Below decks at Trafalgar

The Temeraire meeting its ignominious end

I will freely admit that I have a fascination for the history of the Royal Navy, especially tits exploits during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. I can quite cheerfully devour naval histories by the (jolly)boatload!

Unsurprisingly, the great majority of contemporary accounts come from those who walked the quarterdeck rather than those who lived in the lower decks (midshipmen excluded). It is always good to read accounts from ordinary sailors

Today’s Guardian reports that eyewitness written by Robert Hope, a 28 year old sailmaker who served on the Temeraire

In a letter written to his brother John in Ashford he said:

What do you think of us Lads of the Sea now, I think they won't send their fleets out again in a hurry


Hope described how his ship engaged the Spanish four-decker Santissima Trinadad, alongside Nelson's flagship Victory, but was soon caught in a firestorm, surrounded by French ships.


When five more of the enemy's ships came upon us and engage us upon every quarter, for one hour and sixteen minutes, when one struck but being so closely engaged that we could not take possession of her at that time, two more seemed to be quite satisfied with what they had got so sheered off, but the other two was determined to board us. So with that intent, one dropt on our starboard side called the la Fue (Fougueux) and the other dropt on our larboard side called the Doubtable (Redoubtable), they kept a very hot fire for some time. But we soon cooled them for in the height of the smoke our men from the upper decks boarded them both at the same time, and soon carried the day.

Quintin Colville, curator of naval history at the Royal Maritime museum, said: "It instantly demolishes the cliched view of life below decks as villainous and ignorant – this man was obviously highly educated, and he gives a most vivid and lively description."
Colville says Hope would have joined a gun crew for the battle.
"The gun deck would have been a vile place, terrifying, deafening, highly dangerous, with great splinters flying from where the balls hit – we think of a splinter as something under your fingernail, but these could be chunks of wood two feet long that would disembowel a man."

We had forty three Killed and Eighty five wounded, and twenty seven drowned in the Prizes.

Counted when Smoke Cleared away Seventeen Prizes and one all on fire, but we have only got four into Gibraltar, for a Gale of wind came on the day following that we was obliged to scuttle them for they was so very leaky.


The letter ends with tender greetings to his sister and father:
… please to let him know that I am arrived in England for I long very much to hear from him.

The letter has remained in the family until now, treasured. It cost us a considerable amount of money, but it was worth every penny," Colville said. "This is such a rare thing, a voice from the lower decks. It will be very well used here – and eventually we hope to be able to flesh it out with a full biography of Robert Hope. We don't know what happened to him in the end yet, but he survived 21 October 1805”

Utterly fascinating stuff!

Trafalgar - THE TRUTH!

The 205th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar is on Thursday. It is truly one of the highest points in the Royal Navy's long and rich history.

The Battle of Trafalgar was a crushing victory. Under the command of Lord Nelson (supported ablu by Sir Cuthbert Collingwood and the Earl of Northesk) 33 Royal Navy vessels (of which 27 were ships of the line) took on 41 French and Spanish ships (of which 33 were ships of the line). 22 French and Spanish vessels were captured or destroyed; no Royal Navy vessel was lost.

I was therefore rather perturbed to find this item while looking through the Napoleonic Guide. Apparently the article was originally published in the French newspaper Le Moniteur. Clearly this turns our perception of the battle on its head!

The English fleet is annihilated - Nelson is no more. Indignant at being inactive in Port... Admirals Villeneuve and Gravina resolved to put to sea and give the English a fight... Nelson did everything to avoid a battle, he attempted to enter the Mediterranean, but we chased him, and caught him off Trafalgar. The French and Spaniards vied with each other to get into action first. Admiral's Villeneuve and Gravina were both anxious to lay their ships alongside the Victory, the English Admiral's ship... In vain did the English Admiral try to avoid action but the Spanish Admiral Oliva prevented his escape, and lashed his vessel to the English flagship. The English ship was one of 186 guns; the Santissima Trinidad was but a 74.....

... We fought yard-arm to yard-arm, gun to gun. Three hours did we fight in this manner, the English began to be dismayed... two ships, one French and one Spanish, boarded the Temeraire....We rushed to the flag-staff and struck their colours...

Meanwhile Nelson still resisted. It was now a race to see who should first board and have the honour of taking him; French or Spanish. Two Admirals on each side disputed the honour and boarded his ship at the same moment.... Villeneuve flew on to the quarter-deck and with the usual generosity of the French, he carried a brace of pistols in his hands. He knew the Admiral had lost his arm, and could not use his sword so he offered a pistol to Nelson, they fought, and at the second shot Nelson fell... Meanwhile 15 English ships of the line had struck, four more were obliged to follow their example and another blew up. - Our victory was now complete, and we prepared to take possession of our prizes, but the elements were by this time unfavourable to us and a dreadful storm came on.

....At length when the gale ceased, 13 of the French & Spanish line returned safely to Cadiz; the other 20 have, no doubt, gone to some other ports and will soon be reported. We shall repair our damage as speedily as possible and then go again in pursuit of the enemy, and afford them more proof of our determination to wrest from them the Empire of the Seas, and to comply with his Imperial Majesty's demand of Ships, Colonies and Commerce.

Our loss was trifling while that of the English was immense... Having acquired so decisive a victory we wait with impatience the Emperor's order to sail to the enemies shore, destroy the rest of his navy, and thus complete the triumphant work we have so brilliantly begun.

Well there you have it –everything we believed about Trafalgar is obviously wrong!.

To be honest I thought this report was hilarious, especially the crap about the duel between Nelson and Villeneuve!

So you thought you knew what happened at Trafalgar!

The battle of Trafalgar was a crushing victory. 33 Royal Navy vessels (of which 27 were ships of the line) took on 41 French and Spanish ships (of which 33 were ships of the line). 22 French and Spanish vessels were captured or destroyed; no RN vessel was lost.

I was therefore rather amused to find this item while looking through the Napoleonic Guide. Apparently the article was originally published in the French newspaper Le Moniteur.

The English fleet is annihilated - Nelson is no more. Indignant at being inactive in Port... Admirals Villeneuve and Gravina resolved to put to sea and give the English a fight... Nelson did everything to avoid a battle, he attempted to enter the Mediterranean, but we chased him, and caught him off Trafalgar. The French and Spaniards vied with each other to get into action first. Admiral's Villeneuve and Gravina were both anxious to lay their ships alongside the Victory, the English Admiral's ship... In vain did the English Admiral try to avoid action but the Spanish Admiral Oliva prevented his escape, and lashed his vessel to the English flagship. The English ship was one of 186 guns; the Santissima Trinidad was but a 74.....

... We fought yard-arm to yard-arm, gun to gun. Three hours did we fight in this manner, the English began to be dismayed... two ships, one French and one Spanish, boarded the Temeraire....We rushed to the flag-staff and struck their colours...

Meanwhile Nelson still resisted. It was now a race to see who should first board and have the honour of taking him; French or Spanish. Two Admirals on each side disputed the honour and boarded his ship at the same moment.... Villeneuve flew on to the quarter-deck and with the usual generosity of the French, he carried a brace of pistols in his hands. He knew the Admiral had lost his arm, and could not use his sword so he offered a pistol to Nelson, they fought, and at the second shot Nelson fell... Meanwhile 15 English ships of the line had struck, four more were obliged to follow their example and another blew up. - Our victory was now complete, and we prepared to take possession of our prizes, but the elements were by this time unfavourable to us and a dreadful storm came on.

....At length when the gale ceased, 13 of the French & Spanish line returned safely to Cadiz; the other 20 have, no doubt, gone to some other ports and will soon be reported. We shall repair our damage as speedily as possible and then go again in pursuit of the enemy, and afford them more proof of our determination to wrest from them the Empire of the Seas, and to comply with his Imperial Majesty's demand of Ships, Colonies and Commerce.

Our loss was trifling while that of the English was immense... Having acquired so decisive a victory we wait with impatience the Emperor's order to sail to the enemies shore, destroy the rest of his navy, and thus complete the triumphant work we have so brilliantly begun.

Well there you have it –everything we believed about Trafalgar is obviously wrong!. To be honest I thought this report was hilarious, especially the crap about the duel between Nelson and Villeneuve!