preparing ourselves to conduct tours through the museum and you will find that thanks to movies, when Nelson is mentioned, people immediately think of Lady Hamilton.

Amy Lyon, born in 1761 to a Welsh blacksmith, had in her youth earned her bread with her body, and had borne two illegitimate children by the time she was 19. In that year she settled down as the mistress of the Honorable Charles Greville, second son of the Earl of Warwick. He re-christened her Emma Hart, taught her the arts of ladyship-singing, dancing, harpsichord, entering a room gracefully, exchanging bits of conversation, and pouring tea. When Greville found a chance to marry an heiress, he had to find another berth for his fair lady, who had now learned to love him. Luckily, his Uncle, Sir William Hamilton, a childless widower, was then in England. He was rich, a foster brother of George III, and a fellow of the Royal Society. He found Emma to his liking, and agreed to take her off his hands. After returning to Naples, he sent Emma an invitation to come to Naples with her mother and there complete her education in music. She accepted, on the understanding that Charles Greville would soon follow her. He did not come.

Sir William gave Emma and her mother four rooms in the British Legation. He comforted her with luxuries, and tactful admiration. She wrote fond letters to Charles Greville, begging him to come. He bade her to “oblige Sir William.” His letter became rarer, shorter and finally ceased. She became Sir William’s mistress and in 1791, he made her his wife. When France declared war on England she became an active and passionate patriot, and labored to keep Naples in the coalition with England After meeting Emma, Nelson left Naples and did not meet her again for five years.

In the summer of 1794, Nelson was ordered to lay siege to Calva, a seaport in Corsica, then held by the French. He captured the stronghold, but during the battle an enemy shot spattered sand into his right eye. The would healed without disfigurement, but the eye was left permanently blind. In October 1796, Spain, angered by British actions in the West Indies, declared war against England. With the Spanish fleet ready to join the French in the Mediterranean, that sea became unsafe for the British.

On February. 14, 1797, a British force of 15 ships under Admiral Sir John Jervis,, commander of the Mediterranean fleet, came upon a Spanish armada of some 27 vessels some 30 miles out in the Atlantic from Capt. St. Vincent, the extreme southwest coast of Portugal.  Nelson, commanding the 74-gun Captain, directed his and other vessels to leave the British line and attack the rear guard of the enemy flotilla.  After incurring much damage from enemy gunfire, Nelson brought to capture San Nicolas. The Spanish 100-gun San Josef came alongside of San Nicolas to aid her. Nelson called for more of his men and led them aboard the San Josef, accepting the surrender of that vessel also. Poorly armed and poorly managed, with untrained men at the guns, the Spanish ships surrendered one Nelson applied to the Admiralty for a new command and, as a newly promoted Vice Admiral, he was soon assigned to the Channel Fleet as second in command. While Nelson waited for his command to be readied, Lady Hamilton delivered a daughter. She was named Horatia Nelson, who was ever after known as Horatia Nelson Thomson. Nelson and his wife never lived together again.

An Armed Neutrality Pact had been signed by Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Prussia, which forbade English ships from entering the Baltic Sea. This created great problems for the British since they were dependent on the Scandinavian countries for many of their naval stores, timber, sails and cordage. Denmark controlled the entrance to the Baltic and the English planned to send a naval expedition to open the Baltic at Copenhagen. Vice Admiral Nelson was named second in command to Admiral Sir Hyde Parker for this expedition. The fleet consisted of 20 ships plus six frigates. This was a bigger squadron than Nelson had commanded at the Nile. Nelson, being familiar with the waters, knew that the Danish Fleet would be anchored under the protection of the shore forts.

As he had expected, Nelson found the Danish Fleet anchored inside the King’s Channel before the City of Copenhagen. A large squadron of British ships under Lord Nelson sailed into the Channel from the south, while a smaller squadron under Admiral Parker blocked the northern end of the Channel. The battle in the Channel became a line-of-battle against a line-of-battle. At six AM on April 2, Nelson’s squadron began to move up the Channel. In entering the Channel, three of the English ships ran aground. At approximately one o’clock, after much damage to both fleets, Admiral Parker, fearing a catastrophe, gave the signal to break off the action. When told of this signal, Nelson placed his telescope to his right eye and said that he could see no signal.

Half an hour after Nelson ignored Admiral Parker’s signal, with a number of the Danish either surrendered or out of action, Nelson ceased fire and sent a flag of truce ashore, asking the city to surrender. He received an invitation to negotiate on shore. After prolonged negotiations peace was signed with the Danes and the fleet returned home.

In 1802, The Treaty of Amiens was signed, bringing a short period of peace between England and France. Nelson bought a home at Merton about ten miles out of London and Nelson settled down for a .year .of .peace with the.Hamiltons and his daughter. He had no further contact with Lady Nelson and even returned her letters unopened. Nelson referred to this period as the happiest time of his life.

The Peace of Amiens, signed in 1802, gave Europe and Britain only an uneasy breathing spell in the struggle with revolutionary France. The peace suited Napoleon. He had made many promises to procure it; and, as convenient, had broken them. The situation grew steadily more menacing until Britain, seizing the initiative, declared war again in May, 1803.  Immediately, the British Navy imposed its blockade of the French fleet in their home ports. Lord Cornwallis, commander of the Channel Fleet, took up his station off Brest. Nelson, now in command of the Mediterranean Fleet, took up his blockade of the French fleet off Toulon. For nearly two years the long, unbroken watch continued.

In Napoleon’s mind, Britain stood between him and a French-dominated Europe. She held the seas- but more important, London’s diplomacy and money organized and financed Europe’s opposition to his aims. Break the silent indirect power from across the Channel, and the Continent would be his.

By the beginning of 1805 Napoleon’s plans for the invasion of England were well advanced. Six army corps with 160,000 men would be assembled at Boulogne under his favorite marshals, with Bonaparte himself in supreme command. Some 2,300 craft would be prepared and, after careful rehearsals, the force would embark and descend on the Kentish coast.

Success depended on one vital condition. Napoleon must have command of the Channel, if only for a few days, while the operation was in progress. Otherwise British sea power would inevitably annihilate his troops, packed together in defenseless boats, during the crossing.

To assure this condition Napoleon formed an elaborate scheme to draw off and confuse the British fleet. The invasion would be timed for August, 1805. Earlier in the year the French warships in Brest, Rochefort and Toulon, together with their Spanish allies in Ferrol, Cadiz and Cartagena, would find opportunities for slipping out through the British blockade. Once at sea, and having shaken off pursuit, they would open secret orders naming a rendezvous where they were to assembly in concentrated strength under the French admiral, Villeneuve. This achieved, they would sail up the Channel in overwhelming force, and hold the narrow channel while the Grande Armee embarked and crossed.

The rendezvous must not be in European waters, where no point was safe from patrolling British warships. It must be far away. The point chosen was Fort Royal, on the island of Martinique.

In January,-the French-ships  Rochefort -evaded the blockading squadron-and vanished to sea. In March the Toulon fleet managed to give Nelson the slip. About the middle of April the Spanish ships at Cadiz got away, and likewise disappeared.

Frantic with anxiety, Nelson scoured the Mediterranean. The coasts of southern Italy and Sicily were blank. Greece yielded nothing. Alexandria was empty. Doubling back on his tracks, speaking to every passing ship, spreading his few frigates as far as they could reach, he was eventually able to sift the clues into a pattern. The French had returned to Toulon, then sailed again on March 30. And it seemed they were bound, not east as he had been convinced, but west. On 10 April, off Palermo, Sicily, he received news that the enemy had passed through Gibraltar. On 4 May, he got fairly conclusive confirmation that the Combined Fleet from Toulon and Cadiz was in the Atlantic, on its way to the West Indies.

Although his ships had been at sea for two years under the continuous strain of blockade duty, Nelson decided to go in pursuit. Early in June he was at Barbados, where he was met with definite information that Villeneuve had indeed arrived in the area and had headed south. Nelson’s judgment told him that this information was wrong, but he could hardly fly in the face of definite intelligence. He turned south himself.

Villeneuve had in fact gone north; and off Antigua he got wind that Nelson was on his tail. He decided to return to Europe forthwith without attacking any British West Indies possessions. He did not even wait for the prescribed time to allow ships which might have escaped from other French and Spanish ports to join him.

The fatal time lost had robbed Nelson of the chance of bringing Villeneuve to decisive action, after four months of pursuit in the western Atlantic. Now he could only follow him back and hope for the best. The chances of overtaking him, with both fleets moving at heavy battleship speed, were slender. But he could warn the Admiralty of the position, and this he did, by sending a fast frigate ahead.

The Admiralty, thus warned, he ordered the squadrons off Rochefort and Ferrol to unite and intercept the Combined Fleet. On 22 July, these squadrons under Sir Richard Calder captured two ships, but beyond this the action was indecisive, and Villeneuve was once more lost to sight.

Villeneuve was now in a quandary. His original orders still held: to enter the Channel, and sweep eastward to Boulogne. He now believed that to do so was suicide. His fleet, bottled up in port for two years and then damaged by the bad weather of a double Atlantic crossing, was in no condition to face the entire strength of the Royal Navy. He fled to Cadiz.

In the meantime, the English government had been forming another coalition against the French. Prussia and Russia had joined them. Napoleon knew that he had.to.qive up.his -plar:ls- to invade England and move his army -to-the -east-to face this new land-based threat.

Nelson returned to England for a short rest. He had been at sea for two years without stepping on dry land. On the morning of September 2, 1805, Nelson was again summoned to take command of the fleet off Cadiz. He raised his flag on HMS VICTORY on September 14 and made sail and joined the fleet off Cadiz on September 28. The fleet consisted of 27 ships of the line.

 

Napoleon gave Admiral Villeneuve new instructions to leave Cadiz and take his fleet to the Mediterranean to support the French armies in Italy. On October 19 and 20, Villeneuve led his 33 ships out of Cadiz and headed for Gibraltar. On the 20th the British sighted them and Nelson at once ordered his 27 ships to clear for action.

Nelson had explained his plan of action to his captains before sighting the Combined Fleet. Instead of the normal tactic of forming a line of battle parallel to the enemy line, Nelson planned to form his fleet in two columns and attack perpendicular to the enemy line. He believed that by cutting the enemy line in two places, before the forward section of the enemy ships could turn he could defeat the rear two sections and then face the forward section of the enemy. He then said that the battle would turn into a “pell-mell fight” between individual ships.

The rival armadas met on October 21, 1805, off Cape Trafalgar, on the coast of Spain south of Cadiz. Villeneuve, from his flagship Bucentaure, signaled his ships to form a single line from north to south, their port sides to the oncoming enemy; the vessels, imperfectly handled, had barely completed this maneuver when they found themselves the target of the British forces advancing in a double line.

It was a fine day for battle, with light winds from the west. Nelson’s two columns straggled forward because of the light winds and the sailing qualities of the various ships. Some commentaries have referred to the two as coveys because of their ragged formation. At 11 :35 AM, Nelson sent flashing through the fleet, his famous signal “England expects every man to do his duty.” At 11 :50 Admiral Collingwood, commanding the 15 ships of the lee or southern column, led the attack by ordering his flagship, HMS Royal Sovereign, to sail directly through the gap between the Spanish Santa Ana and the French Fougeux.

In approaching the enemy line, the British ships were the targets of the broadsides of the enemy ships. Battleships of the day could only fire to the sides; thus the English could not return fire. Nelson felt that because the Combined Fleet had been in harbor and unable to train their gunners, the damage to his ships could be taken without too much damage.

As the English ships passed through the Combined Fleet line, they were able to fire-broadsides into the vulnerable stern and bows of the enemy.  This was a tactic called raking, in which the fire of the British passed the full length of the enemy ships, creating horrible damage and casualties. At the northern end of the battle line the French bravely met the fury of Nelson’s attack, but the superior training and gunnery of the British crews carried the day.

Victory moved toward the French flagship Bucentaure, passing through the line to the stern of the French ship. Victory’s broadsides raked the enemy ship causing more than 400 casualties. As Victory passed beyond Bucentaure, she was attacked by the French 74-gun Redoutab/e. As the two ships came together, the French snipers in the rigging of Redoutable were firing down on the decks of Victory. Nelson would not allow his Marines to fire from the rigging, fearing that they would cause fire.

Admiral Nelson insisted on wearing all of his decorations and his gold-braided uniform in battle. He had been warned about this practice a number of times. At about 1 :30· PM,· a·sniper’s-bail-from· Redoutabfe·struck Nelson in-the-breast-and shattered his spine. He was taken below and cared for as much as possible. Lord Nelson lived until 4:30 PM, long enough to learn that his fleet had won the battle. Seventeen of the Combined Fleet had surrendered, one ship had sunk and another French ship had burned. All of the British ships were still afloat, although badly damaged; the enemy had taken none.

In his last words, Nelson asked that his country would care for Lady Hamilton and Horatia. His country ignored these requests. Emma was arrested for debt in 1813, but soon released she fled to France to escape her creditors. She died in poverty in 1815.

Lord Nelson’s body was preserved in a barrel of brandy and returned to England for a state funeral.

Trafalgar was one of the decisive battles of history. It established for a century Britain’s mastery of the seas. It ended Napoleon’s chance to free France from the cordon that the British fleet had drawn along her shores. The failure forced him to give up all thought of invading England. It meant that he must fight ever most costly land battles, eventually leading to the Battle of Waterloo some ten years later.

Source: Tom Thompson