Such another day, never,
England shall look on again,
When the battle fought was the hottest,
And the hero of heroes was slain!
This is a glance at Captain Hardy, the captain of the Victory at Trafalgar, his lieutenants and other quarter-deck officers of Nelson’s flagship, and also something of the men who manned the Victory and where they came from.
Incidentally this should be said of Nelson’s own personal connection with the Victory. Nelson’s first association with the Victory dated back to many years before Trafalgar—ever since, indeed, the year in which he entered the Navy as a boy of twelve. At that time the Victory, in her seventh year afloat, was lying up in reserve at Chatham, the pride of the Medway, as the finest and biggest first-rate man-of-war in the British Navy. The boy Nelson while at Chatham saw her day after day for months, and must have gone on board her. Later on, during the four years that Nelson served in the Mediterranean under Hood and Jervis, between 1793 and 1797, the Victory was flagship of the fleet, and Nelson, as we know, was constantly on board her on business with the Admiral. It was on the Victory’s quarter-deck also that Sir John Jervis, after the battle of Cape St. Vincent, publicly embraced Nelson and congratulated him on the magnificent display of heroic daring that he had made that day. In October, 1805, Nelson had flown his flag on board the Victory for two and a quarter years, ever since the war began, having at the outset gladly accepted the offer of her for his flagship from what he knew of her as the fastest three-decker afloat.
At Trafalgar “Nelson’s Hardy,” Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy, was captain of the Victory. He was not the “Captain of the Fleet,” that post being officially vacant during Captain George Murray’s absence on leave in England owing to urgent private affairs. Hardy’s charming manner and tact, however, and his pleasant way of “getting on” with everybody he had to do with in all circumstances, enabled Nelson to manage for the time being without so invaluable an aid as “Friend Murray” had ever proved himself. Hardy and Nelson had served together for nearly nine years on and off, ever since they first met, when Hardy was a lieutenant in the Meleager, a frigate in Nelson’s flying squadron off the Eastern Riviera. When Nelson hoisted his broad pennant on board the Minerve, towards the end of 1796, Hardy went with him, and he owed something to Nelson during the cruise. Just before the battle off Cape St. Vincent, when the Minerve was passing the Straits off Gibraltar, with the Spanish fleet in pursuit of her, Hardy, then first lieutenant, put off in a boat to rescue a man who had fallen overboard. The man was picked up, but the boat was swept by the current right across the bows of the fast approaching enemy. On board the Minerve they gave the boat up for lost, when Nelson, risking the capture of the ship and all on board, brought-to. “By God,” he called out, “I’ll not lose Hardy!” “Back the mizen topsail!” They picked the boat up almost under the bowsprits of the enemy, and got off scot-free. After that, the brilliant way in which Hardy led the Minerve’s boats at the cutting out of the French brig-of-war Mutine won him his post-captaincy and the command of his prize, in which he served until after the battle of the Nile when Nelson moved him into the Vanguard in place of Flag-Captain Berry, sent home with the dispatches.
Ever since the battle of the Nile Hardy had followed Nelson’s fortunes as his flag-captain in the various ships on board which Nelson had his flag—in the Vanguard first of all, then in the Foudroyant, the San Josef, and the St. George. It was Hardy also who, on the night before the attack on Copenhagen, with cool daring, pulled with muffled oars close alongside the ships of the Danish line and took the soundings which practically enabled Nelson to win the battle.
“A bachelor of 35, rather stout in build, with light eyes, bushy eyebrows, square broad face, plenty of chin, and a mouth whose corners played between humour and grimness,” is the portrait that a contemporary gives of Captain Hardy in 1805.
Hardy—he lived to be Sir Thomas and K.C.B.—now lies in the mausoleum of the old pensioners’ burial ground at Greenwich Hospital—a veteran laid to his rest among veterans. No more fitting last abode surely could have been found for “Hardy of the Victory” than amongst those with whom he had lived and fought and had his being.