Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  Despite Tyler's wound, the Tonnant then dealt likewise with the San Juan Nepomuceno. However, Captain Churruca rehoisted his colours before he could be boarded. Argumosa likewise rehoisted the Monarca's and joined with the Aigle in engaging HMS Bellerophon in an action in which the French Swiftsure and the Bahama were also involved, the British ship losing not only her main- and mizen-topmasts but her Captain, John Cooke. With the help of Robert Moorsom's Revenge, she was nonetheless able to compel Argumosa to haul down his ensign for the second time.

  James Morris's Colossus was first locked broadside to broadside with the Argonauta, then in action with the French Swiftsure and with the Bahama, suffering more casualties than any other British ship before compelling the Bahama to surrender, followed by the submission of the Swifisure. Richard King in the Achille engaged the Montariez, then the Argonauta which struck in time for King also to take the Berwick in prize. Conn's Dreadnought captured the already damaged San Juan Nepomuceno, after a fight lasting only a quarter-of-an-hour. Robert Redmill's Polyphemus engaged the French Neptune and Achille. Robert Moorsom's Revenge, after being in action with the Aigle at such close range as to foul her jib-boom, was in a hot action with the Principe d' Asturias. William Rutherford's Swiftsure set the Achille on fire. Philip Durham's Defiance ran alongside and lashed herself to the Aigle which only surrendered after Captain Gourrege had put up a most gallant defence. In the Thunderer, Lieutenant John Stockham raked Gravina's flagship in a duel, mortally wounding the Spanish Admiral who later paid his victor this generous tribute: 'I am a dying man, but I hope I am going to join Nelson.' George Hope's Defiance compelled the San Ildefonso to strike. Finally, at 4.30 pm Richard Grindall's Prince, last in Collingwood's line, added her fire to the blazing Achille which blew up at 5.45 pm, with the loss of most of her crew.

  Turning back the clock to the exploits of Nelson's own column, at 12.15 pm Villeneuve realized the need for the ships in the van of his line to tack to his support. But, instead of ordering Rear-Admiral Dumanoir Le Pelley's division to do this, he made only a general signal directing ships not engaged with the enemy to take whatever steps were necessary to get into action, on which Dumanoir did nothing. Five minutes after this the Victory, heading for the Bucentaure, was in action. Heavily engaged by the Santisima Trinidad, Neptune and Redoutable as well as by Villeneuve's flagship, one shot cut her mizen topmast in two, another shattered her wheel, others tore her sails to shreds. 'This is too warm work to last long', was Nelson's comment as, very slowly in the light breeze, the Victory continued to forge ahead.

  By 12.30 the French Neptune and the Redoutable were so close astern of the Bucentaure that Hardy could see no gap through which to steer the Victory. 'I cannot help it', Nelson said. 'It does not signify which we run on board. Take your choice.' Hardy chose the Redoutable: but as he steered for her the French Neptune veered to starboard, so that the Victory cut under the Bucentaure's stern after all. Firing double and treble shotted guns into her great cabin windows as she passed so close that, as the two ships rolled, the Victory's main yard arm touched the Bucentaure's gaff, Hardy's port broadsides wrecked the latter's stern, killing and wounding nearly 400 of her crew, and dismounting twenty of her guns. But the Victory did not escape unscathed, being raked and mauled from ahead by the French Neptune.

  Having chosen the Redoutable as his opponent, Hardy turned towards her at about 1.10 pm, fouled her and dropped alongside, one of the Victory's studding sail booms hooking into the French ship's rigging, carrying both to leeward as they continued to fire their main batteries into each other. The Victory also used her starboard carronades to clear the Bucentaure's gangways when Captain Lucas ordered a boarding party aboard the Victory. But no one countered the Tyrolean sharpshooters in the Redoutable's tops, until too late. At 1.15 'Nelson was walking on the quarterdeck with Hardy when the fatal musket ball was fired, penetrating his chest and felling him to the deck. When Hardy expressed a hope that he was not severely wounded, he replied [much as he had done at the Nile]: ''They have done for me at last. My back-bone is shot through.'' Hardy ordered seamen to carry the Admiral down the ladders to the cockpit with his face and stars covered so that he would not be seen by the crew. Laid upon a bed and stripped of his clothes, he was examined by the surgeon, Mr Beatty, who soon found that the ball had penetrated deep into the chest and had probably lodged in the spine. Other symptoms indicated the hopeless situation of the case but the true nature of the wound was kept from all except Hardy.' (Abridged from The Authentic Narrative of Dr William Beatty, Surgeon to the Victory.)

  Shortly before this Elias Harvey's Temeraire had come through the enemy's line by the gap which the Victory had carved astern of the Bucentaure. In a hot action with the Neptune Harvey's ship was so damaged that at 1.40 she drifted across the Redoutable's bows, the latter's bowsprit passing through her rigging, from which position she was able to bring the raking fire of her port battery to the Victory's support. The Fougueux, having managed to haul off from action with the Belleisle and Mars of Collingwood's column then approached the Temeraire. The British ship being badly damaged aloft, and her colours shot away, looked an easy prey. But Harvey's gunners had not yet discharged their starboard broadside; holding this until Baudoin's ship was as close as 100 yards, they poured the whole of it into her with such crushing effect that at 2 pm she ran foul of the Timeraire. Four ships were now locked together: Victory, Redoutable, Temeraire, Fougueux. Of these the Fougueux had suffered so much damage that Baudoin offered no resistance when boarded by men from the Temeraire. Lucas's ship was in little better straits; in his own words:

  'It would be difficult to describe the horrible carnage caused by [the Temeraire's] murderous broadside. More than 200 of our brave lads were killed or wounded. . . . In less than half an hour our ship was so riddled that she seemed to be no more than a mass of wreckage. In this state the Timeraire hailed us to strike. . . . I ordered several soldiers to answer this summons with musket and shots. At the very same moment the mainmast fell on board the Redoutable. All the stern was absolutely stove in. . . . All the guns were shattered or dismounted. . . . An 18-pounder gun on the maindeck and a 36-pounder carronade on the forecastle having burst, killed and wounded many of our people. The two sides of the ship . . . were utterly cut to pieces. Four of our six pumps were shattered. . . . All our decks were covered with dead. . . . Out of the ship's company of 643 men we had . . . 300 killed and 222 wounded. . . . In the midst of this carnage the brave lads who had not yet succumbed . . . still cried, `Vive l'Empereur! We're not taken yet.'

  The Redoutable was, nonetheless, in such dire straits that at 2.20 pm. Lucas 'ordered the colours to be hauled down. They came down themselves with the fall of the mizenmast.'

  Half an hour before this, HMS Neptune, Leviathan and Conqueror had cut through the combined fleets astern of the Bucentaure, raking her with their broadsides. Thomas Fremantle then turned the Neptune to fight the mammoth Santisima Trinidad - 98 guns against 140 - whilst Henry Baynton headed the Leviathan for the San Augustin. Both enemy ships were soon reduced to a shambles by British gunfire and compelled to surrender, though Baynton subsequently came near to losing his ship to the Intrepide before Digby's Africa and Edward Codrington's Orion came to his rescue, and compelled Captain Infernet to haul down his colours at 5 pm. Meantime, Israel Pellew's Conqueror tackled the Bucentaure, where, at 1.30, Villeneuve realized Dumanoir's failure to support him and signalled his van to wear together. The flags had no sooner been hauled down than the last of the Bucentaure's masts fell.

  In the words of an officer who was there: her 'upper decks and gangways, heaped with dead and . . . wreckage . . . presented an appalling spectacle. Amid this scene of disaster Admiral Villeneuve, who from the first had displayed the calmest courage, continued . . . pacing up and down the quarterdeck. At length . . . with bitter sorrow he exclaimed: ''The Bucentaure has played her part: mine is not yet over.'' He gave orders for a boat to . . . take him with his flag on board one of the ships of the
van squadron. He still cherished the hope that he might . . . yet snatch victory from the enemy. But . . . [this] illusion did not last long. Word was soon brought that his barge . . . and every single one of the ship's other boats had . . . been destroyed. Bitterly did Admiral Villeneuve realize his desperate position . . . imprisoned on board a ship that was unable to defend herself, while a great part of his fleet was . . . fighting hard. . . . All he could do now was to see after the lives of the handful of brave men fighting with him. Humanity forbade him to allow them to be shot down without means of defending themselves. Villeneuve looked away, and allowed the captain of the Bucentaure to lower the colours.'

  This was at 1.45 pm. A few minutes later the French Commander-in-Chief offered his sword to Israel Pellew's captain of marines. 'To whom have I the honour of surrendering?' he asked in English. 'To Captain Pellew of the Conqueror.' 'I am glad to have struck to Sir Edward Pellew.' (All Frenchmen had heard of Sir Edward who, when commanding the 44-gun Indefatigable, had fought the 74-gun Droits de l'Homme until she was driven ashore on the coast of Brittany where she was lost with all her crew in January 1797.) 'It is his brother, sir.' 'His brother!' exclaimed Villeneuve. 'Are there two of them? Helas!' 'Fortune de la guerre', was Captain Magendie's comment as, for the third time, he became a prisoner-of-war.

  The wind was so light that Dumanoir's ships had difficulty in obeying Villeneuve's signal. Eventually ten got round, but only five under Dumanoir himself steered for the centre; the others kept away as if to join Gravina in the rear. The first group were engaged by Codrington's Orion, Lieutenant Pilford's Ajax, Berry's Agamemnon and by Northesk's flagship, the Britannia, but to no great effect. Charles Mansfield's Minotaur and Sir France Laforey's Spartiate, which had been at the rear of Nelson's column, had more success between 2 and 4 pm when they captured the Neptuno. This, and a subsequent short action with the Victory, were sufficient to deter Dumanoir from trying to recover any of the ships which the British had taken in prize: at 4.30 he took his four ships-of-the-line off to the south-west.

  Meanwhile, at 2.15 pm Hardy managed to cut the Victory clear of the Redoutable and head northward. But without her mizen topmast, with her fore- and mainmasts badly damaged, her rigging much cut, and her hull severely holed, he was unable to take any further part in the battle. Instead he visited Nelson in the cockpit, to be asked:

  'Well, Hardy, how goes the battle ? How goes the day for us?'

  'Very well, my Lord. We have taken twelve or fourteen of the enemy's ships; but five of their van have tacked and show an intention of bearing down upon the Victory. I have no doubt of giving them a drubbing.'

  Nelson then said: 'I am a dead man, Hardy, I am going fast. It will be all over with me soon.' Then he told Beatty to tend the other wounded 'for you can do nothing for me'.

  Hardy came down to the cockpit again after an interval of about fifty minutes, to shake hands with Nelson and congratulate him on his brilliant victory which, he said, was complete. Though he did not know how many of the enemy were captured he was certain of fourteen or fifteen.

  Nelson answered: 'That is well, but I bargained for twenty', and then emphatically, 'Anchor, Hardy, anchor.'

  'Shall we make the signal, sir?'

  'Yes, for if I live, I'll anchor.'

  Nelson then told Hardy that in a few minutes he should be no more. 'Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton. . . . Kiss me, Hardy.'

  The Captain knelt and kissed his cheek.(6) 'Now,' said Nelson, 'I am satisfied. Thank God I have done my duty. God bless you, Hardy.'

  After this affecting scene Hardy withdrew, when Nelson's thirst increased and he called, 'Drink, drink', 'Fan, fan', and 'Rub, rub', in a very rapid manner, but with every now and then, with evident increase of pain, 'Thank God I have done my duty.'

  He became speechless about fifteen minutes after Hardy left him. And when Beatty took up his hand, it was cold and the pulse had gone from the wrist. (Abridged from The Authentic Narrative of Dr William Beatty, Surgeon to the Victory.)

  'Partial firing continued until 4.30 pm,' says the Victory's log, 'when a victory having been reported to the Right Hon. Lord Nelson, K.B., and Commander-in-Chief, he died of his wounds.' Hardy carried the sad news to Collingwood who was so overwhelmed that he wrote in his dispatch:

  'I have not only to lament . . . the loss of a hero whose name will be immortal, and his memory ever dear to his Country; but my heart is rent with the most poignant grief for the death of a friend to whom, by many years' intimacy and a perfect knowledge of his mind, which inspired ideas superior to the common race of men, I was bound by the strongest ties of affection; a grief which even the glorious occasion in which he fell does not bring the consolation which perhaps it ought.'

  But when told of Nelson's earnest injunction that the fleet should anchor before it was hazarded on the lee shore of Cape Trafalgar, which was now distant only eight miles to the south-east, he exclaimed: 'Anchor the fleet! Why, it is the last thing I should have thought of.' Instead, he shifted his flag to the Euryalus, took the much damaged Royal Sovereign in tow, and stood off shore.

  Dumanoir in the Formidable, with the Duguay Trouin, Mont Blanc and Scipion, had run to the southward; four other ships from the van and four from the centre had joined the survivors from Gravina's division, the Principe d' Asturias, Montafiez and Argonaute, and were escaping to the north-west. But of the seventeen French and Spanish ships engaged by Collingwood's division, eleven had been taken in prize, and one had blown up; whilst of Villeneuve's ships engaged by Nelson's division, six had been taken in prize - making a total of eighteen taken or destroyed, only two less than Nelson's ambition for twenty. All the prizes had been extensively damaged, eight being entirely dismasted and nine partially dismasted. The combined fleets had, moreover, suffered casualties totalling 5,860 killed and wounded, and 20,000 taken prisoner.

  The British fleet, though it had not lost a single vessel, had also suffered: in addition to the crippled Victory and Royal Sovereign, the Belleisle had been dismasted, the Tonnant had lost all three topmasts, eleven others had important parts of their masts and rigging shot away, and their casualties totalled 1,690 killed and wounded. So, although the measure of the British victory was abundantly clear, Collingwood had on his hands forty-four ships-of-the-line, of which all but twelve were unseaworthy to a greater or lesser extent. That he made no attempt to pursue the escaping enemy detachments is therefore understandable; he lacked the resources to prevent eleven of the combined fleets reaching the safety of Cadiz during the night. But his aversion to anchoring can only be described as an unhappy error of judgement which cost him dear, despite the handicap of a handful of ships which would be unable to comply because they had lost both anchors in the battle. At 9 pm, when the wind had freshened considerably and backed to west-south-west, accompanied by a heavy swell - dead on to the shoals of Trafalgar - he went so far as to signal: 'Prepare to anchor' which sufficed for four ships, HMS Defence and the prizes San Ildefonso, Bahama and the French Swiftsure, to drop anchor on their own initiative. But the rest obeyed his subsequent signal, to wear and head to the west, when at midnight the wind veered again to the south-south-west.

  Next day the British fleet and its prizes, many in tow, held this course without incident in a fresh and squally southerly wind until 5 pm when the Redoutable, in tow of HMS Swiftsure, made signals of distress; and at 10.30, after many of her crew had been taken off, she had to be abandoned, to sink during the night. But this was only a presage of worse to come. By the morning of the 23rd, the full gale that Nelson had foreseen, was blowing from the north-west. This drove the Fougueux ashore with the loss of most of her company, and allowed the crews of the Algesiras and Bucentaure to retake their vessels, to carry the former into the safety of Cadiz, but to wreck the latter.

  Much to his credit in the disheartening aftermath of such a defeat, this gale induced the senior French officer in Cadiz, Commodore de Cosmao-Kerjulien (who had played a major part in retaking the Diamond Rock), to put to
sea with five ships-of-the-line in a brave attempt to recover some of the prizes. But when no less than ten of Collingwood's formed up to meet him, he thought it best to avoid action. Nonetheless, his frigates retook the Neptuno and Santa Ana. Against this, however, he had to set the loss of three of his own ships next day; the Indomtable and San Francisco de Asis were both wrecked when trying to re-enter Cadiz; the Rayo, after anchoring to avoid running ashore, surrendered to Pulteney Malcolm's Donegal which had just rejoined from Gibraltar - but only to be stranded and lost on the 26th. By that time the gale had cost Collingwood more of his prizes: the Santisima Trinidad and Argonauta had to be scuttled; the Monarca sank; the Aigle and Berwick were wrecked; the Intrepide and San Augustin were burnt as useless. In sum, of the eighteen French and Spanish ships-of-the-line taken by Nelson's fleet on 21 October, only the San Juan Nepomuceno survived in addition to the three which had wisely anchored off Cape Trafalgar in company with HMS Defence. Against so many losses, Collingwood could only set the three ships that had emerged from Cadiz on the 24th and never returned.

  On 30 October Louis rejoined from Gibraltar with five ships-of-the-line, when Collingwood shifted his flag to the undamaged Queen and resumed a close blockade of Cadiz - though the enemy which he contained, now under Rosily's command, were not destined to make another sortie. To complete the triumphant story of Trafalgar it remains, therefore, to tell only of what befell Dumanoir's detachment. Knowing that on 21 October Louis had several sail-of-the-line near Gibraltar, he decided against trying to make for Toulon and determined instead to reach one of the French Atlantic ports. But on 2 November he had the mischance to be sighted by a squadron of five British ships-of-the-line under Captain Sir Richard Strachan, which was searching for Allemand's squadron, still out of Rochefort and doing a good deal of damage to British trade. Strachan gave chase, and two days later brought Dumanoir's ships to action off Ferrol, compelling all four to surrender. Nelson's achievement, eighteen ships-of-the-line taken or destroyed, on 21 October, was thus capped in the two following weeks by three more out of Cadiz and all of Dumanoir's - the magnificent total of twenty-five out of a force that had a numerical superiority of thirty-three against twenty-seven.