[17] The letter was published in some of the newspapers in the last week of December, 1805. According to the Victory’s muster book there was a “James Bagley” among the Marines.

[18] See “The Enemy at Trafalgar” for what they witnessed from the French and Spanish fleet; also for a Spanish picture of Collingwood’s duel with the Spanish admiral.

[19] Bounce remained Collingwood’s faithful companion to the end; all through those five long, weary years of continuous cruising between Cadiz and the Dardanelles and off Toulon, until just before, for the worn out, prematurely-aged warrior himself, death came at length to close his sufferings, poor Bounce one dark night fell overboard and was seen no more.

[20] Trafalgar was also, as it happened, the Victory’s fifth fight. Collingwood’s Royal Sovereign had been eighteen years launched, and had been twice in battle. The Sovereign also was actually the biggest ship in the British fleet that day, 2175 tons burthen, as compared with the 2162 tons of the Victory, and the 2091 tons of the Britannia. The Téméraire, again, was the hardest hitter in the whole fleet, owing to the exceptionally heavy ordnance that she carried on her upper deck. Of other ships, the Agamemnon, the third oldest ship present at Trafalgar, had fought her first two battles with Kempenfelt and Rodney—names that already had passed into history. Other ships of Nelson’s fleet, contemporaries mostly of the Royal Sovereign, had taken part in as many as four fleet battles. Four of them had been in Lord Howe’s fleet on the “Glorious First of June,” three at St. Vincent, five with Nelson at the Nile, three at Copenhagen. Three of the Britannia’s consorts—the Belleisle, the Tonnant, and the Spartiate—were French-built ships, prizes won in battle. Two of them, indeed, had been captured by Nelson himself at the Nile. The average age of the ships of Nelson’s Trafalgar fleet was seventeen years, an age at which in the case of our modern-day battleships they are reckoned as off the active list and in sight of the sale list. Only six were less than five years old. One ship only was, so to speak, a new ship, the Revenge, in October, 1805, serving her first commission within seven months of leaving the stocks at Chatham Dockyard.

[21] Of the names mentioned, Mr. Johnstone may possible have been John Johnson, an ex-midshipman, rated an A.B. in July, 1805. Mr. Jones may have been Mr. Charles S. Jones, the captain’s coxswain. There were sixteen Jones’s altogether on the Britannia’s books, but none were among the officers, master’s mates, and midshipmen, or the first-class volunteers. There was no Lever on board the Britannia in any capacity.

INDEX

A HISTORY OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ROYAL NAVY AND OF MERCHANT SHIPPING IN RELATION TO THE NAVY

From 1509 to 1660