Nelson
Review Date:
22/12/2002 Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2001 £ 8.99 (PB) pending
Coleman claims, from his study of previously unpublished material, to give us a new insight into Nelson's life and character. However, I am not sure that in doing so he has not tilted the scales too far one way by not quoting sufficiently from earlier sources.
I was alerted to this possibility of bias by his criticism of the new wax figure in the museum at Portsmouth. He speaks very dismissively of a figure which has been constructed with great care from available information. The hair has a reddish pepper and salt look, but Coleman, pointing to nearby portraits in the gallery, thinks it should be grey. That on the model is copied from a specimen taken at the time of Nelson's death by Dr Banks. Coleman thinks the body should look haggard and ill, whereas contemporary accounts are that Nelson was in good health at this time. Which is the more likely after two years away at sea away from the distractions of the land and culminating in a summer cruise to the West Indies in the comfort of his admiral's quarters with the good Dr Banks to look after him?
There are other one-sided examples. Coleman makes it seem that by turning out of line at Cape St Vincent, Nelson was committing a dreadful crime. In fact he was using his initiative and Jervis, seeing what he had done, immediately signalled for others to follow him. The congratulations which followed from Collingwood and others showed that initiative is not a court martial offence in the Navy.
Coleman records that in Boreas, Nelson flogged nearly half his crew over eighteen months. Boreas was an unhappy ship, latterly acting as a holding depot for newly pressed men. Taken in isolation this episode does not prove Nelson to have been a flogging captain and should be set against the many testimonials and requests to go with him when changing ships.
There are many similar examples of bias and failure to take a balanced view. Nelson was a show-off. It is also sadly true that Nelson did not show up well at Naples or in his treatment of his wife. In these cases he was out of his depth. It is not unheard of for a fighting man to be swept off his feet by feminine wiles. Besides being drawn into the murky waters of Neapolitan politics, he was being beguiled by both a scheming queen and a young adventuress married to an elderly protector.
Taken as a whole this is a useful book with valuable new information and a non-adulatory approach. It certainly cannot stand alone as a balanced picture of the great admiral. - BH
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