 12th of March, with the English gradually trying to close with them, but the French, as we said, declining action, until on the 13th, there was a collision, and the 84-gun Sa'ira began to fall back. A number of British ships came up to try and take it, the Inconstant being one of the first, and being driven back by a hail of shot from the French. Supporting the Inconstant, Nelson and the Agamemnon laid a withering barrage down on the Sa'ira, heavily damaging it, however two other French ships, the much larger Saint-Coulotte of 120 guns, and the slightly smaller Jean Barras of 74 guns, nevertheless both still outgunning the Agamemnon, came back to help, and after hovering around near the Sa'ira for a time, they dropped back further to protect it, and Agamemnon, faced with being barraged out of the water by the combined firepower of the three French ships of the line, was forced to fall back as well. The following day revealed that Sa'ira was now being towed by the Seine-sur, and so the British closed in, with HMS Captain and HMS Bedford being initially sent in after the two isolated French ships, whilst the rest of the squadron pressed on towards the main body of the French. However, long distance fire from the main French fleet, plus the two ships of the line, meant that Captain very quickly lost most of its masts and rigging, so thus Agamemnon was sent in with a small squadron to assist, and so in relatively short order, Illustrious, Courageux, Princess Royal, and Agamemnon were finding themselves placed between the French line and the two crippled French ships, thus fighting on both sides of the ship for a while, with a number of the British ships losing masts and rigging, but driving the Sa'ira and Seine-sur further away from the French formation, as well as taking down considerable portions of the French ships' masts and rigging. This forced both Sa'ira and Seine-sur to strike their colours, and Nelson took the surrender of Seine-sur. However, Admiral Hotham, despite the rest of the fleet gradually drifting into range of the French forces, declined to press the action further, despite Nelson's protestations. Nelson advised that the two most damaged English ships, along with four frigates, be left to take care of the prizes, whilst the rest of the fleet pressed on to try and take more of the French forces. Hotham, however, demurred, and the action was broken off at that point, contenting himself with the two ships of the line that he'd captured earlier. Whilst in a letter home, Nelson pointed out that even if he'd taken ten ships of the line and let an eleventh escape, he wouldn't have considered the job well enough done. He did nonetheless obey orders, and despite only losing two ships, the French considered themselves defeated at sea, and so the entire fleet, including troop convoy, turned around and headed for home, which saved Corsica, at least for the moment. During the aftermath of this little encounter, Nelson also received the news that he had also been granted a commission as a Colonel of the Marines, in recognition for his actions ashore during the siege and taking of Corsica. Nelson next found himself in Agamemnon, operating again with a squadron of frigates, trying to help drive French forces away from Genoa. In this aspect, he found himself being chased by a fairly large French force of several ships of the line. As the chase developed, it became clear that this wasn't just an encounter with a few isolated vessels, but in fact a full fleet of seventeen ships of the line and six frigates. Fortunately, however, Agamemnon and her companions proved to be swifter sailors than the French, and they gained the port of San Fiorenzo, thus alerting Admiral Hotham with his twenty-three ships of the line that the French were incoming. The tables having been turned, the French withdrew, but near the Jaires Islands, a small portion of the British fleet managed to get within gun range, this being the victory, again, along with Captain, Agamemnon, Cumberland, Defence and Culloden, all starting to engage the French rearguard. As they engaged the French, the Blenheim and the Audacious caught up, and the French ship L'Alcide, at the rear, began to fall back, and soon thereafter struck her colours. Unfortunately, some part of the shot that had been sent into her had set afire, and shortly thereafter the fire spread, followed by the L'Alcide detonating as her main magazine caught fire, destroying the ship almost entirely, and killing several hundred of the crew. The stunned and horrified British ships rapidly deployed boats, but only about two hundred men could be saved. Nonetheless, the leading ships of the formation Preston and Agamemnon and Cumberland were closing in on the recently captured Berwick, along with the Heraud, but Admiral Hotham decided to call everybody back, much to Nelson's disappointment, Nelson expressing in a letter home that he thought they could have taken at least another six ships, and possibly the whole fleet, if the order to fall back hadn't been given. Nelson now returned to supporting the Genoese against the incoming French, but despite taking a number of small prizes, mostly merchantmen, there was little else he could do with the small squadron, and he grew increasingly frustrated with Admiral Hotham's apparent desire to do the absolute minimum possible. Nelson, meanwhile, was wearing out both himself and the Agamemnon, tearing up and down the coast of Italy, and when Admiral Hotham's replacement, Sir Hyde Parker, arrived, the situation in Italy was rapidly deteriorating. With his squadron reduced, there was little Nelson could do in the land campaign, and apart from evacuating a few key personnel, he had to withdraw to Corsica by the end of November, somewhat annoyed with the state of things. But as 1796 rolled around, there seemed to be a small ray of hope as Sir John Jervis showed up to take command of the Mediterranean fleet, and he gave Nelson an independent commission as a commodore to take command of a number of ships that were blockading the French coast. Although offered either command of the 74-gun Zealous or even the 90-gun St George, Nelson declined, preferring to stay aboard the Agamemnon for the moment. However, both this command and the situation in the Mediterranean were deteriorating rapidly, and by the late spring, the Agamemnon had to be sent back to England, as it wasn't thought she'd survive another winter out on active service. Nelson, however, did not wish to be separated from Jervis' command, and so whilst Agamemnon headed for home, he was appointed as captain of the 74-gun HMS Captain. He had briefly considered HMS Diadem, but noted that she was a remarkably poor sailor compared to either Agamemnon or Captain, and preferred to be in charge of a ship that could run down the enemy. Whilst in this new role he managed to occupy the island of Elba, the Genoese had switched sides in favour of the French, and it was becoming rapidly clear that the Mediterranean fleet could not be supplied in theatre any longer, and they had to fall back to Gibraltar. Having to abandon Corsica was a particularly bitter pill for Nelson to swallow, and he had to oversee the withdrawal from Corsica aboard the frigate HMS Minerva. As the captain, being a ship of the line, was needed back at Gibraltar with the main fleet, Nelson became the last British officer to leave Corsica, having been one of the first to land on Corsica not more than a year earlier. Whilst falling back to Gibraltar, the Minerva and her companion HMS Blanche fell in with two Spanish frigates, the Ceres and the San Sabina. Nelson ordered Blanche to attack Ceres, and Minerva to attack Santa Sabina, with the result that Santa Sabina was taken, but although Blanche was able to force Ceres to surrender, she was not able to take control of the ship, and Ceres slipped away into the darkness. Unfortunately, as the engagement had taken place at night, they'd been unable to notice that these two frigates were part of a significantly larger Spanish force, and in the morning they suddenly found two ships of the line and a frigate bearing down on them. Nelson was faced with potential capture, however the two lieutenants that he'd placed aboard the Santa Sabina, Jonathan Culverhouse and Thomas Hardy, decided to give Nelson an opportunity to escape, hoisting British colours aboard the Santa Sabina and sailing back on themselves north-east. The Spanish took the bait, followed the Santa Sabina and subsequently recaptured it, but this allowed Nelson to continue in his westward course towards Gibraltar. Rendezvousing with the British fleet at Elba on their way to Gibraltar, Nelson was quick to praise the two lieutenants who had allowed him and Blanche to escape, heaping great praise on them in a letter to Sir John Jervis and stating that they should be remembered to the Royal Navy's service at such point as they could be exchanged. And indeed it wasn't long before the prize crew along with Hardy and Culverhouse were back in British hands. Nelson re-boarded HMS Captain as the Minerva was quite badly shot up after her various encounters, and this would prove to be the last time that Nelson would command a frigate in action, all his subsequent engagements would now be as the commander of a ship of the line or more. This also represented something of a low point of British fortunes having been driven out of the Mediterranean by French advances on land and of course as might be gathered from that last engagement, the Spanish joining in on the side of the French. And so as the Mediterranean fleet heads for the Straits of Gibraltar and thence on to Cadiz, we'll leave the account for now because we're already nearly 50 minutes in and there's a lot more to come. So this will be part one and I hope to pick up part two in about six weeks time. Thank you very much for listening and hope to rejoin Nelson as he prepares for the Battle of Cape St Vincent back aboard HMS Captain at that time. But just before I go, and this is fairly unusual, but I'm going to give a quick shout out to another naval history YouTube channel I'd really like you guys to check out. That's Dr Alexander Clark's YouTube channel, link in the description below. He needs a few more subscribers I think and he's a very good source of information and there's some family bragging rights at stake. So please go check out his videos and subscribe if you like. Other than that, thanks again. That's it for this video. Thanks for watching. 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