The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 2 (of 7)Malkin, Arthur Thomas
History
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 2 (of 7)
Malkin, Arthur Thomas
Biography
During the spring, Sir Horatio Nelson commanded the inner squadron
employed in the blockade of Cadiz. He was afterwards 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 £1,000. 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
harbour, 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 upwards 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 20,
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 1, he had the pleasure of seeing the object of his
toilsome cruise moored in Aboukir Bay, in line of battle. It appeared
afterwards that the two fleets must have crossed each other on the night
of June 22.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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