_Witness_,
HENRY BLACKWOOD.
T.M. HARDY.
It is of little importance whether this codicil was written at the
same time as the prayer or a couple of hours before; that neither adds
to nor detracts from the object of it. No definite opinion of the time
is given. Blackwood and Hardy, as witnesses, would know. In any case
it is an extraordinary document, and indicates unusual mental control
of which few human beings are possessed. His mind must have been
saturated with thoughts of the woman when the great battle was within
a few minutes of commencing. Early in the morning, when he was walking
the poop and cabin fixings and odds and ends were being removed, he
gave stern instructions to "take care of his guardian angel," meaning
her portrait, which he regarded in the light of a mascot to him. He
also wore a miniature of her next his heart. Unless Captain Hardy and
Captain Blackwood and others to whom he confided his love potions
were different from the hearty, unconventional seamen of the writer's
early sea-life, a banquet of interesting epithets could have been left
to us which might have shocked the severely decorous portion of a
public who assume a monopoly of inherent grace but do not understand
the delightful simple dialect of the old-time sailor-men.
There can be small doubt that Nelson's comrades had many a joke in
private about his weird and to them unnecessarily troublesome love
wailings, which would be all the more irksome when they and he had
serious business in hand. Poor Sir Thomas Troubridge appears to have
been the only one to have dealt frankly with him about carrying his
infatuation to such lengths--especially at a time when the public
service was in need of his undivided attention--and Nelson never had a
kindly feeling towards him afterwards. This gallant officer and loyal
friend was in command of the _Blenheim_ (seventy-four guns) when she
and the _Java_ (twenty-three guns) foundered with all hands near the
island of Rodriguez, in the East Indies, on the 1st February, 1807.
Nelson harboured a childish bitterness against Admiral Troubridge
because of his plain speaking, and especially after the latter was
appointed a Lord of the Admiralty. He always believed the "hidden
hand" to be that of his former friend, to whom he delighted at one
time to give the term "Nonpareil." In a letter to a friend he says: "I
have a sharp eye, and almost think I can see it. No, poor fellow," he
continues, "I hope I do him injustice; he surely cannot forget my
kindness to him," He boasts of how he spoke to St. Vincent, the former
"Nonpareil." In another eloquent passage he complains that Troubridge
refuses to endorse his recommendations of officers for promotion, that
he has been so rebuffed that his spirits are broken and the great
Troubridge has cowed him (this, of course, in derision), and if he
asked for anything more he would not get it. He would never forget it.
No wonder he was not well. The Admiralty are "beasts" for not allowing
him to come to London, which would only deprive him of a few days'
comfort and happiness, and they have his hearty prayers. He continues
in the same ludicrous strain, "I have a letter from Troubridge urging
me to wear flannel shirts, as though he cared for me. He hopes that I
shall go and have walks ashore, as the weather is now fine." "I
suppose he is laughing at me, but never mind." He suffers from
sea-sickness and toothache, and "none of them care a damn about my
sufferings," and so on. These misdirected outbursts of feverish
antipathy to poor Troubridge were frequent, and always inconceivably
comical as well as distressingly peevish. But behind it all there was
a consciousness of unequalled power which every one who knew him
recognized, and they therefore patiently bore with his weaknesses,
trying as they sometimes were.
Lord St. Vincent believed, and stated to Nelson, that the only other
man who possessed the same power of infusing into others the same
spirit as his own was Troubridge, and no doubt this innocent praise
of a noble and gallant sailor rankled in Nelson's mind, and was the
beginning of the jealousy that grew into hate. He could not brook any
one being put on an equality with himself, and he clung tenaciously,
though generously, to this idea of authority and superiority when he
requested in his last dying gasp that he should not be superseded.
After signing what is called the codicil to his will, Captains Hardy
and Blackwood joined him on the poop to receive his instructions. He
was calmly absorbed with the enemy's plan of defence and his own of
attack. He asked Blackwood what he would consider a victory, and the
latter replied, "Considering the disposition of both fleets, he
thought fourteen captures would be a fine result." Nelson said he
would not be satisfied with less than twenty, and that nothing short
of annihilation was his object. Soon afterwards he gave orders to Mr.
Pasco to make the memorable signal that