Captain Darby took over the command of the Bellerophon at a critical time. All the attempts of Prime Minister William Pitt to make peace with an increasingly aggressive France had come to nothing. The coalition of allies which he had established to counter the advancing French armies had fallen apart. Prussia, Holland and Spain had made peace with France during the course of 1795. In 1796 a French army commanded by Napoleon marched into northern Italy, crushed all opposition in the states ruled by Austria, and replaced the feudal regimes with republican governments modelled on the new French constitution. And in October 1796 Spain decided to throw in her lot with France and declared war on Britain. This was an extremely serious development. Britain's command of the seas, and in particular her control of the English Channel, had prevented the French from mounting an invasion. But Spain had a formidable navy and, while the British blockade had curtailed the movements of the French fleet up till now, it would be much more difficult to prevent the combined fleets of France and Spain from breaking out of their naval bases. They would then be able to sail up the Channel and provide cover for transport vessels which would ferry the French troops across and land them on the coasts of Sussex or Kent.
France's determination to take on Britain was demonstrated in December 1796. Encouraged by rebellious movements in Ireland, the French decided to mount an invasion of Ireland as a stepping stone to attacking England. On 15 December a fleet of forty-four ships, including seventeen ships of the line and thirteen frigates, set sail from Brest. The invasion force included 16,500 troops under the command of General Hoche and the plan was to land the troops in Bantry Bay on the south-west coast of Ireland, then march overland and capture Cork which was used as a naval base by the British. The whole venture was a disaster. One of the French 74-gun ships was wrecked off Brest on the day they sailed, and the remainder ran into fierce easterly gales off the coast of Ireland. Forced to beat back and forth for days on end, the ships began to run low on provisions, and abandoned all hope of landing the troops. Two ships were driven onto the Irish coast, two foundered in heavy seas, seven were captured, and the Droits de l'homme, another 74, was wrecked on the French coast - with great loss of life - after a running battle with two British frigates.
The French invasion plans had taken the British by surprise. The Channel fleet was anchored at Spithead 400 miles from the coast of Ireland. The Bellerophon was cruising with a squadron off Ushant but failed to sight the French fleet. When she returned to Plymouth, on 2 January 1797, she was ordered to join a squadron of three other ships of the line and to patrol the seas between Bantry Bay and Cork but it was a case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. By the time they sighted the Old Head of Kinsale on 18 January the French were long gone. The squadron spent three weeks patrolling the south-west coast of Ireland in gales which were so strong that the Bellerophon's mainsail was ripped to pieces. However this was all in a day's work for her crew and a new sail was soon bent onto the yard. On 4 February they put into Cork to take on water and provisions. Anchored in the sheltered waters of the harbour they found the 64-gun ship Polyphemus flying the flag of Admiral Kingsmill and five frigates. This was the navy's Irish squadron which had the job of patrolling the Atlantic coast of Ireland and the western approaches. The frigates had captured several French ships the previous summer but had been in harbour when the French invasion fleet had arrived off Bantry Bay. After ten days at Cork the Bellerophon set sail and was back at Spithead by the beginning of March.
Captain Darby now received orders which were to change the familiar routine of the Bellerophon and her crew dramatically. Instead of blockading the French coast she was to join the Mediterranean fleet under Sir John Jervis. The new enemy was the Spanish fleet, based at Cadiz. On 17 March 1797 the Bellerophon left the grey skies and chill winds of the Solent and headed for the sun and the warm waters of southern Spain. It would be more than two years before her captain and crew saw the shores of England again.
EIGHT
The Bay of Cadiz
1797
On 30 May 1797 the Bellerophon arrived in the Bay of Cadiz and joined the fleet of British ships blockading the port. The main body of the fleet was anchored in an extended line across the entrance of the bay but the Bellerophon was ordered to join the Advanced Squadron which was positioned some way ahead of the main fleet, close to the walls of the ancient city. Under a cloudless blue sky she worked her way across the choppy waters of the bay towards the four ships of the Advanced Squadron. When she was level with them she dropped anchor in 11 fathoms. Ahead lay Cadiz, shimmering in the heat of the summer afternoon. Situated at the end of a promontory, the city was protected by an encircling wall and several forts. Above the wall could be seen the tiled rooftops of houses, and the towers and domes of numerous churches and grand civic buildings. In the harbour beside the city walls were thirty Spanish warships, their colourful red and orange flags extended in the fresh breeze, the nearest of the ships almost within gunshot.
For two days the crew of the Bellerophon were kept busy carrying out minor repairs and taking on board water and provisions — including several basketloads of lemons, and six live bullocks. On the third day the ship's log noted that 'Rear Admiral Nelson came on board and mustered the ship's company.' Nelson had been given command of the Advanced Squadron and, although this was the only time that he set foot on the decks of the Bellerophon, the ship's fortunes were to be closely linked with his during the course of the next few years. Nelson was already a legend in the British Navy and the crew would have been intensely curious to see him. He was now thirty-eight years old. Since the siege of Toulon in 1793 he had made his mark as a ruthless and formidable commander in battle, and had begun to achieve the celebrity which he craved and believed was his destiny.
While taking part in the siege of Calvi on the coast of Corsica in 1794 he had been wounded and blinded in his right eye. The pupil was now a hazy blue colour and although he simply regarded it as one of the hazards of war, he could barely distinguish light from darkness with that eye, and admitted that 'as to all the purpose of use it is gone.' His hair was flecked with grey and his face was lined and gaunt, but he still had a restless energy. He had also acquired an air of command. He had, after all, been a full captain since the age of twenty and had recently demonstrated the fighting qualities which were to make his name famous throughout Europe.
In 1795, while in command of the 64-gun Agamemnon, he had engaged the Ça Ira, an 84-gun French ship, and had kept up such a devastating fire on her that she subsequently surrendered, with the loss of 400 men killed and wounded. And then on 14 February 1797 he had played a spectacular role in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. As the British fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jervis, was going into action against a Spanish fleet off the south-west coast of Spain, Nelson had disobeyed orders by swinging his ship, the Captain, out of the line of battle in order to hold apart the two Spanish divisions, an action which directly contributed to the subsequent British victory. After coming under fire from seven Spanish ships, Nelson had rammed the San Nicolas, boarded her, and forced her surrender. Another Spanish ship, the San Joseph, had become entangled with the San Nicolas. Nelson shouted 'Westminster Abbey or victory!' and led a boarding party onto her quarterdeck where 'extravagant as the story may seem, did I receive the swords of the vanquished Spaniards . . . The Victory passing saluted us with three cheers, as did every ship in the fleet.'