"Oh, no, certainly not," said Hardy.
"Then you know what to do. Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy! take care of poor Lady Hamilton. Kiss me, Hardy."
The captain knelt and pressed his lips to his cheek. "Now I am satisfied," he said. "Thank God, I have done my duty." Hardy knelt again and kissed his forehead. "Who is that?" he said faintly. "It is Hardy." "God bless you, Hardy," said Nelson, and Hardy went again on deck.
To his chaplain, Dr. Scott, Nelson said, "Doctor, I have not been a great sinner," and after a short pause, "Remember that I leave Lady Hamilton and my daughter Horatia as a legacy to my country." His speaking now became difficult. "Thank God, I have done my duty," were his last words. At half-past four he passed away peacefully. He lived long enough to know that a great victory had been won.
Of the thirty-three ships in the French and Spanish fleets, nineteen were taken and destroyed by the English. Most of the rest became prizes, but were wrecked in a gale. The English lost in killed and wounded about three thousand; the French and Spanish about five thousand. "The greatest sea victory that the world had ever known was won," says W. Clark Russell, "but at such a cost, that there was no man throughout the British fleet—there was no man indeed in all England—but would have welcomed defeat sooner than have paid the price of this wonderful conquest."
The body of Nelson was carried in a cask of brandy in the Victory till she reached Spithead, Dec. 12, five weeks after the battle. It was afterwards placed in the coffin made from the mast of L'Orient, enclosed in a leaden coffin, with a handsome wooden coffin outside of these.
All England was bowed with grief at the death of Nelson. He was the idol of the nation, despite his unhappy marriage and his unlawful love for the devoted Lady Hamilton. The king was unable to speak for a long time after he heard the news, and the queen wept aloud. In Naples, writes Coleridge, "Numbers stopped and shook hands with me because they had seen the tears on my cheek and conjectured that I was an Englishman; and several, as they held my hand, themselves burst into tears."
Nelson was buried Jan. 9, 1806, in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, at a public expense of £14,000. Ten thousand troops preceded the body of the hero to the tomb. The streets were lined with thousands of troops and hundreds of thousands of weeping spectators. The coffin was drawn uncovered, under a canopy, upon a car, having at its front and back a carved representation of the head and stern of the Victory.
At the burial, by a sudden impulse, the sailors who lowered the coffin seized the flag which covered it and tore it in shreds, to keep as mementoes of their great leader.
No such funeral had been seen in England. It was felt that the battle of Trafalgar had saved the nation from an invasion by Bonaparte, and therefore no honor was too great for her deliverer.