An admiral-able display
ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN (AND WOMAN) TO WANT TO BUY NELSON MEMORABILIA
LORD NELSON was, as everyone who remembers their history lessons knows, good for a quotable quote. At the Battle of Copenhagen, in 1801, Nelson ultimately destroyed the Danish fleet. But at the height of the conflict, he was advised in a semaphore message from his commander, Sir Hyde Parker, to “Discontinue the action”.
Nelson was having nothing of it. He was seen to raise his telescope to his blind eye and declare, not unreasonably: “I do not see the signal”.
He went on: “I have only one eye. I have a right to be blind sometimes ... I really do not see the signal.”
At the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, and with Napoleon Bonaparte’s navy routed entirely, Nelson was mortally wounded by a shot from a musket fired from aboard the French ship Redoubtable.
As he lay dying on the quarterdeck of HMS Victory, he had the wherewithall to utter the immortal words “Kiss me, Hardy” and schoolboys have been sniggering ever since. His final words were: “Thank God, I have done my duty”. It was a poignant reference to his famous signal which he had sent at the crisis point in the battle and which rallied his forces to eventual victory. The signal read simply: “England expects that every man will do his duty”. He probably didn’t imagine how that phrase would resonate through the centuries. He couldn’t have imagined how his life would be celebrated. The funeral of Britain’s greatest naval hero lasted five days with more than 15,000 filing past his coffin during his lying in state at Greenwich. Many more were turned away, prompting fears of a riot.
Vast crowds lined the streets for the procession to St Paul’s escorted by 10,000 troops, so long that it was nearly dark by the time it arrived at the cathedral.
In a final farewell, the naval officers in Nelson’s household were supposed to fold HMS Victory’s war-torn colours and place them by his coffin. Instead, they ripped away a portion and divided it into smaller pieces to keep as a memento.
It was the start of Nelson commemorative souvenir making on an industrial scale that kept countless numbers of potters, silversmiths, glassmakers and engravers in business for years, nay centuries, afterwards. Needless to say, anything related to Nelson, his career and his ultimate demise is now highly collectable.
Norfolk-born Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) joined the Royal Navy at the age of 12 and rose rapidly through the ranks. Early service was in the West Indies, but at the commencement of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, he was given command of his first ship, HMS Agamemnon, and sent to patrol the Mediterranean.
Ordered to blockade the French garrison on Corsica, Nelson was engaged in the bombardment of Calvi in 1794, but lost the use of his right eye after a shot sprayed him with debris from a sandbag. The following year, Nelson joined other ships to rout the French fleet causing them to abandon their plan to invade Corsica.
In 1796, Sir John Jervis was given the position of commander-in-chief of the British fleet in the Mediterranean and he appointed Nelson to command ships blockading the French coast as a commodore. It was Nelson who alerted Jervis to the presence of a Spanish fleet off Cape St Vincent, the south westernmost point in Portugal, and the two fleets met on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1797.
Finding himself at the rear of the British line and likely to be away from the action, Nelson disobeyed orders by breaking away in his ship, HMS Captain, to engage the 112-gun San Josef, the 80-gun San Nicolas and the 130-gun Santisima Trinidad.
After an hour of exchanging broadsides and with assistance from HMS Culloden, Nelson led a boarding party to capture the San Nicolas shouting “Westminster Abbey or glorious victory!”.
San Josef attempted to come to San Nicolas’s aid but failed and Nelson boarded her as well. Of the four Spanish ships to surrender, two were Nelson’s captures.
The victory was well received in Britain. Jervis was made Earl St Vincent and despite his disobedience, Nelson was given celebrity status.
He was made a Knight of the Bath, promoted to Admiral of the Blue.
Later the same year Nelson took part in the assault on Santa Cruz, Tenerife, during which he lost his right arm, while the following year, Nelson was ordered to locate Napoleon and his invasion fleet. The search culminated in the Battle of the Nile and the destruction of the French fleet.
Nelson won the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 and was appointed commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean and given the first-rate HMS Victory as his flagship. On October 21, 1805, he caught a combined French-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar that had earlier evaded his attempts to catch them.
Eighteen enemy ships were lost and more than 14,000 men. Nelson did not lose a single ship, but the English fleet suffered 1,500 casualties, including Nelson himself, picked out on the deck of the Victory by a marksman who recognised him by his ostentatious uniform.