“In passing the Santa Anna” relates Mr. Newnham Collingwood, “the Royal Sovereign gave her a broadside and a half into her stern, tearing it down, and killing and wounding 400 of her men. Then, with her helm hard a-starboard, she ranged up alongside so closely that the lower yards of the two vessels were locked together. The Spanish Admiral, having seen that it was the intention of the Royal Sovereign to engage to leeward, had collected all his strength on the starboard, and such was the weight of the Santa Anna’s metal, that her broadside made the Sovereign heel two strakes out of the water.”

Even a moment like that, though, did not in the least perturb Collingwood. “Her studding-sails and halliards were now shot away, and as well as a top-gallant studding-sail were hanging over the gangway hammocks. Admiral Collingwood called out to Lieutenant Clavell to come and help him to take it in, observing that they should want it again some other day. These two officers accordingly rolled it carefully up and placed it in a boat.”

No sooner was the Sovereign alongside the Santa Anna than four other enemies—two French ships, the Fougueux and the Indomptable, and two Spanish, the San Leandro and the San Justo—closed round and joined in to help the Santa Anna.

So hot a cross fire did these four ships keep up on the single British ship during her, at first, unsupported fight, that, in the words of those on board the Sovereign, “We could see their shots meeting and smashing together in mid-air round us.” The Fougueux, we are also told, “at one time got so much on the quarter of the Sovereign that she almost touched.” It was indeed a battle of the giants—a heroic defiance of heroic odds.

So magnificent, indeed, did the situation of the Royal Sovereign appear, fighting single-handed in the thick of the enemy, that it drew remarks from some of our captains, for the time being lookers-on, on board the nearest ships that were then coming up astern. “The English ships,” to quote Admiral Collingwood’s biographer again, “were pressing forward with their utmost speed in support of their leader, but doubtful at times of his fate, and rejoicing when, on the slackening of the Santa Anna’s fire, they discerned his flag still flying above the smoke. One of his most gallant followers and friend, the captain of the Tonnant, has often expressed the astonishment with which he regarded the Royal Sovereign as she opened her fire, which, as he declared, ‘so arrested his attention, that he felt for a few moments as if he himself had nothing to do but to look on and admire!’”

How Collingwood bore himself in the battle we hear from two sources. Both accounts speak of Collingwood’s unmoved demeanour and cool courage under fire.

“The Admiral,” says one, “directed Captain Vallack, of the Marines, an officer of the greatest gallantry, to take his men from off the poop, that they might not be unnecessarily exposed; but he remained there himself much longer. At length, descending to the quarter-deck, he visited the men, enjoining them not to fire a shot in waste; looking himself along the guns to see that they were properly pointed, and commending the sailors, particularly a black man, who was afterwards killed, but who, while he stood beside him, fired ten times directly into the portholes of the Santa Anna.”

“The Admiral spoke to me,” related Smith, Collingwood’s servant, “about the middle of the action and again for five minutes immediately after its close; and on neither occasion could I observe the slightest change from his ordinary manner. This, at the moment, made an impression on me which will never be effaced, for I wondered how a person whose mind was occupied by such a variety of most important concerns could, with the utmost ease and equanimity, inquire kindly after my welfare, and talk of common matters as if nothing of any consequence were taking place.”

Twenty minutes after the Sovereign had by herself beaten off the Fougueux, the leading British ships following astern of the Sovereign began to reach the spot, and to take off her enemies one by one, except the Santa Anna. With Admiral Alava’s flagship the Royal Sovereign continued in close encounter, until the Santa Anna’s colours came down. It was just at that moment that Collingwood received, by an officer of the Victory, Captain Hardy’s first message that Lord Nelson had been “dangerously wounded.”

The stubborn stand that the Santa Anna made was a disappointment, it would appear, to the Sovereign’s men. Their terrible raking broadside at the outset had plainly “sickened” the Spaniards—as our men expressively put it—and many on board believed that the enemy must surrender forthwith. Captain Rotheram, indeed, “came up to the Admiral, and, shaking him by the hand, said: ‘I congratulate you, sir; she is slackening her fire, and must soon strike!’” The gallant fellows who were fighting at the Royal Sovereign’s guns actually thought, it is on record, that their ship would have the proud distinction of capturing an enemy’s flagship in the midst of her own fleet before another British ship had got into action. In the end, though, they had this consolation: when at length the Santa Anna did surrender; “No ship besides ourselves fired a shot at her,” wrote one of the Sovereign’s officers, “and you can have no conception how completely she was ruined.” “Her side,” wrote Collingwood himself, “was almost entirely beat in.”

“The Santa Anna,” to quote Mr. Newnham Collingwood, “struck at half-past two o’clock, about the time when the news of Lord Nelson’s wound was communicated to Admiral Collingwood, but the Royal Sovereign had been so much injured in her masts and yards by the ships that lay on her bow and quarter that she was unable to alter her position. Admiral Collingwood accordingly called the Euryalus to take her in tow, and make the necessary signals. He dispatched Captain Blackwood to convey the Spanish Admiral on board the Euryalus, but he was stated to be at the point of death, and Captain Blackwood returned with the Spanish captain. That officer had already been to the Royal Sovereign to deliver his sword, and on entering had asked one of the English sailors the name of the ship. When he was told that it was the Royal Sovereign, he replied, in broken English, while patting one of the guns with his hand, ‘I think she should be called the Royal Devil!’”

The Royal Sovereign, on the Santa Anna surrendering, pushed off from her giant prize—so big a ship, indeed, that, in Collingwood’s own words, she “towered over the Sovereign like a castle.” She moved away to seek another enemy. But the fall of her main and mizen-masts, cut through and through by shot, prevented her from taking a further part in the battle until after being taken in tow by the Euryalus frigate, Captain Blackwood’s ship. The Sovereign was able after that, during the rest of the action, to employ her broadsides here and there. Her last piece of work was at the very close of the battle, when she formed one of the group of ships that Captain Hardy summoned round the Victory to support the dying chief’s flagship against a threatened attack on the Victory from the fresh ships of the French van squadron as they passed down the line.

The Royal Sovereign’s list of casualties, as officially reported on the morning after Trafalgar, amounted to forty-seven men killed and ninety-four wounded.

How Collingwood first heard of Nelson’s fate he himself has told us:

“When my dear friend received his wound,” wrote the Admiral, “he immediately sent an officer to tell me of it, and give his love to me. Though the officer was directed to say the wound was not dangerous, I read in his countenance what I had to fear, and before the action was over Captain Hardy came to inform me of his death. I cannot tell you how deeply I was affected; my friendship for him was unlike any thing that I have left in the Navy—a brotherhood of more than thirty years.”

Writing to the Duke of Clarence, an old service friend of Collingwood’s and of Nelson’s as well, he said this:

“He (Nelson) sent an officer to inform me that he was wounded. I asked the officer if his wound was dangerous. He hesitated, then said he hoped it was not; but I saw the fate of my friend in his eye, for his look told what his tongue could not utter. About an hour after, when the action was over, Captain Hardy brought me the melancholy account of his death.”

Another detail of Trafalgar that may be news to some of us is the fact that Collingwood was wounded in the battle. He said nothing about himself to any one in any of his letters at the time, nor did he include himself in the return of wounded sent to the Admiralty. It was only in response to an anxious inquiry from his wife, who, some months afterwards, heard a rumour about it and wrote to inquire, that Collingwood, five months after the battle, first made mention of the matter. His letter to Lady Collingwood is dated March 29, 1806, and in it the Admiral says:

“Did I not tell you how my leg was hurt? It was by a splinter—a pretty severe blow. I had a good many thumps, one way or the other: one on the back, which I think was the wind of a great shot, for I never saw anything that did it. You know nearly all were killed or wounded on the quarter-deck or poop but myself, my Captain, and Secretary, Mr. Cosway, who was of more use to me than any officer after Clavell.

“The first inquiry of the Spaniards was about my wound, and exceedingly surprised they were when I made light of it, for when the captain of the Santa Anna was brought on board, it was bleeding and swelled, and tied up with a handkerchief.”

What was really troubling the frugal north-country mind of Admiral Collingwood at that moment, as far as he was individually concerned, far more than his wound, was his out-of-pocket expenses owing to the damage that the enemy’s shot had done in his steward’s store-room. Writing to Lady Collingwood, he tells her this:—

“I have had a great destruction of my furniture and stock. I have hardly a chair that has not a shot in it, and many have lost both legs and arms, without hope of pension. My wine was broke in moving, and my pigs were slain in battle, and these are heavy losses where they cannot be replaced.”

One gets an idea of the kind of man Collingwood was also from the characteristically sympathetic way in which he wrote in a private letter about one of his officers (Mr. William Chalmers, the master of the Royal Sovereign) who was killed near the Admiral, on the quarter-deck, at his post by the wheel.

“I have written to Lloyd’s about Mr. Chalmers’ family. He left a mother and several sisters, whose chief dependence was on what this worthy man and valuable officer saved for them from his pay. He stood close to me when he received his death. A great shot almost divided his body; he laid his head upon my shoulder, and told me he was slain. I supported him till two men carried him off. He could say nothing to me, but to bless me; but as they carried him down, he wished he could but live to read the account of the action in a newspaper. He lay in the cockpit, among the wounded, until the Santa Anna struck, and joining in the cheer which they gave her, expired with it on his lips.”

The only personal description of Collingwood’s appearance in existence is from the pen of a young officer (Midshipman Crawford, of the Royal George) who had an audience of him, to present a letter of introduction, in October, 1806, just a year after Trafalgar:

“Being provided with a letter of recommendation to Lord Collingwood, the Commander-in-Chief, I took an early opportunity to wait upon his Lordship.... Lord Collingwood was between fifty and sixty, thin and spare in person, which was then slightly bent, and in height about five feet ten inches. His head was small, with a pale, smooth, round face, the features of which would pass without notice, were it not for the eyes, which were blue, clear, penetrating; and the mouth, the lips of which were thin and compressed, indicating firmness and decision of character. He wore his hair powdered, and tied in a queue, in the style of officers of his age at that time; and his clothes were squared and fashioned after the strictest rules of the good old sea school. To his very ample coat, which had a stiff, stand-up collar, were appended broad and very long skirts—the deep flaps of his single-breasted white waistcoat, descending far below his middle, covered a portion of his thighs; and blue knee-breeches, with white stockings, and buckles to his shoes, completed his attire....

“On entering his presence, he took a rapid searching survey of me from head to foot; then ... in a quiet tone, amounting almost to gentleness, he put a few questions to me in nautics, which I believe I answered to his satisfaction.”

Of Collingwood in lighter vein we also get a glimpse. How, a short time after Trafalgar, he got one of his officers to write up his biography for a pertinacious newspaper editor is a story that the Admiral himself tells in a letter to his wife.

“The editors of the Naval Chronicle have written to me for the history of my life and progress, for which they are pleased to say the world is very impatient. Now this rather embarrasses me, for I never could bear the trumpeter of his own praise. So, to get rid of it as well as I can, I have employed — to write a history for me. For my birth and parentage he has selected two or three chapters of Bamfylde Moore Carew; for my service in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main he has had good assistance in the History of the Buccaneers; and for my shipwreck he has copied a great deal out of Robinson Crusoe; all which, with a few anecdotes from the Lives of the Admirals, a little distorted, will make, I am inclined to think, a very respectable piece of biography.”

Collingwood’s dog, Bounce, was on board the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, tied up out of the way below, in comparative safety, on the orlop deck. According to Collingwood himself, Bounce did not like cannon firing. Wrote Collingwood about him, before the battle: “Bounce is my only pet now, and he is indeed a good fellow; he sleeps by the side of my cot, whenever I lie in one, until near the time of tacking, and then marches off, to be out of the hearing of the guns, for he is not reconciled to them yet.” After the battle, on his master being raised to the peerage, Bounce—as Collingwood whimsically describes in one of his home-letters—seemed to grasp the new situation and took to giving himself airs. “I am out of all patience with Bounce. The consequential airs he gives himself since he became a right honourable dog are insufferable. He considers it beneath his dignity to play with commoners’ dogs, and truly thinks that he does them grace when he condescends to lift up his leg against them. This, I think, is carrying the insolence of rank to the extreme, but he is a dog that does it!”[19]

As all the world knows, Collingwood never set foot in England after Trafalgar, doomed, poor homesick fellow, never more to see—

He wore out his life on duty, waiting and watching at sea for nearly five long and weary years, for an enemy who did not dare to face him. The Admiralty could not spare him to come home.

“He stepped into his boat from Plymouth Dock,” says the writer of a biographical sketch of Collingwood published shortly after the Admiral’s death, “on the last day of April, 1805, and returned, five years after, a peer and a corpse.” Immediately before he embarked, Collingwood had been conversing with a brother officer, who records an affecting incident. “The last time I ever saw Lord Collingwood,” wrote Sir T. Byam Martin, “he was on the point of stepping into his boat, never again to touch the British shore. We walked together for half an hour, and as long as I live I shall remember the words with which, in his accustomed mildness of expression, he alluded to the sacrifices our professional duties exact of us. He told me the number of years he had been married, and the number of days he had been with his family since the war commenced (then of many years duration). ‘My family are actually strangers to me.’ He was greatly overcome by the feelings thus excited, and, taking me by the hand, he said, ‘What a life of privation is ours—what an abandonment of everything to our professional duty, and how little do the people of England know the sacrifices we make for them!’ With this he turned from me to hide the tear which ran down his manly cheek, and saying ‘Farewell!’ walked to his boat.”

Slowly killed, if ever man was, by downright hard work, Collingwood died on the 7th of March, 1810, on board his flagship in the Mediterranean. On the day before he died his old spirit flickered up once more, and he murmured to his captain, who bent down over the brave old face, “I may live to fight the French once more.” The end drew on apace after that, and the soul of one of the grandest veterans of England at her best, passed calmly away to the presence of the God in Whom throughout every hour of his blameless life his trust had been as that of a little child for its earthly father. “He met death,” said the surgeon who attended Collingwood, “as became him, with composure and a fortitude which have seldom been equalled and never surpassed.”

We know something of how his sailors loved “Old Cuddy,” as the whole fleet called Collingwood, from what happened at Collingwood’s funeral on that May day of 1810, when Nelson’s brother-in-arms was laid to his rest beside his old messmate, friend, and companion in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Lord Chancellor Eldon, beside whom, as a little boy of nine, the Admiral had sat in class at school, was a mourner at the funeral. “It was very affecting,” he describes, “his sailors crowded so around, all anxious to see the last of their commander. One sailor seized me by the arm, and entreated that I would take him in with me that he might be there to the end. I told him to stick fast to me, and I did take him in; but when it came to throwing some earth on the coffin (you know the part of the service ‘dust to dust’), he burst past me and threw himself into the vault!”

No truer description of the man as a fact was ever penned than the words that Thackeray years afterwards used of Collingwood: “Another true knight of those days was Cuthbert Collingwood, and I think since heaven made gentlemen, there is not record of a better one than that.”

Collingwood’s officers at Trafalgar, those who served with him on board the Royal Sovereign, were these. According to the muster book the ship was two lieutenants short on the 21st of October.

Captain—Edward Rotherham.

Lieutenants—John Clavell, Joseph Simmons, James Bashford (wounded), Edward Barker, Brice Gilliland (killed), Francis Blower Gibbes.

Master—William Chalmers (killed).

Surgeon—Richard Lloyd.

Purser—Brinsley S. Oliver.

Chaplain—Rev. John Rudall.

Secretary—W. R. Cosway.

Gunner—Nicholas Brown.

Boatswain—Isaac Wilkinson (wounded).

Carpenter—George Clines.

Marine officers:—

Captain—Joseph Vallack.

Lieutenants—Robert Green (killed), Armiger W. Hubbard, James Le Vescomte (wounded).

Assistant Surgeons—Primrose Lyon, Henry Towsey.

Master’s Mates and Midshipmen—Thomas Altoft, Charles A. Antram, Richard Davison Pritchard, William Sharp, William Watson (wounded), John Aikenhead (killed), John Doling Morey, Sam Weddle, Thomas P. Robinson, Charles Coucher, Joseph Del Carrotto, John Chaldecott, Henry Davis, William Budd Boreham, Gilbert Kennicott (wounded), Thomas Currell, Granville Thompson (wounded), George Castle, John Parr, Thomas Dickinson (wounded), John Campbell (wounded), Thomas Braund (mortally wounded), John Farrant (wounded), John Redwood, John Dobson, William Stock, James Rudall.

First Class Volunteers—Meredith Milnekoff, Robert Julian, Archibald Nagle, Robert Duke Hamilton, John Hill, Claudius Charles, William Lloyd, Charles Lambert, Charles Chiswick.

From the officers we proceed in natural sequence to the men, and with regard to these, at the outset, there hangs a tale.

A very curious story is related of Collingwood on the morning of Trafalgar Day which most of those who have written about him have repeated. Collingwood, we are told, as the British fleet was approaching the enemy, went round the decks of the Royal Sovereign and bade the men at the guns “show those fellows what the tars of the Tyne can do!” More than that, there is an old print in existence (a copy of which is in the possession of Earl Nelson) artistically depicting the story, and labelled with the legend, “Tars of the Tyne.” The ship’s books unfortunately give quite another version. There were fewer North countrymen on board the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, perhaps, than in any other ship of the British fleet. Altogether, according to the muster book, there were in the ship hardly thirty all told, including Collingwood himself and Captain Rotherham and the youngsters, “the northern boys,” as Collingwood called them. Of the seamen—A.B.’s, ordinary, and landmen—the Sovereign’s books name only four as coming from Newcastle, two as coming from Shields, and one as coming from “Northumberland” at large. Sunderland sent four men, and the rest were from Durham, three men, with from Berwick-on-Tweed two, Whitehaven six, Westmorland one. That exhausts the North-country contingent in the Royal Sovereign.

More than a third of the entire ship’s company on board were Irishmen—240 men and boys. Scotland, including Shetland and the Hebrides, contributed forty men, and Wales twenty-one. The London contingent with Collingwood at Trafalgar was the next largest after the Irishmen—seventy-five men and boys altogether. Lancashire was represented by forty-six men, Devon by thirty-four, Hampshire with thirty, Cornwall with twenty-four, Gloucester (Bristol) and Somerset each by eighteen, Yorkshire and Kent by ten men each; Lincolnshire, Cheshire, and Dorset each by eight; Norfolk and Suffolk by seven men each; and so on down to Cambridge, Bedford, Leicester, Hertfordshire, and Worcester with one man each.

Yet another interesting point is brought out by the muster book of the Royal Sovereign. We have been told how Collingwood, in the middle of the fighting, commended a “black man” for his straight shooting. Apparently the man was a West Indian. There were no fewer than seventy foreigners and aliens on board Collingwood’s flagship at Trafalgar, according to the ship’s books, the list being thus made up: Twenty-four Americans (hailing for the most part from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Jersey); seven Dutchmen—Dirks and Franz’s and Hendriks and Rutters—from Friesland, Delft, Maestricht, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam; one Belgian, from Brussels; three Portuguese from the Azores and Lisbon; four Prussians and one Pole from Dantzic; two Danes, two Frenchmen, one Norwegian, one Venetian, one Neapolitan, one Maltese, seven Lascars—two of them entered as “Jonan” and “Lowannah”—from the East Indies; two Malays from Batavia, entered as “Soloman” and “Ballee”; one from Bengal, one from Madras, a third Malay entered as “George”; fifteen West Indians, from St. Kitts, Barbados, Jamaica, and from Berbice, in British Guiana.

Two interesting letters from the Royal Sovereign may serve to conclude our narrative. One was from a Hampshire lad, one of those fighting below at the guns. It runs thus:—

“Honoured Father,—This comes to tell you I am alive and hearty except three fingers; but that’s not much, it might have been my head. I told brother Tom I should like to see a greadly [sic] battle, and I have seen one, and we have peppered the Combined rarely; and for the matter of that, they fought us pretty tightish for French and Spanish. Three of our mess are killed, and four more of us winged. But to tell you the truth of it, when the game began, I wished myself at Warnborough with my plough again; but when they had given us one duster, and I found myself snug and tight, I ... set to in good earnest, and thought no more about being killed than if I were at Murrell Green Fair, and I was presently as busy and as black as a collier. How my fingers got knocked overboard I don’t know, but off they are, and I never missed them till I wanted them. You see, by my writing, it was my left hand, so I can write to you and fight for my King yet. We have taken a rare parcel of ships, but the wind is so rough we cannot bring them home, else I should roll in money, so we are busy smashing ’em, and blowing ’em up wholesale.

“Our dear Admiral Nelson is killed! so we have paid pretty sharply for licking ’em. I never sat eyes on him, for which I am both sorry and glad; for, to be sure, I should like to have seen him—but then, all the men in our ship who have seen him are such soft toads, they have done nothing but blast their eyes, and cry, ever since he was killed. God bless you! chaps that fought like the devil, sit down and cry like a wench. I am still in the Royal Sovereign, but the Admiral has left her, for she is like a horse without a bridle, so he is in a frigate that he may be here and there and everywhere, for he’s as cute as here and there one, and as bold as a lion, for all he can cry!—I saw his tears with my own eyes, when the boat hailed and said my lord was dead. So no more at present from your dutiful son,—Sam.”

A pathetic interest attaches to the other letter. It was written on the morning of the battle by a midshipman of the Royal Sovereign, Mr. John Aikenhead, who was killed in the action. It was apparently meant for his parents and family in general:—

“We have just piped to breakfast; thirty-five sail, besides smaller vessels, are now on our beam, about three miles off. Should I, my dear parents, fall in defence of my King, let that thought console you. I feel not the least dread on my spirits. Oh my parents, sisters, brothers, dear grandfather, grandmother, and aunt, believe me ever yours!

“Accept, perhaps for the last time, your brother’s love; be assured I feel for my friends, should I die in this glorious action—glorious, no doubt, it will be. Every British heart pants for glory. Our old Admiral (Admiral Collingwood) is quite young with the thoughts of it. If I survive, nothing will give me greater pleasure than embracing my dearest relations. Do not, in case I fall, grieve—it will be to no purpose. Many brave fellows will no doubt fall with me on both sides.”

The letter added that the writer had made his will and put it in his desk. It gave also a statement of the property deposited in his chest, with £10 savings, added since the will was made. “Do not be surprised,” says the lad in his letter, “to find £10 more—it is mine.”

“OLD IRONSIDES” AND THE THIRD IN COMMAND

The 100-gun three-decker Britannia, was the flagship of the third in command at Trafalgar, Rear-Admiral the Earl of Northesk. In honour of the part that the Britannia took in the battle Lord Northesk was created a Knight of the Bath, and was granted by George the Third the right to place the name “Trafalgar” on his coat-of-arms, with special heraldic augmentations. Ever since 1805 the supporters of the heraldic shield of the earls of Northesk have each borne a staff with a Rear-Admiral of the White’s flag on it bearing the inscription, “Britannia Victrix.”

“Old Ironsides” was the Britannia’s every-day name in Nelson’s fleet, due to the fact, it is said, that the Britannia was the oldest man-of-war in the fighting line of the Navy. The veteran three-decker on the 21st of October, 1805, had been afloat just forty-three years and two days. She was our second Britannia, and the first three-decker launched in George the Third’s reign, the launch taking place at Portsmouth Dockyard on the 19th of October, 1762, in the presence of twenty thousand spectators, “who all had the pleasure of seeing as fine a launch as ever was seen.”

Trafalgar was the Britannia’s fifth battle. She had had her first meeting with the enemy as flagship of the Second in Command in the “Grand Fleet” under Lord Howe, which achieved the relief of Gibraltar in 1782—a feat that nowadays perhaps we think little of, but which was thought enough of at the time for such a personage as Frederick the Great to write an autograph letter of congratulation on it to the British Admiral. After that she had taken part at Lord Hood’s occupation of Toulon, in Admiral Hotham’s two actions off Genoa and off Hyères, as commander-in-chief’s flagship, and on the 14th of February, 1797, “Glorious Valentine’s Day,” as flagship of the second in command in the battle off Cape St. Vincent.[20]

At Trafalgar the Britannia went into action as the fifth or sixth ship astern of the Victory. She had three of the enemy’s ships firing on her as she ranged forward into the battle under full sail. She broke the enemy’s line, firing both broadsides as she drove through, after which she engaged an 80-gun ship and promptly dismasted her opponent. A little later, we are told, a French officer “was seen to wave a white handkerchief from the quarter-deck in token of surrender.” Leaving another of our ships to take possession, the Britannia passed on forthwith to deal with others of the enemy, and was constantly engaged, we are told, sometimes with two or three ships of the enemy at once and fighting on both broadsides.

This is how the Britannia’s log records her part at Trafalgar, in the dry, matter-of-fact style usual with such documents:—

“12.50. We began to engage three of the enemy’s ships, having opened their fire upon us while running down. 1.10. Observed the ship we were engaging on our larboard quarter totally dismasted, continued our course in order to break through the centre of the enemy’s line, engaging on both sides in passing between their ships. At 3 passed through the line. 4.30. Hauled to the wind on the larboard tack per signal. 5.30. Ceased firing. Observed the Achille, a French line-of-battle ship, on fire, which soon after blew up.”

Fortunately the log is not all that we have to rely upon for the story of the Britannia’s doings at Trafalgar. Some of the officers wrote down their experiences and impressions, from which we get a remarkably interesting idea of how things fared on board during the battle. Says, to begin with, Lieutenant John Barclay in his journal:—

“½ past 12. Vice-Admiral Collingwood, in the Royal Sovereign, commenced the action, by an attack upon the whole of the enemy’s rear, in the most gallant manner, and without any immediate prospect of support, from being so far ahead of the lee division. Took in our studding sails. About ¼ before 1, Lord Nelson, after having sustained a most galling fire in running down, opened both sides of the Victory on the headmost ships of their centre division. He was close followed up by the Téméraire, Neptune, Conqueror, Leviathan, and this ship, and pushed through their line about the 14th from the van. Several raking shot called forth exertions about 10 minutes after our noble chief. Here began the din of war. It became impossible to trace farther except at intervals, when the smoke cleared away a little. At ¼ past 1 the masts of the ship we were most particularly engaging (larboard side) fell by the board: supposed to be the Bucentaure, but without any flag observed flying. Continued edging on slowly, for there was very little wind, and our main topsail in particular was shot almost entirely from the yard. At 3, got to leeward of their line and hauled up a little on the larboard tack. Until ¼ past 4 kept up a heavy fire occasionally on both sides on every French or Spanish ensign flying near us, when we hauled to the wind on the larboard tack per signal. ½ past 5, all firing ceased except from the Achille, a very fine French ship—wrapt in flames. The cutters instantly repaired to her assistance, and saved the crew, soon after which she blew up with a tremendous explosion.”

Signal-Midshipman John Wells, in a letter home, written during the week following the battle, has this to say of what he went through and witnessed:

“I am very happy to say that the Britannia was certainly a very fortunate Ship during the whole time, as we had not above 10 killed and 41 wounded although we were the fourth Ship in Action and the last out of it, and I doubt not that it will be found that she does honour to all who belong to her, as our fire was not directed to One particular Ship, but as soon as one had struck to us we immediately made to others and at one time had five ships blazing away upon us, but we soon tired them out. As I told you before, I was stationed at the Signals and Colours in the time of Action and being on the Quarter Deck I had an opportunity of seeing the whole of the Sport, which I must own rather daunted me before the first or second broadside; but after then I think I never should have been tired of drubing [sic] the Jokers, particulary [sic] when my ship mates began to fall arround [sic] me, which in the room of disheartening an Englishman only encourages him, as the sight of his Country Man’s blood makes his heart burn for revenge.

“I am very sorry to inform you that my worthy friend our signal Lieutenant was knocked down by a double-headed shot close by my side and immediately expired, much lamented by his brother Officers and every one in the Ship; I had several very narrow escapes from the Enemy’s Shot, but thanks be to the Lord he [sic] has still spared me thro’ his great goodness.

“Too much credit cannot be given to Lord Northesk and Captain Bullen for their gallant Conduct during the Engagement, indeed it was the case with every Officer and Man in the Ship. Immediately the Enemy had struck I went on board one of the French prizes to take possession of her, and when I got there I may well say I was shocked to see the sight as I believe there was not less than 3 or 400 Bodies lying about the Decks, cut and mangled all to pieces, some dying and others Dead. We took the remainder of the men that were alive on board of our own Ships, at which they seemed very glad. And from the Information that we can get from them they really came out of Cadiz with an intention of fighting, not thinking us to be above 17 sail of the line and them under the command of Sir Robt. Calder (but he was not with us at all), and that Lord Nelson was in England sick. So they thought they were an equal match for our 17 with there [sic] 37—and in fact made themselves so sure of taking us into Cadiz that several Private Gentlemen came out of Cadiz as passengers on purpose to see the Action and have the pleasure of towing us in, but they were once more deceived in our Wooden Walls. Amongst the prisoners in our Ship there are 5 or 6 of these Gentlemen of pleasure, and I think they are in a fair way for seeing an English prison before they return to Cadiz again.”

Another of the Britannia’s officers, who made use of his opportunities for seeing what was going on round him, was 2nd Lieutenant L.B. Halloran of the Royal Marines. He noted this down in his private diary from his own personal experiences and observations:

“We piped to breakfast at eight o’clock, and the ship being clear and ready about nine o’clock, we went to quarters. The Fleet then formed in two lines, standing slowly and steadily, with every sail set, before the light breeze, with ensigns and colours flying. Our ship, the Britannia, was the third from the Victory, which led the Larboard or Lee line; we were next the Neptune, 98 guns. For some time after the men were at quarters, before the firing began we heard many of them amusing themselves with nautical jokes, or reciting scraps from a Prologue which I had spoken at one of our last Dramatic performances. Among the lines repeatedly quoted the following seemed the favourite:—

“About 11.30, the Royal Sovereign, Admiral Collingwood, which led the Starboard or Weather line, after sustaining for nearly half an hour severe firing from the enemy as she approached without returning a shot, opened her tremendous Broadsides close alongside the Sta. Anna, a Spanish Admiral’s ship. Our people were highly amused, and passed many jokes on seeing the Sta. Anna, almost immediately dismasted and falling out of line with her colours down. We had not much time to admire the gallantry of the Royal Sovereign and the ships succeeding her, for it was our turn to commence, and in passing we poured a most destructive fire (the guns being double-shotted) into the Bucentaur, which ship had already received the first fire of the Victory and Neptune. Her masts were at once swept away, and her galleries and stern broken to pieces; her Colours being shot away, some-one waved a white handkerchief from the remains of the Larboard Gallery in token of Surrender.

“We then encountered the Santisima Trinidada, 240 guns [sic] on four decks (the largest ship then known). We passed under stern of this magnificent Ship, and gave her a Broadside which shattered the rich display of sculpture, figures, ornaments, and inscriptions with which she was adorned. I never saw so beautiful a ship. Luffing up alongside her four-decked side, of a rich lake colour, she had an imposing effect.

“We proceeded, and now got into the middle of the Action, where the denseness of the smoke, the noise and din of Battle, were so great as to leave little time for observation. Nearly about this time, between one and two o’clock, a shot struck the muzzle of the gun at which I was stationed (the aftermost gun on the larboard side of the lower deck), and killed or wounded every one there stationed, myself and Midshipman Tompkins only excepted. The shot was a very large one, and split into a number of pieces, each of which took its victim. We threw the mangled body of John Jolley, a marine, out of the stern port, his stomach being shot away; the other sufferers we left to be examined. The gun itself was split, and our second lieutenant, Roskruge, who came down at that moment with some orders, advised me to leave the Gun as useless. He had scarcely left us, when he was brought down senseless with a severe wound in his head: he breathed, but continued senseless until nine o’clock, when he died.

“The Battle continued until five o’clock. Seeing no signal from the Victory, and also missing Admiral Collingwood’s flag, we were in much uneasiness on Board. The scene presented a strange contrast to the morning; twenty-one or twenty-two sail of the Enemy’s Line, Prizes and dismasted, one (L’Achille) burning furiously, which soon after blew up, the sky lowering in the distance, a heavy sea rising, and an awful kind of pause succeeding the crash of falling yards and masts and the roar of the guns.

“Having sent a boat to the Victory, we ascertained the death of Lord Nelson, our Commander-in-Chief.

“With hearts fraught with blended feelings of sorrow and of triumph, we set about putting the ship to rights. The evening was fine, though a storm seemed to be coming up, and around us as the darkness closed in the scattered and forlorn wrecks lay floating in disorder, while the conqueror’s ships were repairing damages, shifting prisoners, or making sail. It was a scene of desolation, helpless prizes and dismantled victors rolling heavily, as the sea began to roughen with the breeze....

“The whole night was occupied in receiving prisoners, and preparing for stormy weather, which was coming on.”

This is from the letter that a seaman on board the Britannia, James West, an A.B., wrote to his parents at Newhaven in Sussex:—

“I am sorry to inform you that I am wounded in the left shoulder, and that William Hillman was killed at the same time: the shot that killed him and three others wounded me and five more. Another of my messmates, Thomas Crosby, was also killed; they both went to their guns like men, and died close to me. Crosby was shot in three places. Pray inform their poor friends of their death, and remind them that they died at the same time as Nelson, and in the moment of glorious victory. Remember me to all my relations and friends; tell them I am wounded at last, but that I do not much mind it, for I had my satisfaction of my enemies, as I never fired my gun in pain I was sure to hit them; I killed and wounded them in plenty. Should have written you sooner, but the pain in my shoulder would not let me.”

During the week following Trafalgar the Britannia received 381 French prisoners on board: 48 from L’Aigle, a captured seventy-four; 140 from the recaptured Berwick, a former British seventy-four; the rest from the captured Intrépide, another seventy-four. The names of all the prisoners are carefully entered in the Britannia’s books, and among them appears the name of a Turk, mentioned also by Lieutenant Halloran as being received on board—Abdalla Fadalla, a prisoner from the Intrépide.

According to the ship’s books these were the officers, in addition to Lord Northesk, serving on board the Britannia at Trafalgar:—

Captain—Charles Bullen.

Lieutenants—Arthur Atchison; Francis Roskruge (killed); John Houlton Marshall; Charles Anthony; Richard Lasham; William Blight; John Barclay; James Lindsay.

Marine Officers.—Captain—Alexander Watson. Lieutenants—William Jackson; L. B. J. Halloran; John Cooke.

Master—Stephen Trounce (wounded).

Surgeon—Allen Cornfoot.

Purser—James Hiatt.

Chaplain—Rev. Lawrence H. Halloran.

Gunner—Michael Aylward.

Boatswain—(not joined).

Carpenter—John Simpson.

Master’s Mates and Midshipmen—John Adamson; Thos. Goble; James Sudbury; Silvester Austin; James Rattray; Henry Canham; Em. Blight; John Lang; William Snell; John W. Pritchard; William Grant (wounded); Francis D. Lauzun; William Geikie; Josh. Thorndyke; John Coulthred; Andrew Parry; Charles Thornbury; James L. Peyton; John Brumfield; George Hurst; George Morey; Charles Pitt; James Robinson; Radford G. Meech; Richard Molesworth; Charles Wilson; John Bidgood; John Lawrence; William Pinet; Richard B. Bowden; Benjamin Sheppard; William Pyne.

Surgeon’s Mates—John Evans; John Owen Martin.

Clerk—Richard Whichelo.

First-class Volunteers—James R. Sulivan; Bowkum Tomkyns; Josh. Bailey.

A glance at the composition of the ship’s company of the Britannia, according to the muster book, shows that the foreigners among the seamen on board numbered 53 in all. Of that total 18 were Americans, 11 Germans, 6 Danes, 4 Frenchmen, 1 Swede, 4 Dutchmen, 1 East Indian, 2 Africans, 2 Italians, and 4 from the West Indies. Ireland contributed 189 seamen ratings (the total number of seamen on board the Britannia, as mustered by the ship’s books on Sunday morning, the day before the battle, was 599); Scotland, 42; Wales, 25; the Isle of Man, 6; the Channel Islands, 5; and the Scilly Isles, Shetland, and Skye, 1 each. The full total of all ranks and ratings on board the Britannia at Trafalgar, as mustered on the 20th of October, numbered 31 officers, 599 seamen ratings (petty officers, able seamen, ordinary seamen, and landmen), 28 boys, 126 marines, 5 supernumeraries, and 8 “widows’ men,” making 797 in all. The ship’s official complement as a first rate was 837, so that the Britannia was really 40 men short in the action.

One incidental fact that we learn from the Britannia may be added. It throws a useful sidelight on life and ways at sea in the navy of Nelson’s day, dealing as it does with the relations that existed between officers and men on board while waiting off Cadiz for the expected battle. It proves for one thing also that Lord Northesk’s flagship quite deserved the designation of a “happy ship.” This was their favourite way of passing the time off duty, according to Lieutenant Halloran’s journal.

“August 22nd. Heard that enemy had gone into Cadiz. We steered direct for that port. Here we remained blockading the place until the arrival of Lord Nelson in the Victory. During this time the officers and ship’s company amused themselves with dramatic performances. Our first drama, acted in the Admiral’s cabin, was as appears in the following playbill:—