"All is over and done.
Render thanks to the Giver;
England, for thy son
Let the bell be toll'd.
Render thanks to the Giver,
And render him to the mould.
Under the cross of gold
That shines over city and river,
There he shall rest for ever
Among the wise and the bold."
--TENNYSON.
Nelson's strategy at Trafalgar is described quaintly, but with real
insight, in a sentence which a Spanish novelist, Don Perez Galdos, puts
into the mouth of one of his characters: "Nelson, who, as everybody
knows, was no fool, saw our long line and said, 'Ah, if I break through
that in two places, and put the part of it between the two places
between two fires, I shall grab every stick of it.' That was exactly
what the confounded fellow did. And as our line was so long that the
head couldn't help the tail, he worried us from end to end, while he
drove his two wedges into our body." It followed that the flaming
vortex of the fight was in that brief mile of sea-space, between the
two points where the parallel British lines broke through Villeneuve's
swaying forest of masts. And the tempest of sound and flame was
fiercest, of course, round the two ships that carried the flags of
Nelson and Collingwood. As each stately British liner, however,
drifted--rather than sailed--into the black pall of smoke, the roar of
the fight deepened and widened until the whole space between the _Royal
Sovereign_ and the _Victory_ was shaken with mighty pulse-beats of
sound that marked the furious and quick-following broadsides.
The scene immediately about the _Victory_ was very remarkable. The
_Victory_ had run foul of the _Redoutable_, the anchors of the two
ships hooking into each other. The concussion of the broadsides would,
no doubt, have driven the two hulls apart, but that the _Victory's_
studding-sail boom iron had fastened, like a claw, into the leech of
the Frenchman's fore-topsail. The _Téméraire_, coming majestically up
through the smoke, raked the _Bucentaure_, and closed with a crash on
the starboard side of the _Redoutable_, and the four great ships lay in
a solid tier, while between their huge grinding sides came, with a
sound and a glare almost resembling the blast of an exploding mine, the
flash, the smoke, the roar of broadside after broadside.
In the whole heroic fight there is no finer bit of heroism than that
shown by the _Redoutable_. She was only a 74-gun ship, and she had the
_Victory_, of 100 guns, and the _Téméraire_, of 98, on either side. It
is true these ships had to fight at the same time with a whole ring of
antagonists; nevertheless, the fire poured on the _Redoutable_ was so
fierce that only courage of a steel-like edge and temper could have
sustained it. The gallant French ship was semi-dismasted, her hull
shot through in every direction, one-fourth of her guns were
dismounted. Out of a crew of 643, no fewer than 523 were killed or
wounded. Only 35, indeed, lived to reach England as prisoners. And
yet she fought on. The fire from her great guns, indeed, soon ceased,
but the deadly splutter of musketry from such of her tops as were yet
standing was maintained; and, as Brenton put it, "there was witnessed
for nearly an hour and a half the singular spectacle of a French 74-gun
ship engaging a British first and second rate, with small-arms only."
As a matter of fact, the _Victory_ repeatedly ceased firing, believing
that the _Redoutable_ had struck, but still the venomous and deadly
fire from the tops of that vessel continued; and it was to this
circumstance, indeed, that Nelson owed his death. He would never put
small-arms men in his own tops, as he believed their fire interfered
with the working of the sails, and, indeed, ran the risk of igniting
them. Thus the French marksmen that crowded the tops of the
_Redoutable_ had it all their own way; and as the distance was short,
and their aim deadly, nearly every man on the poop, quarter-deck, and
forecastle of the _Victory_ was shot down.
Nelson, with Hardy by his side, was walking backwards and forwards on a
little clear space of the _Victory's_ quarter-deck, when he suddenly
swung round and fell face downwards on the deck. Hardy picked him up.
"They have done for me at last, Hardy," said Nelson; "my backbone is
shot through." A musket bullet from the _Redoutable's_
mizzen-top--only fifteen yards distant--had passed through the forepart
of the epaulette, smashed a path through the left shoulder, and lodged
in the spine. The evidence seems to make it clear that it was a chance
shot that wrought the fatal mischief. Hardy had twice the bulk of
Nelson's insignificant figure, and wore a more striking uniform, and
would certainly have attracted the aim of a marksman in preference to
Nelson.
Few stories are more pathetic or more familiar than that of Nelson's
last moments. As they carried the dying hero across the blood-splashed
decks, and down the ladders into the cock-pit, he drew a handkerchief
over his own face and over the stars on his breast, lest the knowledge
that he was struck down should discourage his crew. He was stripped,
his wound probed, and it was at once known to be mortal. Nelson
suffered greatly; he was consumed with thirst, had to be fanned with
sheets of paper; and he kept constantly pushing away the sheet, the
sole covering over him, saying, "Fan, fan," or "Drink, drink," and one
attendant was constantly employed in drawing the sheet over his thin
limbs and emaciated body. Presently Hardy, snatching a moment from the
fight raging on the deck, came to his side, and the two comrades
clasped hands. "Well, Hardy, how goes the battle?" Nelson asked. He
was told that twelve or fourteen of the enemy's ships had struck.
"That is well," said Nelson, "but I had bargained for twenty." Then
his seaman's brain forecasting the change of weather, and picturing the
battered ships with their prizes on a lee shore, he exclaimed
emphatically, "Anchor! Hardy, anchor!" Hardy hinted that Collingwood
would take charge of affairs. "Not while I live, I hope, Hardy," said
the dying chief, trying to raise himself on his bed. "No! do you
anchor, Hardy."
Many of Nelson's expressions, recorded by his doctor, Beatty, are
strangely touching. "I am a dead man, Hardy," he said, "I am going
fast. It will all be over with me soon." "O _Victory_, _Victory_," he
said, as the great ship shook to the roar of her own guns, "how you
distract my poor brain!" "How dear is life to all men!" he said, after
a pause. He begged that "his carcass might be sent to England, and not
thrown overboard." So in the dim cock-pit, with the roar of the great
battle--bellow of gun, and shout of cheering crews--filling all the
space about him, and his last thoughts yet busy for his country, the
soul of the greatest British seaman passed away. "Kiss me, Hardy," was
one of his last sentences. His last intelligible sentence was, "I have
done my duty; I praise God for it."
It may interest many to read the prayer which Nelson wrote--the last
record, but one, he made in his diary--and written as the final act of
preparation for Trafalgar: "May the great God, whom I worship, grant to
my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and
glorious victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may
humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet.
For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me, and may
His blessing alight on my endeavours for serving my country faithfully.
To Him I resign myself, and the just cause which is entrusted to me to
defend. Amen, Amen, Amen."
Nelson's plan allowed his captains a large discretion in the choice of
their antagonists. Each British ship had to follow the wake of her
leader till she reached the enemy's line, then her captain was free to
choose his own foe--which, naturally, was the biggest Frenchman or
Spaniard in sight. And the huge _Santissima Trinidad_, of course,
attracted the eager attention of the ships that immediately followed
the _Victory_. The Spaniard carried 140 guns, and in that swaying
continent of fighting ships, towered like a giant amongst dwarfs. The
_Neptune_, the _Leviathan_, and the _Conqueror_, in turn, hung on the
quarter or broadside of the gigantic Spaniard, scourged it with fire,
and then drifted off to engage in a fiery wrestle with some other
antagonist. By half-past two the Spanish four-decker was a mastless
wreck. The _Neptune_ at that moment was hanging on her bow, the
_Conqueror_ on her quarter. "This tremendous fabric," says an account
written by an officer on board the Conqueror, "gave a deep roll, with a
swell to leeward, then back to windward, and on her return every mast
went by the board, leaving her an unmanageable hulk on the water. Her
immense topsails had every reef out, her royals were sheeted home but
lowered, and the falling of this majestic mass of spars, sails, and
rigging plunging into the water at the muzzles of our guns, was one of
the most magnificent sights I ever beheld." Directly after this a
Spaniard waved an English union over the lee gangway of the _Santissima
Trinidad_ in token of surrender; whereupon the _Conqueror_, scorning to
waste time in taking possession of even a four-decker that had no
longer any fight in it, pushed off in search of a new foe; while the
_Neptune's_ crew proceeded to shift the tattered topsails of their ship
for new ones, with as much coolness as though in a friendly port.
The _Africa_, sixty-four, less than half the size of the Spaniard,
presently came slowly up through the smoke, and fired into the Spanish
ship; then seeing no flag flying, sent a lieutenant on board the
mastless hulk to take possession. The Englishman climbed to the
quarterdeck, all black with smoke and bloody with slaughter, and asked
the solitary officer he found there whether or not the _Santissima
Trinidad_ had surrendered. The ship, as a matter of fact, was drifting
into the centre of a cluster of French and Spanish ships; so the
Spaniard replied, "Non, non," at the same time pointing to the friendly
ships upon which they were drifting. The Englishman had only
half-a-dozen men with him, so he coolly returned to his boat, and the
_Santissima Trinidad_ drifted like a log upon the water till half-past
five P.M., when the _Prince_ put a prize crew on board.
Perez Galdos has given a realistic picture--quoted in the _Cornhill
Magazine_--of the scenes within the gloomy recesses of the great
Spanish four-decker as the British ships hung on her flanks and wasted
her with their fire: "The English shot had torn our sails to tatters.
It was as if huge invisible talons had been dragging at them.
Fragments of spars, splinters of wood, thick hempen cables cut up as
corn is cut by the sickle, fallen blocks, shreds of canvas, bits of
iron, and hundreds of other things that had been wrenched away by the
enemy's fire, were piled along the deck, where it was scarcely possible
to move about. From moment to moment men fell--some into the sea; and
the curses of the combatants mingled with groans of the wounded, so
that it was often difficult to decide whether the dying were
blaspheming God or the fighters were calling upon Him for aid. I
helped in the very dismal task of carrying the wounded into the hold,
where the surgeons worked. Some died ere we could convey them thither;
others had to undergo frightful operations ere their worn-out bodies
could get an instant's rest. It was much more satisfactory to be able
to assist the carpenter's crew in temporarily stopping some of the
holes torn by shot in the ship's hull. . . . Blood ran in streams
about the deck; and, in spite of the sand, the rolling of the ship
carried it hither and thither until it made strange patterns on the
planks. The enemy's shot, fired, as they were, from very short range,
caused horrible mutilations. . . . The ship creaked and groaned as she
rolled, and through a thousand holes and crevices in her strained hull
the sea spurted in and began to flood the hold. The _Trinidad's_
people saw the commander-in-chief haul down his flag; heard the
_Achille_ blow up and hurl her six hundred men into eternity; learnt
that their own hold was so crowded with wounded that no more could be
received there. Then, when all three masts had in succession been
brought crashing down, the defence collapsed, and the _Santissima
Trinidad_ struck her flag."
The dreadful scenes on the decks of the _Santissima Trinidad_ might
almost have been paralleled on some of the British ships. Thus the
_Belleisle_, Collingwood's immediate supporter, sustained the fire of
two French and one Spanish line-of-battle ships until she was
dismasted. The wreck of her mizzen-mast covered her larboard guns, her
mainmast fell upon the break of the poop; her larboard broadside was
thus rendered useless; and just then another French line-of-battle
ship, the _Achille_, took her position on the _Belleisle's_ larboard
quarter, and opened on her a deadly fire, to which the British ship
could not return a shot. This scene lasted for nearly an hour and a
half, but at half-past three the _Swiftsure_ came majestically up,
passed under the _Belleisle's_ stern--the two crews cheering each
other, the _Belleisle's_ men waving a Union Jack at the end of a pike
to show they were still fighting, while an ensign still flew from the
stump of the mainmast--and the fury with which the _Swiftsure_ fell
upon the _Achille_ may be imagined. The _Defiance_ about the same time
took off the _Aigle_, and the _Polyphemus_ the _Neptune_, and the
much-battered _Belleisle_ floated free. Masts, bowsprit, boats,
figure-head--all were shot away; her hull was pierced in every
direction; she was a mere splintered wreck.
The _Téméraire_ fought a battle almost as dreadful. The _Africa_, a
light ship carrying only sixty-four guns, chose as her antagonist the
_Intrépide_, a French seventy-four, in weight of broadside and number
of crew almost double her force. How dreadful were the damages
sustained by the British ship in a fight so unequal and so stubborn may
be imagined; but she clung to her big antagonist until, the _Orion_
coming up, the _Intrépide_ struck.
At three P.M. the firing had begun to slacken, and ship after ship of
the enemy was striking. At a quarter past two the _Algeziras_ struck
to the _Tonnant_, and fifteen minutes afterwards the _San Juan_--the
_Tonnant_ was fighting both ships--also hailed that she surrendered.
Lieutenant Clement was sent in the jolly-boat, with two hands, to take
possession of the Spanish seventy-four, and the boat carrying the
gallant three was struck by a shot and swamped. The sailors could
swim, but not the lieutenant; the pair of tars succeeded in struggling
back with their officer to the _Tonnant_; and as that ship had not
another boat that would float, she had to see her prize drift off. The
_Colossus_, in like manner, fought with the French _Swiftsure_ and the
_Bahama_--each her own size--and captured them both! The _Redoutable_
had surrendered by this time, and a couple of midshipmen, with a dozen
hands, had climbed from the _Victory's_ one remaining boat through the
stern ports of the French ship. The _Bucentaure_, Villeneuve's
flagship, had her fate practically sealed by the first tremendous
broadside poured into her by the _Victory_. With fine courage,
however, the French ship maintained a straggling fire until both the
_Leviathan_ and the _Conqueror_, at a distance of less than thirty
yards, were pouring a tempest of shot into her. The French flagship
then struck, and was taken possession of by a tiny boat's crew from the
_Conqueror_ consisting of three marines and two sailors. The marine
officer coolly locked the powder magazine of the Frenchman, put the key
in his pocket, left two of his men in charge of the surrendered
_Bucentaure_, put Villeneuve and his two captains in his boat with his
two marines and himself, and went off in search of the _Conqueror_. In
the smoke and confusion, however, he could not find that ship, and so
carried the captured French admiral to the _Mars_. Hercules Robinson
has drawn a pen picture of the unfortunate French admiral as he came on
board the British ship: "Villeneuve was a tallish, thin man, a very
tranquil, placid, English-looking Frenchman; he wore a long-tailed
uniform coat, high and flat collar, corduroy pantaloons of a greenish
colour with stripes two inches wide, half-boots with sharp toes, and a
watch-chain with long gold links. Majendie was a short, fat, jocund
sailor, who found a cure for all ills in the Frenchman's philosophy,
"Fortune de la guerre" (though this was the third time the goddess had
brought him to England as a prisoner); and he used to tell our officers
very tough stories of the 'Mysteries of Paris.'"
By five o'clock the roar of guns had died almost into silence. Of
thirty-three stately battle-ships that formed the Franco-Spanish fleet
four hours earlier, one had vanished in flames, seventeen were captured
as mere blood-stained hulks, and fifteen were in flight; while
Villeneuve himself was a prisoner. But Nelson was dead. Night was
falling. A fierce south-east gale was blowing. A sea--such a sea as
only arises in shallow waters--ugly, broken, hollow, was rising fast.
In all directions ships dismantled, with scuppers crimson with blood,
and sides jagged with shot-holes, were rolling their tall, huge hulks
in the heavy sea; and the shoals of Trafalgar were only thirteen miles
to leeward! The fight with tempest and sea during that terrific night
was almost more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the
day. Codrington says, the gale was so furious that "it blew away the
top main-topsail, though it was close-reefed, and the fore-topsail
after it was clewed up ready for furling." They dare not set a storm
staysail, although now within six miles of the reef. The _Redoutable_
sank at the stern of the ship towing it; the _Bucentaure_ had to be cut
adrift, and went to pieces on the shoals. The wind shifted in the
night and enabled the shot-wrecked and storm-battered ships to claw off
the shore; but the fierce weather still raged, and on the 24th the huge
_Santissima Trinidad_ had to be cut adrift. It was night; wind and sea
were furious; but the boats of the _Ajax_ and the _Neptune_ succeeded
in rescuing every wounded man on board the huge Spaniard. The boats,
indeed, had all put off when a cat ran out on the muzzle of one of the
lower-deck guns and mewed plaintively, and one of the boats pulled
back, in the teeth of wind and sea, and rescued poor puss!
Of the eighteen British prizes, fourteen sank, were wrecked, burnt by
the captors, or recaptured; only four reached Portsmouth. Yet never
was the destruction of a fleet more absolutely complete. Of the
fifteen ships that escaped Trafalgar, four were met in the open sea on
November 4 by an equal number of British ships, under Sir Richard
Strahan, and were captured. The other eleven lay disabled hulks in
Cadiz till--when France and Spain broke into war with each other--they
were all destroyed. Villeneuve's great fleet, in brief, simply
vanished from existence! But Napoleon, with that courageous economy of
truth characteristic of him, summed up Trafalgar in the sentence: "The
storms occasioned to us the loss of a few ships after a battle
imprudently fought"! Trafalgar, as a matter of fact, was the most
amazing victory won by land or sea through the whole Revolutionary war.
It permanently changed the course of history; and it goes far to
justify Nelson's magnificently audacious boast, "The fleets of England
are equal to meet the world in arms!"