Part 15

At Trafalgar “Nelson’s Hardy,” Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy, was captain of the _Victory_. He was not the “Captain of the Fleet,” that post being officially vacant during Captain George Murray’s absence on leave in England owing to urgent private affairs. Hardy’s charming manner and tact, however, and his pleasant way of “getting on” with everybody he had to do with in all circumstances, enabled Nelson to manage for the time being without so invaluable an aid as “Friend Murray” had ever proved himself. Hardy and Nelson had served together for nearly nine years on and off, ever since they first met, when Hardy was a lieutenant in the _Meleager_, a frigate in Nelson’s flying squadron off the Eastern Riviera. When Nelson hoisted his broad pennant on board the _Minerve_, towards the end of 1796, Hardy went with him, and he owed something to Nelson during the cruise. Just before the battle off Cape St. Vincent, when the _Minerve_ was passing the Straits off Gibraltar, with the Spanish fleet in pursuit of her, Hardy, then first lieutenant, put off in a boat to rescue a man who had fallen overboard. The man was picked up, but the boat was swept by the current right across the bows of the fast approaching enemy. On board the _Minerve_ they gave the boat up for lost, when Nelson, risking the capture of the ship and all on board, brought-to. “By God,” he called out, “I’ll not lose Hardy!” “Back the mizen topsail!” They picked the boat up almost under the bowsprits of the enemy, and got off scot-free. After that, the brilliant way in which Hardy led the _Minerve’s_ boats at the cutting out of the French brig-of-war _Mutine_ won him his post-captaincy and the command of his prize, in which he served until after the battle of the Nile when Nelson moved him into the _Vanguard_ in place of Flag-Captain Berry, sent home with the dispatches.

Ever since the battle of the Nile Hardy had followed Nelson’s fortunes as his flag-captain in the various ships on board which Nelson had his flag—in the _Vanguard_ first of all, then in the _Foudroyant_, the _San Josef_, and the _St. George_. It was Hardy also who, on the night before the attack on Copenhagen, with cool daring, pulled with muffled oars close alongside the ships of the Danish line and took the soundings which practically enabled Nelson to win the battle.

“A bachelor of 35, rather stout in build, with light eyes, bushy eyebrows, square broad face, plenty of chin, and a mouth whose corners played between humour and grimness,” is the portrait that a contemporary gives of Captain Hardy in 1805.

Hardy—he lived to be Sir Thomas and K.C.B.—now lies in the mausoleum of the old pensioners’ burial ground at Greenwich Hospital—a veteran laid to his rest among veterans. No more fitting last abode surely could have been found for “Hardy of the _Victory_” than amongst those with whom he had lived and fought and had his being.

And this be the verse that you grave for me, Here he lies where he wished to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

He has his monument elsewhere: in his native Dorset, where there stands a massive column of stone, which the men and women of his county in their pride and affection subscribed for, and set up on a spur of Blackdown (or Blagdon) Hill, overlooking the little village of Portisham where Hardy lived as a boy, whence also he set out to accompany Nelson to Trafalgar. It stands in sight of the house where the Captain of the _Victory_ was born, on the one hand; while on the other it looks out across the vales towards the sea, not many miles away: a lonesome, wind-swept spot; a place to visit by oneself, say on some calm December afternoon, a little before the shortening winter twilight closes round, and look out from, seaward for choice—

... where afar The grey sky pales to the dim horizon, And the murm’ring Channel with its wand’ring sails, Drifts down through the winter’s day.

Looking seaward from the top of the monument, standing there over nine hundred feet above the sea—twice and a quarter the height of St. Paul’s Cathedral—“the eye rests on an unbroken panorama of coast-line, extending from the Isle of Wight and St. Katherine’s Point on the east, to Start Point and the Tors of Dartmoor on the west.... Far down below lie, clearly spread out as if on a map, Weymouth and the Backwater, as well as Portland and the Chesil Beach, whilst St. Aldhelm’s Head and the Purbeck Hills to the left, and Thorncombe Beacon with Golden Cap beyond it to the right, stand out in prominent grandeur.”

* * * * *

These were Captain Hardy’s officers on board Nelson’s flagship, a complete list of the lieutenants and other quarter-deck officers serving in the _Victory_ on the 21st of October, 1805:—

Lieutenants—John Pasco [Flag-Lieutenant] (wounded); John Quilliam; John Yule; Edward Williams; Andrew King; George Miller Bligh (wounded); George L. Brown; Alexander Hills; William Ram (killed).

Master—Thomas Atkinson.

Surgeon—William Beatty.

Purser—Walter Burke.

Chaplain—Rev. John A. Scott.

Secretary—John Scott (killed).

Gunner—William Rivers.

Boatswain—William Wilmet.

Carpenter—Wm. Bunce.

Marine Officers—Captain—Charles W. Adair (killed); Lieutenants—Lewis Buckle Reeves (wounded); James G. Peake (wounded); Lewis Roteley.

Master’s Mates and Midshipmen—William Chaseman; J. R. Walker; Thomas L. Robins; Samuel Spencer; Wm. H. Symons; Robt. C. Barton; James Green; Richard Bulkeley (wounded); John Carslake; Henry Carey; John Felton; Festing Grindall; Daniel Harrington; John Lyons; David Ogilvie; Alexander Palmer (killed); John Pollard; James Poad; Oliver Picken; William Rivers (wounded); James Robertson; Richard F. Roberts: Robert Smith (killed); Philip Thovez; Thomas Thresher; James Sibbald; Daniel Salter; Francis E. Collingwood; George A. Westphal (wounded).

Surgeon’s Mates—Neil Smith; William Westenburgh.

Clerk—Thomas Whipple (killed).

First Class Volunteers—Henry Lancaster; Charles Chapell; J. R. Walker.

Midshipman William Ward Perceval Johnson of the _Childers_ sloop-of-war, a former first-class Volunteer in the _Victory_, was on board the flagship at Trafalgar as the guest of his former messmates. He died in December, 1880, at the age of ninety, one of the five last survivors of Trafalgar, and the last surviving officer of those on board the _Victory_.

* * * * *

At Trafalgar the _Victory’s_ nominal complement as a first-rate, comprising the “ship’s company,” numbered 837 officers and men, including in the total as well, 40 boys, 145 marines, and 8 “widows’ men.” She had actually on board on the 21st of October 804 of all ranks and ratings, with, in addition, 26 “supernumeraries for victuals”—under which category Nelson himself and his secretary and personal suite and certain others were returned. There were 24 officers, including Captain Hardy and 9 lieutenants, and the various warrant officers; and 31 mates, midshipmen, and clerks. In action 50 men were at the quarter-deck guns; 20 were stationed on the forecastle; 150 on the main-deck; 180 on the middle-deck; and 225 on the lower-deck, where the heaviest guns were. These, it may be observed, had 15 men told off to each, as compared with 12 men each to the middle-deck guns, and 10 men each to the guns on the main-deck, quarter-deck, and forecastle. The signal-staff, comprising a lieutenant, with a mate, 3 midshipmen and 9 men, were on the poop, where the marines had also their post. Forty-eight men and boys were employed in and about the ship’s three magazines in handing and passing cartridges, besides 19 more at the hatchways. All these were in addition to the powder-men—one man to each gun—employed on the battery decks in supplying the guns’ crews in action. Six men were told off to attend to the wounded in the cockpit under the orders of the surgeon and his mates—not a very large number in the circumstances; and there were also the small-arm men, the carpenter’s gangs to stop shot-holes and attend to leaks, men told off to see to the state of the rigging, and others in the various storerooms, at the helm, and so on. This brief _résumé_ will give an idea of the distribution of the _Victory’s_ ship’s company at quarters.

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The ship’s books account for the nationality, or place of birth, of 633 of the officers and men on board the _Victory_, as mustered on the 17th of October, the last muster day before the battle (the Thursday before Trafalgar), not taking into reckoning the marines or the boys and supernumeraries. Of the total, 411 were of English birth, 64 were Scotsmen, 63 Irishmen, and 18 Welshmen. Three men were from Orkney and Shetland, 2 from the Channel Islands and 1 (Lieutenant Quilliam) from the Isle of Man. The remainder—71 men, were foreigners, from all quarters of the known world almost, got together, for the most part, out of merchant ships under impress warrants: 7 Dutchmen, 22 Americans, 2 Danes, 3 Frenchmen, 1 Russian, 3 Norwegians, 6 Swedes, 2 North Germans from Hamburg and 1 Prussian, 9 from various islands in the West Indies, 2 Swiss, 2 Portuguese, 1 African, 1 from Bengal and 1 from Madras, 4 Italians, and 4 Maltese.[13]

Of the Englishmen on board: Kent, the old maritime county of England in the day of the Cinque Ports, and the county of Admiral Rooke, who won Gibraltar for the British Empire, contributed twenty-seven; Devonshire, the county of Drake and Raleigh, twenty-four; Hampshire, twenty; Somerset, the county of Blake and Rodney and the Hoods, four; Hardy’s county, Dorset, sent fourteen, one of them from Captain Hardy’s own native village of Portisham; Nelson’s county, Norfolk, contributed fifteen; Suffolk, whence came Admiral Vernon and Broke of the _Shannon_, twelve; Essex, nine; Sussex, five; Cornwall, the county of Grenville of the _Revenge_, and “the great twin brethren” of the Seven Years’ War, Hawke and Boscawen, seven; Northumberland, Yorkshire (the county of Martin Frobisher and Captain Cook), and Lancashire, eighteen each; Durham, seventeen; Lincolnshire, seven; Herefordshire and Oxford, six each. Wiltshire and Gloucester, five each. Old Benbow’s county of Shropshire had one representative on board the _Victory_ at Trafalgar. The other counties, men from which were in Nelson’s flagship that day, represented by four men each, or fewer, were Berkshire and Bedford, Worcestershire, Hereford and Cheshire, Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Notts, Middlesex, Leicester, Staffordshire (the county of Anson and St. Vincent), Derby, Northampton, Cumberland, and Westmoreland. London was represented on the _Victory’s_ books by a hundred and fifteen men, Liverpool and Shields by ten each, Newcastle by fourteen, Bristol by five, Sunderland by four, Manchester by three. Birmingham, Leeds, Bury, Winchester, Canterbury were among other places represented on board; and nearly every coast town from Tweedmouth, Hull and Grimsby, and round to Falmouth and St. Ives, had two or three men with Nelson. There were Scotsmen there from nearly every Scottish county, from Caithness and Banff, Ross, and Cromarty, Aberdeen and Inverness, Fife and Forfar, Berwick, Renfrew, Galloway, Lanark, the county of that _preux chevalier_ among British naval officers, Cochrane, Lord Dundonald, “the daring in war,” Ayr and Argyll. Eleven men from Edinburgh were on board; five from Glasgow; seven from Dundee, the birthplace of Duncan of Camperdown; with men from Leith, and Peterhead, Dumbarton, and Greenock. From Ireland, in like manner, men from Donegal fought the _Victory’s_ guns side by side with men from County Down and Roscommon, Meath and Carlow, Galway and Sligo, Cavan, Wexford and Waterford, Tipperary and County Cork. Fourteen men from Dublin were in the British flagship at Trafalgar; eleven from Cork; ten from Waterford City and Belfast; Carrickfergus and Kinsale were also represented on board.

There were men of all ages between twenty and fifty in the crew of the _Victory_ at Trafalgar, and boys from ten years old—the age of little Johnnie Doag, an Edinburgh boy, rated as a “First Class Boy,” and probably the youngest person present on either side at Trafalgar—to lads of eighteen or nineteen. Four others of the thirty-one in the flagship (nine short of the complement) were just twelve years old, and six others, thirteen. The great majority of the men on board were from twenty to thirty years of age. About 10 per cent were over forty, the majority of these being between forty-seven and fifty. One of the “powder-monkeys” on board the _Victory_, it was discovered later, was a woman. Her husband was also on board the ship. She was a native of Port Mahon, and an officer who saw her there in 1841 described her as being then “a sturdy woman of 70.” The last survivor of the seamen and marines on board the _Victory_ at Trafalgar died at Dundee in November, 1876.

This interesting detail in regard to the _Victory’s_ crew should be mentioned in addition. Practically 30 per cent of the seamen were volunteers, so the ship’s muster-book states. It records in the column headed “_Whence and whether Prest or not_,” the word “Vol” against 181 of the names, out of a total of 628 able and ordinary seamen and landsmen.

* * * * *

There were, of course, men of all callings in civil life among the crew—as swept on board by the press-gang for the most part. According to inquiries made by officers on their own account, almost every trade and calling of every-day life contributed its quota in those times to the assortment on board our men-of-war. Collingwood, it is on record, had among the impressed men sent to one of his ships, a black San Domingo general, who had somehow found his way across the Atlantic; and also a Sussex market gardener, and a milkman, these last sent to him for top-gallant-yard men—poor fellows!

On board the _Elizabeth_, a seventy-four, for instance, out of a ship’s company 395 in number, only 177, it is on record, were seamen or of callings connected with the sea: merchantman-sailors, fishermen, watermen, and dockyard hands. The other 218 were stated thus: 108 labourers, 5 joiners, 6 tailors, 14 weavers, 5 coopers, 6 blacksmiths, 3 whitesmiths, 1 slater, 1 umbrella-maker, 1 butcher, 10 shoemakers, 1 poulterer, 2 stocking-makers, 1 dry-salter, 7 farmers, 1 coppersmith, 4 servants, 3 gardeners, 2 curriers, 1 mattress-maker, 1 tobacco manufacturer, 1 fustian-cutter, 1 cotton manufacturer, 1 clockmaker, 1 watchmaker, 2 waiters, 1 brickmaker, 2 bricklayers, 1 soldier, 1 stonecutter, 2 sawyers, 7 painters, 1 corn-factor, 1 staymaker, 1 glassmaker, 2 hatters, 1 wiremaker, 1 potter, 1 miller, 1 mason, 1 miner, 1 chimney sweep. The same kind of mixture was found on board another seventy-four, with these additional items: 1 linen draper, 1 artificial flower-maker, 1 milliner, 1 hinge-maker, 6 more hatters, 5 more barbers, and another umbrella-maker, 1 button-maker and 1 thimble-maker, 2 flax and hemp dressers, 3 coach and harness makers, 4 dyers, 1 tanner, 1 maltster, 1 calendarman, 2 wool-combers, 1 pipe-borer, 1 warehouseman, 1 tallow-chandler, 1 sadler, 3 pedlars, 1 violin-maker, 1 schoolmaster, and 1 optician. All was fish that came to the press-gang’s net.

Again, too, to take another case. Captain T. Byam Martin (afterwards Sir Thomas and Admiral of the Fleet), of the _Implacable_, in May, 1808, checked the composition of his ship’s company man by man, and sent the results of his investigation to his brother. “I have just now,” he wrote, “been amusing myself in ascertaining the diversity of human beings which compose the crew of a British ship of war, and as I think you will be entertained with a statement of the ridiculous medley, it shall follow precisely as their place of nativity is inserted in the ship’s books: English 285, Irish 130, Welsh 25, Isle of Man 6, Scots 29, Shetland 3, Orkneys 2, Guernsey 2, Canada 1, Jamaica 1, Trinidad 1, St. Domingo 2, St. Kitts 1, Martinique 1, Santa Cruz 1, Bermuda 1, Swedes 8, Danes 7, Prussians 8, Dutch 1, Germans 3, Corsica 1, Portuguese 5, Sicily 1, Minorca 1, Ragusa 1, Brazils 1, Spanish 2, Madeira 1, Americans 28, West Indies 2, Bengal 2. This statement does not include officers of any description, and may be considered applicable to every British ship, with the exception that _very few of them have so many native subjects_.”

Of those who fought on board the _Victory’s_ special companion-in-arms at Trafalgar, the “Fighting” _Téméraire_, Ireland contributed just two-fifths of the total ship’s company—220 men out of 550.[14] They came from all parts, according to the ship’s books, mostly from Waterford, Belfast, Limerick, and Wexford; and about a third from Dublin, Newry, Kildare, Galway, Kilkenny, and Cork. Scotland supplied the _Téméraire_ with 58 men; hailing, the greater number of them, from Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee, Greenock and Glasgow, Leith and Edinburgh. Wales contributed 38 men all told; from Swansea, Cardiff, Pembroke, and Milford, for the most part. Of all the Englishmen on board the “Fighting” _Téméraire_ at Trafalgar, one county by itself contributed practically a third of the number—Devonshire. They counted 52 men, drawn from all over the county: Bideford and Barnstaple, Exeter, Tavistock, Dorlish [_sic_], Ilfracoome [_sic_], Tiverton, and Dartmouth and Paignton. From London came 30 men in all. Lancashire had as many representatives in the ship as all Wales, 38—all except three hailing from Liverpool or Manchester. Somerset had 24, Cornwall 20, Yorkshire 13, Northumberland and Durham 10 each. These are the numbers from the other English counties: Norfolk 8 men, Hampshire 7, Kent 6, Cumberland and Gloucestershire each 5; Essex, Dorset, Chester each 4; Middlesex 3; Derbyshire, Warwick, Sussex, Cambridge, Worcester, and Suffolk each 2; Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Shropshire, Leicester, Surrey, Hereford, and The Isle of White [_sic_] 1 man each. There were 8 Manxmen at Trafalgar on board the “Fighting” _Téméraire_; 2 Jerseymen, and 1 man from Guernsey. Jamaica had 1 man on board, and Newfoundland 2 men. As usual, a number of foreigners figure on the books—66 altogether. They included: 28 Americans, 9 Germans (mostly from Hamburg and Emden), 6 Swedes, 5 Portuguese, 3 Frenchmen, 3 Spaniards, 1 Dutchman, 1 Cape-Dutchman, 1 from “Sclavonia” (Peter Valentine by name), 1 Viennese (Emil Joaquim), 1 from Old Calabar (a negro named Ephraim) and the remainder from Santa Cruz and other non-British islands in the West Indies.

The log of the _Victory_ for the day after the battle accounts for all who fell on board Nelson’s flagship, whether killed or wounded. It sets out the full list in this form:—

“A return of men killed and wounded on board his Majesty’s ship _Victory_, bearing the flag of the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B., Duke of Bronté, Vice-Admiral of the White and Commander-in-Chief, on the 21st day of October, 1805, in an engagement with the combined fleets of France and Spain off Cape Trafalgar. Thomas Masterman Hardy, Esq., Captain.

KILLED _Names_ _Quality_ The Right Hon. Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B., Duke of Bronté Commander-in-Chief John Scott, Esq. Secretary C. W. Adair Captain, Royal Marines William Ram 9th lieutenant, R.N. Robert Smith Midshipman Thomas Whipple Captain’s clerk. James Mansel Ab.[15] Thomas Daniels L.M. Thomas Thomas (1st) Ab. James North Ordinary Alfred Taylor Do. James Parke Do. William Shaw L.M. Richard Jewell Ordinary Charles Davis (1st) Do. John Bowlin L.M. William Brown (1st) Ab. William Mark Do. George Smith (1st) L.M. John Wharton Ordinary John King Quarter-gunner Robert Davison Ab. Edward Waters Do. John Cowarden Ordinary William Thompson (3rd) Ab. Thomas Johnson Quartermaster Andrew Sack Yeoman of signals Alexander Walker Ab. Arthur Hervin Ordinary John Welch (2nd) Ab. William Skinner Ordinary Joseph Ward Do. James Skinner Do. Stephen Sabine 3rd class (boy) George Welch 2nd class (boy) Collin Turner 3rd class (boy)

_Royal Marines_

George Cochran Corporal James Berry Drummer James Green Private John Brown (1st) Do. Lambert Myers Do. Samuel Wilks Do. George Kennedy Do. Daniel Hillier Do. John Brannon Do. James Norgrove Do. Jeremiah G. Lewis Private George Wilmott Do. Bernard McNamara Do. John Ebbsworth Do. William Coburne Do. William Jones Do. William Perry Do. John Palmer Do.

WOUNDED DANGEROUSLY

John Pasco Signal-lieutenant, R.N. William Rivers (2nd) Midshipman Alexander Palmer[16] Do. John Bush Ordinary Daniel McPherson L.M. John Bergen Ordinary Henry Cramwell[16] L.M. William Jones (3rd) Do. Hans Andersen Ab. David Buchan Do. Joseph Gordon[16] Ordinary William Smith (2nd)[16] Do. John Smith (2nd) Do. John Saunders 3rd class (boy)

_Marines_

William Taft Corporal Thomas Raynor Private John Gregory Do. William Knight Do. James Bengass Do. William Wells Do. Benjamin Cook Do. James Hines Do. Benjamin Matthews Private Thomas Wilson Do. Nicholas Dear Do.

BADLY WOUNDED

George M. Bligh 6th lieutenant, R.N. Lewis B. Reeves 2nd lieutenant, R.M. William Honnor Quarter-gunner Jeremiah Sullivan Ab. Peter Hale L.M. Thomas Green (1st) Ab. John Francois Ordinary William Castle Ab. George Burton Ordinary James Parker Do. Edward Dunn Do. Edward Padden Private, R.M.

SLIGHTLY WOUNDED