Nelson · 1805
Trafalgar and “England expects”
On the morning of the twenty-first of October 1805, twenty-seven British ships of the line under Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson met thirty-three French and Spanish ships of the line under Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles de Villeneuve about twelve miles west-north-west of Cape Trafalgar on the south-western coast of Spain. Nelson signalled his fleet at 11:45, *England expects that every man will do his duty*. The action that followed lasted five hours and broke the combined fleet, eighteen of the enemy taken or sunk, none of the British. At about a quarter past one, on the quarterdeck of HMS *Victory* with the *Redoutable* yard-arm to yard-arm with him, Nelson was hit by a musket-ball fired from the *Redoutable*'s mizzen-top by a French marine. He was carried below. He died at twenty past four, in the cockpit, with the *Victory*'s surgeon Beatty and his chaplain Scott and his flag-captain Hardy beside him. The signal that ended the threat of a French invasion of Britain.
It is twenty minutes to twelve on the morning of the twenty-first of October 1805, on the quarterdeck of His Majesty's Ship Victory, on a long Atlantic swell, in light wind, with the combined French and Spanish line two miles distant on the port bow. He is forty-seven years old. He is Horatio Nelson, Viscount Nelson of the Nile, vice-admiral of the white. He has one arm. He has one eye. He is wearing his number-one undress coat with all four orders embroidered on it, the Bath, the Crescent, the Joachim, the St Ferdinand, in tarnished bullion against a dark blue ground. His flag-captain Hardy has, twice now this morning, suggested he change the coat for one less conspicuous to a sharpshooter. He has not changed the coat.
He says to John Pasco, his signal-lieutenant: I will now amuse the fleet with a signal.
He says: Mr Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet, England confides that every man will do his duty. You must be quick, for I have one more to make, which is for Close Action.
Pasco says: Your Lordship, if you will permit me to substitute the word expects for confides, the signal will be sooner completed, because the word expects is in the vocabulary, and confides must be spelt.
Nelson says: That will do, Pasco. Make it directly.
Twelve flags go up the mizzen halyard at 11:45. England expects that every man will do his duty. It is read along the line through forty signal-glasses in eight minutes. Royal Sovereign under Collingwood, leading the lee column three cables to the south, returns the acknowledgement. Collingwood says, on his own quarterdeck, that he wishes to God Nelson would make no more signals; they all know what to do.
He thinks, looking along his own line: the wind is very light. We will be twenty minutes opening the gap. They will rake us as we come on. The first ten minutes after we strike the line will lose me a hundred men.
He thinks: if I do my duty I will not see the evening.
He thinks: the fleet has me. The fleet does not need me past the moment of striking the line. After that the captains take it.
He goes below for ten minutes to write a codicil to his will. He commends Lady Hamilton and his daughter Horatia to the protection of his country. He signs the paper Nelson and Bronte. He has Hardy and Blackwood witness it. He goes back on deck.
At twelve minutes past noon the Victory strikes the French line astern of Bucentaure, Villeneuve's flagship, and at the same moment the Redoutable under Captain Lucas closes from the other side, and the two ships come to a stop yard-arm to yard-arm and lock. Lucas has trained his marines to clear an enemy quarterdeck with musketry from the tops. The Redoutable's mizzen-top is forty-five feet above the Victory's deck, and there is a French marine in it, a man whose name was never recorded, with a Charleville musket and a clear sight of the dark-blue coat with the embroidered orders walking the windward side of the deck.
He fires at fifteen yards. The ball enters Nelson's left shoulder, breaks the second rib, severs the pulmonary artery, lodges in the spine. He goes down on the deck face-forward at a quarter past one. Hardy is six feet from him. The marines who carry him below cover his face with a handkerchief so the men below shall not know who they are carrying.
He is laid in the cockpit on the orlop deck. He is conscious and in pain. He says, of the wound, that he can feel his back broken. The surgeon Beatty cuts the coat off him and tells him there is nothing to be done. Nelson says he knows. The action goes on overhead. He asks Hardy, every quarter-hour, how the day is going. Hardy comes down at half past two and says ten or twelve of the enemy line are taken. Nelson says: that is well, but I bargained for twenty. Hardy goes back up. He comes down again at half past three and says fourteen or fifteen are taken. Nelson says, of the wind: anchor, Hardy, anchor. The fleet will be on a lee shore by the morning. Hardy says yes. Nelson says: kiss me, Hardy, and Hardy kisses him on the forehead, and goes back on deck. Nelson says, to Beatty, thank God I have done my duty. He repeats it. He dies at twenty past four. The action has lasted four hours and a quarter. Eighteen of the combined fleet are taken or sunk. None of the British line is lost.
The body was preserved in a cask of brandy for the voyage home, transferred at Gibraltar to spirits of wine, and lay in state at Greenwich for three days at the beginning of January 1806 in a coffin made of timbers from L'Orient, the French flagship he had blown up at the Nile seven years earlier. The funeral procession at St Paul's on the ninth of January was three miles long. The body lies in the crypt under the dome on a black sarcophagus that had been made for Cardinal Wolsey two centuries before and had stood unused at Windsor since the dissolution. The signal flags are run up the mast of HMS Victory at Portsmouth on Trafalgar Day every year. The Charleville musket-ball is in the Royal Collection, with a fragment of the gold lace it carried into him.