Notes
A spectacular pair of large-scale
TRAFALGAR BATTLESCAPES
By the mid-nineteenth century artists
William Stuart and William E.D. Stuart
Historical Background:
Lord Nelson's final campaign to bring the French fleet to action and annihilate it proved both long and frustrating. From the moment he hoisted his flag in Victory in May 1803, he devoted all his waking hours to the task that lay ahead of him and shortly before the fateful encounter almost two-and-a-half years later, he wrote this potent maxim that could usefully serve as his epitaph:
'The business of the English Commander-in-Chief being first to bring an Enemy's fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself; and secondly to continue them there until the Business is decided.'
It was written in response to the news that Admiral Villeneuve, the French commander, had managed to combine the Spanish fleet with his own to bring a formidable thirty-three ships under his control against Nelson's total of twenty-seven. To compensate for this serious lack of numerical superiority, Nelson had evolved his celebrated plan to break the enemy line in two places - a radical departure from conventional tactics - and activated it as soon as the opposing fleets sighted each other off Cape Trafalgar on the morning of 21st October 1805. With the British ships formed into two columns, Nelson himself led the Weather Division in Victory whilst Vice-Admiral Collingwood, his second-in-command, spearheaded the Leeward Division in Royal Sovereign, 100-guns.
As the fleets closed for action, Royal Sovereign drew ahead and battle was joined just before noon when the French 74-gun Fougueux opened fire. At 12.10pm. Royal Sovereign broke through the line but it was another half-hour before Victory was able to do the same and, in the meantime, she was subjected to a withering fire which caused fifty casualties and peppered her sails with holes. Peering into the smoky inferno ahead of him, Captain Hardy coaxed Victory under the stern of Villeneuve's flagship Bucentaure where there was so little room to manoeuvre that, as Victory passed along the Frenchman's starboard side, it seemed that the two flagships would collide. Without a moment's hesitation, Hardy ordered a broadside from Victory's larboard (port) guns which raked Bucentaure with devastating effect. Within minutes Victory, with Téméraire close behind her, was engaged in a tremendous struggle with Bucentaure and Rédoutable, the most dramatic result of which was Nelson himself being shot and mortally wounded by a sharpshooter in one of Rédoutable's fighting tops. Even this could not affect the outcome however and the battle of Trafalgar remains, arguably, the most decisive victory in the history of war at sea.
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
Admiral Henry Gosset (1796-1877) entered the Royal Navy in June 1809 as a First Class Volunteer in the frigate Euryalus. Soon after taking part in the expedition against Flushing, his ship was sent to the Mediterranean where Gosset saw considerable action, first off Toulon, and then in the Adriatic, where he fought at the unsuccessful assault on Leghorn, the capture of several enemy forts and at the taking of Genoa. By now a Midshipman, he was transferred into H.M.S. Havannah which took him to North America where he participated in many of the operations in and around Chesapeake Bay during the 'War of 1812-14'. Returning to Europe just in time, he took part in one of the very last actions of the War - the cutting out of a valuable convoy and several armed vessels from Corrijou, near Brest, on 18th July 1815 - before joining the Northumberland in which vessel he helped escort Napoleon to exile on St. Helena. On his way home, Gosset disembarked at Ascension Island where he remained for just over a year, by which time he had been promoted Lieutenant. Afterwards serving in the Irish Sea and the West Indies, where he was given his first command, he was made Captain in 1829 but invalided home thereafter and did not return to sea. He finally retired as Admiral in 1865 and died at his London home in March 1877, aged 82.
In this first painting, the artist shows the action at its height, with Victory hotly engaging Rédoutable on her starboard side. Having broken the enemy line and rapidly disabled the French flagship Bucentaure, shown here (on the far right) after drifting away, Captain Hardy next turned Victory's attention to Rédoutable in a lengthy duel which, although ultimately successful, was overshadowed by Nelson's mortal wound by one of the French vessel's sharpshooters. Also seen towards the right is the mighty Spanish flagship Santisima Trinidad, already damaged but still in the fight, whilst Stuart has helpfully identified all the other principal participants engaged on the fateful afternoon.
Santisima Trinidad ["Most Holy Trinity"] was built in 1769 as a 116-gun three-decker but had an additional gundeck added during a refit just before the battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797). Constructed from cedar and painted a highly distinctive red, she was almost 200 feet in length and carried a remarkable armament of 136 guns when she went into action at Trafalgar. Unquestionably the largest wooden warship ever built - although not the longest - she was an awesome sight under full sail provided the weather was fair, as her great height made her very unstable in heavy seas. Despite being slightly undermanned, she fought gallantly at Trafalgar and, at various times during the battle, engaged Victory, Téméraire, Leviathan, Neptune, Britannia, Africa and Conqueror; by the time she eventually surrendered to Prince late in the afternoon, she was completely dismasted and, more seriously, badly damaged below the waterline. Thereafter, it proved a constant battle to keep her afloat until 24th October when Collingwood, beset with problems to all the damaged ships due to the violent storm which had been raging since the evening of the 21st, ordered her to be scuttled.
