LORD NELSON.
Horatio Nelson was born at Norfolk, England, September 29, 1758. He reached his manhood at a time when the nations of Europe were engaged in deadly strife. A love of adventure and a daring spirit, which developed during his earliest years, inclined him to follow the sea. From his first entrance into this calling, genius and opportunity worked together to make him the leading factor in Great Britain's prominence as a naval power.
For several centuries, previous to the time of Nelson, Great Britain had been rapidly advancing her commerce. In the protection of this commerce many a naval hero won renown; but the tide of influence and of power found in Nelson its perfect fulfillment. He was a man of extraordinary genius. He saw clearly; acted vigorously. He felt that it was his business and his duty to watch over England's interests upon the sea; and both men and women felt perfectly safe while Nelson had command. The pure flame of patriotism burned brightly in his heroic soul. He believed, with Lord Sandon, that nothing could be nobler than a first-rate English sailor; and he acted in strict accord with this belief. He attained one victory after another, until the battle of the Nile, one of his most brilliant successes, made the navy of England a terror even to its bravest enemies. The superiority of the English fleet was mainly due to his genius; and the dread his name inspired was one of the principal causes, that, a few years later, kept Napoleon from carrying out his threatened invasion of England.
His high sense of duty, and what he expected of those under his command, is well illustrated by his signal to the English fleet, when they were about to engage the French in the great naval battle at Trafalgar. When all were ready for the attack, Nelson said, "I will now amuse the fleet with a signal." Turning to the signal officer he exclaimed, "Send this message,—'England expects every man to do his duty.'" When the signal was comprehended by the men, cheer after cheer rang out upon the air, and under its inspiration they won a glorious and a decisive victory.
This message was characteristic of Nelson. Upon his entering into this engagement, which proved to be his last, he is said to have remarked, "I thank God for this great opportunity of doing my duty." While in the thick of the engagement, Nelson was struck down by a cannon ball, and lived but a few hours afterward; but long enough to hear the English shouts of triumph. He had left to the world a type of single-minded self-devotion, that can never perish.
[Footnote: See "Life of Nelson," by Southey (1828); "Letters and
Dispatches of Lord Nelson," by N. H. Nicols (1860); "Lady Hamilton and
Lord Nelson," by J. C. Jeaffreson; and Mahan's "Life of Nelson,"
recently published.]