Nelson: The Essential Hero by Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford

had held its own.’ This was true enough in its way, but it had lost a great deal of national pride and had been humbled not only by its former colonists but by those ancient enemies, the French. It was this that rankled and, though Nelson makes no mention of it in his correspondence of the time, his hatred of the French - largely, it is true, reinforced by their later Revolutionary excesses - very probably stemmed from his awareness that it was they who had contributed so greatly to the loss of Britain’s American empire. He could hardly have been aware that the industrial revolution was to make good all this and more; that Pitt’s star was rising on the horizon; that India which had been saved by Warren Hastings was to become the jewel in the imperial crown; and that, far to the south, the onetime terra incognita of Australia was receiving its first settlement in New South Wales. But for the moment, contemplating an uncertain future, it must have looked to any aspiring sea-officer that a career in the Navy no longer held out much promise. Peace on half-pay,, even with a command, was something that a postcaptain without private means could hardly afford.
    Once more he put the West Indies behind him but, though low in spirit, he was vigorous in health. Ordered home, as was the rest of the fleet under Lord Hood, Nelson saw the familiar outline of Portsmouth harbour rise before him, but this time bristling with the masts and spars of inactive ships. His own was to join them, and on 26 June 1783 he learned that the Albemarle was to be paid off within a week. It was not a happy moment to be an officer, particularly one as conscientious as he was. He showed now, as he was always to do, that the welfare of the men who had served under him was near to his heart. This was the gentleness, the rapport with his seamen, which, so rare in his age, was to make him that most exceptional of beings -a commander who was not only respected by the rank and file, but also truly loved. The reason for it comes over clearly in a letter which he wrote to Captain Locker from London on 12 July:
    My time, ever since I arrived in Town, has been taken up in attempting to get the wages due to my good fellows , for various Ships they have served in the war. The disgust of the Seamen to the Navy is all owing to the infernal plan of turning them over from Ship to Ship, so that Men cannot be attached to their officers, or the Officers care two-pence about them.
    My ship was paid off last week; and in such a manner that must flatter any Officer, in particular in these turbulent times. The whole Ship’s company offered, if I could get a Ship, to enter for her immediately.
    This was indeed a remarkable tribute to her captain, for the rapidity of paying off ships, coupled with the inefficiency in calculating for how long and in what ships the men had served, had already led to near-mutiny in a number of vessels at Spithead. What Nelson knew by sympathy and instinct, what indeed Drake had known centuries before - that the man before the mast had his rights every whit as much as the gentlemen aft - was not to be understood by the Admiralty until serious trouble had forced their unwilling eyes to contemplate the reality of the sailor’s life. Something else which must have pleased Nelson was that Lord Hood, far from forgetting a junior officer who had shown at Sandy Hook a desire to follow the call of action and honour rather than cruise and prize money, took him to Court and presented him to the King. The latter was delighted to meet a friend of Prince William’s and invited Nelson down to Windsor Castle to take leave of the prince, who was about to set out on a Continental tour. There were many captains in the Navy, few though as young as Nelson, and Lord Hood’s approbation coupled with his king’s seal of approval meant much not only to Nelson himself but to others who judged a man’s star by his appearance at Court. George III, a moralising family man