SAYING NELSON’S VICTORY

Evening Star, Issue 18254, 19 April 1923, Page 11

SAYING NELSON’S VICTORY

A MAGNIFICENT GIFT.

ADMIRAL STURDEE’S APPEAL,

The receipt of an anonymous donation of £50,000 to the fund for restoring and preserving Nelson’s Victory moved Admiral Euirdeo recently to make some remarks on the progress and the objects of the fund. Hitherto, he stated, the donations, widespread a.nd •welcome though they were, had not been for large amounts, the most considerable being for £IOO. He hoped that, with such an example before them, patriotically-minded people would now subscribe in proportion to them means, as those had already done who had sent smaller sums from all parts of the Empire, from America, Honolulu, Italy, Portugal, even (in one instance) from Franco. Many schools had subscribed their few shillings, including the orphanage at Chatham. An old Navy bootmaker had sent his pound, while other Navy men, obliged to confess they could not afford money, bad written their good wishes. “We have also had two subscriptions from Germany,” added Admiral Sturdee, " but not, I believe, from Germans.'’ Being asked to explain how the total sum required, £150,000, would be spent, Admiral (Slurdee went into the history and circumstances of the Victory. “She is the fifth Victory," ho said. “ The first dales back to 1560, and was given the name Victory by Queen Elizabeth. The traditions of tho ship are older than any regiment, than any other ship in tho Navy. Our Victory was laid down at Chatham Dockyard in 1759, that year of victories. Therefore she began her career before the constitution of the United States, before Australia was thought of as a white man’s domain, and when South Africa was a Dutch possession.

" She is tho last survivor of those wooden ships which won the Empire. She saw thirty-four year's of war. Among the fourteen admirals whose flag she flew were Nelson, St. Vincent, Hood, and Keppel. I need not speak in detail of the actions she was in; Trafalgar was but tho greatest of many. Since she went into harbor at Portsmouth, from 1815 onwards, she has been almost continuously the flagship of the commander-in-chief there. All naval recruits at Portsmouth, the principal recruiting station, have been tho Victory’s men. "And now she is in dry dock—in a dry dock consecrated for all time to her sola use. Sir Philip Watts, the Director of Naval Construction, is of opinion that she was no longer safe afloat. Where she is sho can bo saved if tho means are forthcoming; and not only saved, but restored to her llrst appearance, and servo as a constant stimulus to patriotism here and throughout tho Em-

piXO. SHIP OF MEMORIES. “Since Trafalgar the bows and stern have been altered; the masts, rigging, upper works, and guns have been removed—indeed, eho has no gun deck now. _ It was in 1320 that she was altered to suit the necessities of her work as flagship. Tho present straight item does not allow anybody to realise tho beautiful quarter-galleries she once possessed. Wo want, if we can, to restore her looks to tho Trafalgar period. Remember, she would bo worth preserving in tin's way it only as a specimen of naval architecture in the eighteenth century. “It is because the Victory is a ship—the ship—of memories that tho friends of the fund make their wide We want every boy and girl in the Empire to give something. If it is only a penny it will bo an education in patriotism. Wo should like everybody who recognises that he has benefited from the Navy to give us perhaps more than a penny. The Victory represents, as nothing else can, the wooden walls of England. They existed before Britain. Without them there would have been no Greater Britain. And think where England might have been! The Victory ought to bo uafe—ought she not P—in the affection and gratitude of the people.”