We reached our station, and joined the immortal Nelson but a few hours before that battle in which he lost his life and saved his country.  The history of that important day has been so often and so circumstantially related, that I cannot add much more to the stock on hand.  I am only astonished, seeing the confusion and invariable variableness of a sea-light, how so much could be known.  One observation occurred to me then, and I have thought of it ever since with redoubled conviction; this was, that the admiral, after the battle began, was no admiral at all:  he could neither see nor be seen; he could take no advantage of the enemy’s weak points or defend his own; his ship, the Victory, one of our finest three-deckers, was, in a manner, tied up alongside a French eighty-gun ship.

These observations I have read in some naval work, and in my mind they receive ample confirmation.  I could not help feeling an agony of anxiety (young as I was) for my country’s glory, when I saw the noble leaders of our two lines exposed to the united fire of so many ships.  I thought Nelson was too much exposed, and think so now.  Experience has confirmed what youthful fancy suggested; the enemy’s centre should have been macadamized by our seven three-deckers, some of which, by being placed in the rear, had little share in the action; and but for the intimidation which their presence afforded, might as well have been at Spithead.  I mean no reflection on the officers who had charge of them:  accidental concurrence of light wind and station in the line, threw them at such a distance from the enemy as kept them in the back ground the greater part of the day.

Others, again, were in enviable situations, but did not, as far as I could learn from the officers, do quite so much as they might have done.  This defect on our part being met by equal disadvantages, arising from nearly similar causes, on that of the enemy, a clear victory remained to us.  The aggregate of the British navy is brave and good; and we must admit that in this day “when England expected every man to do his duty,” there were but few who disappointed their country’s hopes.

When the immortal signal was communicated, I shall never, no, never, forget the electric effect it produced through the fleet.  I can compare it to nothing so justly as to a match laid to a long train of gunpowder; and as Englishmen are the same, the same feeling, the same enthusiasm, was displayed in every ship; tears ran down the cheeks of many a noble fellow when the affecting sentence was made known.  It recalled every past enjoyment, and filled the mind with fond anticipations which, with many, were never, alas! to be realised.  They went down to their guns without confusion; and a cool, deliberate courage from that moment seemed to rest on the countenance of every man I saw.