612. Nelson: The Final Showdown (Part 5)

After two years at sea chasing the combined fleet of France and Spain, what was Nelson’s next step? Upon returning to his beloved Emma, how was the heroic Nelson received? What was the terrifying Napoleon Bonaparte scheming for his fleet across the seas? And, would Britain finally face an imminent French invasion, and with it apocalypse - for both Britain and Nelson himself? Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the build up to one of the most totemic naval clashes of all time - Trafalgar - and Nelson; the man behind it all. _______ Start generating your own greener electricity for less, with £500 off Solar. Visit https://www.hivehome.com/history for more information. T&Cs apply* *Output and savings varies by season, electricity usage and system size. Paid-for surplus requires an eligible SEG tariff. Offer for new customers only. Ends 17th November. This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Try Claude for free today at Claude.ai/RestIsHistory _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editor: Jack Meek Social Producer: Harry Balden Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Producer: Tabby Syrett Senior Producer: Theo Young-Smith Exec Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:03Tom Holland?

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• 0:06Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 1:03Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 1:19Tom Holland?

  This episode is brought to you by the Gates Foundation. We have touched on the fall of the Roman Empire a few times on this show, haven't we? But what our listeners may not know is that among the causes that historians talk about, it's not just barbarian invasions. There's also talk of a disease which people call Roman fever, which I believe we know now as malaria. For thousands of years, humanity was defenseless against it. But thankfully, we live in a time of incredible ingenuity. And American scientists and partners around the world are fighting back with support from the Gates Foundation.

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• 2:20Tom Holland?

  This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Now, history's biggest leaps started as hard questions that people didn't want asked.

• 2:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, there's a classic example of that at the end of the 15th century. And the hard question in particular was, what is out there beyond the Atlantic Ocean to the west? And as you will know, the man who found the answer to that question was the explorer Christopher Columbus. And he realises, or rather, everybody else realises, that there is a vast continent out there. And it is, of course, the Americas. So Anthropic knows the importance of questions. And it's why Anthropic is founded on one hard question above all. How can we ensure that the AI revolution really goes well for ordinary people?

• 3:02Tom Holland?

  So they asked over 100,000 people, and what came back wasn't just fear, there was hope as well. People wanted to know, will cancer ever be cured? Can kids have a better future? It turns out that there is hope in hard questions.

• 3:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Ask yours at claude.ai/RestIsHistory and keep thinking.

• 3:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. We obviously love history here. It's always a treat to make a new discovery, especially in unexpected ways.

• 3:34Tom Holland?

  Which is exactly what happens on TikTok. Like, you know, coffee, you make it, add milk, drink it, nothing more, except...

• 3:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Except when you hop on TikTok, you don't just learn how to make an authentic cappuccino. You can also discover videos about how in the 1700s, people would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it.

• 4:01Tom Holland?

  And suddenly, you're imagining how people lived, drank, socialised. Makes you wonder, what will baffle historians about us? And that's the joy of TikTok. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different.

• 4:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Visit tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 4:35Tom Holland?

  When it was time to go, Nelson went up alone to the bedroom where little Horatio lay fast asleep. For a while he knelt in silent prayer by her bedside. Then, very gently, he kissed her on the forehead and went downstairs. His boxes had been loaded aboard the coach. Emma was crying harder than ever now. Again Nelson knelt on the ground in prayer and asked God to bless her. For the last time, he clasped her to his chest. “Brave Emma, heroic Emma, you encourage me to go forth,” he said gently.

• 5:19Tom Holland?

  If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons. Then he climbed up into the coach and raised his left hand, and he was gone. Afterwards, Nelson wrote in his journal: “Friday night, at half past ten, drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all which I hold dear in this world, to go to serve my King and country. May the great God whom I adore enable me to fill the expectations of my country. And if it is his good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered

• 6:00Tom Holland?

  up to the throne of his mercy. If it is his good providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying that he will protect those so dear to me that I leave behind. His will be done. Amen. Amen. Amen.”

• 6:26Tom Holland?

  An unbelievably moving scene. I mean, how I got through that without choking up, I do not know. It's the last farewell of Horatio Nelson to his beloved Emma Lady Hamilton and their daughter Horatio on the evening of the 13th of September 1805. Dominic, it has been described many times, but I doubt it has ever been described in more powerful and emotional terms than in that passage of prose which comes from Adventures in Time, Nelson, hero of the seas. And you don't need me to tell you that you wrote it. And can I just compliment you on giving proper credence to Emma's report of his parting

• 7:10Tom Holland?

  words to her? If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsens because there are some black-hearted biographers who have doubted that he ever said that.

• 7:17Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's the kind of melodramatic thing that Nelson would say though, isn't it?

• 7:20Tom Holland?

  I agree. I think, I absolutely think he said it.

• 7:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  The thing is, I'm not a massive Lady Hamilton fan, as you know, but it strikes me as absolutely plausible that Nelson turned his departure, that both of them actually turned his departure into this enormously sort of melodramatic theatrical spectacle. And actually, that's what this week's episodes are going to be, a massively melodramatic theatrical spectacle, because it is, I think, the most dramatic, the most exciting, the most emotionally charged story in naval history, arguably in all British history, Nelson's last voyage to the Day of Destiny at Trafalgar.

• 7:57Tom Holland?

  And the measure of that is that we've already done it once. So this is, I think, is really the only great story that we're retelling. But this time, we're telling it with the focus on Nelson himself, aren't we?

• 8:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, because last time, when we did three episodes about Trafalgar, we looked at it in a sort of, we brought all our knowledge of naval military history.

• 8:16Tom Holland?

  Rope, guns, ships of the line.

• 8:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  But now we're bringing our psychological insight to discuss it from Nelson's own perspective, aren't we? At least that's the excuse. So the great man will always be in the foreground. And maybe for those people who've been on this voyage with us from the beginning, we can just do a little recap. So last time, Tom, we ended July 1805. And to quote Russell Crowe in Master and Commander, England is under threat of invasion.

• 8:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  So after, so after two years.

• 8:49Tom Holland?

  It's not a laughing matter.

• 8:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, it's not actually. I shouldn't be laughing. I'm laughing to stop myself sobbing with, with patriotic. Exactly. So after two years at sea, Nelson has pursued the combined fleet of France and Spain under Pierre Charles Villeneuve and Federico Gravina, all the way to the Caribbean and all the way back. And Villeneuve has holed up in the northern Spanish port of Ferrol. So the threat has faded for the time being. It's been bottled up, but it hasn't completely disappeared. And that gives Nelson the chance, after all these years at sea, on his blockading mission, to go home at last to see his beloved Emma. And he lands in Portsmouth on Monday, the 19th of August.

• 9:34Tom Holland?

  And when he gets there, there's, there's a reprise of what's been a feature of his landing in England, which is the determination of people to unhitch the horses from his carriage and to carry him, to pull him himself while doing hazars. And it's the measure of how desperate Nelson is to get back to Emma. But this time, when they try and un-yoke the horses, he won't let them because he's desperate to get off and he can't, he's not having any of this business.

• 9:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  You were telling me before we started recording that you were hoping that Australians would do this for us when we arrive in Australia for our R S T history tour. That's right, isn't it?

• 10:07Tom Holland?

  We'd love some hazaring.

• 10:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Definitely. And people pulling us, pulling the carriage. I think that's very important. Anyway, so he sets off, he rushes to Merton. And early the next day, his coach turns into the new carriageway that has been built at Merton Place. Now, Emma has been waiting anxiously for him for two years. She's been, what should we say, sea bathing in Southend on Sea.

• 10:32Tom Holland?

  Which has become massively popular in England. So Brighton is the famous place where, where people go to do it. And, and Emma had actually become a fan of bathing in Italy because Sir William Hamilton, her husband, had brought her a bathing machine from England so that she could protect her complexion from the Italian sun. So she's very au fait with bathing.

• 10:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  How does the machine protect you from the sun?

• 10:53Tom Holland?

  I think you you drive it out, don't you? And so you put your feet out and protects you.

• 10:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  But you're basically covered by some form of roof.

• 11:01Tom Holland?

  I don't know. I'm being ambushed here by questions about bathing machines.

• 11:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, yeah, you shouldn't have put that detail in if you weren't prepared to to explore it.

• 11:08Tom Holland?

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 11:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, anyway, she rushes home. She's incredibly excited and she has arranged on hearing the news of his return to have Horatio, who is now four, brought from Mrs. Gibson, who is her kind of guardian. So Nelson, when he arrives at Merton, he is absolutely overjoyed to see Horatio in particular.

• 11:31Tom Holland?

  Who he hasn't officially acknowledged as his own, has he?

• 11:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, but he really dotes on her. He makes arrangements for her to go to Sunday School. He is, of course, the son of a vicar, so he takes that very seriously. I think there's an expectation, don't you, that he would like Horatio to live with them permanently at Merton from this point onwards? And he's also thrilled with the house. I mentioned the new Carriageway. Emma has done a lot of work in the last two years on the house. Sort of grand designs have been in. And she has got a new kitchen. There's a new library, loads of new pictures of Nelson and herself.

• 12:08Tom Holland?

  That's the key, the key thing. I mean, basically, there were there were kind of two houses and she's she's knitted them together and she's brought up lots of estates around it so that it's a much more prepossessing place than when Nelson had left.

• 12:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  And she fancied herself as a garden designer as well because Nelson, I think, said she was a regular capability brown or something of that ilk.

• 12:27Tom Holland?

  There's no end to her talents.

• 12:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, amazing. But actually Nelson doesn't spend as much time in Merton as he would like because his main business is in London. The very next day after arriving in Merton, he goes into London to meet various kind of bigwigs from the government and the Admiralty. Chief among them, William Pitt, Pitt the Younger, who is Prime Minister, and the new Secretary of State for War, who is Lord Castle Ray. And when he gets there, Nelson is quite anxious that he will be, that people will give him a lot of grief for failing to catch a heel nerve because that, of course, was his ambition. To catch up with the combined fleet and to destroy it. So he's a little bit anxious. People will say, gosh, you've let us down. But actually, when he gets there to London, he finds that the newspapers are hailing him as the man who has saved the Caribbean

• 13:12Dominic Sandbrook?

  for Britain, the West Indian colony, basically the sugar islands, which is so important to Britain's economic prosperity.

• 13:19Tom Holland?

  Well, I mean, also, I think they're recognizing the scale of his accomplishment in keeping his fleet together under such grueling circumstances and ensuring that Vilnav can't do anything.

• 13:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I think that's completely right. I think he's, he is now at this point, we've talked in previous episodes about things like when he went on a kind of progress around the countryside and people were hailing him and stuff. He is a genuine celebrity. He is the supreme patriotic hero. So an American tourist afterwards described seeing him in the strand, he's sunburnt, of course, because he's been at sea all this time. He walks with the sailors' gait, so he has this amusing sort of rolling walk. And this American said, when he enters a shop, the door is thronged till he comes out, when the air rings with hazars and the dark cloud of the populace again moves on and hangs upon his skirts. He's a great favourite with all descriptions of people.

• 14:12Tom Holland?

  It's going to be like us in Sydney.

• 14:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is very similar scenes, actually. And his mate, Lord Minto, whom we've encountered previously, being extremely disparaging about the mainage at Merton and the interior decoration. Lord Minto came across him in Piccadilly and found him mobbed by a crowd and actually went into the crowd to kind of get him out and said afterwards, it was affecting to see the wondrous admiration and love and respect of the whole world the moment he is seen. It's beyond anything represented in a play or a poem.

• 14:41Tom Holland?

  And I think also for the Admiralty, they are also affected by this, aren't they? The sense that he is something more now than just an admiral or an officer to be slotted into a chain of command, that his fame and his charisma have transcended that, that he is. The person inevitably that they're going to turn to when and if the great moment of crisis comes.

• 15:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, he's become from being a slightly difficult asset, which he was a couple of years ago, he's now more than that, isn't he? He's the embodiment of the naval spirit itself.

• 15:17Tom Holland?

  Yeah, he's an icon.

• 15:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I think to make sense of this, you have to see Nelson as part of a sort of a dichotomy. You've got Nelson on one side and you have Napoleon on the other. Because just as people are swooning before Nelson, hatred of Napoleon Bonaparte has now reached an absolute peak in Britain. So the newspapers paint him, which had actually not been entirely unadmiring in the 1790s, now paint him as this sort of Corsican dwarf, as I quote, "a plunderer and murderer with a malignant spirit, a depraved imagination and a heart black with crimes of the deepest dye. Our prosperity and glory, our opposition to his

• 15:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  schemes of universal conquest, rankle in his mind and prey upon his heart, exciting that deadly enmity which would drown our island with blood." So Napoleon as the bogeyman is now at his absolute height.

• 16:13Tom Holland?

  But I mean, it's kind of interesting because obviously there are people who still admire Napoleon, and this will be the case right the way throughout the Napoleonic Wars. So Byron is a kind of famous example, but even Byron admires Nelson. I think even the people at Holland House, the supporters of Fox and all these people, the Whigs, even they sense that in Nelson, they have someone who is a kind of transcendent charismatic figure.

• 16:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  And I think for the mass of the public, you know, the great sweep of European history is reduced in their minds, is simplified in their minds into a clash between these two men. And a lot of this is because London is now in the grip of a full-blown invasion panic. So there are multiple invasion panics during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This one has been building since the war resumed in 1803. It's fueled by all these kind of Gilray cartoons and newspaper articles and so on. And, you know, you would see everywhere in London, if you walk around, pictures of all the French schemes, sort of massive Paddle boats and fleets of balloons, a Channel Tunnel, all of this stuff.

• 17:17Tom Holland?

  Yes, and I think that that's a kind of subliminal memory that carried right the way up to the building of the actual Channel Tunnel that exists now. People were kind of nervous about-

• 17:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  The French will attack us.

• 17:26Tom Holland?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, they were, completely they were. And it's easy for us to laugh at it and say, oh, this is overblown, because we know the invasion didn't happen. But there were very good reasons for people to be frightened. I mean, just to get into the invasion panic, you know, the mood that Nelson encounters when he returns in 1805. If the French ever got across the Channel, they would be pretty much unstoppable. Britain has only a tiny army. What army it had, what professional army it had, had been devastated by a failed invasion of Haiti in the 1790s and has never really been rebuilt. Napoleon's army, by contrast, the most formidable machine in Europe, they've destroyed every enemy in their path, they've left a trail of blood behind them, plundering and sacking all these towns and villages in Italy and so on. And people are, it's understandable that people

• 18:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  think if the French ever did get across the Channel, you know, the consequences will be nightmarish for Britain.

• 18:17Tom Holland?

  But also, they only need control of the Channel for a day to land their forces. And then essentially, Britain would be knocked out of the war. So there was the marshal of Napoleon, Andre Massena, who said, we were never going to conquer Britain, no one even dreamt of it, it was just a question of ruining it, of leaving it in the condition that no one would ever have wanted to possess it. And essentially, that would mean destroying the dockyards, so Portsmouth.

• 18:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, Chatham, of course.

• 18:40Tom Holland?

  And Chatham would have been right in the pathway.

• 18:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  A place so close to your heart.

• 18:43Tom Holland?

  Yeah. So I think it's not entirely unjustified. I mean, the stakes are high. If the Royal Navy loses control of the seas, Britain is sunk.

• 18:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, that's marine metaphor there, Tom. Well done.

• 18:54Tom Holland?

  That's what I'm all about.

• 18:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  So by August 1805, all of this has reached a climax. Napoleon assembles his invasion force. It's French, Dutch and Bavarian armies, they're camped along the coast of the Channel, all the way from Boulogne eastwards to Antwerp, including the French cavalry and the Imperial Guards, so the very kind of cream of the Napoleonic war machine. And on the 20th of August, so that's just the day after I think Nelson has returned, he has a formal inspection in Boulogne. And there is a plan, I mean, the plan has been made that there would be a first wave of more than 100,000 men in 2,000 transports and then a second wave of 50,000 men in another 600 transports. Now, we know that they don't come and a lot of historians say it was actually never going

• 19:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  to work, this plan, but nobody knows this in Britain. And the newspapers in August 1805 are telling their readers, and I quote, "The movements on the French coast have given rise to the belief that the invasion of England will be attempted immediately." So there are all kinds of plans that have been made, a series of what are called optical telegraphs to link the Admiralty with Chatham, Tom, with Sheeness, with all these, so these are people like waving flags and stuff to communicate with each other on hills. There are beacons, there are coastal batteries, they are working on the Martello Towers, which actually don't get finished until after the Battle of Trafalgar.

• 20:19Tom Holland?

  And Donny, what about the sea fencibles?

• 20:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, the sea fencibles are the absolute crack troops, aren't they? People with one leg, disgruntled fishermen, anglers, whatever.

• 20:29Tom Holland?

  Twitching heads.

• 20:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  They've been called out. And actually, I have to say, almost 400,000 volunteers are drilling as Nelson arrives. Now, so people genuinely think this is going to happen. There are contingency plans to close the stock exchange, to safeguard the gold reserves in the Bank of England, even to move the King and the government to the Midlands, should the French actually manage to land. Now, William Pitt and Co. know that the control of the Channel is what this is all about. And that's of course why London had been thrown into panic by the news of Villeneuve and Gravina forming the combined fleet, because the combined fleet would outnumber.

• 21:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nelson's fleet. And they were also furious with this bloke, this bloke called Robert Calder, who had intercepted Vileneuf on his way home and basically allowed him to escape to Feral. And so everyone is saying, oh, this guy Calder is useless, which is actually very unfair, because the combined fleet should have been killed off. It shouldn't be have been allowed to get safe into port.

• 21:33Tom Holland?

  But it is a reminder of the absolute assumption that it's a duty of a Navy, a Royal Navy officer to attack, which has been the case ever since poor old Admiral Bing got shot on the deck of his own boat to encourage the others, as Voltaire put it.

• 21:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  So this is all the context to explain why Nelson's return home is such a popular sensation, and why there is such a tremendous sense of mounting tension and excitement of events speeding towards a showdown. John Sugden, in his brilliant biography of Nelson, has some excellent lines on this. He says, "Nowhere that summer could Nelson escape the feeling that he was in the centre of a huge unfolding drama, inexorably gathering pace towards some historic climax. He was the country's champion, arming himself for the decisive contest."

• 22:19Tom Holland?

  And I think, and we talked about this before, but I think he genuinely feels that he is kind of God's champion in this, that there is a kind of apocalyptic tinge to the whole drama that is brewing.

• 22:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think so. I think he thinks, listen, this is now, this is it now. If I can destroy the combined fleet, that is it. The war at sea is over, it is done. Britain is the mistress of the seas, end of story. And actually, in that case, the Royal Navy can take over the French and Spanish trade, it can blockade their ports, and over time, we can squeeze Napoleon into surrender. And basically.

• 22:56Tom Holland?

  That is what happens.

• 22:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  That is what happens.

• 22:57Tom Holland?

  And that doctrine of annihilation, I mean, again, we've talked about this throughout the series, it's, it's one that Nelson absolutely upholds, but it is also essentially Royal Navy dogma, and increasingly, getting up close, blasting the enemy ships out of the water. This is becoming the orthodoxy, but it takes Nelson to enshrine it and to reveal the full devastating impact that it can have.

• 23:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I think that's right. I think all this time he's turning over the plan in his mind, what he'll do. You know, he knows when the showdown will come and he's, he's thinking, how will I do this? There's a very, very famous story, a guy who Captain Richard Keats visited Merton and Nelson went for a walk with him and said, okay, here is the plan. I will go straight at the combined fleet when I see them. I'll have two attacking columns to splinter their line. He says, what do you think of it? I'll tell you what I think of it. I think it will surprise and confound the enemy. They won't know what I'm about. It will bring forward a pell-mell battle and that's what I want. So get in really close and go for it.

• 23:57Tom Holland?

  So Adam Nicholson, in his brilliant book on Trafalgar, describes it as the introduction of chaos as a tool of battle, because the, the kind of the traditional naval battle is like a kind of a waltz, a minuet, like the kind of thing that you see in a Jane Austen adaptation. His plan is to totally upend that and in the conditions of chaos, rely on the fact that British gunnery is so superior that the Royal Navy ships will inevitably emerge triumphant.

• 24:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  But will he get the chance? This is the question. So all the time he's waiting and waiting and waiting for news. And then at five o'clock in the morning on Monday, the second of September, a coach and four comes rattling down the drive towards Merton Place and out gets this naval officer who's quite a stocky bloke. He's, he's come all the way by sea and by land. So he's covered with seawater and mud. And this guy is called Henry Blackwood and he is the captain of the frigate Eurailus. And he has come all the way from Cadiz with news from Admiral Collingwood, Cuthbert Collingwood, who's been keeping tabs on the Spanish port on the Spanish coast. And this is what Blackwood says to

• 25:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nelson. He says, Vilnav has left Feral. He left two weeks ago on the 13th of August. He clearly was planning to head towards France, but he was deterred by the sight of British cruisers and he's turned around and gone south. Vilnav has now taken refuge in the port at Cadiz. He and Gravina have almost 40 ships between them, but they're very short on morale and they're very short on food and water and supplies generally. Now, in truth, Vilnav is pretty much a kind of, is a very demoralised, broken man. Vilnav has lost faith completely in his emperor's plan, which he always thought was mad.

• 25:43Tom Holland?

  To be fair, the emperor has also lost faith in him, which is also preying on Vilnav's mind.

• 25:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is. Now Nelson doesn't know this, but he does know that Vilnav cannot stay in Cadiz for long because there will not be enough supplies. He will have to leave to find supplies. And when he does, you know, this is it.

• 26:02Tom Holland?

  But Dominic also said there's a risk, isn't there, that he might go into the Mediterranean, which would cause chaos, or he might head northwards. So there's opportunity, but there is also risk in Vilnav and the Spanish breaking out.

• 26:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because there's another Spanish fleet at Cartagena. And if Vilnav was to link up with them and then to head into the Mediterranean, who knows where he could go? Sardinia, Sicily,

• 26:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Naples, Egypt again, you know, it's hard. Or what if he then makes for the Channel? So Nelson thinks, right, this is my chance. The stakes are very high. If I can annihilate Vilnav now, then it's, the war is won at sea. So within hours, he's jumped into a carriage and he is heading into London. He goes straight to the Admiralty, then he goes to Downing Street to meet William Pitt and the First Lord, Lord Barham. Nelson says, you know, give me the chance. I want to strike immediately. That will eliminate the threat of invasion. That will give us command of the Mediterranean forever. And as he later told a friend of his, George Rose, who was a confidant of William Pitt, he said, it is annihilation

• 27:12Dominic Sandbrook?

  that the country wants, not merely a splendid victory. So this is going to be a different kind of battle. The question is, will he get enough ships? Lord Barham says, look, I've only got about 70 ships of the line fit for service to cover the entire globe. But, he says, I will back you. Go back to Cadiz, take over the victory and take command of the fleet. You can name your own officers. I will send you whatever ships I can. You're probably going to get about 27 in total. And let us hope that is enough. And your instructions, I'll leave it very simple. To protect Britain's trade, to prevent the enemy getting to sea, everything else is up to you. You handle it as you see fit.

• 27:54Tom Holland?

  And I think, don't you, that, that this is the Admiralty and the, and the Prime Minister and the government. Buying into this sense of Nelson's destiny, that fate has brought him to this point, and they are kind of going, yes, go for it.

• 28:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I think so. You can really sense the mood at this point, this sort of sense of, that John Suckton described, of events hastening towards an inevitable conclusion. And they were all really buying into this. The very next day, it started to rain. And you know, it's a sort of fantastic example of the kind of pathetic fallacy. It starts to rain, grey skies. Emma Hamilton has been very downcast by the news that Villeneuve is out. She had hoped that Nelson would be ashore for months, but once again, the clock is ticking. And she writes this letter, doesn't she, to Lady Kitty Bolton. "It seems as though I've had a fortnight's dream and I'm awoke to all the misery of this cruel separation, but

• 28:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  what can I do? His powerful arm is of so much consequence to his country, but I cannot say more. My heart is broken." Of course, Nelson doesn't have that much time to think about this because he's thinking about his plan. He is anxious whether he's going to have enough ships. He's thinking about this business about smashing them into fragments. So he's rushing back and forth across London, making all the preparations, getting all the stuff ready, making sure they'll have enough supplies. You know, is he going to link up the victory, all of this kind of thing. Interestingly, there is a sense of fatalism, I think, to Nelson, isn't there? There's a sense that he knows this could be it for him.

• 29:29Tom Holland?

  And I think that that's not just fatalism. I think that's realism, because as we've been saying, his plan is to form two columns that will drive straight into the French and Spanish lines, which is ripping up the orthodoxy of how you fight a battle. And I'm sure by this point, there's no question that he, on victory, is going to be leading one of those two columns. And that means that he will be directly in the line of fire, because essentially, he can't ask his men to risk such a dangerous course of action and not himself be in the forefront of the fighting. So he must think, you know, I'm going to be in more danger in this battle than I've ever been before. And doubtless, he has told Emma this, and that's why she is, well, lacrimose would be an unfair word.

• 30:13Tom Holland?

  I mean, that's why she's so devastated at the thought of him leaving.

• 30:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I think so. So his last full day is Thursday, the 12th of September. And again, he spends most of it in London. He goes to see Lord Castle Ray at the Colonial Office in Downing Street, very famous incident.

• 30:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nelson is shown into an anteroom to wait for Lord Castle Ray. And another man is waiting there who's a short man, another short man, who has a very distinctive kind of beaky nose. And this other man makes some sort of polite small talk to Nelson. But Nelson is tired and of course he's nervous and he's excited and distracted. And the other man said afterwards, he could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side and all about himself. And in really a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me.

• 31:06Tom Holland?

  So that's the tone of Lord Minto visiting Merton and seeing all the Nelson memorabilia everywhere.

• 31:12Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is. So Nelson just talking about himself. Then the other man must have said something that made Nelson think, because Nelson then went out and he had a word with the clerk or the official outside, obviously to find out who this bloke was. And then he came in and was completely transformed, because this man is Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley, who is just back from India, having been smiting the Maharatha Empire and keeping India for the East India Company. And he is of course, the future Duke of Wellington. And Wellington said, when Nelson came back in, he was altogether a different man, both in manner and matter. What Wellington called his charlatan style had vanished and he talked about strategy

• 31:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  and politics with a good sense and a knowledge that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done. He talked like an officer and a statesman. I don't know that I've ever had a conversation that interested me more. There you have the two. I mean, obviously this is after the event, so maybe there's a tiny pinch of salt.

• 32:14Tom Holland?

  It plays very well for Wellington, doesn't it? Because on the one hand, it makes him look good, but it also subtly makes Nelson look a bit of a coxcomb.

• 32:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  But with that said, this is Nelson to a T, right? I mean, Nelson would have just talked about himself and been completely vain and self-interested.

• 32:30Tom Holland?

  Well, maybe. I think Nelson has a capacity to take an interest in, in someone else.

• 32:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  He has lapses. I mean, he's often had lapses. Remember that time when he was going from Naples all the way through Vienna and Prague and whatnot? And he wasn't always showing himself to.

• 32:44Tom Holland?

  Yeah, possibly.

• 32:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  His, his best side then. Anyway. He's had that meeting with Lord Castle, where his very last meeting is at number 10 Downing Street, and this is his farewell to William Pitt. We don't know what was said, but we do know that Pitt unusually is said to have come down with Nelson and escorted him to his carriage, which was a marked gesture, I think, of affection and respect, because Pitt didn't usually do this. Actually, on his way out of town, there is one last thing. He makes sure, he stops to make sure that the very latest signal book has been sent to the fleet. A good example, actually, of his attention to detail. Nelson knows these little things could really make a difference.

• 33:23Tom Holland?

  Do you think he already has a zingy slogan in mind?

• 33:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, a slogan that actually, as we'll find out, has to be corrected by his signals lieutenant, because he's trying to send a message for which there's no code. Anyway, that we're jumping ahead. Back he goes to Merton, he's there in time for dinner. But it's a pretty sad occasion. Lord Minto, who is there, said that Emma could not eat and hardly drink and was near swooning. And Lord Minto, who's no Emma fan, found all this very over the top and very sort of showy and performative. So Emma is clearly very, very upset. You know, Nelson is going away and maybe this will be for the last time.

• 34:01Tom Holland?

  He will have shared the odds with her. I mean, you know, I don't think it's performative at all. I think if you're in love with someone and he's going off and likely to die, I think you're allowed the occasional tear.

• 34:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, you are soft-hearted. So the next day is Friday the 13th of September. It's the last day of their lives together. It's a cloudy, windy day and they are stuck inside in Merton. Now, it may be today that there's a sort of celebrated incident. They took communion together, Nelson and Emma, and they exchanged gold rings in what they called a private sacrament. So photographers often describe this as kind of unofficial betrothal or marriage ceremony. Nelson, of course, is married already to Fanny. His ring, which I think recently came up for auction. It was mounted with a large H and was actually engraved with the date, the 13th of September, probably afterward. Well, it must have been afterwards, I guess, which

• 34:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  suggests that they did something because they know, as you've said, this could be it. This could be the last time they ever see each other. You know, it's a very humdrum day. Nelson's doing a lot of chores. He's making a lot of arrangements to pay, you know, bills, bills for Prince, no doubt of himself, and wine and whatnot, and architects' bills. The coach has been ordered for 10 o'clock that evening to take him down to the coast to the victory. Night falls. The hour approaches. The scene that you described earlier, he goes up to Horatio to say goodbye. The coach is loaded. Emma is in tears. She won't come outside. Nelson comes back in four times from the coach. And finally, he does this thing where he kneels and asks God's blessing. And he says these lines that, Tom,

• 35:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  you find very moving. If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons in all of this. But that's not the last exchange. Actually, the very last exchange is with his brother in law, George Matcham, and who's married to Nelson's sister. And Nelson says to George, I'm actually really sorry that I haven't done more for our family. You know, I should have done more, made more money. Maybe this time I'll get some prize money. And George says to him, we want for nothing. All that matters to us is that you're safe. And away Nelson goes into the night. And then he writes that moving journal entry that you read out, where he's again thinking about his own death. If it's God's good providence to cut short my days on earth, I bow with the greatest submission. And he hopes that

• 36:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  God will protect those so dear to me that I leave behind. And as we'll see next time, that's a running theme, even in extremis, before the battle and after the battle, Nelson is thinking about those people that he's left behind. At 6 o'clock the following morning, his carriage arrives at the Georgian at Portsmouth. And Nelson writes a note to Emma. My dearest and most beloved of women, Emma, Nelson's Emma, I arrived here. Victory is at St. Helens. If possible, I shall be away at sea this day. God protect you, my dear Horatio. Portsmouth is a port preparing for war. Carts and wagons everywhere, loads of people. I mean, this is a great dockyard. It's one of the great motors of Britain's war efforts. And Nelson, actually, before he leaves, this is a lovely detail.

• 37:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  He has the time to visit a new manufactory that is almost ready to kind of go online at Portsmouth, which is this block mills powered by steam. It's the most advanced factory on earth. It has been designed by a French exile called Marc Isambard Brunel. And it has machines basically to create these blocks, these kind of blocks. I don't quite understand what these blocks do. They're kind of to do with pulleys, aren't they?

• 37:35Tom Holland?

  Yeah, pulleys and ropes.

• 37:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, exactly. So brilliant rope work.

• 37:39Tom Holland?

  And the, the amazing detail that I remember from our previous series is that there was machinery operating in Portsmouth when Nelson left on Victory that was still operating in 1982 when the Falklands Task Force left. I mean, it's incredible.

• 37:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's a crazy detail, isn't it? So he goes back to the George Inn after that. He goes through the back door to avoid the crowds and he's going to leave from the beach by the bathing machines.

• 38:02Tom Holland?

  So a nice Emma related touch there.

• 38:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is. It's not the normal place. He's trying to escape the crowds, but actually there are hundreds of people waiting. And as he comes down to the boarding point, there are people kneeling on the ground. There are people cheering. There are people trying to touch his coat. Some people are in tears. And as his boat pushes away towards the Victory, they give him three cheers and he waves his hat in farewell. And then very famously Nelson murmurs, I had their huzzards before, I have their hearts now.

• 38:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  And by 11:30, he is on the Victory and his last voyage begins.

• 38:40Tom Holland?

  Unbelievable drama. My heart is beating so fast that I need to go and calm down, but we will be back in a few minutes to continue the story of Nelson's journey to Trafalgar.

• 38:55Tom Holland?

  This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude.

• 39:00Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 39:04Tom Holland?

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• 39:23Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 39:38Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 40:26Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 42:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Hello, everyone. Welcome back. It is Saturday, the 14th of September, 1805. Horatio Nelson has been reunited with HMS Victory, and he is preparing to sail south to face the combined fleet, the French and Spanish ships. And Dominic, he has exactly one month and one week left to live. So, the Victory. The Victory, with which Nelson is forever associated, is an excellent neck. It is, you know, it's how old is the Victory at this point? It's about 40 years, I think? Yeah, 40 years old. It was named after the victories in the Seven Years' War, wasn't it? It's had a full refit while he's been ashore. The rigging's been repaired, the deck's been scrubbed, the guns have been taken out

• 43:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  and checked and run in again. The crew are pretty knackered. They haven't had a break, unlike Nelson. And Hardy, he's been flogging away. He sneaks up behind you. With his big feet and his stooped shoulders. Yeah, he is absolutely exhausted. I mean, people, when they saw him, said he looked like he'd aged 20 years in one year. And he already looked quite old. In their favor, they are very healthy. So Hardy has looked after their health as Nelson has. They're tired. But they are fit and they know they're, you know, as we will discover, they are the best fighting men anywhere in the world. They know exactly what their goal is.

• 44:03Tom Holland?

  And pumped by having Nelson.

• 44:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course, they're delighted to see him. So now they sail south, banned for Spain. They make quite slow progress because it's foggy and windy, not windy in a good way. Nelson all the time, as so often is writing to Emma, entreating her to cheer up and saying, you know, we can look forward to many, many happy years and to be surrounded by our children, our children's children. As I said, they move quite slowly. They only glimpse Lisbon on the 25th of September, 11 days later, and they only reach the fleet off Cadiz three days after that. When they get there, there is this tremendous sense of excitement among the captains in Cadiz. So many of these captains are not familiar to Nelson. These are not the Band of Brothers from the Nile. These are often younger, much more inexperienced

• 44:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  men. Only five of them have commanded a ship of the Lion in battle before. Some of these are well-known names, you know, they, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Fremantle, Edward Berry, a vice admiral, Cuthbert Collingwood, of course, Nelson's old friend from when they were very young. Collingwood, I mean, we talked about him in ironically, the episode about history's greatest dogs.

• 45:11Tom Holland?

  We did, his beloved dog, Bounce.

• 45:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. So Collingwood, who's been in charge of the fleet, he's a sort of, he's a really kind of kindly and decent man, quite shy and retiring, but doesn't have Nelson's star quality, does he? He loves nothing more than his Northumberland garden.

• 45:27Tom Holland?

  He does, and planting oak trees there. But, I mean, Nelson doesn't know many of the captains, but of course, the captains know all about Nelson. And for them, it's like the arrival of a rock star.

• 45:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  Very exciting moment. So it's Saturday, the 28th of September that he reaches the fleet and he immediately says, let's pull back the fleet. We are over the horizon. We will leave the frigates to watch Cadiz. We don't want to blockade it too closely because we want Vile now to come out.

• 45:55Tom Holland?

  But having the frigates there, he's learnt the lesson from when the French fleet had escaped from Toulon. His blockade there had existed to encourage the French to come out, but it had left a gap that they had then utilised. He's not going to let that happen now.

• 46:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  No. So they're waiting for the French, but the weather is very fine, sort of dry, hazy, there's no wind. The French and the Spanish are not going to move in this kind of weather.

• 46:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  The next day, the Sunday, is Nelson's 47th birthday. He has exactly 22 days to live. And that Sunday afternoon, he starts the process of building team spirit and camaraderie among the captains. He invites them in batches to dinner aboard the Victory. And because they're younger and because they're not as experienced, he is very keen to make them feel part of the story, part of the planning and whatnot. So he will gather them. This is one of the things that makes him a brilliant leader, a brilliant leader and a model of leadership. He will gather them in his great cabin, which you can visit today in Portsmouth on the Victory. They will sit around this big mahogany table. They will have dinner off silver plate and wine and wine glasses and so on.

• 47:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's very convivial and he makes them feel valued and makes them feel seen, to use today's kind of jargon.

• 47:09Tom Holland?

  Yeah, there's such kind of wonderful testimony. So Captain Fremantle, "We dined with Lord Nelson, the juniors and I never passed a pleasant a day. I stand with him until eight at night. He would not let me leave him before." And then there's another captain, George Duff, who'd never met Nelson and writes to his wife, "I dined with his lordship yesterday and had a very merry dinner. He is certainly the pleasantest admiral I ever served under. He is so good and pleasant a man that we all wish to do what he likes without any kind of orders." And you get there the sense of the star quality. He's writing to his wife, saying, "I've met Nelson." But also, he's great. He puts you at ease and he makes you feel like you are part of a band of brothers.

• 47:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  And this is exactly Nelson's plan. He wants them to feel calm and confident. He knows that they will be outnumbered, so they have to completely believe in what they are doing. And what he wants to explain in particular is this thing that he calls the Nelson touch, which is a strategy that is based on speed and aggression, striking really fast and hard under full sail, get in close for this pell mell battle and annihilate the French and the Spanish and settle the issue at sea for good. It is annihilation that the country wants, not merely a splendid victory.

• 48:24Tom Holland?

  And of course, the parallel there is with Napoleon on land. That's Napoleon's strategy. And in that sense, Nelson is the kind of the British Napoleon.

• 48:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  You know, the comparison with Napoleon is an interesting one because both of them inspire this extraordinary affection and respect among their closest officers. Nelson described, and I don't think he's exaggerating, he wrote to Emma, he said, when I explained to them my plan, the Nelson touch, it was like an electric shock. Some shed tears, all approved. It was new, it was singular, it was simple. I think part of this is Nelson's star quality, but also you mentioned earlier, this is becoming part of the culture of the Navy. The Royal Navy over the last sort of 10, 20 years has developed this new ethos. No more of the sort of stately minuets. You get in and you absolutely go for total destruction of the enemy. And that's something new in naval history.

• 49:18Tom Holland?

  And what he is saying to his captains is, you are the best and your men are the best. And my strategy reflects that. So it's very, very complimentary to them.

• 49:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  But will they get the battle? September becomes October and still they wait. Nelson's fleet has now been reinforced. It's grown to 33 ships of the line. Most of them are two-decker 74s, the kind of standard, you know, battleship, warship of the day. And there are another four frigates. And these ships, to remind people, these are effectively huge floating gun platforms. They are killing machines.

• 49:54Tom Holland?

  I mean, the firepower available to Nelson is massively in excess of, say, the firepower that Wellington will have at Waterloo. I mean, by an enormous quantity.

• 50:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  And just a word on the men that he's commanding, 20,000 sailors and marines. And it's not a kind of modern contrivance to point out, this is a genuinely multinational kind of force. So on the Victory, for example, there are Englishmen, but there are also Scots, Irish. There are 22 Americans, nine men from the West Indies, Maltese, there's a Russian, there's an African, there are even three Frenchmen.

• 50:26Tom Holland?

  Yeah. And you see that famously on the the reliefs at the foot of Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square, very pointedly illustrated.

• 50:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes, an African guy who people identified as George Ryan. I might talk about him in the next episode. So for Nelson, keeping all these different men fit and healthy is the absolute priority. So actually, what he's doing in all this, all this time, day after day, is the kind of You know, the bureaucratic work that he'd been doing during the blockade. He's getting supplies, he's organising fresh food and water, he's organising drills, he's doing all this kind of thing.

• 51:00Tom Holland?

  He sends Jane Austen's brother off to get oranges.

• 51:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's right.

• 51:04Tom Holland?

  And so he then misses the the battle and is devastated. But of course, Dominic, what he's also doing is moping over Emma and writing poetry. Can I can I read a poem?

• 51:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think everyone would love that.

• 51:16Tom Holland?

  So this is his last love poem to Emma. No calm at sea, this heart shall know. While far from thee, midst lengthening hours of absence and of woe, I gaze in sorrow where the boundless deep, with eyes which, were they not ashamed, would weep. I think that's very good.

• 51:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  I know, so I think it's solid. I think it's pretty good. Yeah, I agree with you. I definitely agree with you. And while he's doing this, his captains are also doing a very nice thing. Something will be very familiar to anyone who's visited HMS Victory at Portsmouth. And that is they are painting their ships black and yellow in imitation of the colour scheme that Nelson preferred. I've read different things from his biographers. Some say that he ordered it and others, and they're gesturing that I prefer, say that his captains were motivated to do it voluntarily because they wanted to, as Captain Duff put it, paint their ships à la Nelson.

• 52:10Tom Holland?

  Kind of swarm of hornets as well.

• 52:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, the sense of being a team united in pursuit of a common goal. I like that. Now, still, the combined fleet don't come out. On the 2nd of October, Nelson sent a squadron under Sir Thomas Louis to collect food and water from Gibraltar and North Africa. So now his numbers are down by six, from 33 to 27, six fewer, as it turns out, than the combined fleet. Still, he waits. On the 9th of October, he sends Collingwood his final battle plan. And he says, I'm sending you this so you know exactly what I want to do and so that you can use your own initiative to carry out my instructions according to the general plan. He says, we can, my dear Cole, have no little jealousies. We can only have one great object in view

• 52:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  that of annihilating our enemies and getting a glorious peace for our country. No man has more confidence in another than I have in you, and no man will render your services more justice than your very old friend, Nelson and Bronte. It's Nelson reaching out to his kind of deputy. So Nelson explains the plan. Basically, there's two columns are going to attack and strike the enemy line head on. Nelson leading one in the victory, Collingwood leading the other in the Royal Sovereign. Now, what is unusual about this is admirals usually like to keep their ships in the centre, but Nelson says, no, I will lead from the front. We won't fire until we're really close.

• 53:36Tom Holland?

  But I mean, they won't be able to, will they? That's the key thing, because the reason that you have this minuet is that the ship can only fire at an angle. So if you're going straight at a line, you can't actually fire until you've broken through past the line.

• 53:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, but the danger is that if they're side on to you, they will be blasting and blasting you while you're, before you can turn to get into position to repay the compliments, as it were.

• 54:01Tom Holland?

  And so Nelson's presentiments of death, I think, are entirely natural. I mean, that's, that's what makes it so dangerous.

• 54:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes, exactly. However, still, the combined fleet does not move. Still, Nelson waits and more than two weeks go by. And by about Friday, the 18th, he's beginning to wonder if the combined fleet is ever going to come out at all. That day, the Friday, the wind off Cadiz changed and Nelson, in his journal, wrote, fine weather, wind easterly, the enemy cannot have finer weather to set sail. Collingwood sent him a message that day, saying, surely the combined fleet will move now. But the day passes and no news comes. And then the next morning, Saturday, the 19th of October, nine o'clock in the morning,

• 54:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nelson is writing a letter to Collingwood, Dear Cole, to invite him for dinner.

• 54:54Tom Holland?

  And bounce.

• 54:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  And bounce and the dog. What a beautiful day. Will he be tempted out of your ship? If you will, hoist the ascent and victory's pendants. And then just a moment after Nelson has written that letter, there comes a signal from the frigates. And Nelson knows what that means, because 50 miles east, in the port of Cadiz, Villeneuve's nerve at last has cracked and the French and the Spanish are going to put to sea.

• 55:22Tom Holland?

  So Dominic. What has been happening in Cadiz? Because you said that they can't really stay there because they didn't really have the supplies. I suppose there's also the risk of of disease if they don't have enough fruit. There's scurvy and all that kind of thing.

• 55:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  And they're ravaged by yellow fever.

• 55:38Tom Holland?

  Which they brought back from the Caribbean.

• 55:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes. Vilneuve has been basically skulking in Cadiz in a in a right misery. About half of his men were not sailors, they are infantrymen. And they've been supplemented by slaves from France's Caribbean colonies. Vilneuve was very disparaging about the quality of his own men. He said they were herdsman and beggars. Well, he is an aristocrat, a French aristocrat at that, the most aristocratic of all aristocrats. So in early October, he'd received orders from the Emperor from Napoleon telling him to break out of Cadiz and head east towards Italy. Because there, Bonaparte was planning a new offensive against Naples. Now, at first Vilneuve completely ignored his orders. He thought it's absolute madness to try to break out of Cadiz with Nelson just there, waiting for us.

• 56:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  Better to try to sneak out in bad weather or to wait for the British to lose interest and to divide their fleet. But then a week later, Vilneuve had heard two items of news that changed his mind. First of all, he heard this news that Nelson had sent Thomas Louis off to get supplies. So now the combined fleet had a numerical advantage. Secondly, and even more importantly, I think, he was told that Napoleon was about to sack him. That his replacement, in fact, was already en route to Cadiz, which is true. Vilneuve knew that armchair critics in Paris were saying that he was a coward, that he'd run away at the Battle of the Nile and he didn't have the guts to face Nelson. And this is really his last chance, if he's going to be sacked, to clear his name and to go down fighting.

• 57:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  And he says to his officers, they will see if I know how to fight. Because Vilneuve, to be clear, I don't think Vilneuve is a coward. I don't think he's a bad commander. I think he's actually a pretty honorable and in many ways, quite impressive and admirable man. And I think wanting to put to sea, you know, wanting to, you know, roll the dice and see if he can clear his name, an understandable and admirable thing to do. So on the 18th of October, he said to Gravina, his Spanish counterpart, with whom he actually got on pretty well. He said, look, we're going to put to sea. The way we will deal with Nelson if he catches up with us, because we've got so many infantrymen, we will turn this into a land battle.

• 57:46Tom Holland?

  Yeah, like the Romans.

• 57:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, the Romans with the Carthaginians.

• 57:50Tom Holland?

  But the irony of this is, of course, this is exactly what Nelson wants. Nelson wants to go in close, so in a sense, Philne's strategy is playing into his hands.

• 57:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Giving Nelson what he wants, exactly. But it's the only way Philne could conceivably win, I think. You know, if they had fought an old fashioned sea battle, Philne would still have lost. Anyway, Gravina, the Spanish guy, doesn't really, he's not massively convinced by this, but his orders are to go along with what Philne wants, so he says, fine and fair enough. And so that afternoon, the 18th, a very, very cinematic scene. The French and the Spanish officers walked to mass together in the church of the Virgin of Carmen, the patron saint of sailors in Cadiz. And then after five o'clock, these huge crowds have assembled on the quayside in silence, because they know just how bleak the situation is, they start to set off from the harbour. It took them all night, and by the morning of the 19th, the first French and Spanish

• 58:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  ships have reached the open sea. And this is the news that that morning, the frigates have transmitted to the Victory.

• 58:51Tom Holland?

  That stops Nelson from getting Collingwood over.

• 58:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, his dinner plans have been ruined. So immediately, he springs into action. He orders a general chase to Windward, i.e. to the south east. And within moments, the entire British fleet is making sail. And the crews, some of them already are frantically clearing the decks for action. They're rolling up the hammocks, they're removing the bulkheads and partitions, they're stowing the furniture, they're slaughtering the animals or throwing them overboard, but not the dog Bounce.

• 59:20Tom Holland?

  No, Bounce stays there, although he will be hiding in the bowels of Collingwood's ship because he doesn't like bangs. So I think it's very unfortunate for a nautical dog.

• 59:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Dogs don't like fireworks, do they? They don't like fireworks or any form of explosion.

• 59:32Tom Holland?

  In Nelson's cabin, you know, obviously, so all his personal effects are being stored away, and among those, of course, are his most treasured possessions, the pictures of Emma and of Horatio and people who listened way back to our episode on Emma Hamilton. We began with this moment, because even in the hurly burly of preparations for battle, he's still thinking about Emma and Horatio.

• 59:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Tom, I know you love to read a moving, emotional, tear soaked letter.

• 1:00:01Tom Holland?

  Can I read it again?

• 1:00:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think it would be a shame if you didn't.

• 1:00:04Tom Holland?

  So this is Nelson writing to Emma as the preparations for battle at Trafalgar are being made. My dearest beloved Emma, the dear friend of my bosom, the signal has been made that the enemy's combined fleet are coming out of port. May the God of battles crown my endeavours with success at all events. I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatio, both of whom I love as much as my own life and as my last writing before the battle will be to you. So I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the battle. And if that sounds breathless, it's because Nelson has picked up Emma's habit of never putting any punctuation into her letters. But I think the lack of punctuation just conveys the kind of the hurly burly sense of his emotions.

• 1:00:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  But this is only one of two letters that he writes there, Tom. So do you want to give us the second letter?

• 1:00:51Tom Holland?

  Yeah. So this is to his daughter, Horatio. My dearest angel, I was made happy by the pleasure of receiving your letter of September the 19th, and I rejoice to hear that you are so very good a girl and love my dear Lady Hamilton, who most dearly loves you. Give her a kiss for me. The combined fleet of the enemy are now reported to be coming out of Cadiz, and therefore I answer your letter, my dearest Horatio, to mark to you that you are ever uppermost in my thoughts. I shall be sure of your prayers for my safety, conquest and speedy return to dear Merton and our dearest good Lady Hamilton. Be a good girl. Mind what Miss Connor says to you.

• 1:01:32Tom Holland?

  Receive, my dearest Horatio, the affectionate parental blessing of your father. Nelson and Bronte.

• 1:01:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, your father. He didn't often write that, did he? While Tom is mopping his eyes, I'll tell you what happened next. So they sail all day and all night. Overnight, the weather turns. By Sunday morning, the 20th, it is raining hard, it's very misty, and there is no sign of the combined fleet. Briefly, Nelson turns back towards Cadiz. Have they retreated into port? No. A frigate from Henry Blackwood's inshore squadron signals to him the enemy are still definitely at sea and they are heading eastward. At 10 o'clock, that's Sunday, Collingwood is rowed to the victory with three other captains and they have one last meeting. And Collingwood says, when we find them, we should attack at once.

• 1:02:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nelson says, no, we're still too close to Cadiz. They could, you know, fight till darkness and then they could get away and that's the last thing we want. Let us wait till the morning when we're all further out. We will only get one chance. We want the whole day to do this, so we cannot waste it. Midday, they're 20 miles southwest of Cadiz now and there is still no sign of the enemy. And all afternoon, they continue sailing. And then at 6 o'clock, they get another signal from Henry Blackwood. His frigates have spotted the enemy, at least 30 of them, 30 ships to the northeast. So now you can imagine the tension. Darkness falls. The last night of Horatio Nelson's life. He can't sleep.

• 1:03:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  Out at sea, he can see nothing but the blue lights, the frigates assuring him that they can still see the enemy ahead. And every hour, Henry Blackwood fires a gun from his frigate to signal that all is well. It is a scene, Tom, of unbelievable tension and drama. Now, many great historians have written about this moment, but I think there's only one book that truly does it justice and we all know what that book is.

• 1:03:34Tom Holland?

  And for the avoidance of any doubt, that book is of course Adventures in Time: Nelson, Hero of the Seas by Dominic Sandbrook. And I shall read it now. So I'm kind of giving a reading from the Bible or something. Still, Nelson paced the deck, unable to sleep. Everything he had ever cared about, his king, his country, his friends and family, even his place in history, hung in the balance. This was more than a battle. It was the final chapter in a story that had begun long before he was born. Midnight came, then one o'clock, two, three, four o'clock. The enemy fleet was close, somehow, deep in his bones, he could feel it.

• 1:04:19Tom Holland?

  Five o'clock. The rain had stopped. The wind had dropped to a gentle breeze. In the east, the sun was rising, the faintest hint of red spreading across the far horizon. From the masthead came a shout. A sail on the starboard bow! And in the distance, he saw them, framed against the rising sun, a forest of masts emerging from the darkness. The awe-inspiring spectacle of the combined fleet, the naval might of France and Spain. It was Monday, the 21st of October, 1805.

• 1:05:02Tom Holland?

  The day of destiny had come at last. Do you know, Dominic? That is great! That is, oh God, I can't wait for the next episode. Oh my word, well. This is going to be our last episode. You will know what it is, it's going to be the Battle of Trafalgar. Will Nelson survive it? Only one way to find out. And if you are a member of the Rest is History Club, then of course you can hear it right away. If you would like to join them, go straight into the Battle of Trafalgar, then you can head to therestishistory.com and sign up there. Ooh! It's all set. We will see you for episode six of this epic, epic account of Nelson's life, the Battle of Trafalgar. Don't miss it.

• 1:05:47Tom Holland?

  Bye-bye. Goodbye.

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