TRAFALGAR AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13004, 23 October 1905, Page 7

TRAFALGAR AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS.

History is . very ; cruel to what ; may -■ be 'called the rank and rile of a groat battle. It sees, and sees vividly, one or two great figures, and sees these alone. These are '{. ■ get in a high light, and are too commonly adorned with qualities they did not posses fg;j'S'and-' praised for achievements of which ' ' they, themselves, were unconscious; while '' all the other actors and •.sufferers in the great drama are surrendered to unremembering forget fulness. At Trafalgar Nelson dominates even-thing. He fills the whole seascape. Collingwood,.. a .very prosaic figure, is dimly seen behind him. -- ■ Hardy stands yet visible to mankind, but only because he is a figure n Nelson's death scene. That one phrase from Neli ; son's dying lips, "Kiss ■'■Hardy,"-' has given him a sort of immortality. But who remembers the other actors at Trafalgar? THE MEN BEHIND NELSON. • Yet behind Nelson were his captains, a group of hardy seamen familiar with battle and tempest, the most daring fighters, the - most loyal comrades, the best captains of ; men of their, order in history. They ought not to be forgotten, and on the centenary of Trafalgar the British race whom they served so splendidly may? well spare them a passing thought. Nelson himself, , with all his passionate thirst for fame, was the most generous of leaders,,and he would Jiave scorned a glory which, his comrades did not share. '■" : His perfect comradeship is, in fact, part of the secret* of that strange devotion he kindled in those who followed him—a devotion which only, Hannibal 3 and 1 perhaps Stonewall Jackson, to take a , " man of a strangely diverse tvpe—knew how |P ; to create. Who analyses"the spell which, ,- say, Napoleon had over French soldiers, | ;?|:or the ? confidence i Wellington * inspired •"; ' amongst his privates, will -realise* how unlike this" was to the personal charm 'Nelson* sxercised over his captains. There is one l'( ; unforgettable scene in the low state cabin i-y »f the Victory, which took place six days J* ■ Wfore Trafalgar. " Nelson had just joined the fleet, and, had gathered his captains in order to explain his plans to them.', The present'.writer may be forgiven for quoting the story of the gathering from his own work, ;" How : England Saved Europe.".,'.. \

The knights of \ King Arthur's table, the classic heroes who .contended' on the windy id: plains of Troy, were not more, familiar with ;■:'?*-•:.battle than they were. The sound of ~ their f. names, indeed, is like a- passage from the i - Iliad.' Hardv—who was to kiss the dying :*/ "•' Nelsonand Fremantle. and Pellew,; and .', Blackwood; Codrington, whose flag afterwards flew at Navarind; Duff, who had seen 13 battles before he was 16 years old,. and for whom, as for Kelson. Trafalgar was : to be 'the , ln**t fight; Hallowell, towering like a marine '.*•; Goliath above Ids brother captains, Nelson's ;* comrade in many a wild scene; Louis, who played a great part at the Nile; Itotherham. /' of the Royal Sovereign; Moorson, of the Rer\"r.t venge, and many another. , h //> It would be difficult in all history, to match, for dr.ring and hardihood, and capacity for i leadership, the men who ij commanded the British ships at Trafalgar. Yet as they /: ."gathered round Nelson in the cabin of the Victory, a curious wave of emotion, which all fc* of them felt-but which none of them eoald r ;■■■; explain, swept through them. Sailors are a :.- simple-minded race, in whom the primitive //■y emotions are strong; in that scene in ';',-.'- the Victory's cabin, unashamed tears ran '■ down more than one grim .visage familiar ;;■■;>, with tempest and battle. There was, some- ■'• how, a touch of womanly sweetness »n the :' , fire of Nelson's genius which thrilled the ,; hearts of his captains. . ..*; -:.- , ; .; <*.---

. There were 27 captains of battleships nnder Nelson at Trafalgar, and four frigate captains, a band of 31 men, and if j they? . could have Iwen crowded into one room' - they would have offered a splendid spec- ■';// tacle human- energy and capacity. *'''■'*":- ' ■' .MEN IX THEIR PRIME. ' ,//,/;■ /Theyivwere' surprisingly,, young for the / great: posts, they held. '.'Cap'el, : of the , Phoebe, a ;was 0n1y,29; King, who com- .:] maided a splendid line-of-battle ship, the /Achilles, was only 31 ■; Codrington, of the Orion, and Berry, of the Agamemnon, were only .35. Hardy himself, Nelson's flag-captain, and the captain of the fleet, ;/;was only 36..''The'average 1 age of the cap- ■ : tains was not quite 40.;, They must, have •;- been a group ,of men of' rare physical en- ; /durance to. begin with, for they were flung into the roughness and hardness of sea life at an - almost > incredibly early age. Capel, of. the' Phoebe, was—not at sea, it is true, / " - buton the books * of' a ' battleship when ;,:;.-. he -was only six. Blackwood-was afloat at - 11,' Fremantle unci Hardy at 12. And sea )/../ life in the middle of the* 18th century had /■-/-. about it a Spartan simplicity of diet, and •:<: a /sternness .of general ; environment, in- / credibly in these soft. days, when every ;/ mother /wants to :• pack her child in cotton ~/, wool. Some of Nelson's captains, psrhaps, : .-:-", and certainly Nelson / himself, with his - / little 'lean body and fragile constitution, // would.have; been rejected to-day, when our future Nelsons and Wellingtons are -select- ■ . ed -by .the test of/the foot rule and the /, *teth?scope. ;'' A recruit with the incipient ;.-•:/genius , of a Nelson or of a sNapoieon would be rejected to-day if his teeth were :*,-,/; not. good. A candidate for the nivy in the 18th century was not tried by such ?/ : superfine test«, and 'sea. life, if it did not *;/ find them robust, made them so. . A TOUGH -RACE. /:-". The physical toughness of Nelson's cap- !' tains fis proved by- tl?V: fact that a stir* /: prising' number 'of them lived to an ex- ?: treme old age. Hardy died at 70, Pellew at 74, Bayntnn at 79, Codrington at 81, - Bullen at '84. " Ballen,' who took the

>>'■ Britannia so gallantly -into the fight, lived > till. 1855, OS did CapeT, of the Phoebe. ':'!', Durham went down in the Royal CJeoige of fe Cowpcr's,.ballad— came up again," fortunately—commanded the Defiance at Tras falgar, and died in 1845, 78 years eld! "■'<' They were a tough race of men!' The sea winds hardened them ; the sea salt in their blood acted as a preservative. They ei<r- ':'/' vived no many battles that death seemed to have-forgot them.''' ..;••■., The training of Nelson's captains v.'ouid be regarded by the modern world as highly unscientific. -.'■They went through no college; tlifj' knew' nothing of traming-ships. They lecrned their seamanship on the sea ' itseu, a: d they began invariably by learning' the very alphabet of their calling. Some of them served a rougher apprentice- ' \ ship on a mercliantmnn before they trod the quarter-deck of a King's ship. Prows*, ty of the Svrian, had for some years the rating : of an able seaman, and only became a *f middy when he- was 27 years of age. The sea v itself, in a word, was the training- '•■■'■ ground of these men. They were taught "•.' almost as sea-birds are, by , the buffeting '■''"' of the winds and the anger of sea spray. They were drilled in a stern obedience, and through it they learnt that art of ruling :•"■':..' men they knew so well. They had a conf§4 stant familiarity with peril which, in the M end, robbed peril itself of power to shake '{■'■:■ their nerves. i«.".-,.'»

HOW THEY WERE TRAINED. :• . The conditions of their life' were, as *' modern- taste ; '* would .-declare, strangely :■-.: rough, The battleship of that.date was of i;T very limited-,'dimensions'. . The famous ;';-'>'■ " fighting Temeraire,'' for example,, waa M less than half the length of a battleship ■■--,-,:, like .the Majestic. "Nelson's battleships floated• like castles, but,. their depth from deck to keel was not much over 20ft.. -The decks were incredibly low. Nelsons state cabin -was only sft, llih high, and : the ' : height between'the orlop deck of the Victory' was only ; sft Tin. The Temeraire "" measured ' only 2111 tens, '■ while a modern, V ironclad has-a displacement of 15,000 tons. Let the reader imagine, a ship of a little■; over 2000 tons, with low, ill-lit and illventilated decks, into which 1000 -men were ,-• crowded.V-and. which, was set cruising off some French '-port for one long, mono- .. tonous, and tin broken' : year.'"The'captain; • of such'a ship, responsible for the discipline,' the health, and the life of his men,. must have possessed - an. organising power, ,: a . capacity. For detail, and a, genius for .ruling men, ; oj, a very high degree. Any one of Kltlw /Trafalgar captains/ if put to the test of P«u an examination, would, perhaps, have fared ,'- « . I

NELSON'S CAPTAINS AT TRAFALGAR. BY W. 11. FITCHETT, 8.A., IX.I>. '" , (Specially Written for New Zealand Herald.)

badly. Any smart youngster,: fresh from the crammer's arts, , would have ;, beaten him. But these | men knew their trade. Their training at least produced such seamen as the world, never knew before, and lias not seen sinw. None of the chances of ;. sea life found them unprepared, and no risks of battle could daunt them. . As a rule they were men of, tine character. ; Some of thorn, indeed, had. a simple I and natural piety which, as it breathes , like.some rare aroma ,: from their rough journals, -or from : , their letters to their shore-dwelling wives, is altogether delight--1 fill.' Of the- 27 'captains of battleships at | Trafalgar, only one—Harvey, of the 'l'emel'aire-— fairly be described as a mauvais sujet, and. his faults were rather those of a reefeness temper than of a corrupt mi . He was a j gambler in youth, and gambled as energetically as in after years lie fought. The story is still preserved of how, on a*single wild night at cards, he lost £10,000 every penny he possessed in the world—and won it all back again at a single stroke! But something of the recklessness of the gambler survived in Harvey's blood. He was second in command to .Gambier, off the Basque Roads, when Cochrane arrived specially commissioned to destroy the blockaded Frenchmen with his fireships. Cochrane's appearance on the acene was keenly resented by the officers of the fleet, and Harvey, in a fury of rage, denounced Gambier on his own quarter-deck, and told him that if Nelson had been there, ; there would have- been no need for adventurers to be sent from London with a mad scheme of fireships to destroy the enemy. Nelson would* have taken his ships in for that business long ago. Harvey was broken for that wild blast of rage; but to leave the man who commanded the "fighting Temeraire"" at Trafalgar a professional outcast was not to be thought of, and Harvey's commission was restored to him. How varied and practical a discipline in affairs, in the business of governing men, and in the development of an ordered and diligent industry, the life of a" sea captain in a great "war was, might easily be proved by'the after career of the Trafalgar captains. These sea dogs served the State nobly in, the after days of peace. They proved themselves to be good diplomatists. They ruled colonies, they showed themselves fine administrators. It would riot be easy, indeed, to select 27 men from any other profession of that date who, 5 without holding high office or pretending to special genius, served their country more loyally, more modestly, and, it may be added, more cheaply, than did the 27 men who took Nelson's" ships into the fight at Trafalgar. • THE 'MEN; OF THE NILE.

It-will be noticed that the captains of the ships "at Trafalgar were, for the most' part, not the men of St. Vincent, or ,of the Nile. Foley was not there, who led the fleet in a fashion so daring round the head of the French line, and fired the first guns in, the; fight at the Nile, and who stood beside Nelson at Copenhagen on the quarterdeck of the Elephant when that obstinate fighter put his telescope to his blind eye, and '. declared" he really could not * see his •Admiral's signal to cease action. Nelson, when starting for* Trafalgar, offered Foley the post of flag-captain, but Foley was sick or sulky, and refused the great chance of his life—the chance > of {• standing, instead '-* of Hardy, seen for ever by mankind in the pathos and glory of Nelson's dying moments. . - - - •

i'< Troubridge, too, of the Culloden, was in • Indian waters, but how he must have sighed as he read the story of Trafalgar. But for his estrangement from Nelson he. and not Collingwood, might have .taken* be Royal Sovereign into the 'great fight. 'Hallowell, 'the gigantic Canadian, was, by the cruelty of fate, a French prisoner when Trafalgar was being fought, and by what he probably would have thought a yet more cruel stroke of fortune, his own ship, the Swiftsure, was under the wrong flag that day. Nothing in the story of the Nile is more heroic than the tale of how,,. Hallowell took the Swiftsure into action through the darkness, and fastened on to the starboard bow of the Orient, ,/ But in 1801 Hallowell ran bis Swiftsure into a French squadron and was captured, and 150 it came to pass that'in Vilieneuvc's / long line of Trafalgar the Swiftsure', which, at the Nile, helped to destroy the Orient, was itself flying a French ■flag. Two sister ships from the Nile—the Bcllerophon and the Orion-—had to pound her into submission before she came under ; the Union Jack again. Ball, too. who com;manded the Alexander at- the Nile so mag- , nificently, was discussing philosophy with . Coleridge on the day of Trafalgar, instead s of, hanging on the quarter of, say, the Santissima Trinidad. ;, .: '■/ /,,..,'. ! ' ;A CAPTAIN WHO FAILED. ',"

Berry is one of the heroes of the Nile ..who appears in the last of Nelson's sea. fights, and he is the only one of Nelson's captains who played a disappointing part on. that famous day. He was pan excellence a fighting man; his mere coming into a fleet was felt to be a sure sign that a- battle was about to take place, and no seaman under the British flag of that day addressed himself with more of cheerful courage to a desperate hit of fighting than did Berry. He was as brave as his own cutlass, but he had the limitations; of a cutlass. " Someone else must supply the hand and the brain. When left to himself Berry -lost initiative. He was an admirable second, who could be trusted to do with dauntless pluck, and with great practical skill, the most dangerous bit of fighting set before him. But left •to himself he was like a rudderless ship. It was Berry who at St. Vincent led the boarders up the tall sides of the San Nicholas, and so won Nelson's admiring and en.during regard. At the Nile he was Nelson's flag-captain, but Nelson knew his limitations, and chose Hardy, and not Berry, as flag-captain of the Victory. Yet Berry at Trafalgar, 'had a great opportunity. He was in command of the Agamemnon, once Nelson's own ship, and a vessel so famous under a ] fighter so gallant ought to* have played, a great part in the battle. As a matter of fact Berry contributed. almost nothing to it. He happened, at the moment when the enemy's fleet came out of Cadiz, to be happy in the possession of a. fat merchant brig he had just captured, and he could not make up his mind to part company with the brig. The allied fleets to him were as nothing in comparison with his prize. Blackwood tells how for an hour he fired guns to .attract Berry's attention, and told, by the help of his flag, the great news that the enemy's ships were out. But Berry took no notice. .Agamemnon," Black'wood records with visible disgust, still stood to the south-east with the brig in tow. Then we lost sight of her." Berry, in a word, was guilty of that last and worst offence in sight of a hostile fleet. He was disregarding signals, and sailing away from his enemy. "The Agamemnon," to quote "Nelson and His Captains," "resembled an ant that had captured a beetle, and was dragging its booty, now in one direction and now in another, but determined not to give it up.. It Was not going to part with its precious beetle for any earthly consideration."

' Berry, in the end, found a place in the rear oil 'Nelson's column at Trafalgar, but his part in the great fight was trivial, as is proved by the circumstances that only 10 of his crew sustained any damage. in the battle." '

A GREAT FRIGATE CAPTAIN. ■ Of all Nelson's captains at Trafalgar, the two best-remembered are Hardy and Blackwood. Blackwood was, perhaps, the best , frigate captain that ever sailed'under the, British flag—cool, hearted, .adventurous, with a courage as of tempered steel, and a resourcefulness that no strangeness or cruelty of fortune could quite exhaust. Blackwood had that- rare wisdon- which consists in the knowledge of his own limitations, and twice in his career he refused the command of a 74. Oh the very eve of Trafalgar, he refused the command of the Revenge; one of the finest line-of-battle ships afloat, simply because he preferred the "activity, the freedom, the opportunity for'in-, dependent action, if a frigate command.

Arid there are no stories in the naval history of Great Britain more ■ thrilling than the tale, say, of how, on March 30, 1800, Blackwood, with his little frigate, the Penelope, hung through, all ■ the hours of darkness ■. on the quarter of the great Guillaume Toll of 80 guns, and forbade her to escape. Blackwood acted as eyes and ears to Nelson in the days and nights ■ before Trafalgar, and his best title to fame is • found' in the words which Nelson wrote to him again and yet again, "I trust you, Blacknvood, I rely on you." ;;■;•; . ; ' NELSON'S CLOSEST COMRADE. .

Hardy's tall figure, with its grave,, benevolent face, is visible to mankind as ho walks to and fro on the Victory's quarterdeck beside Nelson while the great ship moves slowly into the smoke and fire of the battle. Hardy, was knitted 'to ' Nelson by ties of personal affection and intimacy more closely than perhaps any other of his comrades* Friendship is often built on differences rather than resemblances, and in many respects Hardy was the exact opposite of Nelson, and Nelson probably loved him the better for that circumstance. He found in him what ho knew he did not himself possess.- The contrast betwixt the little, boyish;' careless figure of Nelson, with the jerking stump of his left arm and his halfblinded ; face, and the composed countenance, the huge stature, the sturdy walk of Hardy, must have been very striking.,' Hardy's career in marly respects resembles that of Nelson's. He began his sea life at a date almost as' early; the two careers touched at many points. Hardy on * one memorable occasion risked capture to rescue Nelson, and Nelson repaid the debt by risking his life and his ship to save Hardy. He put back, in the teeth of a squadron of Spanish battleships in his little frigate, the, Minerve, to pick up his comrade, crying, "By Q_ — I «ill not lose Hardy." Of r all Nelson's comrades Hardy is certainly the one Nelson would havs chosen to bend over him as ho lav dying, for Hardy had within, his big body the heart of a little child. Ho was a grave, cool, and terrible fighter, but something of the sweetness and simplicity of a child shone out of his gray eyes. And to no"one else, perhaps, Mould Nelson have whispered ..hose half womanly words, "Kiss me, Hardy." >" * ' '