Nelson Bids Farewell on His Way to Trafalgar: The Very Day Nelson Announced He Would Accept Britain’s Call to Head to Trafalgar, He Laments to His Former Commander: “Perhaps I may see you in Winter but that depends upon others”

From the collection of Dr. Otto O. Fisher, who bought primarily in the 1930s and 1940s, so this not been offered for sale in nearly a century

 

Alfred Thayer Mahan, the great historian and naval strategist, describes Horatio Nelon’s fateful decision to rejoin the British fleet in one of his published works. It was, Mahan notes, an act of duty and requirement. “It was not therefore to a mind or will unprepared that the sudden intimation came on the 2d of September just a fortnight after he left the HMS Victory. That morning there arrived in town Captain Blackwood of the frigate Euryalus which had been despatched by [Admiral Cuthbert] Collingwood to notify the Admiralty that the missing [French admiral] Villeneuve had turned up with his squadron at Cadiz on the 20th of August. Blackwood stopped first at [Nelson’s home] Merton at five o clock in the morning and found Nelson already up and dressed. The latter said at once ‘I am sure you bring me news of the French and Spanish fleets and I think I shall yet have to beat them.’ Later in the day he called at the Admiralty and there saw Blackwood again.” Nelson said, “Depend on it, Blackwood, I shall yet give Mr Villeneuve a drubbing.”

On September 2nd, Nelson had lamented, “I expected to lay my weary bones quiet for the Winter, but I ought perhaps to be proud of the general call which has made me to go forth.”
But the conversations of the 2nd pushed Nelson to the point where duty surpassed his need for rest. That evening, as Lady Hamilton tells it, she convinced Nelson to formally announce he would join the fleet. That accounting is generally seen as temporarily correct, Mahan notes, in that he settled his mind the evening of the 2nd, but apocryphal in the sense that Nelson needed no persuasion.”

On September 3rd, the day after Blackwood’s arrival, Nelson had decided that the absence of English naval commanders required his presence. On that day, having conferred with Blackwood, we find the very first formal acknowledgement that Nelson had decided to join the British fleet. He wrote a fellow sailor, “I shall rejoice to see you on board the Victory.” The next day, a colleague reported, “Lord Nelson has been here today. He is going to resume the command of the Mediterranean as soon as the Victory is ready [at Portsmouth], which will be within a week.” On the 5th, Nelson himself told a friend, “AIl my things are this day going off for Portsmouth.”

Autograph letter signed, not appearing in his published works, September 3, 1805, the very day Nelson announced the decision that would bring him to Trafalgar, and mentioning Lady Hamilton to his former commander and close friend of his and of Lady Hamilton, Admiral Lutwedge, with franking panel and signature still present. “I would not let Lady H’s [Hamilton’s] letter go forth without saying a word to assure you of my most affectionate regard and esteem. Perhaps I may see you in Winter but that depends upon others and not on your most obliged and affectionate Nelson and Bronte.”

Skeffington Lutwidge was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He had a particular connection with Horatio Nelson, who served under Lutwidge as a midshipman on an expedition to the Arctic in HMS Carcass in 1773, and again in 1801 while a captain, when Lutwidge was commander in chief in the Downs.

HMS Victory joined the British fleet off Cadiz on September 27, 1805, Nelson taking over command from Rear Admiral Collingwood. He spent the following weeks preparing and refining his tactics for the anticipated battle and dining with his captains to ensure they understood his intentions. Nelson had devised a plan of attack that anticipated the enemy would assume the British fleet would form up in a traditional line of battle. Drawing on his own experience from the Battles of the Nile and Copenhagen, Nelson decided instead to split his fleet into squadrons rather than forming it into a similar line parallel to the enemy. These squadrons would then cut the enemy’s line in a number of places, allowing a pell-mell battle to develop in which the British ships could overwhelm and destroy parts of their opponents’ formation, before the unengaged enemy ships could come to their aid. At four o’clock in the morning of October 21, Nelson ordered the Victory to turn towards the approaching enemy fleet, and signaled the rest of his force to battle stations. He then went below and made his will, before returning to the quarterdeck to carry out an inspection. Despite having 27 ships to the French 33, Nelson was confident of success, declaring that he would not be satisfied with taking fewer than 20. He then joined Victory’s signal lieutenant, John Pasco, and told him to signal the fleet what would become the best known quotation in military history: “Mr Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’”.

The battle was the greatest naval success since the battle at Actium in 31 BC between Octavian (Augustus Caesar) and Mark Anthony. But Nelson had been hit by a marksman from the French ship Redoutable, firing at a range of 50 feet. Nelson told the ship’s surgeon, “You can do nothing for me. I have but a short time to live. My back is shot through.” Nelson was made comfortable, fanned and brought lemonade and watered wine to drink after he complained of feeling hot and thirsty. He asked several times to see his flag captain, Thomas Hardy, who was on deck supervising the battle, and asked to be remembered to his beloved Emma Hamilton, his daughter and his friends. Hardy came belowdecks to see Nelson just after half-past two, and informed him that a number of enemy ships had surrendered. Nelson told him that he was sure to die, and begged him to pass his possessions to Emma. After reminding him to “take care of poor Lady Hamilton”, Nelson said “Kiss me, Hardy”. Hardy knelt and kissed Nelson on the cheek; and then Nelson died. His victory at Trafalgar gave Great Britain incontestable rule of the seas for over a century, ended the threat of invasion by Napoleon, placed the French cause on the road to defeat, and bolstered British colonial rule in India and around the world.