Nelson & His World

This afternoon my mind turned to madness, as it does periodically...

Apparently the incidence of lunacy in the Royal Navy was about seven times as great as in the civilian population. Sir Gilbert Blane was unable to explain this, but tentatively ascribed it to head injuries, sustained mainly during intoxication. Michael Lewis, reporting this in 'A Social History of the Navy', interprets the head injuries as those received from forgetting to duck while drunk between decks.

I have no medical knowledge, by I suspect it could have had something to do with the fact that seamen were imprisoned for years on end in damp, dirty, stinking, overcrowded conditions, given a monotonous diet of disgusting food, put at increased risk of disease and injury, and subjected to rigid discipline by officers who they were not even allowed to speak to.

If the incidence of lunacy was really that high it is indeed remarkable. However, I would sound a note of caution here - certifying someone as mentally ill is not absolutely straightforward now, and as these were the days when diseases were believed to be caused by 'bad air' and the treatments seem to be as bad as the illness, the diagnosis today may not apply.

The premise that it was caused by poor conditions and harsh treatment is an interesting one, but surely the conditions of the bulk of the working population in towns and cities were equally as harsh; and how would one explain the officers who became mentally ill?

N A M Rodger in 'The Wooden World' suggests that the Navy was subject to certain illnesses, more than the civilian population. He puts forward "the gravel" (bladder/kidney stones) - "a common consequence of too little water and too much alcohol" and ruptures, from the constant strain of working aloft.

He also mentions lunacy, but he suggests a more logical answer - "the strain of long service among the same unvaried circle of faces, especially in wartime". He mentions the case of Admiral Haddock who, in 1741, when commanding the Mediterranean Fleet suffered a mental breakdown and returned home "melancholy distracted". Rodger suggests that this was an illustration of a well known principle, that health and happiness are linked. He also mentions that ships destined for the West Indies often suffered a high sick rate, which was ascribed by Admiral Boscawen to "a dread of going to the West Indies...hangs heavy on many"

The high incidence of insanity among sailors may also perhaps be attributable to other factors, including those outlined above. A few speculations:

pressed service: shipboard life for a volunteer was hard enough. It is not difficult to imagine the deleterious effect on the mental health of those forced into it;

hallucinations and depression are symptoms of scurvy and mental disturbance a symptom of syphilis in its later stages. Both diseases were prevalent amongst seamen, though scurvy was ultimately controlled with the discovery that anti-scorbutics could be used as a preventative as well as a cure;

feigning madness: Nelson had an exchange with St Vincent regarding the treatment of two men who, St Vincent claimed, were feigning madness to obtain a discharge. Nelson disagreed and declared that the men were indeed mentally ill. It would be interesting to know whether the practice of feigning madness was widespread;

the effect on mental health from exposure to the horrors of battle is well-known. Whether it is called 'shell-shock', as it was in the First World War, 'combat stress', 'battle fatigue' or 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder' by psychiatrists, the phenomenon is well-documented. The existence of organisations such as the military psychiatric services for treating mentally-ill service personnel and the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Association reflect a greater understanding of the correlation between exposure to horrific experiences in conflict and subsequent mental illness.

Social comment by Oliver Goldsmith - from "The British Magazine", 1760.

ESSAY XXIV. THE DISTRESSES OF A COMMON SOLDIER.

No observation is more common, and at the same time more true, than that one half of the world are ignorant how the other half lives. The misfortunes of the great are held up to engage our attention ; are enlarged upon in tones of declamation ; and the world is called upon to gaze at the noble sufferers : the great, under the pressure of calamity, are conscious of several others sympathising with their distress ; and have, at once, the comfort of admiration and pity.

There is nothing magnanimous in bearing misfortunes with fortitude, when the whole world is looking on : men in such circumstances will act bravely even from motives of vanity; but he who, in the vale of obscurity, can brave adversity ; who, without friends to encourage, acquaintances to pity, or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquillity and indifference, is truly great : whether peasant or courtier, he deserves admiration, and should be held up for our imitation and respect.

While the slightest inconveniences of the great are magnified into calamities ; while tragedy mouths out their sufferings in all the strains of eloquence, the miseries of the poor are entirely disregarded; and yet some of the lower ranks of people undergo more real hardships in one day, than those of a more exalted station suffer in their whole lives. It is inconceivable what difficulties the meanest of our common sailors and soldiers endure without murmuring or regret; without passionately declaiming against Providence, or calling their fellows to be gazers on their intrepidity. Every day is to them a day of misery, and yet they entertain their hard fate without repining.

With what indignation do I hear an Ovid, a Cicero, or a Rabutin, complain of their misfortunes and hardships, whose greatest calamity was that of being unable to visit a certain spot of earth, to which they had foolishly attached an idea of happiness. Their distresses were pleasures, compared to what many of the adventuring poor every day endure without murmuring. They ate, drank, and slept ; they had slaves to attend them, and were sure of subsistence for life ; while many of their fellow-creatures are obliged to wander, without a friend to comfort or assist them, and even without a shelter from the severity of the season.

I have been led into these reflections from accidentally meeting, some days ago, a poor fellow, whom I knew when a boy, dressed in a sailor's jacket, and begging at one of the outlets of the town, with a wooden leg. I knew him to have been honest and industrious when in the country, and was curious to learn what had reduced him to his present situation. Wherefore, after giving him what I thought proper, I desired to know the history of his life and misfortunes, and the manner in which he was reduced to his present distress. The disabled soldier, for such he was, though dressed in a sailor's habit, scratching his head, and leaning on his crutch, put himself into an attitude to comply with my request, and gave me his history as follows :

" As for my misfortunes, master, I can't pretend to have gone through any more than other folks ; for, except the loss of my limb, and my being obliged to beg, I don't know any reason, thank Heaven, that I have to complain ; there is Bill Tibbs, of our regiment, he has lost both his legs, and an eye to boot ; but, thank Heaven, it is not so bad with me yet.

" I was born in Shropshire, my father was a labourer, and died when I was five years old ; so I was put upon the parish. As he had been a wandering sort of a man, the parishioners were not able to tell to what parish I belonged, or where I was born, so they sent me to another parish, and that parish sent me to a third. I thought in my heart, they kept sending me about so long, that they would not let me be born in any parish at all ; but, at last, however, they fixed me. I had some disposition to be a scholar, and was resolved, at least, to know my letters; but the master of the work-house put me to business as soon as I was able to handle a mallet ; and here I lived an easy kind of life for five years. I only wrought ten hours in the day, and had my meat and drink provided for my labour. It is true, I was not suffered to stir out of the house, for fear, as they said, I should run away : but what of that, I had the liberty of the whole house, and the yard before the door, and that was enough for me. I was then bound out to a farmer, where I was up both early and late ; but I ate and drank well, and liked my business well enough, till he died, when I was obliged to provide for myself; so I was resolved to go and seek my fortune.

" In this manner I went from town to town, worked when I could get employment, and starved when I could get none : when happening one day to go through a field belonging to a justice of peace, I spied a hare crossing the path just before me ; and I believe the devil put it in my head to fling my stick at it : Well, what will you have on't ? I killed the hare, and was bringing it away, when the justice himself met me : he called me a poacher and a villain ; and collaring me, desired I would give an account of myself: I fell upon my knees, begged his worship's pardon, and began to give a full account of all that I knew of my breed, seed, and generation ; but, though I gave a very good account, the justice would not believe a syllable I had to say; so I was indicted at sessions, found guilty of being poor, and sent up to London to Newgate, in order to be transported as a vagabond.

" People may say this and that of being in jail; but, for my part, I found Newgate as agreeable a place as ever I was in all my life. I had my bellyfull to eat and drink, and did no work at all. This kind of life was too good to last for ever ; so I was taken out of prison, after five months, put on board a ship, and sent off, with two hundred more, to the plantations. We had but an indifferent passage, for, being all confined in the hold, more than a hundred of our people died for want of sweet air; and those that remained were sickly enough, God knows. When we came a-shore we were sold to the planters, and I was bound for seven years more. As I was no scholar, for I did not know my letters, I was obliged to work among the negroes ; and I served out my time as in duty bound to do.

[...cont'd]

How amazing it is that eighteenth century prose was so elegant and lucid when so much of the poetry was turgid and pompous.

I think, though, that this 'essay' of Goldsmith's is an exercise in social comment that is imaginative rather than strictly factual i.e. the soldier is an emblematic rather than an actual figure. This was characteristic of much of Goldsmith's writing - he had a sympathy with the poor and oppressed and with those who were affected adversely by the booming trade and rapacious commercial practices of the age. Even if the soldier was not one specific individual, he was, nevertheless representative of a breed that existed and Goldsmith, without the savage satire of Swift, neverthess makes a profound moral comment and delivers an implicit reproach to the excesses and selfishness of the age.

His poem 'The Deserted Village' has a similar theme - the suffering of the rural poor as a result of the practice of enclosures. His imaginary village of Auburn, the array of characters - the parson dispensing goodwill to all, including 'the broken soldier kindly bade to stay', the gentle schoolmaster, the farmer, the smith, the 'coy maid, half-willing to be pressed' - all, like the soldier of his essay, victims, who show fortitude and stoicism in the face of ill-fortune and exploitation.

If the characters are products of his imagination, they nevertheless are legitimate constructions - the lie that tells a greater truth:

'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.'

Oh yes, he's clearly an Everyman, with his Perils of Pauline biography.

I'm not certain of Goldsmith's tone in this essay. As satire it's gentle and diffuse, and the conclusion is disconcertingly uplifting. Exploitation, enslavement, mutilation - after all, they do build character!



Ennobling fortitude and stoicism, rather than untidy mental and physical breakdown... it could almost be read as a rationalization of the social order.

Getting OT here. But the attitudes of the time fascinate me. (Not that I claim to understand them! Hardly!) The fear of radical change was profound, the need for radical change was urgent.

I think you're right - Goldsmith doesn't appear to be a radical advocating profound systemic changes - his target was always 'erring man' and his admonitions directed at the moral failings of humanity rather than political structures. Certainly, in 'The Deserted Village' he is harking back to a totally idealised world of happy villagers content with their lot - complete fantasy, of course; the life of the rural poor anywhere was never thus. So not so much a radical, or even a defender of the existing social order as (maybe?) a grumpy old man indulging in a false nostalgia and deploring the deleterious effect of rampant consumerism on the moral character of the grasping rich, warning that 'trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay'?

And I see what you mean about being uncertain of the tone - that playful irony seems a trifle overdone - but maybe essential for the contemporary audience?

An anecdote from James Anthony Gardner's Recollections from the chapter entitled 'Strange beings':

'The day we made the east end of Jamaica I had the forenoon watch, and was walking the deck with Captain Stephens when Lieutenant Morgan of the marines called out from the gangway to the gunner's mate to get a gun ready and fire into the ship abreast of us. On my asking him what he meant by such extraordinary conduct, 'Sir,' says he, 'I am not accountable to you for my actions'; and going up to the captain he told him he was no longer captain of the Brunswick, but that he would take pity on him and suffer him to keep possession of his cabin for the present. The captain looked at me in amazement. 'Sir,' says I, 'Mr Morgan is certainly deranged.' He was then sent below, and on going down the quarter-deck ladder, he roared out to the man at the wheel, 'Put the helm a-starboard, you damned rascal'. The captain dined with us that day, and after the cloth was removed, Morgan came to the table, and on something being said to him he took up a glass of wine, part of which he hove in the captain's face, and the glass at Jack Key's head; and when we seized hold of him called me a damned conceited whelp, and that he always saw a little greatness about me that he could not put up with. This young man's brain was turned by diving into things he did not understand and it may in truth be said of him:

A little learning is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring'.

He was invalided and sent home, and got retirements, but never recovered his reason.'

Then there is Rear-Admiral Robert Man, who inexplicably took his squadron home in late 1796, to the astonishment and consternation of his colleagues. Nicolas has a detailed note on this (II, 256ff).

Knight's thumbnail sketch of Man:

Served in the Mediterranean in 1793-6 in the Victory, 'a better man could not have been found' (Nelson to Pollard, 8 July 1795. . .) Dogged by ill health: 'Poor Admiral Man has been afflicted with such a distempered mind, during the last nine months' (Jervis to Spencer, 27 July 1796 . . . ) 'Man [has] been really ill, we had fears for [him]' (Nelson to Locker, 20 Aug. 1793. . .); later Jervis reported to Nepean that Man 'appeared to us here quite broke up, and becoming an old man fast' (29 Aug. 1796 . . .) But Man served on Lord Spencer's Board of Admiralty from September 1798 to February 1801.

It appears Man was in a precarious mental state some months before the December fiasco. Yet he was sent about his duties as usual.

Precursors of Nelson, Lefevre and Harding, 333:

Jervis was already concentrating his forces to meet the increasing likelihood of a threat from a combined Franco-Spanish fleet. In July 1796 the admiral had ordered Rear-Admiral Man, then blockading Cadiz with seven sail of the Line, to join him. However, Man, already in the throes of a nervous collapse, did not take on stores at Gibraltar, so his arrival at Corsica, far from being a welcome relief, made the situation worse in the main fleet. Jervis sent Man back to recover this mistake, but on 1 October Man met the Spanish admiral de Langara and his Cadiz squadron, heading for Carthagena. Man was chased into Gibraltar. A total prey to nervous fears, he called his captains to a council of war and, despite Jervis's orders to rejoin him, Man sailed for England. Unaware of this, Jervis's position was very hazardous. The Cabinet had decided in late August to evacuate Corsica and orders to that effect reached Jervis on 25 September. Spain declared war on Britain on 8 October and de Langara, with a force of twenty-six sail, now made for Toulon to join the French. Jervis was completely outnumbered. For a fortnight he waited for Man at San Fiorenzo, with British merchant ships from the Levant. On 2 November, taking the merchantmen in tow, he sailed for Gibraltar.

Nicolas:

. . . To Earl Spencer, on the same day [Nov. 11], Sir John Jervis expressed himself in still stronger terms : — " The conduct of Admiral Man is incomprehensible : he acknowledges to have received my orders and the duplicates, and that he opened the dispatches which directed my continuance in the Mediterranean. I had taken the liberty of cautioning him against consulting with the Captains under his orders, who all wanted to get to England ; and yet, by a passage in his public letter, it appears that he acted with their concurrence." . . . " I cannot describe to your Lordship the disappointment my ambition and zeal to serve my Country has suffered by this diminution of my Force; for had Admiral Man sailed from Gibraltar on the 10th October, the day he received my orders, and fulfilled them, I have every reason to believe the Spanish Fleet would have been cut to pieces."

Few sane men would disobey orders from Jervis.

Nicolas:

How he escaped a Court-martial is very surprising. Admiral Man does not appear ever to have been again employed; and he died an Admiral of the Red, in September, 1813.

The leniency implies a compassionate attitude to Man's mental collapse. Was this usual?

Maritime, if not naval.
Note the headline - this was their idea of an amusing incident.

Sporting Magazine
December 1800

A PROPER BLOW UP.

Extract of a Letter from the Captain of the ship Clyde, (which sailed from Liverpool to Jamaica in March last), to his friend in Edinburgh, dated Liverpool, 23d November.
"I have met with only one extraordinary accident since I saw you, which happened on the 11th of March last, at 2 A. M. My carpenter, (whom I had suspected of being deranged) two days after my leaving Martinico, with the convoy, being confined in the mate's cabin, broke through it into the next state-room, loaded a musket, put the iron rammer in, instead of a bullet, presented the piece close to my head, and blew me out of my hammock. I was found on the cabin-deck, bleeding, and in a state of insensibility; a few minutes, however, restored me, when I had him put on board the ship of war, our convoy. The rammer passed over the bridge of my nose and right eye-brow, cutting into the bone; the left side of my face was scorched, and a great quantity of powder yet remains never to be extracted, by which my countenance is somewhat altered."

Another example of a 'blow-up' but this time the participants were sane (supposedly. How could they tell the difference?) This is my friend Gardner (as a midshipman) again:

'We had a custom when the officers were at dinner in the wardroom, of dividing into parties; one division was to storm the other on the poop. In one of those attacks I succeeded in getting on the poop, when Kiel (who I have mentioned before) attacked me with a fixed bayonet and marked me in the thigh (all in good part.) I then got hold of a musket, put in a small quantity of powder, and as he advanced, I fired. To my horror and amazement he fell flat on the deck, and when picked up his face was as black as a tinker's, with the blood running down occasioned by some of the grains of powder sticking in. I shall never forget the terror I was in, but thank God he soon got well; only a few blue spots remained in his phiz, which never left him. This was the only time I ever fired a musket and probably will be the last. They used to say in the cockpit that he was troubled with St Anthony's fire - alluding to my name. [James Anthony Gardner]

Sorry - off topic, a bit.

Admiral Man had clearly had enough of active service, and successfully extricated himself without serious repercussions. Was he perhaps a very clever and very well connected man?

The Man case is a very rum affair. Nicolas quotes St Vincent who had cautioned Man against 'consulting with his captains who all want to get to England'.

One wonders how St Vincent knew that. Were there rumblings in the fleet that were suppressed? Was Man, clearly with already frayed nerves, subject to pressure from his subordinates?

The case caused a sensation at the time. There was no court martial. Man was not dismissed on mental health grounds. I think he didn't even lose rank. Though he never again served at sea he steadily advanced to Admiral of the red.

As I said, a rum affair.

Certainly that's another possibility. Despite having seen how sickly Man appeared in August, Jervis thinks Man was acting in concert with his subordinate captains. Jervis was no dummy.

It would be interesting to see the wording of the "public letter" JJ refers to.

What was the maximum penalty Man might have faced for this egregious act of disobedience? If acting in his right mind, wasn't he gambling an awful lot on the strength of his connections?

Nelson supposedly said after Copenhagen, "Well, I have fought contrary to orders, and I shall perhaps be hanged. Never mind: let them!" Was this a Nelsonian exaggeration or a real possibility? Winning (and being Nelson of the Nile) shielded him; what if he had lost?