Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844

But the troubles of the unfortunate Horatio were not over; for just at this time arose another vexed and vexatious question, as to whether a senior officer on half-pay – though holding a commissionership of the navy – could be empowered by the admiral on the station to hoist a broad pendant; and after a spirited correspondence, the point was decided, though apparently in a very shilly-shally shabby way, in Nelson's favour – for it is accompanied with a reprimand – the Admiralty informing him, that he ought to have submitted his doubts to the commander-in-chief on the station, instead of having taken on himself "to control the exercise of the functions of his appointment" – whatever that may mean.

Too much activity, even in a good cause, is apt to excite the enmity of the idle drones who have got on without any activity at all, and for some years the zeal of Nelson got him into disfavour with his superiors in the service. And yet his whole conduct was regulated by the strictest sense of duty, and his letters – even those in which he shows most independence – never give the slightest occasion to suspect that his actions arose from self-will and disobedience. On this point he is very explicit.

He writes to the admiral – "This, sir, I hope you will transmit to my lords commissioners, that they nor any other of my superior officers may have the smallest idea that I shall ever dispute the orders of my superiors."

And to the Admiralty, on the same occasion – "I must beg their lordships' indulgence to hear reasons for my conduct, that it may never go abroad into the world I ever had an idea to dispute the orders of my superior officer, neither admiral, commodore, or captain."

The plot in the mean time thickens, and his anger increases against the audacious swindling of the Yankees, aided by the islanders; and in his own defence he goes, according to his custom, to the fountain-head, and lays his complaint before the secretary of state. "My name," he says, "most probably is unknown to your lordship," (Lord Sydney,) "but my character as a man, I trust, will bear the strictest investigation; therefore I take the liberty of sending enclosed a letter, though written some few years ago, which I hope will impress your lordship with a favourable opinion of me. I stand for myself, no great connexion to support me if inclined to fall; therefore my good name, as a man, an officer, and an Englishman, I must be very careful of. My greatest pride is to discharge my duty faithfully; my greatest ambition to receive approbation for my conduct."

The chicaneries of the law were brought to bear on the captain of the Boreas, and by means of a writ for his arrest, (on the trumped-up plea of detention and imprisonment of some fraudulent Americans – true ancestors of the repudiators of the present day,) he was forced to remain on board ship for several months, but was at last released from durance by the tardy undertaking given by government to be answerable for his defence.

The lukewarmness of his superiors, and the villanies of law, were not enough to fill up his time, and, in the very midst of these agitating matters, he adds a third: he met Mrs Nisbet, and fell in love. His letters, however, are not entirely composed of sighs and lightning; and it gives a high idea of the lady's sense to perceive the calm, yet real, affection she inspired. We shall only quote one of his letters to his lady-love, to show the style of them all, and also to show his feelings towards Prince William Henry, (King William IV.,) who was at this time under his command as captain of the Pegasus.

"Off Antigua, December 12, 1786.

"Our young prince is a gallant man; he is indeed volatile, but always with great good-nature. There were two balls during his stay, and some of the old ladies were mortified that H. R. H. would not dance with them; but he says he is determined to enjoy the privilege of all other men, that of asking any lady he pleases.

"Wednesday.– We arrived here this morning at daylight. His Royal Highness dined with me, and, of course, the governor. I can tell you a piece of news, which is, that the prince is fully determined, and has made me promise him, that he shall be at our wedding; and he says he will give you to me. His Royal Highness has not yet been in a private house to visit, and is determined never to do it except in this instance. You know I will ever strive to bear such a character as may render it no discredit to any man to take notice of me. There is no action in my whole life but what is honourable; and I am the more happy at this time on that account; for I would, if possible, or in my power, have no man near the prince who can have the smallest impeachment as to character; for as an individual, I love him, as a prince, I honour and revere him. My telling you this history is as to myself; my thoughts on all subjects are open to you. We shall certainly go to Barbadoes from this island, and when I shall see you is not possible for me to guess, so much for marrying a sailor. We are often separated, but I trust our affections are not by any means on that account diminished. Our country has the first demand for our services; and private convenience or happiness must ever give way to the public good. Give my love to Josiah. Heaven bless and return you safe to your most affectionate

"Horatio Nelson."

The attachment here professed for the prince seems to have been caused not less by the loyalty of Nelson's nature than by the real good qualities of the sailor king. It is probable he tried to form himself (professionally) on the model of his young commodore, and a better original it was impossible for him to study. A certain young lieutenant, of the name of Schomberg, conceiving that he was injuriously treated in an order of the day, issued by his Royal Highness on board the Pegasus, applied to Nelson for a court-martial to enquire into the charge alleged against him. Nelson granted the court-martial, and placed the complainant in arrest till a sufficient number could be collected for his trial, and expressed his opinion of such frivolous applications in the following general order: —

"By Horatio Nelson, Esquire, Captain of his Majesty's ship Boreas.

"For the better maintaining discipline and good government in the king's squadron under my command.

"I think it necessary to inform the officers, that if any one of them shall presume to write to the commander of the squadron (unless there shall be ships enough present to bring them to immediate trial) for a court-martial to investigate their conduct, on a frivolous pretence, thereby depriving his majesty of their services by obliging the commander of the squadron to confine them, that I shall and do consider such conduct as a direct breach of the 14th and part of the 19th articles of war, and shall order them to be tried for the same.

"Given under my hand, &c.

"Horatio Nelson."

This probably had the desired effect, and the business was afterwards adjusted without having recourse to a court-martial, though not without bringing upon Nelson a rap over the knuckles on his return to England. In order to obtain the proper court, he had directed the prince to take his ship to the Jamaica station on his way to Halifax in Nova Scotia, and the following paragraph contains their lordships' decision: —

"My lords are not satisfied with the reasons you have given for altering the destination of the Pegasus, and for sending the Rattler sloop to Jamaica; and that, for having taken upon you to send the latter away from the station to which their lordships had appointed her, you will be answerable for the consequence, if the crown should be put to any needless expense upon that account."

We must close this account of the frivolous court-martial with an admirable letter from Nelson to the prince.

"Portsmouth 27th July, 1787.

"If to be truly great is to be truly good, (as we are taught to believe,) it never was stronger verified than in your Royal Highness in the instance of Mr Schomberg. You have supported your character, yet, at the same time, by an amiable condescension, have saved an officer from appearing before a court-martial, which ever must hurt him. Resentment, I know, your Royal highness never had, or, I am sure, ever will bear any one. It is a passion incompatible with the character of a man of honour. Schomberg was too hasty, certainly, in writing his letter, but now you are parted, pardon me, my prince, when I presume to recommend that Schomberg may stand in your royal favour as if he had never sailed with you; and that, at some future day, you will serve him. There only wants this to place your character in the highest point of view. None of us are without failings. Schomberg's was being rather too hasty; but that, put in competition with his being a good officer, will not, I am bold to say, be taken in the scale against him."

There is one characteristic circumstance in this collection, namely, the number of letters written by Nelson in recommendation of all who have behaved well under his command. He was desirous of acting to others as, he boasts in one of his letters with pride and exultation, he had been treated by Lord Howe. "You ask, by what interest did I get a ship? I answer, having served with credit, was my recommendation to Lord Howe, first lord of the admiralty."

The following is an application on behalf of a certain boatswain called Joseph King, which we quote on account of the extraordinary politeness, – owing, perhaps, to his study at St Omer – with which Nelson designates his protégé.

To Philip Stephens, Esq., Admiralty.

"Boreas, 21st Sept. 1787.

 

"On the 20th, Charles Green, late acting boatswain, was entered as boatswain of his majesty's ship under my command, agreeable to a warrant dated at the Navy Pay-office, the 13th instant. I am, therefore, requested by Joseph King, to write to their lordships, to request they will be pleased to appoint him to some other ship, as he hopes he has done nothing deserving of being superseded; and I beg leave to recommend him as a most excellent gentleman. – I am, &c.

"Horatio Nelson."

Whether this application was successful or not, even the industry of the editor has not discovered, but we fear that, at this point of his history, Nelson's recommendation was of no great weight with the Admiralty. His biographers, indeed, Clarke and M'Arthur, say, that at this time the treatment he received disgusted him with his profession, and that he had even determined never to set his foot again on board a king's ship, but resign his commission at once. But Sir Harris Nicolas very justly is sceptical as to the truth of this anecdote, from the fact, that there is no allusion to any intention of the kind in his correspondence. And from what we see of his disposition in all his letters, we feel assured that a thought of leaving the navy never entered his mind, and that he would have considered the withdrawal of his services as little short of treason. But there occurred now a long interval of idleness, or at least of life ashore. The Boreas was paid off in December 1787, and he was only appointed to the Agamemnon in January 1793.

The four years of peace passed happily away, principally at Burnham with his father; and there is little to quote till we find him on his own element again. He writes to Hercules Ross, a West India merchant, with whom he had formed a steady friendship while on that station; and we adduce the passage as a further corroboration of Sir Harris Nicolas's doubts about the authenticity of Clarke and M'Arthur's anecdote.

"You have given up all the toils and anxieties of business, whilst I must still buffet the waves – in search of what? That thing called honour, is now, alas, thought of no more. My integrity cannot be mended, I hope; but my fortune, God knows, has grown worse for the service. So much for serving my country. But the devil, ever willing to tempt the virtuous, (pardon this flattery of myself,) has made me offer, if any ships should be sent to destroy his majesty of Morocco's ports, to be there; and I have some reason to think that, should any more come of it, my humble services will be accepted. I have invariably laid down, and followed close, a plan of what ought to be uppermost in the breast of an officer; that it is much better to serve an ungrateful country, than to give up his own fame. Posterity will do him justice; a uniform conduct of honour and integrity seldom fails of bringing a man to the goal of fame at last."

But in spite of the coolness of the jacks-in-office, and the cold shoulder they turned to the little troublesome captain in the time of peace, no sooner were we likely to come to loggerheads with the French, than they turned their eyes to the quiet Norfolk parsonage, and made the amende to the iracundus Achilles.

War with France was declared on the 11th of February 1793, and on the 7th of January, Nelson writes as follows: —

To Mrs Nelson.

"Post nubila Phœbus. After clouds comes sunshine. The Admiralty so smile on me, that really I am as much surprised as when they frowned. Lord Chatham yesterday made many apologies for not having given me a ship before this time, and said, that if I chose to take a sixty-four to begin with, I should be appointed to one as soon as she was ready, and whenever it was in his power, I should be removed into a seventy-four. Every thing indicated war. One of our ships looking into Brest, has been fired into; the shot is now at the Admiralty. You will send my father this news, which I am sure will please him. – Love to Josiah, and believe me, your most affectionate

"Horatio Nelson."

The appointment of Nelson to the Agamemnon, a name which he did nearly as much to immortalize as Homer, is the great epoch of his professional life. But though his letters, which now rise to the rank of despatches, become more interesting to those who watch his progress as an officer, there are comparatively fewer which let us into the character of the man. Besides this, the incidents of his career after this time are so well known, that little new can be expected. What novelty, however, there was to be obtained has not escaped the research of the editor, from whom (till we meet him in another volume, when Nelson will again become interesting in his individual capacity, as his secret and confidential letters in the Carraccioli and Lady Hamilton's period, come to be laid before us) we part with feelings of gratitude and respect.

GUIZOT

Machiavel was the first historian who seems to have formed a conception of the philosophy of history. Before his time, the narrative of human events was little more than a series of biographies, imperfectly connected together by a few slight sketches of the empires on which the actions of their heroes were exerted. In this style of history, the ancient writers were, and to the end of time probably will continue to be, altogether inimitable. Their skill in narrating a story, in developing the events of a life, in tracing the fortunes of a city or a state, as they were raised by a succession of illustrious patriots, or sunk by a series of oppressive tyrants, has never been approached in modern times. The histories of Xenophon and Thucydides, of Livy and Sallust, of Cæsar and Tacitus, are all more or less formed on this model; and the more extended view of history, as embracing an account of the countries the transactions of which were narrated, originally formed, and to a great part executed, by the father of history, Herodotus, appears to have been, in an unaccountable manner, lost by his successors.

In these immortal works, however, human transactions are uniformly regarded as they have been affected by, or called forth the agency of, individual men. We are never presented with the view of society in a mass; as influenced by a series of causes and effects independent of the agency of individual man – or, to speak more correctly, in the development of which the agency is an unconscious, and often almost a passive, instrument. Constantly regarding history as an extensive species of biography, they not only did not withdraw the eye to the distance necessary to obtain such a general view of the progress of things, but they did the reverse. Their great object was to bring the eye so close as to see the whole virtues or vices of the principal figures, which they exhibited on their moving panorama; and in so doing they rendered it incapable of perceiving, at the same time, the movement of the whole social body of which they formed a part. Even Livy, in his pictured narrative of Roman victories, is essentially biographical. His inimitable work owes its enduring celebrity to the charming episodes of individuals, or graphic pictures of particular events with which it abounds; scarce any general views on the progress of society, or the causes to which its astonishing progress in the Roman state was owing, are to be found. In the introduction to the life of Catiline, Sallust has given, with unequalled power, a sketch of the causes which corrupted the republic; and if his work had been pursued in the same style, it would indeed have been a philosophical history. But neither the Catiline nor the Jugurthine war are histories; they are chapters of history, containing two interesting biographies. Scattered through the writings of Tacitus, are to be found numerous caustic and profound observations on human nature, and the increasing vices and selfishness of a corrupted age: but, like the maxims of Rochefoucault, it is to individual, not general, humanity that they refer; and they strike us as so admirably just because they do not describe general causes operating upon society as a body – which often make little impression save on a few reflecting minds – but strike direct to the human heart in a way which comes home to the breast of every individual who reads them.

Never was a juster observation than that the human mind is never quiescent; it may not give the external symptoms of action, but it does not cease to have the internal action: it sleeps, but even then it dreams. Writers innumerable have declaimed on the night of the Middle Ages – on the deluge of barbarism which, under the Goths, flooded the world – on the torpor of the human mind, under the combined pressure of savage violence and priestly superstition; yet this was precisely the period when the minds of men, deprived of external vent, turned inwards on themselves; and that the learned and thoughtful, shut out from any active part in society by the general prevalence of military violence, sought, in the solitude of the cloister, employment in reflecting on the mind itself, and the general causes which, under its guidance, operated upon society. The influence of this great change in the direction of thought at once appeared when knowledge, liberated from the cloister and the university, again took its place among the affairs of men. Machiavel in Italy, and Bacon in England, for the first time in the annals of knowledge, reasoned upon human affairs as a science. They spoke of the minds of men as permanently governed by certain causes, and of known principles, always leading to the same results; they treated of politics as a science in which certain known laws existed, and could be discovered, as in mechanics and hydraulics. This was a great step in advance, and demonstrated that the superior age of the world, and the wide sphere to which political observation had now been applied, had permitted the accumulation of such an increased store of facts, as permitted deductions, founded on experience, to be formed in regard to the affairs of nations. Still more, it showed that the attention of writers had been drawn to the general causes of human affairs; that they reasoned on the actions of men as a subject of abstract thought; regarded effects formerly produced as likely to recur from a similar combination of circumstances; and formed conclusions for the regulation of future conduct, from the results of past experience. This tendency is, in an especial manner, conspicuous in the Discorsi of Machiavel, where certain general propositions are stated, deduced, indeed, from the events of Roman story, but announced as lasting truths, applicable to every future generation and circumstances of men. In depth of view and justness of observation, these views of the Florentine statesman never were surpassed. Bacon's essays relate, for the most part, to subjects of morals, or domestic and private life; but not unfrequently he touches on the general concerns of nations, and with the same profound observation of the past, and philosophic anticipation of the future.

Voltaire professed to elevate history in France from the jejune and trifling details of genealogy, courts, wars, and negotiations, in which it had hitherto, in his country, been involved, to the more general contemplation of arts and philosophy, and the progress of human affairs; and, in some respects, he certainly effected a great reformation on the ponderous annalists who had preceded him. But the foundation of his history was still biography; he regarded human events only as they were grouped round two or three great men, or as they were influenced by the speculations of men of letters and science. The history of France he stigmatized as savage and worthless till the reign of Louis XIV.; the Russians he looked upon as bitter barbarians till the time of Peter the Great. He thought the philosophers alone all in all; till they arose, and a sovereign appeared, who collected them round his throne, and shed on them the rays of royal favour, human events were not worth narrating; they were merely the contests of one set of savages plundering another. Religion, in his eyes, was a mere priestly delusion to enslave and benighten mankind; from its oppression the greatest miseries of modern times had flowed; the first step in the emancipation of the human mind was to chase for ever from the earth those sacerdotal tyrants. The most free-thinking historian will now admit, that these views are essentially erroneous; he will allow that, viewing Christianity merely as a human institution, its effect in restraining the violence of feudal anarchy was incalculable; long anterior to the date of the philosophers, he will look for the broad foundation on which national character and institutions, for good or for evil, have been formed. Voltaire was of great service to history, by turning it from courts and camps to the progress of literature, science, and the arts – to the delineation of manners, and the preparation of anecdotes descriptive of character; but, notwithstanding all his talent, he never got a glimpse of the general causes which influence society. He gave us the history of philosophy, but not the philosophy of history.

The ardent genius and pictorial eye of Gibbon rendered him an incomparable delineator of events; and his powerful mind made him seize the general and characteristic features of society and manners, as they appear in different parts of the world, as well as the traits of individual greatness. His descriptions of the Roman empire in the zenith of its power, as it existed in the time of Augustus – of its decline and long-protracted old age, under Constantine and his successors on the Byzantine throne – of the manners of the pastoral nations, who, under different names, and for a succession of ages, pressed upon and at last overturned the empire – of the Saracens, who, issuing from the lands of Arabia, with the Koran in one hand and the cimeter in the other, urged on their resistless course, till they were arrested by the Atlantic on the one side, and the Indian ocean on the other – of the stern crusaders, who, nursed amid the cloistered shades and castellated realms of Europe, struggled with that devastating horde "when 'twas strongest, and ruled it when 'twas wildest" – of the long agony, silent decay, and ultimate resurrection of the Eternal City – are so many immortal pictures, which, to the end of the world, will fascinate every ardent and imaginative mind. But, not withstanding this incomparable talent for general and characteristic description, he had not the mind necessary for a philosophical analysis of the series of causes which influence human events. He viewed religion with a jaundiced and prejudiced eye – the fatal bequest of his age and French education, unworthy alike of his native candour and inherent strength of understanding. He had profound philosophic ideas, and occasionally let them out with admirable effect; but the turn of his mind was essentially descriptive, and his powers were such, in that brilliant department, that they wiled him from the less inviting contemplation of general causes. We turn over his fascinating pages without ever wearying; but without ever discovering the general progress or apparent tendency of human affairs. We look in vain for the profound reflections of Machiavel on the permanent results of certain political combinations or experiments. He has led us through a "mighty maze;" but he has made no attempt to show it "not without a plan."

Hume is commonly called a philosophical historian, and so he is; but he has even less than Gibbon the power of unfolding the general causes which influence the progress of human events. He was not, properly speaking, a philosophic historian, but a philosopher writing history – and these are very different things. The practical statesman will often make a better delineator of the progress of human affairs than the philosophic recluse; for he is more practically acquainted with their secret Springs: it was not in the schools, but the forum or the palace, that Sallust, Tacitus, and Burke acquired their deep insight into the human heart. Hume was gifted with admirable sagacity in political economy; and it is the good sense and depth of his views on that important subject, then for the first time brought to bear on the annals of man, that has chiefly gained for him, and with justice, the character of a philosophic historian. To this may be added the admirable clearness and rhetorical powers with which he has stated the principal arguments for and against the great changes in the English institutions which it fell to his lot to recount – arguments far abler than were either used by, or occurred to, the actors by whom they were brought about; for it is seldom that a Hume is found in the councils of men. With equal ability, too, he has given periodical sketches of manners, customs, and habits, mingled with valuable details on finance, commerce, and prices – all elements, and most important ones, in the formation of philosophical history. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the man who has rescued these important facts from the ponderous folios where they were slumbering in forgotten obscurity, and brought them into the broad light of philosophic observation and popular narrative. But, notwithstanding all this, Hume is far from being gifted with the philosophy of history. He has collected or prepared many of the facts necessary for the science, but he has made little progress in it himself. He was essentially a sceptic. He aimed rather at spreading doubts than shedding light. Like Voltaire and Gibbon, he was scandalously prejudiced and unjust on the subject of religion; and to write modern history without correct views on that subject, is like playing Hamlet without the character of the Prince of Denmark. He was too indolent to acquire the vast store of facts indispensable for correct generalization on the varied theatre of human affairs, and often drew hasty and incorrect conclusions from the events which particularly came under his observation. Thus the repeated indecisive battles between the fleets of Charles II. and the Dutch, drew from him the observation, apparently justified by their results, that sea-fights are seldom so important or decisive as those at land. The fact is just the reverse. Witness the battle of Salamis, which repelled from Europe the tide of Persian invasion; that of Actium, which gave a master to the Roman world; that of Sluys, which exposed France to the dreadful English invasions, begun under Edward III.; that of Lepanto, which rolled back from Christendom the wave of Mahometan conquest; the defeat of the Armada, which permanently established the Reformation in Northern Europe; that of La Hogue, which broke the maritime strength of Louis XIV.; that of Trafalgar, which for ever took "ships, colonies, and commerce" from Napoleon, and spread them with the British colonial empire over half the globe.

Montesquieu owes his colossal reputation chiefly to his Esprit des Loix; but the Grandeur et Decadence des Romains is by much the greater work. It has never attained nearly the reputation in this country which it deserves, either in consequence of the English mind being less partial than the French to the philosophy of human affairs, or, as is more probable, from the system of education at our universities being so exclusively devoted to the study of words, that our scholars never arrive at the knowledge of things. It is impossible to imagine a work in which the philosophy of history is more ably condensed, or where there is exhibited, in a short space, a more profound view of the general causes to which the long-continued greatness and ultimate decline of that celebrated people were owing. It is to be regretted only that he did not come to modern times and other ages with the same masterly survey; the information collected in the Esprit des Loix would have furnished him with ample materials for such a work. In that noble treatise, the same philosophic and generalizing spirit is conspicuous; but there is too great a love of system, an obvious partiality for fanciful analogies, and, not unfrequently, conclusions hastily deduced from insufficient data. These errors, the natural result of a philosophic and profound mind wandering without a guide in the mighty maze of human transactions, are entirely avoided in the Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, where he was retained by authentic history to a known train of events, and where his imaginative spirit and marked turn for generalization found sufficient scope, and no more, to produce the most perfect commentary on the annals of a single people of which the human mind can boast.