THE SIEGE OF BASTIA.—THE SIEGE OF CALVI.—THE ANNEXATION OF CORSICA.—THE CAPTURE OF THE “ÇA IRA” AND THE “CENSEUR.”
On January 30th, 1793, by the united interest of Prince William, now Duke of Clarence, and Lord Hood, Nelson was appointed to the Agamemnon of sixty-five guns and was ordered to the Mediterranean to serve under Lord Hood. While here, he was sent with despatches to Sir William Hamilton, our envoy at the court of Naples, and thus formed the acquaintance of Sir William and his wife. When returning from this mission, he fell in with five sail of the enemy and gave chase. He came near enough to one frigate to engage her, but after inflicting and receiving much damage was unable to follow up his advantage. Shortly after, he was detached with a small squadron to co-operate with General Paoli and the anti-Galician party in Corsica, an expedition—the immediate object of which was the conquest of the city of Bastia, then held by the French—in which Nelson showed what a determined sailor can do on shore.
Lord Hood submitted to General Dundas, who commanded the land forces, a plan for the reduction of this place; but the general declined co-operating, thinking the attempt impracticable without a reinforcement of two thousand men, which he expected from Gibraltar. Upon this Lord Hood determined to reduce it with the naval force under his command, and leaving part of his fleet off Toulon, sailed with the rest to Bastia. General d’Aubant, who succeeded General Dundas in the command of the land forces, held the same opinion as his predecessor and refused to furnish his lordship with a single soldier, cannon, or any stores. Lord Hood could only obtain a few artillerymen; so ordering on board the troops who, having been embarked as marines, were borne on the ships’ books as part of their respective complements, he began the siege with eleven hundred and eighty-three soldiers, artillerymen, and marines, and two hundred and fifty sailors. “We are but few,” said Nelson, “but of the right sort; our general at St. Fiorenzo not giving us one of the five regiments he has there lying idle.”
These men were landed on April 4th, under Lieutenant-Colonel Villettes and Nelson, who had now acquired from the army the title of brigadier. Guns were dragged by the sailors up heights where it appeared almost impossible to convey them; a work of the greatest difficulty, and one which Nelson said could never, in his opinion, have been accomplished by any but British seamen. The soldiers, though less dexterous in such service, because not accustomed, like sailors, to habitual dexterity, behaved with equal spirit. “Their zeal,” said the brigadier, “is almost unexampled. There is not a man but considers himself as personally interested in the event, and as deserted by the general. It has, I am persuaded, made them equal to double their numbers.”
La Combe St. Michel, the commissioner from the national convention, who was in the city, replied to the summons of the British admiral in these terms: “I have hot shot for your ships, and bayonets for your troops. When two-thirds of our men are killed, I will then trust to the generosity of the English.” The siege, however, was not sustained with the firmness which such a reply seemed to augur. On May 19th a treaty of capitulation was begun, and that same evening the troops from St. Fiorenzo made their appearance on the hills; and, on the following morning, General d’Aubant arrived with the whole army to take possession of the town.
The events of the siege had justified the confidence of the sailors; but they themselves excused the opinion of the generals, when they saw what they had done. “I am all astonishment,” said Nelson, “when I reflect upon what we have achieved: one thousand regulars, fifteen hundred national guards, and a large party of Corsican troops, four thousand in all, laying down their arms to twelve hundred soldiers, marines, and seamen! I always was of opinion, have ever acted up to it and never had any reason to repent it, that one Englishman was equal to three Frenchmen. Had this been an English town, I am sure it would not have been taken by them.”
The Agamemnon was now despatched to co-operate at the siege of Calvi with General Sir Charles Stuart. Nelson had less responsibility here than at Bastia, and was acting with a man after his own heart, who was never sparing of himself, and slept every night in the advanced battery. But the service was not less hard than that of the former siege. “We will fag ourselves to death,” said he to Lord Hood, “before any blame shall lie at our doors. I trust it will not be forgotten that twenty-five pieces of heavy ordnance have been dragged to the different batteries, mounted, and all but three fought by seamen, except one artilleryman to point the guns.” The climate proved more destructive than the service; for this was during the period of the “lion sun,” as they there call our season of the “dog days.” Of two thousand men above half were sick, and the rest like so many phantoms. Nelson described himself as the reed among the oaks, bowing before the storm when they were laid low by it. “All the prevailing disorders have attacked me,” said he, “but I have not strength enough for them to fasten on.” The loss from the enemy was not great; but Nelson received a serious injury: a shot struck the ground near him, and drove the sand and small gravel into one of his eyes. He spoke of it slightly at the time: writing the same day to Lord Hood, he only said that he got a little hurt that morning, not much; and the next day, he said, he should be able to attend his duty in the evening. In fact, he suffered it to confine him only one day; but the sight was lost.
After the fall of Calvi, his services were, by a strange omission, altogether overlooked and his name was not even mentioned in the list of wounded. Nelson felt himself neglected. “One hundred and ten days,” said he, “I have been actually engaged, at sea and on shore, against the enemy; three actions against ships, two against Bastia in my ship, four boat actions, and two villages taken, and twelve sail of vessels burnt. I do not know that any one has done more. I have had the comfort to be always applauded by my commander-in-chief, but never to be rewarded; and, what is more mortifying, for services in which I have been wounded others have been praised, who, at the same time, were actually in bed, far from the scene of action. They have not done me justice. But, never mind. I’ll have a Gazette of my own.” How amply was this prediction realised!
As the result of this expedition, Corsica was annexed to the British Crown with the consent of the majority of the people, and received a constitution as free as our own. Some, however, favoured French occupation, and soon after France taking advantage of the discontent, sought the reconquest of the island. Corsica was now loudly threatened. The French had a superior fleet in the Mediterranean, and they sent it out with express orders to seek the English and engage them. Accordingly, the Toulon fleet, consisting of seventeen ships of the line, and five smaller vessels, put to sea. Admiral Hotham, who had succeeded Lord Hood, received this information at Leghorn, and sailed immediately in search of them. He had with him fourteen sail of the line and one Neapolitan seventy-four; but his ships were only half manned, containing but seven thousand six hundred and fifty men, whereas the enemy had sixteen thousand nine hundred. He soon came in sight of them: a general action was expected; but after manœuvring for a day in sight of the English fleet, they allowed themselves to be chased. Nelson followed the Ça Ira for several hours, inflicting and receiving considerable damage, the result of which was that seven of the Agamemnon men were hurt, while the Ça Ira lost one hundred and ten, and was so cut up that she could not get a top mast aloft during the following night.
The next morning the French fleet was observed about five miles off the Ça Ira, and the Censeur which had her in tow being about three and a half miles distant. All sail was made to cut these ships off, and a partial engagement of the two fleets ensued. The Agamemnon was again engaged with her yesterday’s antagonist; but she had to fight on both sides the ship at the same time. The Ça Ira and the Censeur fought most gallantly: the first lost nearly three hundred men, in addition to her former loss; the last, three hundred and fifty. Both at last struck, and Lieutenant Andrews, of the Agamemnon, hoisted English colours on board them both. As soon as these vessels had struck, Nelson went to Admiral Hotham, and proposed that the two prizes should be left with the Illustrious and Courageux, which had been crippled in the action, and with four frigates, and that the rest of the fleet should pursue the enemy and follow up the advantage to the utmost. But his reply was—”We must be contented: we have done very well.” “Now,” said Nelson, “had we taken ten sail, and allowed the eleventh to escape, when it had been possible to have got at her, I could never have called it well done. Goodall backed me: I got him to write to the admiral; but it would not do. We should have had such a day as, I believe, the annals of England never produced.”
Nelson’s next expedition was to Genoa to co-operate with the Austrian and Sardinian forces; but his allies were unworthy of him and by their irresolution and delay continued to frustrate his best laid schemes. In an engagement between the Austrians and the French, General de Vins, the Austrian general, gave up the command in the middle of the battle, pleading ill-health. “From that moment,” says Nelson, “not a soldier stayed at his post: it was the devil take the hindmost. Many thousands ran away who had never seen the enemy; some of them thirty miles from the advanced posts. Had I not—though, I own, against my inclination—been kept at Genoa, from eight to ten thousand men would have been taken prisoners, and, amongst the number, General de Vins himself; but, by this means, the pass of the Bocchetta was kept open. The purser of the ship, who was at Vado, ran with the Austrians eighteen miles without stopping: the men without arms, officers without soldiers, women without assistance. The oldest officer, say they, never heard of so complete a defeat, and certainly without any reason. Thus has ended my campaign.”
The defeat of General de Vins gave the enemy possession of the Genoese coast from Savona to Voltri; and it deprived the Austrians of their direct communication with the English fleet. The Agamemnon, therefore, could no longer be useful on this station, and so Nelson sailed for Leghorn to refit. When his ship went into dock, there was not a mast, yard, sail, or any part of the rigging but what stood in need of repair, having been cut to pieces with shot. The hull was so damaged that it had for some time been secured by cables, which were served or thrapped round it.