Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
History
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Biography
During the spring, Sir Horatio Nelson commanded the inner squadron
employed in the blockade of Cadiz. He was afterward despatched on an
expedition against Teneriffe, which was defeated with considerable
loss to the assailants. The admiral himself lost his right arm, and
was obliged to return to England, where he languished more than four
months before the cure of his wound was completed. His services were
rewarded by a pension of L1,000. On this occasion he was required by
official forms to present a memorial of the services in which he had
been engaged; and as our brief account can convey no notion of the
constant activity of his early life, we quote the abstract of this
paper given by Mr. Southey. "It stated that he had been in four
actions with the fleets of the enemy, and in three actions with boats
employed in cutting out of harbor, in destroying vessels, and in
taking three towns; he had served on shore with the army four months,
and commanded the batteries at the sieges of Bastia and Calvi; he had
assisted at the capture of seven sail of the line, six frigates, four
corvettes, and eleven privateers; taken and destroyed near fifty sail
of merchant vessels, and actually been engaged against the enemy
upward of a hundred and twenty times; in which service he had lost his
right eye and right arm, and been severely wounded and bruised in his
body."
Early in 1798 Nelson went out in the Vanguard to rejoin Lord St.
Vincent off Cadiz. He was immediately despatched with a squadron, into
the Mediterranean, to watch an armament known to be fitting out at
Toulon, the destination of which excited much anxiety. It sailed May
20th, attacked and took Malta, and then proceeded, as Nelson supposed,
to Egypt. Strengthened by a powerful reinforcement, he made all sail
for Alexandria; but there no enemy had been seen or heard of. He
returned in haste along the north coast of the Mediterranean to
Sicily, refreshed the fleet, and again sailed to the eastward. On
nearing Alexandria the second time, August 1st, he had the pleasure of
seeing the object of his toilsome cruise moored in Aboukir Bay, in
line of battle. It appeared afterward that the two fleets must have
crossed each other on the night of June 22d.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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