Nelson & His World

A slight digression but I hope it is of interest.

Tom Pocock notes in his biography of William Hoste that he suffered
'a veiled attempt at blackmail from a sailor who had been deafened by gunfire at the Battle of Lissa and claimed he had been discharged for accusing Hoste of cowardice in the action; this he hotly denied but suggested that his old captain could clear his own name of such false accusations by confirming that he had been honourably discharged and was therefore worthy of a pensioner's vacancy at Greenwich.'

There is no suggestion of a political motive here; but it is interesting to see how officers could be subject to all kinds of pressures from varied motives.

A bill of £265 for three weeks at the hotel may have been quite reasonable to members of the aristocracy, but it was several years' pay to an ordinary (or able) seaman.

Tony:

true - but in an age of conspicuous consumption by the aristocracy, Nelson's expenditure was modest, and I think, would have been recognised as such by the lower orders who saw far greater examples of excess and self-indulgence by the aristocracy and the filthy rich (e.g. William Beckford). The late eighteenth century was a time rather like our own - an age of rampant materialism and conspicuous consumption.

What I think is intended to be damaging here is the false accusation that Nelson and his party were in festive mood after the slaughter at Boulogne. The ladies may have had their bathing machines but Nelson had a reminder of his failure and misjudgements, and the sacrifices made by sailors, in his witness to Parker's slow and agonising death.

Bathing machines were notoriously expensive to hire.

Jack Russell quotes the following:



I'm not sure I exactly agree with everything Russell says here, but when the English papers refer to Nelson by his foreign title, 'Duke of Bronte' it's generally not meant in a pleasant way. Lots of little arrows flying around it seems.

Is there a history of Nelson paying over the odds for hotel accommodation (and other things)? I recall a reference to the Star Inn at Oxford earlier that summer being an expensive choice.

And at his hotel in Prague on the journey through Europe the previous year, the owner illuminated the building to honour Nelson's visit and then added the cost to the bill.

The ordinary man and woman in the street generally adored him I think, and saw the orders, decorations and outward signs of wealth as well deserved.

Nelson was very concious of his status, and knew what trappings he needed to have to maintain himself in society. The carriage, a good table, an address on the right side of town. The most fashionable hotel. Perfectly normal. But unlike most of the old and new moneyed classes, he never made a point of waving it around in people's faces, and would go out of his way to be generous and accessible.

I wonder if Nelson's 'amazingly rich' comment to Davison was a cynical aside. Making the point that there were opportunists out there who thought he was an easy touch for money, but in reality he couldn't afford it?

Yes, I'm sure Nelson was being heavily ironic about not being like other men, excessively rich etc. And I'm sure he knew he was a soft touch. Looking at the bills for the journey home from Europe he is spending enormous amounts - Sept 13th £200, September 21st - £300 but the bills are not broken down in detail, whereas the ones for the Welsh trip are. Yes, the bill at the Star in Oxford was £27.0s.10d - though it does say '& servants' which the other hotel bills don't mention, and doesn't say how many nights they spent there. At the Castle in Llandovery the bill was £2.10s 2d which hardly seems extravagant. The Castle is a pleasant enough inn, as was The Beaufort Arms at Monmouth. Maybe the best in town but not the Ritz.

(Incidentally, the Castle has an offer on at the moment - £50 a night, Nelson and Emma's rooms are £10 extra.)

As I said in an earlier post, the money on the Welsh trip shows no great excess - just modest hotel bills, horses, carriages, drivers, turnpikes, laundry etc. - all providing work and business too.

Thanks for that fascinating breakdown Tycho.

£10 a night extra! Looks like hotel owners are still making money out of Nelson more than 200 years on.

I appreciate that the damaging insinuation in the newspaper report was that Nelson's time at the hotel after Boulogne had been spent 'in the utmost festivity', but I do think that the amount of the hotel bill could have been interpreted by many as backing up the insinuation. I find it hard to believe that many in the 'lower orders' would be able to differentiate between a hotel bill for £265 and the more excessive expenditure of other members of the aristocracy. I would have thought that to many, that expenditure in three weeks would be incomprehensible. It represented the amount a family might spend on food over ten years, or the price of a house (albeit a tiny cottage). 1801 was a time of economic hardship. The war had resulted in widespread unemployment, wheat prices had doubled or trebled over the last twenty years, and the Government was increasing regressive indirect taxes, with taxes on salt, sugar, coal, leather, glass, etc. 28% of the population was receiving poor relief. It was only 4 years since the Spithead and Nore mutinies, and inflation had outstripped wages. The 'authorities' were in perpetual fear of mobs and riots, and given Nelson's own views of the feeling against him in the fleet, I think the newspaper report was potentially very damaging indeed, no matter how misleading it might have been.

Nelson's own attitude to money seems to me to have changed dramatically after his Barony following the Battle of the Nile. Previously, he had been positively penny pinching. I am thinking of a letter in which he complains to Fanny of a lost stock buckle, compares its price to a new one, and works out that the old one had cost him a penny a year. There were other times when he claimed he didn't want promotion to flag rank because of the added costs he would incur. He often told Fanny to make her own decisions on what they could afford (sub-text: Make sure you get it right?). But after the Nile, he gave money away to his relatives, and he was on to Fanny telling her to spend whatever was necessary to maintain the right appearances for his new station (out of respect for the King, of course). He seems to have consciously(?) adopted a 'devil may care', 'easy come, easy go' attitude to money. No wonder Fanny was all angst about what to do!

I don't think Nelson was ever penny-pinching. Fanny was the one who constantly worried about money - which is understandable when you remember how difficult her circumstances had been as a dependant widow, and later when Nelson was on half-pay - but Nelson's usual response was to tell her not to worry. He does bemoan the fact in numerous letters that he isn't lucky with prize money but always asserts that honour is more important. Nevertheless, long before the Nile he is saying things like:

'I direct this to Bath where I desire you will not want for anything. My expenses are by no means great, therefore don't be afraid of money. Only don't let my father pay anything for you.' (Nelson to Fanny, 30 January 1794)

'I hope you are not sparing in sending to Marsh and Creed for money.'
(Nelson to Fanny, 12 October 1794)

'My dear Fanny, I cannot bear the thought of your being expensive to my father. Why not draw for £200?' (Nelson to Fanny, 2 August 1795)

See Naish: Nelson's Letters to his wife, Navy Records Society.

The petulance about the lost buckle was more about his irritation at Fanny's incompetent packing than the actual monetary loss, I think.

Re: the hotel bill - it was, as you say, the insinuation about 'festivities' that was particularly damaging when combined with the apparently lavish expenditure. But it didn't do any harm in the long run. The people flocked to applaud him during the tour of Wales the following year when he spent on an equal scale.

As regards your general point about the prevailing hardships of the time:
there were indeed new social forces at work, amongst the common people as well as the agitators in the 'political' class, but 'as social and economic historians are apt to forget, these social changes were all dwarfed by the war.....the country became united in a long-established fear and hatred of the French, and the great majority of people were more concerned with beating Bonaparte than with social grievances. It was only after the war and twenty years of repression and cyclical economic distress that the main popular tide set in to bring about the inescapable political reforms of 1832.' (John Bowle. 'The English Experience' Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1970)

Bowle also comments on the mutinies at the Nore and Spithead:

'The 'floating' republic hoisted the red or 'bloody' flag but hauled it down to celebrate the anniversary of the Restoration, and once their grievances had been met, the crews fought with added ferocity: 'Damn my eyes if I understand your lingo...' wrote one mutineer to the Admiralty, 'but in short, give us our due at once and no more at it, till we go in search of the Rascals the enemies of our Country. Henry Long on Board His Majesty's Ship 'Champion'.

No, I don't believe it was petulance. The petulance was in the previous two letters. This letter was the second that mentioned the stock buckle, and was loving and conciliatory: "Many thanks, my dearest Fanny, for your two letters. From my heart, I wish it was peace, then not a moment would I lose in getting to my cottage." His calculation of one penny a year exposes the inner workings of the mind of a very thrifty man (but perhaps 'positively penny pinching' was just provocative - I liked the alliteration).

Yes - you're right. Sorry, my mistake - but so many of his letters seemed to be full of reproaches about missing things - keys, handkerchiefs, towels, stockings etc.

Sorry for not returning earlier to pass on my regards. Many thanks for your brilliant replies, there is plenty of food for thought here which I hope to follow up.

Just a small addition to the Hill - Blackmail saga.

Letter from Captain Hardy to Manfield (7th November 1801):



It seems that Nelson received 'several' letters from Mr. Hill. Perhaps more than the two identified so far?