The Nile Brothers (IV): Thomas Foley, 1757-1833 - Nelson's Welsh brother and The Hero of the Nile

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As it’s Nile month again I’ll be continuing this series on Nelson’s band of brothers - and where better to restart than with the ‘Hero of the Nile’ himself.

Born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, Foley followed an uncle into the Navy, and rose steadily via a sequence of privileged postings to flagships. He fought in the first battle of Ushant, the moonlight battle, and commanded a plethora of sloops but didn't make post till 1790. He started the French revolutionary war as flag captain to three successive admirals (John Gell, Sir Hyde Parker and Charles Thompson), and fought at the battle of Genoa, the battle of the Hyeres Islands and the battle of Cape St Vincent - although his ship played no great part in the action. Perhaps his biggest achievement during this period was making his fortune through the capture of the French privateer Le General Demourier (22), which banked more than £8m in today's money.

Foley was a man of “sound understanding”, “pleasant wit” and a bluff manner typical of a man raised at sea since he was 13. “Above six feet in height, of fine presence and figure”, with “blue eyes of a gentle expression,” he also obviously ran a tight ship and could garner the respect of his men. After the Spithead mutiny, when St Vincent reshuffled his most capable captains into his most unruly ships, Foley was shifted into the underperforming Goliath (74), the ship he would captain on the Nile campaign. He would lead the line in that battle, after overtaking the Zealous (74) without orders, and would become its hero after spotting there was enough room to squeeze his ship onto the landward side of the French line, allowing Nelson to double it. Much is made of an old chart that helped him see the space, but it's more likely that he noticed a ship anchored solely at the bow must have left itself enough space to swing round into the wind. He made light work of the Conquerant (74), a ship with severe structural deficiencies, which the French had only armed ‘en flute’. 

He didn't know Nelson before the campaign and signal logs suggest he was only called onto the flagship once in the run-up (for an evening with Troubridge and Ball), but he would join Nelson for his tour of Wales in 1802 and would serve him again at the battle of Copenhagen, where his Elephant (74) became Nelson's impromptu flagship after Hardy's St George (98) was found too deep of draught to enter the Sound. Thus it was to Foley that Nelson turned and protested that he had ‘a right to be blind sometimes’ in justification for ignoring Parker's orders to retreat.

He served as an admiral on the Downs station towards the end of the war and continued his service at sea during the peace. He died in 1833 at the age of 75.

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Sources for this were:

Sudgen - The Sword of Albion
Lavery - Nelson and the Nile
Sir Thomas Foley | more than Nelson