FOOTNOTES
1 Robert Browning.
2 The Report is given in full in Laughton’s edition of “Nelson’s Letters and Despatches,” pp. 409–11. The editor discovered it in the Record Office, Admiral’s Despatches, Mediterranean, xxxi. 272.
3 See lines on page opposite.
4 A Chippendale arm-chair, which was given to Nelson by his great grandfather, was presented by the boy to Mrs Luckins, his nurse, when he left home to join the Navy. It appeared in an auction room so recently as 1908.
5 In other words, tow the vessels.
6 Ships of war sent to accompany merchantmen during hostilities so as to protect them from the enemy.
7 A private vessel commissioned to attack and capture the vessels of an enemy.
8 See post, Chapter xix.
9 Nelson’s successor and friend.
10 Sir Richard Bickerton (1727–92) sailed from England with a convoy on the 6th February 1782. He took part in an indecisive engagement with Suffrein, off Pondicherry, on the 20th June 1783. Not more than two-thirds of the British crews were effective owing to scurvy.
11 In his Autobiography Nelson gives the number as three.
12 More detailed particulars of this thrilling siege will be found in the author’s companion volume, “The Story of Napoleon,” pp. 60–64.
13 See ante, page 43.
14 Captain Benjamin Hallowell (1760–1834). He afterwards assumed the name of Carew, and became a Vice-Admiral in 1819.
15 “The Royal Navy,” by Wm. Laird Clowes, vol. iv., p. 153, vol. v., pp. 9–10.
16 “The Navy League Annual, 1910–11,” p. 226.
17 Parsons gives Nelson the title which he had not then won. See post, p. 85.
18 “Larboard” has now been superseded by “port,” i.e. the left.
19 See post p. 224.
20 See ante, p. 90.
21 The Earl of St Vincent appointed him a Master and Commander.
22 Captain Richard Bowen, of H.M.S. Terpsichore, who was killed at Santa Cruz.
23 This is in marked contrast to the generous words he wrote to the Earl of St Vincent on the 24th July.—See ante, p. 90.
24 To bring the vessel round with her stern to the wind.
25 i.e. the Toulon fleet.
26 His “Authentic Narrative” of the battle was published in 1798, and is a plain, straightforward account of Nelson’s first great naval action without a superior in command. We shall have occasion to quote it freely in this chapter. Berry was Nelson’s captain.
27 See “Deeds that Won the Empire,” p. 100.
28 Ibid. p. 103.
29 See Comment, ii. 341–2, also Mahan’s “Sea Power,” i. 269.
30 Among those who perished were Commodore Casabianca and his young son, whose bravery is immortalised in the well-known poem by Mrs Hemans.
31 Battle of the Nile.
32 Miss Knight is referring to the Earl of St Vincent’s flagship, and not to a vessel named after him.
33 See ante, pp. 72–3.
34 He had held the position since 1765.
35 In 1804.
36 Maria Theresa (1717–1780), Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Empress of Germany. She crossed swords with Frederick the Great on more than one occasion, and participated in the partition of Poland, 1772.
37 Parthenopeia was the ancient name of Naples.
38 Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
39 After the fall of the Bastille on the 14th July 1789, many of the French nobility left the country. In 1790, hereditary nobility was abolished by the National Assembly. Émigrés who had not returned to France by the 1st January 1792 were declared traitors.
40 See post, pp. 131–8.
41 See post, Chapters xiv. and xv.
42 This additional corroborative evidence has not been noticed by many of Nelson’s recent biographers.
43 The squadron in Naples Bay was placed under Troubridge.
44 Pius VI.
45 See ante, p. 24.
46 The arrival of La Marguerite on the 14th June, with provisions for the French garrison. Keith’s letters are printed as he wrote them.
47 Vol. i., pp. 212–7. Dated Palermo, May 13, 1800.
48 Compare this statement with that of Paget, given on p. 154.
49 Lady Hamilton’s mother.
50 Miss Knight and Mrs Cadogan sailed on one of the frigates, commanded by Captain Messer, an Englishman.
51 She was the daughter of a domestic servant, and at the age of thirteen became a children’s nurse.
52 Afterwards increased to eighteen.
53 Subsequently Lord Bexley.
54 Parker’s flag-ship.
55 This incident is bereft of much of its romance by the knowledge that Sir Hyde Parker sent a verbal message to the effect that the question of discontinuing the action was left to the discretion of Nelson.
56 To the Government of Denmark. Elephant, 2nd April, 1801: Lord Nelson’s object in sending on shore a Flag of Truce is humanity: he, therefore, consents that hostilities shall cease till Lord Nelson can take his prisoners out of the Prizes, and he consents to land all the wounded Danes, and to burn or remove his Prizes. Lord Nelson, with humble duty to His Royal Highness, begs leave to say, that he will ever esteem it the greatest victory he ever gained, if this Flag of Truce may be the happy forerunner of a lasting and happy union between my most gracious Sovereign and his Majesty the King of Denmark.
57 To the Brothers of Englishmen, the Danes. Lord Nelson has directions to spare Denmark, when no longer resisting; but if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, Lord Nelson will be obliged to set on fire all the Floating-batteries he has taken, without having the power of saving the brave Danes who have defended them. Dated on board his Britannic Majesty’s ship Elephant, Copenhagen Roads, April 2nd, 1801.
58 Nelson afterwards found it necessary to address the Rt. Hon. Henry Addington, then Prime Minister, on the subject. In a letter written on the 8th May 1801, he refers to those who thought the sending of a flag of truce a ruse de guerre, to others who “attributed it to a desire to have no more fighting, and few, very few, to the cause that I felt, and which I trust in God I shall retain to the last moment, humanity.”
59 The letter will be found in full in footnote 1, p. 175.
60 See “Napoleon and the Invasion of England,” by H. F. B. Wheeler and A. M. Broadley, especially vol. i. pp. 159–194.
61 A volunteer corps enrolled for the purpose of defending the coast.
62 See “Annual Register,” for 1801, p. 269.
63 The Aigle had taken refuge in Cadiz harbour.
64 The despatch is quoted in French by Professor Sir W. Knox Laughton in his edition of Sir N. Harris Nicolas’s great work (pp. 354–5).
65 See Mahan’s “Nelson,” p. 661, and Laughton, p. 202.
66 These were crippled ships detached by Villeneuve.
67 Mahan accepts this, but Laughton discredits it.
68 The total British broadside was 1000 lbs. less.
69 Not by telegraph as we understand it, but by semaphore.
70 De la Gravière, p. 252.
71 Blackwood is, of course, generalising.
72 “Seadrift,” p. 253.
73 “The Three Dorset Captains at Trafalgar.” By A. M. Broadley and R. G. Bartelot, M.A., p. 286.
74 Eleven ships in all escaped into Cadiz.
75 “Diary of the first Earl of Malmesbury,” vol. iv., p. 354.
76 Trafalgar in “W. V. Her Book and Various Verses.”