Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/337

Rh NELSON 323 end to this menacing league. Sir Peter Parker, a cautious veteran, was made chief of this expedition, Nelson being only the second in command, for negotiation was to be tried at first, and for this Nelson had no aptitude ; but, though this arrangement promised well, it did not prove, on the whole, fortunate. The fleet, an extremely powerful armament, had passed the Sound by the 31st March, Nelson chafing at the delays of his colleague, and at diplo matic efforts which, he rightly thought, would give to the Danes what they wanted, time ; and by the 7th April it cast anchor in the waters around the Danish capital. The enemy, however, had already prepared the means of making a stern resistance : Copenhagen was covered by strong batteries ; and an imposing array of heavily armed craft, protected by a shoal, as was the case at Aboukir, presented a most formidable line of defence. Nelson, however, declared for an immediate attack ; and on the 2d May the attempt was made, Parker having judiciously left him to act for himself. Nelson s tactics resembled those of the Nile ; he closed on his foe by getting within the shoal ; but, from the nature of the case, he had not the means of placing the Danes between two fires ; he had to deal with forts, not with vessels only ; and his operations were in part unfortunate, for three of his ships at the out set grounded. The result was that, although his squadron destroyed the first line of the Danish defences, and threatened the capital with ruinous injury, the hostile batteries were not silenced, and Nelson s ships had suffered so much that he readily welcomed the terms of a truce which extricated him from no little danger. Parker, indeed, had been so alarmed at the prospect that he had actually signalled the fleet to retreat ; but Nelson character istically refused to obey until something like victory had been attained, on the whole, certainly, a wise resolve. Nelson was made a viscount for Copenhagen, and the league of the North was soon dissolved, for, though his success had not been perfect, it had taught the enemy a severe lesson. During the summer of 1801 he was engaged in watching the first preparations for a descent on the English coast, already contemplated by Napoleon ; and he directed a boat attack on what was ere long to grow into the for midable and threatening flotilla of Boulogne. The peace of Amiens brought the war to a close ; and Nelson stood on a pinnacle of fame, the acknowledged chief of the navy of England. His life, however, had become unhappy, for his private as well as his public character was not, it must be confessed, spotless. He was singularly susceptible to female influences ; and he had formed for some years an erring attachment for Emma, the wife of Sir William Hamilton, ambassador at Naples in 1798. She was an adven turess of great beauty and parts ; and, though his conduct at Naples does not seem to have been due to her evil counsels, he became almost her slave in his wild passion ; and this had not only led to a separation from his wife, but had given him many wretched moments, and had caused much pain to his aged sovereign. Discredit, however, of this kind could not detract from his splendid services ; and on the renewal of the war in 1803 Nelson was appointed to the Mediterranean command. He took up his station off Toulon ; and for nearly two years he kept the French in port, in spite of repeated efforts of escape, and of the vicissitudes of all kinds of weather an example of endur ance never equalled. Meanwhile Napoleon had been maturing his deep-laid plan for invading England ; the army which afterwards subdued the Continent had been marshalled along the cliffs of Boulogne ; a vast and armed flotilla had been assembled; and the descent was to be covered by an immense fleet, collected from many points of the compass, and concentrated in suitable force in the Channel. A variety of circumstances, however, the prin cipal being the timidity of the French admirals, alarmed at the recollections of the Nile, and fearing attempts to break the blockade, delayed the execution of the enemy s design, though certainly it was formidable in the extreme, and was unsuspected until the last moment. At last, at the end of March 1805, the French admiral, Villeneuve, escaped from Toulon, his mission being to rally a Spanish squadron, to cross the Atlantic and reach the West Indies, and then, returning to the seas of Europe, to liberate the French and Spanish squadrons blockaded at Ferrol, Eochefort, and Brest, and to attain the Channel with a great armada of from fifty to sixty ships of the line. Villeneuve s operations were at first successful : he was at Martinique by the middle of May, having been joined by a fleet from Cadiz ; and, though haunted, as it were, by the thought of Nelson, he was in full sail for Europe by the 1st June, having as yet completely eluded the enemy. Meantime Nelson had sought for Villeneuve on the Mediterranean for several days ; he had been long delayed by contrary winds ; and, though he had crossed the Atlantic with extreme rapidity when apprised of the destination of his foe, he had been lured away by a false report to the shores of the South American continent, and he only reached the latitude of Martinique to find that Villeneuve and his fleet were gone. He sailed from Antigua on the 13th June, pursuing with eleven sail a fleet of nineteen or twenty ; and, as he feared that he might not come up with Villeneuve, he despatched several light craft to warn the Admiralty though not snspecting Napoleon s design that a hostile fleet was on the way to Europe. This precaution proved of the highest moment. Nelson missed Villeneuve in the Atlantic wastes, but one of these vessels conveyed his message. Sir Eobert Calder, sent off for the purpose, intercepted Villeneuve off the coasts of Spain, and though the action was not decisive the Frenchman was compelled, to put into Ferrol, and was thus prevented from making northwards. Before long- Nelson, still chasing Villeneuve, but ignorant where his enemy was, had approached Europe and made for England : and at this intelligence the French admiral sailed from Ferrol southward, and put into Cadiz, completely frustrat ing his master s projects. The position of affairs had now become clearer, though Collingwood alone of British seamen had even an inkling of Napoleon s purpose ; and the Admiralty made preparations at once to attack the fleet that had fled into Cadiz. Nelson was placed in supreme command, and he was off Cadiz in the last days of September. His fleet numbered thirty-three or thirty- four sail of the line ; that of Villeneuve was of the same force, the Ferrol squadron having joined his own ; but, as Nelson knew that the French chief would not venture to fight on equal terms, he actually sent away seven or eight ships, in order to bring about an engage ment which, he had resolved, should prove decisive. By 20th October Villeneuve had put to sea with the combined fleets of France and Spain. He obeyed a peremptory command of Napoleon, who had stigmatized him as a feeble coward ; he left Cadiz trusting to a false report that Nelson had only twenty ships ; and yet, with thirty-three, he dreaded a battle. Nelson, eager to decoy the Frenchman out, had kept a considerable distance from land, but the enemy s movements were watched by his frigates, and he was informed of them throughout the night. His plan of attack had been made some time : the ships of the allies being very numerous, he had resolved to break their line at two points ; and in this way the results, he believed, of the manoeuvre would be more quick and effective. By daybreak on the 21st the fleet of Villeneuve was descried off the Cape of Trafalgar ; and the English fleet was formed into two columns, the northern led