Brueys, the French admiral in Lommand, sailed from Toulon on 19 May, his 22 warships protecting a convoy of 130 merchantmen, filled with soldiers, horses, guns, stores and heavy equipment. Proceeding eastward at 37 miles a day, they headed first towards the northern point of the island of Corsica, steering to make a junction with a separate convoy of 72 ships from Genoa, which they did on 21 May. On 28 May they were joined by another convoy of 22 merchantmen from Ajaccio in Corsica, and on 30 May by the final complement of 56 ships, which had left Civita Vecchia, on the Italian mainland, on the 26th. The combined fleet, now numbering 280 transports, besides its escorting warships, set a course down the eastern side of the island of Sardinia, heading towards Sicily. It cleared the southernmost point of Sardinia on 5 June.
Nelson easily should have been up with it. He was not. The sea had sprung a surprise upon him. His flagship had been dismasted, his scouting frigates scattered, he and his crew had barely escaped from disaster. His ploy of interception had been scuppered, and he could not hope to begin reasserting control of the operational seaspace until he had completed essential repairs and found his consorts.
Nelson had left Gibraltar on 8 May, with his flag in Vanguard, 74 guns, commanded by Captain Edward Berry, and in company with Orion, 74 (Captain James Saumarez) and Alexander, 74 (Captain Alexander Ball). Admiral Lord St. Vincent, commander of the fleet off Spain and his superior, had given him three frigates, Emerald, 36, Terpsichore, 32, and Bonne Citoyenne, a sloop rather than frigate, of 20 guns. He had also assigned him another ten 74s, a 50-gun ship, Leander, and the brig Mutine, which were to join later.
Nelson’s departure did not go unnoticed, and Alexander was actually struck by a shot from a Spanish shore battery. He arrived nevertheless, apparently undetected, 70 miles south of Toulon on 20 May, “not discovered by the enemy, though close to their ports . . . and exactly in the position for intercepting the Enemy’s ships,”6 as Captain Berry wrote to his father. Moreover, Terpsichore had captured a prize, from which it was learnt that Bonaparte had arrived at Toulon and that fifteen warships were ready for sea, and, though it was not yet known when or whither they would sail, the intelligence gave Nelson and his captains assurance that they were in the right spot, ahead of time.
Then the wind began to freshen. Vanguard had sent up its topgallant masts, usually sent down when bad weather threatened. In the early morning of 21 May, Vanguard, still under topgallant masts, lost its main topmast, and with it two men, one swept overboard, one killed by falling to the deck. By daybreak, the mizzen topmast had gone as well, the foremast altogether, and the bowsprit was sprung in three places. The ship was almost unmanageable, could be sailed only on a broad reach—at right angles to the wind, which was approaching Force 12 on the Beaufort scale—and was driving towards the rocky west coast of Corsica, on which, unless brought about by some means, she would shortly dash to pieces.
The situation demanded any remedy, however unpromising. The rigging of a spritsail under the creaking bowsprit, an antique device not in naval use for many decades, succeeded in bringing up her head. Very slowly, she was worn round with the wind until she was pointing away from Corsica and so, during the course of the morning, as spars and standing rigging were hacked into the sea, clawed off the lee shore. On 22 May, as the hurricane abated, Alexander was able to pass a tow and began to drag Vanguardsouthward towards the west coast of Sardinia. By late afternoon, with the wind moderating, a safe haven between Sardinia and the island of San Piétro was in sight; but the danger of driving ashore still threatened. Nelson signalled an order to Alexander to cast off the tow. It was refused and, very gradually, Vanguard was brought to anchor on the morning of 23 May. The captain of Alexander, Alexander Ball, of whom Nelson had hitherto had a very guarded opinion, became henceforth one of his most valued advisers.
Vanguard at once undertook repairs, using some of its own spare spars and others sent from Alexander and Orion to replace its lost lower, top and topgallant masts. After four days it was ready to sail. Next day, 24 May, a Marseilles vessel was encountered. It told that Napoleon’s fleet—which had been outside the track of the storm—had left Toulon on 19 May but gave no indication as to its destination.
Nelson therefore decided to retrace his course rather than press on into the uncertainties of the wider Mediterranean. He had lost touch with his three accompanying frigates during the great gale. He had not yet made contact with the squadron St. Vincent had allotted him. His judgement was that prudence demanded a return to his starting point, where he could concentrate his forces, gather in his frigates and gain fresh intelligence of the enemy’s movements. By 3 June he was back off Toulon, where on 5 June the brigMutine appeared, bearing news that Troubridge’s squadron of ten men-of-war would soon join. The Mutine was commanded by Thomas Hardy, of “Kiss me, Hardy” at Trafalgar, already a favourite of Nelson. His information brought reassurance. On 7 June, Troubridge appeared. Nelson’s command now numbered thirteen 74s and a 50, quite enough to defeat the French if they could be found. To find the French, however, Nelson needed frigates. Where had the frigates gone?
Terpsichore, Emerald and Bonne Citoyenne had been scattered by the storm that dismasted Vanguard. Bonne Citoyenne had sent down her topgallant masts and ridden out the storm; she was a weatherly little ship, much admired for her sailing qualities.Terpsichore had also struck her topgallants and eventually her topmasts also, after three of her foremast shrouds had broken. She was alone for two days, 20–21 May, during the height of the storm but found Bonne Citoyenne again in the afternoon of the 22nd. Both were then well south of Toulon. Emerald had been driven even farther south, but also east, so far away from her two sister frigates that early in the morning of 21 May she caught a glimpse of Vanguard off Corsica in her dismasted state. She was not in a position to render assistance, and the two ships lost each other in the tumult.
Emerald’s captain, Thomas Waller, then decided, as the weather abated, to head towards the coast of Spain, in the hope of picking up prizes, desirable in themselves, but also to gather information from them. Without luck; although he intercepted two merchantmen, he got no news of either Nelson’s or Bonaparte’s whereabouts. On 31 May, however, he fell in with another British frigate, Alcmene, commanded by Captain George Hope, which St. Vincent had sent after Nelson on 12 May. It was in company withTerpsichore and Bonne Citoyenne, which it had met two days earlier. They had told Captain Hope of the great storm but had, of course, no news of Nelson. Captain Waller went aboard Alcmene, told Hope of his sighting of the dismasted Vanguard and thus set in train a sequence of events which was to deprive Nelson of his scouting group for the next two and a half months.
Nelson had left instructions for his frigates to obey in the event of their separation from the flagship. That was a common and sensible eighteenth-century precaution designed, in the absence of anything but spoken or visual communication, to allow contact to be re-established by designating a rendezvous. His instructions laid down that, if lost, they were to cruise on a line west to east and back again, due south of Toulon to within 60 to 90 miles of Cap St. Sebastian near Barcelona. When, “not having heard from me for ten days, to return to Gibraltar.” The scheme should have worked. Hope in Alcmene began to work the patrol line on 23 May, sailing back and forth on latitude 42 degrees 20 minutes north as instructed. He continued to do so after Terpsichore and Bonne Citoyennejoined. Had he kept on until 3 June, only one day more than the stipulated span, he would have been found by Nelson, who himself arrived on station that day.
On 31 May, however, Hope had detached Terpsichore and Bonne Citoyenne to search for Nelson between Sardinia and North Africa. On 2 June he met Mutine and was told by Hardy that Troubridge, with ten men-of-war, was close behind him, also looking for Nelson. There were now four separate British forces in the western Mediterranean, all looking for Bonaparte but also for each other: Nelson approaching his designated patrol line, Alcmene and Mutine on it, Terpsichore and Bonne Citoyenne heading for Sardinia, Troubridge south of all of them but heading north and anxious to make touch. If Hope had kept Alcmene and Bonne Citoyenne in company and stayed on station with Mutine, he would inevitably have met Nelson, and Troubridge later, thus forming a junction of heavy ships and scouts which, with the merest addition of luck, would have intercepted the slow-sailing French in the central Mediterranean within the month at most. The destruction of the French fleet, and with it a major portion of the best of the French army, would have followed, Bonaparte would have been a beaten man and none of his most famous victories, Marengo and Austerlitz foremost, would have been won. The First Coalition might have been revived, the Revolution contained, the French Empire never founded, the future of Europe changed altogether.
As it was, Hope decided on another course. Emerald’s report of the extent of damage suffered by Vanguard was decisive in forming his mind. He concluded that its severity would require the flagship to enter dockyard for repairs. The only available were at Naples and Gibraltar. To look for Nelson at Gibraltar required a retrogression, which would add in both space and time to Bonaparte’s head start; in any case, Hope had been told by Hardy when he had left in the Mutine that Nelson had not returned to Gibraltar. He also decided against seeking out Troubridge, a bad mistake, since Troubridge shortly found Nelson himself, and had he been able to bring Hope’s frigates with him, would thereby have added enormously to the fleet’s powers of reconnaissance. Hope instead made the calamitous decision to mount a search for the French by himself. Having already detached Bonne Citoyenne and Emerald to Sardinia, he sent Terpsichore to search the north Italian ports while sailing Alcmene round Majorca and Minorca, then to Sardinia and eventually towards Naples, picking up his detached consorts on the way. The pattern of search would have been justifiable had either Nelson or the French armada been standing still. Nelson, however, was cruising on the patrol line while the French were heading steadily east and south, opening up irrecoverable searoom with every day that passed. Had Nelson known of Hope’s movements and orders, his anguish at “want of frigates” would have been even more acute than it was.
Nelson, back on his rendezvous line off Toulon, now at least had the consolation of picking up the ships that were to constitute his fighting force, first Mutine, then Troubridge’s ten 74s, on the afternoon of 7 June. Then the weather again intervened. A calm fell, so that it was not until 10 June that Orion and Alexander, of his original three, which had been detached to chase merchantmen in hope of news, rejoined and the fleet was fully assembled. Nelson, with thirteen 74s, the 50-gun Leander and the nimble Mutinecould now turn in pursuit of the enemy. Where to head?
Troubridge had brought orders from St. Vincent which recapitulated the strategic situation. Nelson was requested and required to proceed “in quest of the Armament preparing by the enemy at Toulon and Genoa, the object whereof appears to be, either an attack on Naples and Sicily, the conveyance of an army to some part of the coast of Spain, for the purpose of marching towards Portugal or to pass through the Straits [of Gibraltar] with the view to proceeding to Ireland.” However, in additional instructions, he was also authorised to pursue the French fleet “to any part of the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Morea [southern Greece], Archipelago [Greek islands] or even into the Black Sea, should its destination be to any of those parts.” He was to supply himself from the ports of “the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the King of the Two Sicilies [Naples], the Ottoman Territory, Malta and ci-devant [former] Venetian Dominions now belonging to the Emperor of Germany [Austria].” He might also expect help from the Bey of Tunis, the Bashaw of Tripoli (modern Libya) and the Dey of Algiers, three nominal but effectively independent possessions of the Ottoman empire.7
Portugal? Ireland? Naples? Sicily? No mention of Egypt. The only inference Nelson could make, as he assembled his fleet, was that Bonaparte must be assembling his also, which meant bringing together the Toulon and the Genoa elements. He concluded that Toulon would go to Genoa, rather than vice versa, and decided accordingly to search the north Italian coast; implicitly, he thereby discarded the notion of Portugal and Ireland as destinations and thought more of Naples and Sicily. He began, having cleared the northern point of Corsica, by looking in Telamon Bay (Golfo di Talamone), south of Elba, thought by him a suitable mustering place for the Toulon and Genoa convoys. Mutine, having explored the bay and run between the offshore islands of Montecristo and Giglio, reported no sight of the enemy; at this stage Nelson still believed that “not all the French troops had left Genoa on the 6th.”8 Next day, 13 June, he went to look for himself, sailing the whole fleet between Elba and the islands of Pianosa and Montecristo, a laborious detour. Had his frigates been with him one could have been sent to do the work, while Nelson pressed forward. Mutine was not fast enough to perform detached duty and keep up with the fleet. He might have used one of the 74s as a scout, but that would have diminished his fighting power; he had told St. Vincent, before leaving Gibraltar, that he intended to keep “the large Ships complete, to fight, I hope, larger ones.”
On 14 June the clouds lifted a little. Near Civitavecchia he spoke a Tunisian warship, which told him it had spoken a Greek on 10 June which had “on the 4th, passed through the French Fleet, of about 200 Sail, as he thought, off the N.W. end of Sicily, steering to the Eastward.”9 It is not clear if that meant it was moving along the north coast of Sicily or had passed Trapani and was off the south coast. If the former, it was just possible it might be making for Naples; if the latter, it had some other objective; but in either case it might land troops on Sicily, eminently worth occupying in itself. In any case, Bonaparte’s Armament had been nearly three hundred miles ahead of him ten days earlier and, even allowing for its sluggardly rate of advance, might have made another three hundred miles since. The cloud of unknowing, even if it had lifted a little, still concealed most of the future.
In the circumstances, Nelson decided to go to Naples. There were good reasons for doing so. The long-serving British ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, in post for thirty-four years, had important sources of information, drawn from diplomatic, political and commercial contacts all over the central Mediterranean. The kingdom of Naples, or the Two Sicilies, as it was known, was well disposed towards Britain, and in fear of France, whose armies were just over the border in the Papal States. It might lend Nelson’s fleet supplies and assistance. Its Prime Minister, General Sir John Acton, a cosmopolitan man of affairs, held the title of a British baronet and had some loyalty to his ancestors’ country. Nelson hoped for both intelligence and material support.
Arrived at the Ponza islands off Naples on 15 June Nelson sent Troubridge ashore in the Mutine. He landed on the morning of the 17th. Thomas Troubridge was a trusted subordinate, a colleague of twenty-five years and a no-nonsense fighting-ship captain. St. Vincent thought him “the greatest man in that walk the English Navy has ever produced.” A veteran of the Glorious First of June and the Cape St. Vincent battles, his attitude to command was straightforward. “Whenever I see a fellow look as if he was thinking,” he gave as his opinion after the widespread outbreaks of indiscipline in 1797, “I say that’s mutiny.” Taken to see Hamilton and Acton, he came straight to the point. Hamilton recorded, “We did more business in half an hour than should have been done in a week in the official way here . . . Now being informed of the position and strength of the enemy” and having extracted an order from Acton authorising the governors of every Neapolitan port to supply “the King’s ships with all sorts of provisions,” Troubridge “brightened up and seemed perfectly happy.” Putting Acton’s order in his pocket, he departed for the fleet offshore, which he reached on 18 June.
Fighting is one thing. Intelligence is another. Each requires different qualities, not often found in the same person. The Royal Navy was to rediscover that, on a similar occasion, on 31 May 1916, when a seaman officer asked the wrong question of the intelligence staff on the morning of the Battle of Jutland. The fault then was superciliousness; he disdained to explain why he asked the question he did, not deigning to take the cryptologists into his confidence. Troubridge was not supercilious. He, Hamilton and Acton seem to have got on like a house on fire. His fault was bluntness. He wanted supplies for the ships, almost a naval officer’s first thought. He wanted the freshest news available of the enemy’s whereabouts. Acton’s order ensured the first. Hamilton’s hard information—that the French were going to Malta—supplied the second. No wonder Troubridge departed wreathed in smiles.
What he should have extracted from Hamilton, and might have done had he not stuck so directly to the point as he saw it to be, was softer news. It might have emerged in speculative or even general conversation, clearly not Troubridge’s strong point. The news was the indication that the French Armament was bound farther afield than Sicily or Malta. On 28 May Acton, whose first language was French (he had been born at Besançon), had told Hamilton that the French ambassador at Naples had told him “that the grand expedition from Toulon . . . was really destined for Egypt.” Hamilton appears to have suspected that he might be dealing with disinformation. As a result, although he minuted Acton’s report to the Foreign Office in London, he did not pass its content on to Troubridge nor put it in writing to Nelson.10