MY DEAREST BELOVED EMMA: THE DEAR FRIEND OF MY BOSOM,—The signal has been made that the enemy's combined fleet are coming out of port. We have very little wind, so that I have no hopes of seeing them before to-morrow. May the God of battles crown my endeavours with success; at all events, I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatia, both of whom I love as much as my own life. And as my last writing before the battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the battle. May Heaven bless you, prays your
This was found unsigned on his desk. These are the last lines he wrote to the woman he called his "wife in the sight of God." There is none of the robust assurance of blazing deeds that he has in store for the enemy which characterize some of his earlier letters to Emma, nor is there any craving for continued existence or for extinction. But who can read this melancholy farewell without being impressed with the feeling that there is a subdued restraint to avoid uttering his thoughts on inevitable fate and eternal sleep, lest it gives anxiety and disheartens the woman he loved so well?
On the same day he wrote an affectionate letter to his daughter, which is clearly intended as a supplementary outpouring of a full heart to the mother whom he knew would have to read it. The tone and wording is what a father might have written to a girl of fifteen instead of five. There is a complete absence of those dainty, playful touches that would delight a child of her age. In reality, it rather points to the idea that it was intended not only as a further farewell to mother and child, but as an historical epistle and a legacy to Horatia which she would read in other days in connection with the great battle in which he was to be engaged only a few hours after he had written it.
MY DEAREST ANGEL,—I was made happy by the pleasure of receiving your letter of September the 19th, and I rejoice to hear you are so very good a girl, and love my dear Lady Hamilton, who most dearly loves you. Give her a kiss for me. The combined fleets of the enemy are now reported to be coming out of Cadiz; and therefore I answer your letter, my dearest Horatia, to mark to you that you are ever uppermost in my thoughts. I shall be sure of your prayers for my safety, conquest, and speedy return to dear Merton and our dearest good Lady Hamilton.
Receive, my dearest Horatia, the affectionate blessing of your Father,
NELSON AND BRONTE.
The importunities of Horatia's mother were continuously being forced upon Nelson in one way or another, but he seems to have stood firm, in an apologetic way, to the instructions laid down by himself, that no women were to go to sea aboard his ship; for, having been a party to the embargo, it would have been impossible for him to make her an exception. He anticipates, as her other lovers had done, that she can be very angry, like Horatia, when she cannot have her own way, but he soothingly says that he knows his own dear Emma, if she applies her reason, will see that he is right. He playfully adds an addendum that "Horatia is like her mother, she will have her own way, or kick up the devil of a dust." He reminds Emma that she is a "sharer of his glory," which settles the question of her being allowed to sail with him, and from encountering the heavy gales and liquid hills that are experienced off Toulon week after week. He warns the lady that it would kill her and himself to witness it. Emma was too devoted to all the pleasures ashore to risk losing her life in any such uncomfortable fashion at sea, so the project was abandoned, if it was ever seriously contemplated.
This astute actress knew where to touch Nelson's weak spot, and that it would send him into a frenzy of love to think of her yearning to be beside him. She would know that the rules of the Service prohibited, except under special circumstances, even the highest in rank from having their wives sail with them, and that the rule would apply more rigidly to herself, who was not Nelson's wife. She knew, in fact, that her request would flatter him, and that she would be compensated by receiving a whirlwind of devotion in reply. After the Gulf of Lyons days, no further request appears to have been made of that kind.
The combined fleets had been dodging each other on the 20th, light westerly winds and calms prevailing. At daylight on the 21st the belligerent fleets were within twelve miles of each other. Nelson was on deck early, and at 7.40 a.m. made the signal "To form the order of sailing," and "To prepare for battle." Then the signal was made to "Bear up," the Victory and Royal Sovereign leading the way in two lines; Nelson took the weather line with his ships, and the other division followed, but the wind being light, many had barely steerage way. Fourteen vessels followed Collingwood, who was to attack the enemy's rear, while Nelson slashed into the van and centre. Villeneuve, seeing by the British formation that his number was up and that he would have to give battle, manoeuvred to keep Cadiz open, which was about twenty miles NE. of him, but the wind, being light, made it as difficult for the French Commander-in-Chief to carry out the disposition as it was for the quick-witted British Commander to prevent it. Hence the development was a lazy process, and prevented, as varying circumstances always do, any rigid plan being adhered to. Had there been a fresh breeze before the battle commenced, the chances are that the French would have secured a position that would have enabled more of the crippled ships to get into Cadiz, but even this is doubtful, as only a fluke of wind could have saved them from the strategy of the British Commander-in-Chief before the fighting began. Between eleven and twelve o'clock on the 21st October every humanly possible, detailed arrangement had been completed. Each captain knew that, so far as it was possible, he was to follow where his admiral and vice-admiral led. The spirits of all those who manned the fleet were high of hope, and the inspiring spirit said he could do no more.
Nelson then went to his cabin and on his knees wrote a prayer that throbbed and will continue to throb through the universe. It exhales the spirit of bravery, and triumphant assurance of the eternal justice of the cause for which he is about to sacrifice himself, for a sombre document it is; but the soul that is in it is imperishable, and who can peruse it without vividly picturing the writer kneeling before the Omnipotent, pleading for his country's cause, and offering himself piously as a willing sacrifice!