Horatio Nelson

The English admiral and naval hero Horatio Nelson, Viscount Nelson (1758-1805), was noted for his bravery and for his victories, including the decisive Battle of Trafalgar. He ranks as the last great naval hero of a proud seafaring nation.

Horatio Nelson was born at Burnham Thorpe on Sept. 29, 1758. He entered the Royal Navy at the age of 12, and by 20 he had risen from midshipman to commander. In 1780 Nelson took a convoy to America and the West Indies, but the Admiralty placed him on half pay the next year after the American Revolution ended. Nelson then went to France to learn the language.

In 1784 Nelson was given command of the Boreas and sent again to the West Indies. There he gained considerable ill will by seizing five American merchantmen who were violating the Navigation Acts through irregular trading. He also met a young widow, Mrs. Frances Nisbet, whom he married in 1787. Nelson was then ordered home. For nearly 6 years, somewhat in disfavor at the Admiralty, he was unemployed. But when England entered the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, Nelson was given command of the Agamemnon and sent to the Mediterranean Sea. In August he arrived at Naples, where he met Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador, and his charming young wife, Emma. Nelson's romantic and naval careers both began to blossom.

Rising Hero

In 1794 Lord (Samuel) Hood sent Nelson, in command of seamen and marines, to build and arm batteries about Basti during the English attack on Corsica. He was successful in this assignment and also at Calvi, where he lost the sight of his right eye as the result of a stone-splinter wound during a cannonade against one of his batteries. Nelson's eye patch soon became a symbol. In 1796 Nelson was made commodore and sent to harass the French coastal trade. Then, as commander of the Captain, he joined Sir John Jervis's fleet.

On Feb. 13, 1797, while on a southerly course off Portugal, the British sighted the Spanish fleet in loose formation heading north. Jervis steered between the two halves of the enemy, but he misjudged his course reversal. Nelson perceived the problem, boldly broke away from the line, and headed for the Spaniards. Jervis, seeing Nelson's intention, ordered Cuthbert Collingwood to aid him. The result was that Nelson and Collingwood hit the Spanish fleet and threw it into confusion, enabling the rest of Jervis's ships to come up and to achieve a victory. Fortunately for Nelson, Jervis was not a stickler about rules. Nelson was praised for his action rather than court-martialed as he feared. As a result of the victory off Cape Saint Vincent, Nelson received promotion to rear admiral.

Victorious Admiral

Returning once again to the inshore squadron off France, Nelson lost his right arm in an attempt to cut out a treasure ship at Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In April 1798 he rejoined the fleet and was sent to watch the French fleet at Toulon. Eventually, the French evaded Nelson. He pursued them to Alexandria, Egypt, and found the French fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay. Now Nelson's careful training of his captains paid dividends when he discovered that the French were prepared only for attack from the sea. As dusk fell, his ships approached the French line from the west, splitting as they reached the anchored vessels so that they doubled up, one on each side of the enemy. The result was the complete annihilation of all the French ships except two frigates that escaped. Napoleon I and the entire French army were left stranded in Egypt. As soon as the news reached Britain, Nelson was created Baron Nelson of the Nile. His name became known throughout Europe.

Nelson then returned to Naples, which, having declared war on Napoleon, had been overcome by French troops and fifth columnists while Nelson was at Leghorn. Hastily recalled, Nelson insisted on the annulment of the capitulation agreed to by the Neapolitan general Fabrifio Ruffo and on the absolute surrender of the Neapolitan Jacobins. He court-martialed and hanged the Neapolitan commodore Francesco Caracciolo, who had deserted, and he restored civil power. For these acts the grateful king of the Two Sicilies made him Duke of Bronte.

During this period Nelson became infatuated with Emma, Lady Hamilton. While living with her, he conducted the blockades of Egypt and Malta. In 1800 he was permitted to return home because of ill health, and he traveled across Europe with the Hamiltons. In London he met his wife and separated amicably from her. That same year, 1801, Lady Hamilton bore Nelson a daughter, Horatia.

In 1801 Nelson was promoted to vice-admiral and sent as second-in-command to Sir Hyde Parker on an expedition to break up the armed Northern Neutrality League. His first act upon joining was characteristically direct and insubordinate—he wrote to the Admiralty that Sir Hyde stayed abed late with his young wife. The expedition sailed shortly. The Danes refused the British ultimatum, and Nelson was given the job of attacking the anchored Danish fleet and hulks in Copenhagen harbor. He skillfully moved his fleet through shoals after rebuoying the channel, and then on the morning of April 2, 1801, he fought a bitter 4-hour action that resulted in eventual victory. The battle was ended by an armistice called for by Nelson in order to save the lives of Danish sailors. Though his ships were badly battered and he had ignored an optional recall signal flown by Sir Hyde Parker, Nelson achieved a diplomatic success and was created a viscount.

Nelson returned to England, where in order to impress the French he was put in command off Dover. This command was not a great success, and Nelson's expedition against Boulogne became an expensive failure because the French were prepared. As soon as the armistice that led to the Peace of Amiens in 1801 was signed, Nelson came ashore and settled with the Hamiltons on his new estate at Merton, Surrey, about an hour's drive from the Admiralty. Sir William Hamilton died in April 1803, and thereafter Nelson and Lady Hamilton were together exclusively.

Battle of Trafalgar

Upon the outbreak of war again in 1803, Nelson was dispatched to command the fleet in the Mediterranean. There he watched the French under adverse circumstances, blockading the French fleet at Toulon for 22 months. In January 1805 Napoleon decided that the way to conquer the whole of Europe was to combine the French and Spanish fleets in the West Indies, lure the English away from the Channel, and seize the British Isles. With this in mind, the French commander, Pierre de Villeneuve, gave Nelson the slip and headed west while Nelson chased east to Egypt in vain. Dogged by poor intelligence reports and foul winds, Nelson pursued the French to Martinique and back to Europe but could not overtake them. Meanwhile, the returning French fleet had been met off Cape Finisterre by Sir Robert Calder.

On Oct. 9, 1805, Nelson arrived once more off the European coast. He resumed command off Cadiz and issued his famous order for the fleet to attack in two columns. On October 21 Nelson came upon the combined French and Spanish fleets, under Villeneuve, sailing north in a long crescent column off Cape Trafalgar, Spain. Hoisting a signal that became immortal, "England expects every man to do his duty," Nelson led the northern column to cut off and hold the Allied van while Collingwood annihilated the center and rear. Nelson, in spite of advice, insisted upon wearing his full uniform into battle, and at the height of the encounter he was badly wounded by a musket shot from the fighting top of the French ship Redoubtable, which his flagship Victory had fouled. He died 3 hours later as the victory, one of the most significant in history, was completed. Twenty enemy ships were captured, and one was blown up. The English lost no ships. This decisive English victory ended Napoleon's power on the sea.

Nelson's body was placed in a cask of brandy and carried home for burial in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. The celebrated Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square, London, commemorates Nelson's victory.

Nelson the Man

No one, perhaps, better symbolized the British hero than Nelson—dashing naval commander, viscount, and lover. More than this, Nelson ranks high as a leader of men not only for the bravery and dash he displayed at Cape Saint Vincent, but also for his coolness under fire, his joy in battle, and the humanity he displayed at Copenhagen. Nelson was a beloved leader because he knew his officers and men. His captains knew what he wanted to do and how he thought it should be done. The whole combination was called the Nelson touch.

Further Reading

The best accounts of Nelson are by English naval historian Oliver Warner, A Portrait of Lord Nelson (1958; American title, Victory) and Nelson's Battles (1964), which updates the previous work and includes many portraits and illustrations of the battles. A worthwhile book is Sir William M. James, The Durable Monument (1948). Other studies include Robert Southey, Southey's Life of Nelson, edited by Kenneth Fenwich (1813; new ed. 1956), and Alfred T. Mahan, The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (1968). An excellent account of the Battle of Trafalgar is by a distinguished chronicler of the Napoleonic Wars, David Howarth, Trafalgar: The Nelson Touch (1969), which makes good use of the most recent studies by naval historians and is interspersed with first-rate illustrations. See also Jack Russell, Nelson and the Hamiltons (1969). For more on Nelson and his navy in general see Robin Higham, ed., A Guide to the Sources of British Military History (1971), and G. J. Marcus, The Age of Nelson (1972).

Additional Sources

Bradford, Ernle Dusgate Selby., Nelson: the essential hero, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

Delaforce, Patrick., Nelson's first Love: Fanny's story, London: Bishopsgate Press, 1988.

Grenfell, Russell., Horatio Nelson: a short biography, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978.

Hattersley, Roy., Nelson, New York, Saturday Review Press 1974.

Hibbert, Christopher, Nelson: a personal history, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1994.

Howarth, David Armine, Lord Nelson: the immortal memory, New York: Viking, 1989, 1988.

The Nelson companion, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995.

Pocock, Tom., Horatio Nelson, New York: Knopf, 1988.

Pocock, Tom., The young Nelson in the Americas, London: Collins, 1980.

Walder, David., Nelson, London: Hamilton, 1978.

Walder, David., Nelson, a biography, New York: Dial Press/J. Wade, 1978.

Warner, Oliver, A portrait of Lord Nelson, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England; New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin Books in association with Chatto & Windus, 1987, 1958. □

Nelson, Horatio, first Viscount (1758–1805), British vice admiral and Sicilian duke, born at Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk, the third surviving son of the local vicar. After local schooling he joined the Royal Navy through the patronage of his maternal uncle Captain Maurice Suckling, who provided him with a first-class education, extensive practical experience, and a succession of personal contacts who pushed his career quickly to the rank of post-captain in 1779. Not yet 21, Nelson was serving in the West Indies, but had also seen the Arctic and the Indian Ocean. With the War of American Independence (1776–83) raging his first mission was to escort troops attacking Spanish possessions in Nicaragua. Seeing the troops in difficulties he acted on his own initiative, with considerable success. However he nearly died of disease. After recuperating in England he took command of the frigate HMS Albemarle and by the end of war had joined the naval ‘family’ of the brilliant Admiral Lord Hood (1724–1816) a friend of his now deceased uncle. From Hood he learnt the art of an admiral.

Between 1784 and 1787 Nelson commanded the frigate HMS Boreas on the Leeward Islands station, where he demonstrated remarkable tenacity in suppressing illegal trade, and outmanoeuvring his naval and political superiors. He also married Frances Nisbet, a widow with a young son. He came close to ruining his career by backing Prince William (later King William IV, 1830–7), then a naval captain, in a petty dispute. He spent the next five years living quietly in Norfolk with his father, wife, and stepson. The French Revolutionary War (1793–1802) saw him recalled to service, commanding the battleship HMS Agamemnon (see also shipwrecks) in Hood's Mediterranean Fleet. His active, intelligent service at sea and ashore on Corsica earned him the respect of his admiral, at the cost of the sight of his right eye, blinded at the siege of Calvi.

In 1795 Nelson demonstrated brilliant tactical judgement, and contempt for his pedestrian commander Admiral Hotham, in a battle near Toulon. He was then given an independent command on the Italian Riviera, blocking the French advance. When Admiral Sir John Jervis, later Earl St Vincent (1735–1823), took command of the fleet Nelson won his admiration, an emotion he reciprocated, finding in Jervis a role model for fleet command. Jervis appointed him commodore with an independent command. At the battle of Cape St Vincent on 14 February 1797 Nelson anticipated Jervis's orders, abandoning the rigid linear formation to break up a Spanish counter-attack, and then captured two Spanish ships of the line by boarding, a unique, heroic achievement that, once he had written it up for the newspapers, made him a national celebrity. Six days later he reached the rank of rear admiral of the Blue (see squadronal colours), and was made a Knight of the Bath for his conduct in battle.

On the night of 24–25 April Nelson led a daring attack on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, but was wounded in the right arm, which had to be amputated, and his force was defeated. Invalided home to recuperate he began to harvest the acclaim that he had earned since 1793. He was now a public figure, and once recovered was ordered back to the Mediterranean, for a detached mission to find and destroy General Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt. Jervis, ennobled as Earl St Vincent after his victory, sent a dozen of his best officers, all in 74-gun ships of the line, to serve under Nelson, who referred to them with a Shakespearian flourish as his ‘band of brothers’. On 1 August 1798 Nelson found the French fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay, the French Army having already landed in Egypt. Although night was falling, and the French were anchored in a strong position, Nelson immediately ordered his fleet to attack. In what came to be called the battle of the Nile all but two of the thirteen French battleships were taken or destroyed. Nelson's battle of annihilation had secured British domination of the Mediterranean, and transformed the art of war at sea. At the height of the battle he was badly cut on the forehead by shrapnel, and concussed.

After securing the prizes Nelson split his fleet to exploit his victory, taking three ships to Naples where he helped the British minister, Sir William Hamilton, persuade the King of Naples to join the war against France. He was showered with honours by King George, the East India Company, and foreign rulers. When the Neapolitan kingdom was overrun by the French, Nelson evacuated the royal family, before helping to restore the status quo, crushing the last remnants of the French-backed republic. His handling of the pro-French Neapolitan Jacobins gave rise to controversy, but Nelson was acting under the direct authority of the Neapolitan monarch, whose support was vital if the British fleet was to remain in the Mediterranean. He then oversaw the capture of Malta, and the two French ships that had escaped from the battle of the Nile. By 1800 the exhausted Nelson had begun a passionate affair with Emma, Lady Hamilton, the talented and beautiful wife of the minister. Nelson and Sir William were recalled to Britain, and went home through Europe in triumph.

Once in London Nelson abandoned his wife, with whom he had had no children, for his heavily pregnant mistress. Within weeks he was back at sea, second in command of the Baltic Fleet under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker (1739–1807). Sent to defeat a coalition of Baltic powers Nelson led part of the fleet in a decisive attack on Copenhagen on 2 April 1801. His judgement was, as ever, impeccable. At the height of the battle he ignored Hyde Parker's signal to retreat, before persuading the Danes to surrender. Once his squadron was committed to battle in shoal waters he had to win, or be destroyed. The ineffectual Hyde Parker was recalled, and Nelson was given the command. With the campaign over he came home, commanding the anti-invasion forces on the Channel coast. Here his presence gave the country peace of mind, and exposed Napoleon's invasion hoax, although his attack on invasion craft moored off Boulogne failed.

During the brief Peace of Amiens from March 1802 to May 1803 Nelson lived in a newly purchased house at Merton, south of London, with Emma and Sir William. They also undertook an astonishing public relations tour, which demonstrated that he was the most popular man in the country. By April 1803, when Sir William died, Nelson was already preparing for war. Sent to command the Mediterranean Fleet with his flag in HMS Victory he spent the next two years waiting for the French to leave Toulon. When they did, in April 1805, he pursued Admiral Villeneuve's force all the way to the West Indies, saving the country millions in shipping and islands, and ruining Bonaparte's complex plans to open the Channel for an invasion.

In August 1805 Nelson went home, but was recalled to service by news that the Franco-Spanish combined fleet was moving. In late September he took command of the fleet off Cadiz, where Villeneuve and Admiral Gravina were blockaded. He allowed them to leave, and on 21 October engaged them off Cape Trafalgar. He had 27 ships of the line to face an enemy 33 strong, and he also knew the weather would break that night, so he had no time for fine manoeuvres. Sending the immortal signal ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’ with a new signal code, he demonstrated his mastery of leadership and morale. The fleet attacked the enemy line at right angles, in two loosely formed columns, one led by his flagship Victory, the other by his second in command, Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, in the Royal Sovereign. Although the leading ships were exposed to raking broadsides, and suffered heavy casualties, Nelson's tactics worked. He passed under the stern of Villeneuve's flagship, destroying her as a fighting ship and command centre, but then found the Victory hemmed in by enemy ships, amidst a cauldron of fire. He was calmly walking the quarterdeck with his long-serving flag captain Thomas Hardy, when at 1315 he was hit by a French musket ball, fired from the mizzen top of Redoutable. The ball ripped through his left shoulder, cut a major artery in his left lung, and severed his spine. He was paralysed, slowly drowning in his own blood, and he died at 1630, just as the last shots of the battle were dying away. Most of the nineteen enemy ships that were taken were destroyed that night in the storm Nelson had anticipated.

Trafalgar was the ultimate naval victory. The enemy had been out-thought and annihilated by the genius of one man, and the professional courage of many thousands more, inspired by his matchless example. Already an immortal, Nelson was, in death, transfigured into a national hero and war god. He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, and in 1843 a majestic column was erected in Trafalgar Square, cementing his place in the national consciousness. A reflective and professional student of war, Nelson combined his mastery of ships and the sea, of winds and currents, with irresistible leadership of officers and men alike, unequalled tactical insight, strategic vision, and the political courage to act at the highest levels of war. His tangled private life gave him a romantic fascination that has often attracted more interest than his professional qualities. He was, and remains, the ultimate naval commander.

Bibliography

Lambert, A. , Nelson: Britannia's God of War (2004).
White, C. , The Nelson Encyclopedia (2002).

Andrew Lambert

Nelson, Horatio (1758–1805). Emphasis should always be placed on Nelson's East Anglian background. Through both his parents (via his mother Catherine née Suckling he was a great-great-nephew of Sir Robert Walpole) his roots were regional, and his father's pastoral duties in his living at Burnham Thorpe, where Nelson was born on 29 September 1758, brought Edmund Nelson's eight surviving children into daily contact with parishioners whose livelihood was wrung from field, marsh, and coast. All his life Nelson was profoundly aware of the drudgery of toil, whether on the furrow or the lower deck, and humanely responsive to the concerns of the least privileged. The influence of his strong-minded mother, who died when he was only 9, always remained with him. By 1801 only two of her six sons survived, and this year, probably the most testing of his life, when he parted from a blameless wife, became the father of two daughters by Emma Hamilton, and, after Copenhagen, assumed against his will a most challenging anti-invasion command reaching from Harwich down to Dover, stretched his highly strung temperament to its limits. A natural recklessness, which had underlain past feats and past censure, was snuffed out before the defences of Boulogne in August 1801, and fame itself was tasting sour for Nelson: a plan to quit England with Emma for the Sicilian dukedom of Brontë, given to him by a grateful king of the Two Sicilies in August 1799, had not been abandoned. But within eighteen months, by the time Nelson assumed the Mediterranean command in May 1803, he had found composure, and for this Emma Hamilton (then widowed) may claim some credit. The devotion shown him by the fleet also helped the serenity of the last three years, a potent contribution to Nelson's ‘legend’ in its ultimate form; and in May 1804 late proof of his mother's benign legacy breaks through in one of his innumerable letters: ‘the thought of former days brings all my mother into my heart, which shows itself in my eyes.’

Nothing is known for certain about Nelson's earliest acquaintance with the sea, but he took so readily to navigation in Thames and Medway, and later through tropical shoals and rivers, to the grand moments at the Nile and Copenhagen that there may have been childhood experiences of north Norfolk's creeks, even if only by punt when angling. His entry to the navy in 1770 was through patronage, that of his uncle Maurice Suckling, comptroller of the navy 1775–8. For all his natural intolerance of regulation, Nelson was unfeignedly sincere in sustaining lifelong friendships with his seniors: Captains Lutwidge, no discourager of initiative, and Locker, a profoundly educative influence; Sir Peter Parker, who in June 1779 eased Nelson's promotion to a post-captaincy and so placed his feet on the ladder to becoming an admiral; Sir Samuel ( Lord) Hood, and Sir John Jervis ( earl of St Vincent). Through ‘pull’ in the right quarters Nelson made early voyages to the West Indies and the Arctic, followed by a spell in the East Indies during which he escaped death by malaria only through the care of Captain James Pigot. Examined for lieutenant in April 1777, Nelson immediately returned to the West Indies, and his years there, to July 1788 when he was within four months of being placed on half-pay back in England, formed him as a naval officer. A ten-month break at home and in France, June 1783 to the following spring, caused him briefly to consider standing for Parliament.

Before Maurice Suckling died he had predicted admiralship for his nephew (attained February 1797), while Hood, a friend of Suckling's, noted the young captain's exceptional dedication. Prince William Henry, the future William IV, to whom Nelson became a trusted councillor in the Leeward Islands, thought him ‘no common being’, and many from other walks of life were struck by his flair and address: we can yet recover something of Nelson's flavour through reading even a random sample of his 5,000 surviving letters, incisively lucid, often humorous, and with insights unexpected in a man apparently prone to self-absorption. His grasp of the essentials in commanding men was allied to administrative exactitude; and the latter quality prompted him to take issue with illicit American trade in the West Indies which, though a justifiable policy, placed his professional future at risk. The attraction he felt towards women suggests strong emotional cravings. Perhaps it was some self-knowledge which brought him to a marriage, grounded only in ‘esteem’, with Frances Nisbet (née Woolward) in March 1787. The match involved a serious misjudgement of Frances's likely capacities as a naval officer's wife: dutifully loyal to the navy, the maintenance of the same quality towards his spouse became a burden for Nelson, before ever he met Emma Hamilton.

If Frances Nelson could not comprehend her husband's professional zeal, neither could she share in his attachment to north Norfolk during his years of unemployment until, in January 1793, he was at length appointed to the 64-gun Agamemnon at Chatham. Nelson assured his wife he would ‘come laughing back one day’, and although no finality was intended, a marriage which had proved childless was even less likely to bring him back involuntarily. The seven years which ensued in the Mediterranean, broken only by sick leave September 1797 to March 1798, under the commands of Hood, Hotham, Jervis, and, least happily, Keith, saw Nelson become a surpassing commander for those who served under him, and a hero to his countrymen and -women. But they were costly, his wounds, as he drily commented, being ‘tolerable for one war’: a right eye lost at Calvi (Corsica) July 1794, an internal rupture at St Vincent February 1797, loss of his right arm in a foolhardy assault on Tenerife the following July, a head wound at the Nile in August 1798, which almost certainly affected his mental balance and increased his fear of blindness. This may be a charitable explanation, but it is a not unconvincing one, for the intensity of his passion for Emma Hamilton, his intoxication with the honours which fell to him from George III, Naples, Constantinople, Malta, his maladroit and insensate involvement in Neapolitan politics 1799–1800, and his flagrant disregard of a superior's orders at Copenhagen. A national hero, yet a flawed one, the last three years 1803–5, which included a further spell in the Mediterranean and the untiring, frustrating chase after Villeneuve to the West Indies and back in the summer before Trafalgar, confirmed Nelson's renown as a leader of men with an almost spiritual power to articulate the national will to resist Napoleon. He was given a barony after his victory of the Nile and advanced to viscount after the battle of Copenhagen.

David Denis Aldridge

Bibliography

Nicholas, N. H. (ed.), The Letters and Despatches of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson (7 vols., 1844–6);
Oman, C. , Nelson (1947);
Pocock, T. , Horatio Nelson (1987).

Nelson, Horatio (1758–1805). Emphasis should always be placed on Nelson's East Anglian background. Through both his parents (via his mother Catherine née Suckling he was a great‐great‐nephew of Sir Robert Walpole) his roots were tenaciously regional, and his father's pastoral duties in his living at Burnham Thorpe, where Nelson was born on 29 September 1758, brought Edmund Nelson's eight surviving children into daily contact with parishioners whose livelihood was wrung from field, marsh, and coast.

His entry to the navy in 1770 was through patronage, that of his uncle Maurice Suckling, comptroller of the navy 1775–8. Through ‘pull’ in the right quarters Nelson made early voyages to the West Indies and the Arctic, followed by a spell in the East Indies during which he escaped death by malaria only through the care of Captain James Pigot. Examined for lieutenant in April 1777, Nelson immediately returned to the West Indies, and his years there formed him as a naval officer.

Before Maurice Suckling died he had predicted admiralship for his nephew (attained February 1797), while Hood, a friend of Suckling's, noted the young captain's exceptional dedication. His grasp of the essentials in commanding men was allied to administrative exactitude; and the latter quality prompted him to take issue with illicit American trade in the West Indies which, though a justifiable policy, placed his professional future at risk. The attraction he felt towards women suggests strong emotional cravings. Perhaps it was some self‐knowledge which brought him to a marriage, grounded only in ‘esteem’, with Frances Nisbet (née Woolward) in March 1787. The match involved a serious misjudgement of Frances's likely capacities as a naval officer's wife.

If Frances Nelson could not comprehend her husband's professional zeal, neither could she share in his attachment to north Norfolk during his years of unemployment until, in January 1793, he was at length appointed to the 64-gun Agamemnon. Nelson assured his wife he would ‘come laughing back one day’, and although no finality was intended, a marriage which had proved childless was unlikely to bring him back voluntarily. The seven years which ensued in the Mediterranean, broken only by sick leave September 1797 to March 1798, under Hood, Hotham, Jervis, and, least happily, Keith, saw Nelson become a surpassing commander for those who served under him, and a hero to his countrymen and ‐women. But they were costly, his wounds, as he drily commented, being ‘tolerable for one war’: a right eye lost at Calvi (Corsica) July 1794, an internal rupture at St Vincent February 1797, loss of his right arm at Tenerife the following July, a head wound at the Nile in August 1798, which almost certainly affected his mental balance and increased his fear of blindness. This may be a charitable explanation, but it is not unconvincing for the intensity of his passion for Emma Hamilton, his intoxication with the honours which fell to him from George III, Naples, Constantinople, Malta, and his flagrant disregard of a superior's orders at Copenhagen. A national hero, yet a flawed one, the last three years 1803–5, which included a further spell in the Mediterranean and the frustrating chase after Villeneuve to the West Indies and back in the summer before Trafalgar, confirmed Nelson's renown as a leader of men with an almost spiritual power to articulate the national will to resist Napoleon. He was given a barony after his victory of the Nile and advanced to viscount after the battle of Copenhagen.