1Robert Browning.

2The 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.

3See lines on page opposite.

4A 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.

5In other words, tow the vessels.

6Ships of war sent to accompany merchantmen during hostilities so as to protect them from the enemy.

7A private vessel commissioned to attack and capture the vessels of an enemy.

8See post, Chapter xix.

9Nelson’s successor and friend.

10Sir 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.

11In his Autobiography Nelson gives the number as three.

12More detailed particulars of this thrilling siege will be found in the author’s companion volume, “The Story of Napoleon,” pp. 60–64.

13See ante, page 43.

14Captain 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.

17Parsons 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18“Larboard” has now been superseded by “port,” i.e. the left.

19See post p. 224.

20See ante, p. 90.

21The Earl of St Vincent appointed him a Master and Commander.

22Captain Richard Bowen, of H.M.S. Terpsichore, who was killed at Santa Cruz.

23This is in marked contrast to the generous words he wrote to the Earl of St Vincent on the 24th July.—See ante, p. 90.

24To bring the vessel round with her stern to the wind.

25i.e. the Toulon fleet.

26His “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.

27See “Deeds that Won the Empire,” p. 100.

28Ibid. p. 103.

29See Comment, ii. 341–2, also Mahan’s “Sea Power,” i. 269.

30Among those who perished were Commodore Casabianca and his young son, whose bravery is immortalised in the well-known poem by Mrs Hemans.

31Battle of the Nile.

32Miss Knight is referring to the Earl of St Vincent’s flagship, and not to a vessel named after him.

33See ante, pp. 72–3.

34He had held the position since 1765.

35In 1804.

36Maria 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.

37Parthenopeia was the ancient name of Naples.

38Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

39After 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.

40See post, pp. 131–8.

41See post, Chapters xiv. and xv.

42This additional corroborative evidence has not been noticed by many of Nelson’s recent biographers.

43The squadron in Naples Bay was placed under Troubridge.

44Pius VI.

45See ante, p. 24.

46The arrival of La Marguerite on the 14th June, with provisions for the French garrison. Keith’s letters are printed as he wrote them.

47Vol. i., pp. 212–7. Dated Palermo, May 13, 1800.

48Compare this statement with that of Paget, given on p. 154.

49Lady Hamilton’s mother.

50Miss Knight and Mrs Cadogan sailed on one of the frigates, commanded by Captain Messer, an Englishman.

51She was the daughter of a domestic servant, and at the age of thirteen became a children’s nurse.

52Afterwards increased to eighteen.

53Subsequently Lord Bexley.

54Parker’s flag-ship.

55This 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.

56To 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.

57To 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.

58Nelson 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.”

59The letter will be found in full in footnote 1, p. 175.

60See “Napoleon and the Invasion of England,” by H.F.B. Wheeler and A.M. Broadley, especially vol. i. pp. 159–194.

61A volunteer corps enrolled for the purpose of defending the coast.

62See “Annual Register,” for 1801, p. 269.

63The Aigle had taken refuge in Cadiz harbour.

64The 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).

65See Mahan’s “Nelson,” p. 661, and Laughton, p. 202.

66These were crippled ships detached by Villeneuve.

67Mahan accepts this, but Laughton discredits it.

68The total British broadside was 1000 lbs. less.

69Not by telegraph as we understand it, but by semaphore.

70De la GraviÈre, p. 252.

71Blackwood 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.

74Eleven ships in all escaped into Cadiz.

75“Diary of the first Earl of Malmesbury,” vol. iv., p. 354.

76Trafalgar in “W.V. Her Book and Various Verses.”