Trafalgar Heroes- Henry Blackwood of the Euryalus

On 15th September 1805, the Victory, with Nelson aboard, departed from Portsmouth.  Her log reads,

September 14th AM, at 11.30 hoisted the Flag of the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson KB.  Sunday 15th: 8. AM, weighed and made sail to the S.S.E.  Euryalus in company.

Euryalus was a 36-gun frigate, and her Captain was Henry Blackwood.  Nelson had first come to know him in 1798 when Blackwood, in the frigate Penelope, engaged the much larger 80-gun French ship Guillaume Tell, one of two ships that had escaped from Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, after catching sight of her during the night.  Blackwood's skillful seamanship meant that he was able to fire into the French ship's stern while receiving little return fire himself, and Guillaume Tell was damaged enough that she couldn't escape from the British ships-of-the-line Foudroyant and Lion in the morning.  Nelson wrote to Blackwood,

"Your conduct and character on the late glorious occasion stamps your fame beyond the reach of envy”. 

Captain Henry Blackwood

In 1803 Blackwood was given command of the frigate Euryalus of 36 guns, and in July 1805 he saw the French fleet get into Cadiz and took the news back to England on the 2^nd September.  On his way to the Admiralty he stopped off first at Nelson’s house at Merton at 5am, and they went together to the Admiralty.  He then, in the Euryalus, accompanied Nelson in the Victory back to the fleet.  Nelson offered him a ship-of-the-line but he turned it down, believing he had a greater chance of distinguishing himself in a frigate.  He later regretted his decision.

Nelson gave him command of the frigate squadron which was stationed off Toulon in a line to enable them to relay signals to the fleet, which lay beyond the horizon, and when the French fleet did begin to put to sea, Blackwood kept a close eye on them through the night.  Nelson signalled to Blackwood that he was relying on him to keep sight of the enemy, and Blackwood did an admirable job of doing so. 

Early on the morning of the battle, Nelson called Blackwood and the other frigate captains on board the Victory to give them their final orders, and trusted Blackwood enough to allow him to use Nelson’s name however he thought best to get the rear-most ships into action in the most effective way.  At this time, Nelson wrote the last codicil to his will and asked Blackwood and Hardy to sign it as witnesses.  Blackwood recognised that, leading the fleet into battle, Nelson was putting himself at great risk, and he suggested that he should shift his flag to the Euryalus.  Nelson of course refused, and so Blackwood turned to attempting to persuade him to allow other ships to go ahead of him.  Nelson appeared to give in to this and sent Blackwood to tell Captain Harvey of the Temeraire and Captain Bayntun of the Leviathan, to go ahead of the Victory if they could.  But when Blackwood returned, he saw that Nelson was doing all he could to increase sail, and the Temeraire could not get ahead.  Apparently conceding to let the two ships go ahead if they could was actually a mischievous challenge.  Blackwood stayed on the Victory for over five hours, until shots began to be fired.  As he was leaving to return to his ship, he told Nelson that he hoped to see him after the battle with 20 prizes, to which Nelson took his hand and said, “God bless you, Blackwood, I shall never speak to you again.” 

After the battle the Euryalus took the Royal Sovereign in tow, and Admiral Collingwood, having taken command of the fleet upon Nelson's death, shifted his flag into her.  He then sent Blackwood to Cadiz under a flag of truce to allow the Spanish prisoners to be sent to the hospitals there.  Blackwood had hoped for the honour of being the first to take the news of the victory to England, but though this was given to the Pickle, Euryalus did carry the imprisoned Admiral Villeneuve.  Blackwood attended Nelson’s funeral, acting as train bearer to Sir Peter Parker, the chief mourner. 

In 1806 Blackwood was given command of the Ajax, a ship-of-the-line which had been at Trafalgar, but she accidentally caught fire and sank in 1807, with the loss of over 250 lives.  Blackwood survived by clinging to an oar until he was rescued by the Canopus.  A court martial acquitted him.

 

Blackwood was eventually promoted to Rear-Admiral in 1814 and created a Baronet the same year, and became a Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1819.  He was Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies in 1819, was promoted to Vice-Admiral in 1825,  and was Commander-in-Chief of the Nore in 1827.  He died in December 1832.

A Lost Diamond and 'Nelson'

A letter written by Nelson in December 1800 has recently sold at auction for £1700.  In it, Nelson talks about a lost diamond, and thanks the unknown recipient for the 'trouble' they have taken, perhaps in helping him find it.

To unknown recipient

London Decr: 13^th: 1800

Dear Sir,

                I am truly sensible of all the obligations I owe you, for the trouble you have been so obliging to take regarding my lost Diamond, I have reason to believe that it is not worth £200 and I have bought another therefore I will decline all farther trouble about it.  Again I beg leave to thank you for your goodness and to assure you that I feel myself your obliged

Nelson

[Dreweatts and Bloomsbury auctioneers, sold 09/06/16]

The auctioneer transcribed the word 'lost' as 'last', and newspaper articles speculated on whether the diamond was a present for Nelson's wife, Frances, or his mistress, Emma Hamilton.  However, the truth is more interesting, as the good people at the Nelson and his World forum (especially Mark Barrett) discovered.

In 1800, Nelson travelled overland from Naples to England with the Hamiltons.  Along the way, in October, they stayed at Hamburg, where a lavish ball and banquet was held in Nelson's honour.  Unfortunately for Nelson, at some point during the course of the evening a diamond fell out of the extravagantly blingy gold and diamond-encrusted sword given to him by the Queen of Naples.  Despite searching high and low (presumably including the recipient of this letter), and offering a reward of £500, the diamond was never recovered.

The letter is also interesting for Nelson signing his name simply as "Nelson", and letters with this signature are rare.  Towards the end of 1800, he experimented with different signatures, such as Bronte Nelson of the Nile.  But 'Bronte' was a title that went along with the dukedom of Bronte awarded to him by the King of Naples, and as it was a foreign title could not be held above his British viscountcy.  In Nicolas' The Dispatches and Letters of Lord Nelson there are only a handful of letters with the signature "Nelson".  But the dukedom of Bronte meant too much to him for him to fashion a signature without it.

Around the same time he was deciding between signatures, he was deciding between women.  "Bronte" was inextricably linked with Naples and with Emma, and there lay his happiness.  He'd always felt more appreciated by Emma and the Neapolitans than he ever did by his wife and the British establishment.  In January 1801, Emma gave birth to their daughter, Horatia, and so, having settled on Emma, he settled on Bronte, and by the end of February he was signing his letters "Nelson & Bronte", and would do so consistently until his death.  The diamond he lost from the sword given to him in Naples probably had some sentimental value to him, too.

Considering the story behind it, and the rare signature, whoever bought the letter for £1700 got quite a bargain.


More information can be found on this thread at Nelson and his World.  Thanks to Mark Barrett for allowing me to use his research for this article.

The Preservation of HMS Victory

Recently, the extent of the restoration and repair work needed to maintain the Victory have been reported, and it seems to be extensive - which shouldn't be surprising considering it is coming up to 250 years since she was launched.  The National Museum of the Royal Navy took charge of her in 2012, so she's in safe hands, and they are taking a slow approach to make sure that the job is done right.

One of the main issues is that the ship has been leaky.  There are gaps between the planks of wood on the top deck, which of course will allow rainwater to pass down into all the beams and lower decks, and water can be very damaging to wood.  In fact, the water damage is causing a slow collapse of the ship, with the keel (the beam of wood running down the centre of the bottom of the ship which acts as a foundation) dropping by half a centimetre a year, according to a survey commissioned by the museum.  This, in turn, has meant that the ship has been putting increased pressure on the 90-year-old cradle that supports her in dry dock.  The heavy masts (weighing 25 tonnes each!) have not been put up yet, and some of the heavy iron cannons have been replaced with fibreglass ones, in order to lessen the weight of the ship and the stress on her hull.  The team of restorers are working on replacing the cradle to stabilise the ship, and then they can ensure that the ship is watertight.  They have been working on caulking the ship - this involves filling in the gaps between the planks with oakum (hemp treated with tar) and molten pitch.   Once they are sure that the structure of the ship is stable and is no longer being damaged by the elements, they can focus on re-rigging her.

'Restoring HMS Victory' by William Lionel Wyllie, 1925

In her 250 year career, Victory has undergone many repairs and refits.  The same year as receiving her first commission, in 1778, she had to be repaired after taking battle damage during the Battle of Ushant, and underwent a big repair and refit from 1787-89.  She saw a very active period of service in the Mediterranean from 1793, fighting in the Battle of Hyeres in 1795 and the Battle of Cape St Vincent (the battle where Nelson first made his name) in 1797.  Towards the end of 1797, the battered ship limped back to England and was in such a bad way that she was recommissioned as a hospital ship.  But, with the war against France intensifying, she was sent to Chatham for a complete repair and refit to return her to glory as a fighting machine.  This took two years, from 1800-03, and by the end of it she was classed as a 98-gun 2nd rate ship of the line, painted with the distinguishing black and ochre stripes.  Nelson was her first commander after this, and had his flag raised in her from 1803 until his death at Trafalgar in 1805, when Victory returned to Portsmouth.  There was another large repair in 1814-16, and in 1817 she was re-classed as a 100-gun 1st rate.  She saw no more action, however, and in 1830 was paid off into ordinary.  She remained there until 1922, when it was decided that her condition was so poor she couldn't remain afloat, and she was put into dry dock at Portsmouth (now the Historic Dockyard), where she has remained ever since. 

Letter to Emma Hamilton sells for almost £24,000

A letter that Nelson wrote to Emma Hamilton shortly after the birth of their daughter, Horatia, has sold at auction at Christie's in London for £23,750.

Perhaps responding to an accusation that he has been slack in corresponding with her, Nelson, writing from aboard the San Josef, tells Emma that the midshipman he sent to post the letters "assures Me that he untied the Red tape and put the three letters into the post office", so if she still hasn't received anything from him, it has been intercepted.  But as far as he's concerned - he writes perhaps as much for the benefit of the interceptor as for Emma - if it has been intercepted, it "is of no further consequence then the interruption of a free communication between 2 such dear friends."

Nelson then goes on to say, "Mrs: Thomson's friend desires you will assure her of his unalterable & affectionate Regard, and begs she will be assured that all the World cannot either change or make him wish to change for a moment and that he is unalterably hers."  He ends with, "Kiss my God child."

Horatia was born on the 29th January 1801 while Nelson was waiting to sail for the Baltic.  It was a turbulent time in his relationship with Emma.  Since they were both still married to other people, they couldn't be together openly, and so they invented the 'Thomsons'.  Supposedly, Mrs Thomson was staying with Emma, and Nelson would write to her 'on behalf of' Mr Thomson.  In this way he could communicate what he really wanted to say to Emma, for as this letter shows, they were afraid of their relationship being discovered.  Although by that point, it really wasn't a secret to anyone.  Nelson and Emma were both essentially open and honest in expressing their emotions, and both found it difficult to stick to the alias, so it was always a flimsy one.  

Still, they used the cover story to 'adopt' Horatia from the Thomsons, and Nelson called her his god-child right up until the last letter he wrote to her before his death, which he signed with "the affectionate parental blessing of your Father."

But this letter betrays the jealousies and insecurities that blighted their relationship at this early stage.  They both thought the other would play away, which at times led to Emma having to promise not to dine with the Prince of Wales, and to Nelson having to swear not to set foot ashore.  Nelson frequently, as in this letter, reasserted his devotion to Emma in an effort to placate her.  However, once Emma's husband, Sir William Hamilton, passed away in 1803, they were able to settle at Merton when Nelson was ashore during the Peace of Amiens, and their relationship became more stable.

Two other letters also sold at the same sale.  One, written aboard the Foudroyant at Naples to Spencer Smith on the 25th July 1799, sold for £5625.  In it, Nelson praises Spencer's brother, Captain William Sidney Smith, on the successful defence of Acre from a French siege.  The other is a draft letter to the Prime Minister Henry Addington, dated 32rd April 1803, which sold for £4375.  Here, he appeals for an increase in his pension, arguing that his achievements are comparable to those of Admirals St Vincent and Duncan, and therefore his pension should be equal to theirs.

Is HMS Victory the Wrong Colour?

The black and orange stripes of HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, are iconic, but experts have discovered that the orange probably isn't the same shade as it was in Nelson's time.

Originally, Victory had been a red colour, but Nelson had her, and the rest of the Mediterranean fleet, painted with the stripes.  The gunports were painted black, so when they were open it produced a checkerboard effect.  This helped the British ships be distinctive in battle amidst the melee of ships and clouds of smoke from the guns, and minimise the risk of friendly fire, as well as being a means to intimidate the enemy.  The stripes became the standard for the British navy after that.

When she became a guard ship years later, she was painted in black and white stripes.  Years later still, as a tourist attraction, she was repainted to Nelson's colours. 

But the experts have discovered, by peeling away an incredible 72 layers of paint in places, that it might not be in Nelson's colours at all.  That the current 'orange' would in fact have been a paler ochre colour.

There are plans to repaint the Victory to more closely resemble the ship that Nelson knew, however there is still more research to do to make sure it is as accurate as it can be.

Source: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defence/historic-paint-traces-may-reveal-the-true-colours-of-nelson-s-flagship-hms-victory-1-5951194

Nelson Letter for Sale

A letter written by Nelson to Thomas Lloyd in January 1798 has gone on sale, valued at £2000-£4000.  It was written only a few months after Nelson lost his right arm, but his left-handed writing was already clearly legible.

January 29th 1798

My Dear Lloyd,

There is nothing you can desire me to do that I shall not have the greatest pleasure in complying with for I am sure you can never possess a thought that is not most strictly honourable. I was much flattered by the Marquis's kind notice of me and I beg you will make my respects acceptable to him. Tell him that I possess his place in Mr. Palmers Box but his Lordship did not tell me all its charms that generally some of the handsomest Lady's at Bath are partakers in the Box and was I a bachelor I would not answer for being terrified, but as I am possessed of everything which is valuable in a wife I have no occasion to think beyond a pretty face. I am sorry the King is so poor, had he been worth what those Vile Dogs of opposition think, what a vast sum would have been given to the nation, but I now hope all the nation will subscribe liberally, you will believe that I do not urge others to give and to withhold myself but my mode of subscribing will be novel in its manner and by doing it I mean to debar myself of many comforts to serve my country and I expect great consolation every time I cut a slice of salt beef instead of mutton. The Vanguard will be at Sheerness next Saturday and if this wind holds she will be at Portsmouth before Thompson quits the Channel, I only pray that the French may not be ready to leave Brest I have been in a fever ever since the Boadicea's return with the account of their being ready for sea. Lady Nelson and my father thank you for your kind remembrance of them and believe me my Dear Lloyd, you most affectionate

Horatio Nelson

£4000 is rather low for a Nelson letter, so it will be interesting to see how much this one does go for.