The New Student's Reference Work/Nelson, Horatio
Nel'son, Horatio. In the rectory of Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England, there was born, Sept. 29, 1758, the greatest naval commander of the greatest maritime power in history. Like James Watt, Horatio Nelson was so frail of body that it was not thought probable he would live to maturity. His father's small income as a clergyman and large family, forced the boy out of the home nest. At 12 he was entered as a midshipman in the navy. His maternal uncle, on whose vessel he made his first voyage, thought that the idea of trying to make a sailor out of the delicate, undersized boy was a piece of folly and that the most merciful course would be to discourage him. So, on the first day at sea, he ordered the boy aloft saying: "You are afraid, lad?" "Yes, sir," replied the shivering morsel of a man; "I'm afraid, but I'm going to the top of the mast, sir." And go he did, but he never forgot that sickening experience.
When at 21 he was captain of a frigate, he always raced the new boys up the mast and saluted them at the top. The little fellows, frightened half to death but full of British grit, never disappointed him. He abolished the punishments then practiced, saying that cruelty made cowards. He promoted brave men and treated members of the crew with great consideration. As a result his ships were famed for good order and for gallantry in action. To his men he was not an officer but "Our Nel." At Corsica he lost an eye, at Teneriffe an arm. In the battle of Copenhagen he pretended that he was unable to see a signal to retreat, sailed into the thick of the fight and saved the day. When told that, if he had failed, he would have been executed for disobeying orders, — "Oh, no," he replied. "If I had failed, I and my ship and men would all have gone to the bottom." In his naval career of 35 years he never retreated or struck his colors.
As an admiral in command of a fleet he won his first victory in the battle of the Nile, Aug. 1, 1798, smashing the French fleet, on which Napoleon in Egypt depended for transport and supplies, so completely that the campaign had to be abandoned. Idol of England at 40, he was raised to the peerage and granted a fortune. Three years later he was made vice-admiral and a viscount. As the shadow of Napoleon lengthened across the English Channel, Lord Nelson's visibly failing health alarmed the country. To have ordered him out would have been inhuman, but he came forward voluntarily in May, 1803, and offered his remaining days in defense of the empire. There was no one else; England had no choice but to accept the sacrifice. For 14 months he lay in the Mediterranean off the port of Toulon. When the French fleet slipped out, he chased it to the West Indies and back; laid siege to it and the allied Spanish fleet in the harbor of Cadiz; and brought them both to bay off Cape Trafalgar, October 21,1805. In going into battle Nelson flew from the masthead of the Victory the signal that now is Britain's watchword: "England expects that every man will do his duty."
The fleets of the enemy were destroyed, but in the hour of triumph the great commander fell mortally wounded on the deck of the flagship. As he lay in a midshipman's bunk, dying, wild cheers rang out, as ship after ship struck its colors or sank beneath the wave.
"England is safe," he murmured, looking up into the face of the officer who bent above him. His simple, loving heart turned like a boy's to his old comrade in arms for the last office of affection. His last words, before his soul drifted out to the great unknown, were: "Kiss me, Hardy!"
The flagship brought the news of the victory home, but its flags were at half-mast. England's bravest and best-beloved hero was laid away in St. Paul's, London, under a splendid monument. In 1905 the centennial of Trafalgar was made a Nelson year throughout the empire. In the press and in public addresses he was never spoken of as Lord Nelson the admiral, but as "Our Nel." Tennyson, in his Ode on The Death of the Duke of Wellington, addressed Nelson as the "greatest seaman since our world began," saying, as Wellington was laid beside Nelson: "Mighty sailor, this is he was great by land as thou by sea." See Life of Nelson by Robert Southey the poet.