If they do but go off, they will certainly tell.
“About 11.30, the Royal Sovereign, Admiral Collingwood, which led the Starboard or Weather line, after sustaining for nearly half an hour severe firing from the enemy as she approached without returning a shot, opened her tremendous Broadsides close alongside the Sta. Anna, a Spanish Admiral’s ship. Our people were highly amused, and passed many jokes on seeing the Sta. Anna, almost immediately dismasted and falling out of line with her colours down. We had not much time to admire the gallantry of the Royal Sovereign and the ships succeeding her, for it was our turn to commence, and in passing we poured a most destructive fire (the guns being double-shotted) into the Bucentaur, which ship had already received the first fire of the Victory and Neptune. Her masts were at once swept away, and her galleries and stern broken to pieces; her Colours being shot away, some-one waved a white handkerchief from the remains of the Larboard Gallery in token of Surrender.
“We then encountered the Santisima Trinidada, 240 guns [sic] on four decks (the largest ship then known). We passed under stern of this magnificent Ship, and gave her a Broadside which shattered the rich display of sculpture, figures, ornaments, and inscriptions with which she was adorned. I never saw so beautiful a ship. Luffing up alongside her four-decked side, of a rich lake colour, she had an imposing effect.
“We proceeded, and now got into the middle of the Action, where the denseness of the smoke, the noise and din of Battle, were so great as to leave little time for observation. Nearly about this time, between one and two o’clock, a shot struck the muzzle of the gun at which I was stationed (the aftermost gun on the larboard side of the lower deck), and killed or wounded every one there stationed, myself and Midshipman Tompkins only excepted. The shot was a very large one, and split into a number of pieces, each of which took its victim. We threw the mangled body of John Jolley, a marine, out of the stern port, his stomach being shot away; the other sufferers we left to be examined. The gun itself was split, and our second lieutenant, Roskruge, who came down at that moment with some orders, advised me to leave the Gun as useless. He had scarcely left us, when he was brought down senseless with a severe wound in his head: he breathed, but continued senseless until nine o’clock, when he died.
“The Battle continued until five o’clock. Seeing no signal from the Victory, and also missing Admiral Collingwood’s flag, we were in much uneasiness on Board. The scene presented a strange contrast to the morning; twenty-one or twenty-two sail of the Enemy’s Line, Prizes and dismasted, one (L’Achille) burning furiously, which soon after blew up, the sky lowering in the distance, a heavy sea rising, and an awful kind of pause succeeding the crash of falling yards and masts and the roar of the guns.
“Having sent a boat to the Victory, we ascertained the death of Lord Nelson, our Commander-in-Chief.
“With hearts fraught with blended feelings of sorrow and of triumph, we set about putting the ship to rights. The evening was fine, though a storm seemed to be coming up, and around us as the darkness closed in the scattered and forlorn wrecks lay floating in disorder, while the conqueror’s ships were repairing damages, shifting prisoners, or making sail. It was a scene of desolation, helpless prizes and dismantled victors rolling heavily, as the sea began to roughen with the breeze....
“The whole night was occupied in receiving prisoners, and preparing for stormy weather, which was coming on.”
This is from the letter that a seaman on board the Britannia, James West, an A.B., wrote to his parents at Newhaven in Sussex:—