THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR.

Bush Advocate, Volume XVII, Issue 242, 19 October 1905, Page 5

THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR.

.How the Victory was Won* Nelson's DeathNelson'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 could only : break through that in two places and ■ put the part pf it between those two : places between two fires, I shall grab v-every stick of it.' That was exactly what the confounded fellow did. And 4. 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 ih that brief mile of sea-space between the ... * iwo points where the parallel British lines broke through Villeneuve's sway- ; dug forest of masts. *> And the tempest of sound and flame was fiercest, of course, round the two ship's that • carried the togs of Nelson and Colllng■wood. As each stately liner, however, i drifted-— rather than sailed— into" the . black pall of smoke, the roar ofthe 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. ■ Then occurred the sad scene when f Nelson himself was strickendown. He, 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. As Hardy picked him up he said, "They have done tor me at last, Hardy, my backbone is shot through." A musket bullet from the Redoubtable' s mizzen T top — only fifteen yards distant -had passed throiigh' the fore part of the epaulette, smashed a path through the left shoulder, and loaged'ia. the spine. The evidence seems to make it clear that it was a chance shot that wrought the fatal mischief, for Hardy had twice Nelson's insignificant figure, and wore a more striking uniform, and would certainly have attracted the aim Of a marksman in preference to his companion. As the dying hero -was carried ac^ross the decks aud down below, he drew a handkerchief over his face and over the stars on his breast* lest the knowledge that he was struck down should discourage his crew. Presently Hardy, snatching a moment from the fight raging on deck, came to his side, and the two t;omrades. clasped hands for the lasttime. "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," ke said, " but I have bargained fer twenty." Many of Nelson's expressions, as recorded by his doctor, Beatty, are strangely touching. " I any a dead man Hardy," he said," I am going fast, it will be over with me soon." "Oh Victory, Victory," he said, as his great ship shook to the roar of her own guns, ■■*•' '^ hdw you distract my poor brain." So jn the dim codk-pit, with the. roar of the great battle— bellow of gun, , ahd shout of cheering men— filling all the space about him, his last thoughts yet busy for his country, did the soul of the greatest British seaman pass away. It may interest many to "read the prajer that -Telson. .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 countryj 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 Z predominant feature in the British fleet. For toy self individually I commit my lif e to Him who made me, and naay his blessing, alight on my. endeavours to . serve my country faithfully. To Him I resign myself, and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. . Amen, Amen, Amen." So on the battle went/ till at three in the afternoon the firing had began to slacken, and ship after ship of the enemy was striking its flag. By five v o'clock the roarf of the guns had died almost into silence. Of thirty-three stately battle-ships that- formed the Franco-Spanish fleet but four hours earlier, one had vanished in flames, seventeen were captured as mere bloodstained hulks, and fifteen were in flight; while Villeneuve Was a prisoner. But Nelson was <?ead. Night W&& falliug. "A fierce south-east gale was blowing, : and' a sea— -such a sea as only rises iv shallow waters — ugljv broken, hollow, < was rising fast. In ail directions ships dismantled, with scuppers crimson, with, blood, and sides jagged with shot holes, were rolling their tall h ugh hulks in the 'heavy sea ; and the shoals, of Trafalgar were only thirteen miles td leeward, ' The fight with tempedt. and sea during . that terrific night was almost: more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the day. Ofthe eighteen British prizes, fourteen sank, were wrecked, burnt by the captors, ■„« -or recaptured; only four reached Portsmonth. Yet never was the destruction • 4&i 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 ; *hips, under Sir Richard Strahan, and •-weir* captured. The other eleven lay ■ -disabled -hulks in Cadiz when France and Spain brbkeinto war with •each other— they were all destroyed.. Villeneuve's great fleet,' in brief, 1 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 f act, wa,s the niost 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 magnifiently audacious boast, " The fleets of England are equal to meet the world in arms."— From *' Deeds that won the Empire. '