Nelson: Britannia's God of War

by Andrew Lambert

  By 12.35 the concavity of the enemy line allowed Victory’s lower-deck guns to open fire on both sides as they closed, shrouding the ship in smoke, and providing some relief from the torment of waiting. Soon afterwards, she ran under the stern of the French flagship. The first gun to fire was the massive sixty-eight-pounder carronade on the port forecastle, blasting an eight-inch diameter solid iron shot and a case filled with five hundred musket balls through the flimsy stern galleries of the Bucentaure, followed by every one of the fifty broadside guns. The French ship shuddered under the impact of a hundred projectiles from the double-shotted broadside. Over two hundred of her officers and men were killed or wounded: Villeneuve was the only man left standing on the quarter-deck, and twenty of her eighty-four guns had been smashed out of their carriages. From inside the allied line, the French Neptune raked Victory and the Redoutable blocked her passage through the formation. Nelson’s attempt to cut the enemy in two had ended with his ship trapped in the middle of the Combined Fleet, fighting on three sides. Unable to get through, Hardy asked which ship he should run into – Nelson left the choice to him. Hardy chose the Redoutable. Nelson would have preferred to keep his ship mobile, but there was nothing else he could do. Villeneuve’s formation and the lack of wind had forced him to pile into a group of ships, not cut through a well-ordered line.

  Once Victory had crashed into the Redoutable, Nelson was immobilised: he had sacrificed choice and tactics for all-out assault. While it was a significant modification of his memorandum, his overall concept survived. The impact of his line, headed by three three-decked ships, stunned Villeneuve, while the devastating raking fire they poured into his stern left him trapped on a crippled ship – immobile, unable to fight, signal, or escape. The allied centre was reduced to a collection of individual ships, and while they would fight with remarkable bravery they lacked the leadership and skill to meet the impact of the impetuous, irresistible British ships. Each British ship was, in itself, a superior force to an enemy of equal size and firepower. At close quarters the speed and regularity of British fire would overwhelm the allies, not immediately, but cumulatively. In the space of three hours the Franco-Spanish force collapsed, destroyed by gunnery the like of which had never been seen before. Nelson’s attack had broken all the rules of tactics, treating a fleet in line waiting for a fight like one running away, substituting speed for mass, precision for weight, and accepting impossible odds.

  Collingwood had picked out one of the Spanish flagships, the three-decker Santa Anna, raked her as he broke through the line, and ran alongside opening a furious battle that took over two hours to resolve. He fought alone for ten to twenty minutes, surrounded by enemy vessels, and even when the first group of his supporters arrived they too were soon fighting a far greater number of enemy ships. They survived and won the day because they hammered each of their attackers in turn, and by the time their performance was beginning to fall off the laggards came up and administered the coup de grâce. Big three-deckers like the Prince, Britannia and Dreadnought were the ideal answer to any Franco-Spanish rally. In fact the battle was won while the enemy had far more ships in the fight than the British: the real triumph was not one of twenty-seven against thirty-three, but twelve against twenty-two.

  British casualties tell the story. Twelve ships fought the decisive phase of the battle, while those that followed them in profited from their work. Of those first twelve, the numbers of deaths were as follows: Victory 132; Royal Sovereign 141; Temeraire 123; Neptune 44; Mars 98; Tonnant 76; Bellerophon 150; Revenge 79; Africa 62; Colossus 200; Achille 72; Defiance 70.

  Yet of all the men who died that day, one mattered more than the rest. It was not so much the death of Nelson as the manner of his passing that made the event memorable. Had he been cut in half by a round shot like poor Scott, or George Duff of the Mars, the final twist of immortality might have slipped from his grasp. He might have been trimmed back to fit a swift and sudden end, his life somehow reduced by the random nature of his death. If ever a man and his death were made for one another it was this man, on this day, under these circumstances.

  Once the Victory was locked in combat with the Redoutable, the two ships grinding against each other, Nelson’s work was done: he had broken the enemy formation, and his followers would complete the task and hold off the allied van, while Collingwood’s ships dealt with the rear division. Nelson continued to walk with Hardy on the quarter-deck, more interested in the handling of the ships that followed than the battle at hand. The French ship alongside was desperately trying to clear Victory’s upper deck with musketry and hand grenades before boarding. This tactic made the upper deck of the Victory a very dangerous place: men were dropping on all sides. Nelson was discussing the handling of the Leviathan or the Conqueror with Hardy when, at about 1.15 p.m., a shot fired from the mizzen top of the Redoutable hit him on the left shoulder. The 0.69-inch-diameter lead ball smashed through his shoulder blade, punctured his left lung, cut an artery, severed his spine and lodged in the muscle under his right shoulder. Knocked to the deck, Nelson stumbled and fell into the pool of blood left by poor Scott. A Royal Marine sergeant and a sailor rushed to help, but Nelson knew what had happened, telling Hardy, ‘They have done for me at last, my backbone is shot through.’ For a man so given to hypochondria, this was a strikingly accurate description of the wound – and of its inevitable consequences, given contemporary medical practice. Hardy had three men carry him below to the cockpit, where Surgeon William Beatty was already hard at work on the mounting list of casualties.

  In addition to the cacophonous roar and smoke of the guns, the shuddering motion of the ship as it ground against the enemy, this place possessed a unique horror. The low deck head, glimmering lanterns, moaning and screaming men, the stench of blood and the hurried work of amputating shattered limbs made this charnel house as close to hell as any living man could get. Alexander Scott, man of the cloth and veteran of many a battle, never forgot the cockpit of the Victory on that immortal day: it returned to torment his sleep for the rest of his life.

  They placed Nelson against one of the great English oak timbers of the flagship. He repeated his diagnosis to Beatty, who had him stripped. An examination only confirmed the admiral’s opinion, and when Beatty decided it was best to do nothing, Nelson insisted that he had more important things to do. Beatty left Nelson with the pursuer, his chaplain and intelligence officer Dr Scott, and his two servants. Above him, the battle with the Redoutable reached a crescendo: the French repeatedly tried to board, only to be driven back by heavy fire, and were finally all but wiped out by the Temeraire’s carronades. The French sailors in the mizzen top were shot down by two of Victory’s midshipmen, although it is unlikely they had understood what they had done. Nelson’s fatal wound was a product of a clear tactical choice by Captain Lucas, and pure chance. The sharpshooters had missed the massive frame of Thomas Hardy, six foot four and heavily built, and picked out the slim, slight figure of the admiral. At 1.30 Lucas gave up: from his crew of 640, 490 had been killed and eighty-one wounded, and his ship had been reduced to a sinking wreck. By the time Nelson had reached the cockpit the threat to Victory had passed.

  Conscious that he was in the presence of death, and could no longer avoid his fate, Nelson’s thoughts constantly shifted from professional to personal, from points of detail to human destiny. There would be about his death something so astonishing, so implausible, and so moving that the attempt to replicate it has become a comic cliché. He asked Scott to remember him to Emma and Horatia, and to press their claims on the Government, through George Rose. Gradually Nelson lost all sensation below the chest: his spine broken by the musket ball, he was paralysed, but he could still feel intense pain, which broke up his thoughts into disjoined segments, and a gush of blood poured into his left lung every time his heart beat. He was hot, and thirsty, calling for lemonade and a fan.

  Every time the crew cheered, his thoughts returned to the events of that day, and he was pleased to dis
cover that another enemy ship had struck. For all the suffering he remained the same man, and on learning that the midshipman sent down by Hardy was the son of an old friend from the Nicaragua expedition of 1780, he begged to be remembered to his father. Not even the agony of death could destroy the human warmth that made Nelson unique.

  At 2.15 Villeneuve, his ship destroyed, surrendered to Israel Pellew of the Conqueror. He had done all that a brave professional officercould – he had tried to fight the battle with hope – but the genius of his opponent, the power of the Royal Navy and the failure of Admiral Dumanoir to wear the van squadron round when signalled had doomed his brave effort. It was a far better performance than Villeneuve had given in 1798. He had not even managed to find death amid the slaughter that was the quarter-deck of the Bucentaure. That fate was reserved for Rear Admirals Magon and Cisneros, and several allied captains. And when Gravina died of his wounds, months later, he could hope for no higher honour than to join Nelson.

  At around 2.30 Hardy was able to go below, in answer to Nelson’s repeated requests: he reported that twelve or fourteen of the enemy were taken, and no British ship had surrendered. That last question betrayed Nelson’s anxiety about the outcome of the battle. His other conversation was more personal: Emma was to have his hair and his personal possessions. Hardy could not linger, as the enemy van had finally turned – only to be hammered by the ships at the tail of the line, Codrington’s brilliantly handled Orion, the Minotaur and the Spartiate. Hardy went back on deck and signalled the ships nearby to support the flagship. He also sent an officer to warn Collingwood.

  When Beatty returned, having cut through his patient list, Nelson was composing his closing remarks, summing up his purpose and preparing for a scene he had been rehearsing all his life. His first effort,back at the Nile in 1798, had not gone well, but this time he knew his Wolfe moment had come: this was the greatest sea battle the world had ever witnessed, and he was going to win. Having double-checked with Beatty that he was doomed, he began to deliver his most affecting address. There were enough men around him to ensure that his words would not be lost: Beatty and Scott were literate men, and both would write up the last hours. His first thought was the entirely predictable, ‘God be praised, I have done my Duty.’ Then he considered the fate of Emma, and how she would deal with the disaster, suddenly unsure that his wishes would have any impact.

  Hardy came back at around 3.30 to confirm a glorious victory, but as yet unable to satisfy Nelson’s determination to have twenty prizes. ‘Anchor, Hardy, anchor!’ he demanded, his breath failing with the effort, as the rising sea reminded him of his weather forecast. Forgetting himself for a moment, Hardy said, ‘I suppose, my Lord, Admiral Collingwood will now take upon himself the direction of affairs?’ ‘Not while I live, I hope, Hardy,’ came back the sharp retort. ‘Now, do you anchor, Hardy?’ He then insisted that his body not be thrown overboard, a subject they had clearly discussed before that day. He also begged Hardy to look after Emma. The thought of Emma reminded him that something was lacking on the day of his death – human contact – and he begged Hardy to kiss him. After Hardy had knelt and kissed him on the cheek, Nelson declared, ‘Now I am satisfied,’ and gave his closing motto: ‘Thank God I have done my Duty.’

  Moved by the events he had witnessed and the composure of the dying hero, Hardy, unable to speak, kissed him again. By now Nelson was fading; he asked who it was, and when told added, ‘God bless you, Hardy.’ Unable to bear the scene any longer Hardy went back to the upper deck, burying his grief in the business of fighting and repairing a shattered first-rate.35

  To ease his pain Nelson had his steward Chevalier turn him onto his right side. The relief was secured at the cost of shortening his life, since the move allowed the blood that filled his left lung to drain into the right: his breathing began to falter. ‘I wish I had not left the deck, for soon I shall be gone,’ he declared, before making something approaching a confession to Scott: ‘I have not been a great sinner.’ Scott and Chevalier took turns to rub his chest, which seemed to ease his suffering. As the pain of his final struggle for breath began to overwhelm him, he kept on repeating the line, ‘Thank God I have done my Duty,’ and Scott was convinced the last words he heard were, ‘God and my Country’. That trinity of God, Duty and Country had inspired and shaped his life – he did not abandon them in death. Beatty, Scott and Chevalier were with him when he slipped away without a sound. It was shortly before 4.30 p.m., just as the fighting died away. Nineteen enemy ships had been taken, and one blown up, set ablaze by firing from the tops.

  *

  The cost of victory was high: seventeen hundred British killed and wounded, six thousand enemy casualties and nearly two thousand prisoners. Many lives were lost, along with almost all the prizes, in the storm that followed. The shattered ships, unable to work or keep their holds clear of water, were abandoned or burnt – among them Villeneuve’s flagship, and the mighty Santissima Trinidad. Collingwood chose not to anchor, which was the right decision in the circumstances.

  Throughout the fleet, the end of the battle brought some relief, although the need to secure the prizes and repair the rigging in the face of the looming storm meant few had any rest. News that Nelson was dead had been trickling through the fleet for some time, and the absence of his flag from the Victory confirmed the news. The boat crew who went to warn Collingwood could not keep their feelings from those they met: grown men, hardened by the sight and sound of battle, wept like children. They were not ashamed of their grief. In private, hard men like Blackwood were unable to control their emotions, seeking an outlet in writing home. His wife Harriet was the only person he could confess to:

  I do not, even at the risk of distressing you, hesitate to say that in my life I never was so shocked, or so completely upset as upon my flying to the Victory, even before the action was over, to find Lord Nelson was then at the gasp of death … Such an Admiral has the Country lost, and every officer and man, so good, so obliging a friend as never was. Thank God he lived to know that such a Victory, and under circumstances so disadvantageous to the attempt, never was before gained. Almost all seemed as if inspired by the one common sentiment of conquer or die … Lord Nelson … has left cause for every man who had a heart never to forget him … I hope it is not injustice to the Second In Command, who is now on board the Euryalus, and who fought like a hero, to say that the Fleet under any other, never would have performed what they did under Lord N. But under Lord N. it seemed like inspiration to most of them.36

  No one knew Nelson better than Collingwood, who opened his wonderful General Order of thanks for the officers and men of the fleet the following day with the lines:

  The ever to be lamented death of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte, the Commander in Chief, who fell in the action of the 21st, in the arms of Victory, covered with glory, whose memory will be ever dear to the British Navy and the British Nation; whose zeal for the honour of his King, and for the interests of his Country, will ever be held up as a shining example for a British seaman.

  The report to the Admiralty of the same day was in the same vein: it was a powerful document, written by a master of the English language. Yet these calculated elegies did nothing to lessen the emotional impact of the news – in the fleet, the Admiralty, or across the nation. The King was rendered speechless and Pitt could not sleep: the triumph was cancelled out by the loss.

  Beatty placed the body in a cask of brandy, and after the Victory had been repaired at Gibraltar replaced the preservative with spirits of wine. The hero went home in his own cabin, in a barrel lashed to the mizzen mast. When the tension of the storm had passed, Collingwood had time to reflect, and wrote to their old friend from Antigua, Mary Moutray:

  It was about the middle of the action, when an officer came from the Victory to tell me he was wounded. He sent his love to me and desired me to conduct the fleet. I asked the officer if the wound was dangerous and he, by his look told what he could not speak, nor I refl
ect upon now without suffering again the anguish of that moment.

  To William Cornwallis he conveyed another part of Nelson’s meaning: ‘He will live in the memory of all who knew him as long as they have being.’37 Numerous letters flowed from the pen of the heroic Collingwood, letters that penetrated to the very core of his friend’s genius:

  He possessed the zeal of an enthusiast, directed by talents which Nature had very bountifully bestowed upon him, and everything seemed, as if by enchantment, to prosper under his direction. But it was the effect of system, and nice combination, not of chance. We must endeavour to follow his example, but it is the lot of very few to attain to his perfection.38

  Notes – CHAPTER XV

  1 Castlereagh to Nelson and Matra (Consul at Tangier) 14.9.1805; Add. 34,931 ff.192–3

  2 Nelson to Matra 25.9.1805; Frost, A. The Precarious Life of James Mario Matra. Melbourne, 1995, pp. 137–8. .

  3 Nelson to Emma 17.9.1805; Nicolas VII p. 40

  4 See for example Nelson to Emma 20.9.1805; Morrison II p. 266

  5 Collingwood to Admiralty 30.8.1805; Add. 34,930 f. 304.

  6 Castlereagh to Nelson 27.10.1805; WO 1/282 f. 131.

  7 Castlereagh to Nelson n.d. and Francis to Nelson 4.9.1805; Add. 34,930 f.247 and Add. 34,931 f. 689