Montague Dawson R.S.M.A., F.R.S.A. 1895-1973

Frost & Reed
Richard Green, London
Private Collection

This magnificent work depicts the moment when, soon after noon on the 21^st October 1805, H.M.S. Victory broke through the line of the combined fleets of France and Spain and unleashed her port broadside into the stern of Admiral Villeneuve’s Flagship Bucentaure.  Unlike the thick hull of a man-of-war, the stern gallery was terribly fragile meaning the shot travelled the length of the ship causing immense devastation to the vessel and her crew.  This lethal broadside was followed by a volley of grapeshot from Victory’s upper gun deck which included a sixty-eight pound carronade loaded with a canister containing over three hundred musket balls. 

The vessel in the foreground is the French Redoubtable under the command of Captain Lucas; it was a sharp shooter in the rigging of this ship who fired the fatal musket ball which killed Lord Nelson.  As Victory approached the line Captain Hardy warned his Admiral that they were going to collide with either Bucentaure or Redoutable.  Nelson replied,
“I cannot help it.  It does not signify which we run on board of…Take your choice.”

This close action was exactly the battle that Nelson had described to his friend and colleague Admiral Sir Richard Keats the previous summer,
“I would go at them at once if I can, about one third of their line from their leading ship.  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 am about.  It will bring forward a pell-mell battle and that is what I want.”

This highly aggressive and immediate action carried huge risk.  However it was essential to take this risk if the battle was to prove decisive.  The convention of Naval fleet engagements in the 18^th century was to employ a very defensive formation with two lines of battle close enough to cause damage but far enough apart to escape if the need arose.  Ship-building was extremely costly and it was therefore far better to retain a vessel even if it meant ‘losing’ the battle.  Another reason for this practise was the premium on experienced sailors; if a ship was captured the crew would be kept prisoner-of-war thus depriving the enemy of experienced seamen.  By the end of the war in 1815 there were 72,000 French prisoners-of-war in mainland Britain.  Nelson’s approach to the battle meant that neither the British nor the Combined Fleet would be able to escape Trafalgar until one of them had secured victory.  

The implications of victory far outweighed the risk of defeat; command of the sea brought control of world trade as well as the more immediate relief from the threat of invasion.  The concept of the plan was relatively simple (see figure 1).  In this hastily scribbled sketch the French and Spanish fleet is represented by the diagonal line with the horizontal lines representing the two British divisions cutting the enemy line in two places.  Nelson’s official dispatch on 9^th of October elaborates,
‘…the Second in Command’s signal to lead through, about their twelfth ship from their Rear (or wherever he could fetch, if not able to get so far advanced); my Line would lead through about their centre…so as to ensure getting at their commander-in-Chief, on whom every effort must be made to capture.’

This plan relied on total concert between the British Captains. Nelson joined the fleet off Cadiz on 28^th September 1805; his arrival prompting a surge in moral.  Edward Codrington, Captain of the 74-gun Orion wrote,
‘Lord Nelson is arrived.  A sort of general joy has been the consequence’. 
A great deal of time over the following weeks was spent dining and holding council with his Captains (see figure 2) to ensure that, come the battle, each knew without question Nelson's will and their role. Nelson himself makes it clear regarding his second in command, Vice-Admiral Collingwood,
‘The second in Command will, after my intentions are made known to him, have the entire direction of his Line…’
Despite such careful planning Nelson knew in the noise, smoke and chaos of the imminent action that,
‘Something must be left to chance; nothing is sure in a Sea Fight.  Shot will carry away the masts of friends as well as foes; but I look with confidence to a Victory before the Van of the Enemy could succour their Rear…’
He left his commanders with one simple order in case, amidst such fury, they found themselves unsure of what to do;
‘In case Signals can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no Captain can do very wrong if he places his Ship alongside that of an enemy’.

At six o’clock in the morning Nelson gave the order to prepare for battle and the two divisions formed (see Figure 3).  The risk inherent in his strategy immediately increased as the wind dropped to a mere three knots.  This would only give the combined fleet more time to inflict punishment on the leading British ships before they would be able to reply.  At one point in the approach it seemed as though  H.M.S. Neptune would overtake the Flagship.  Nelson himself hailed her ordering,
‘take in your studding-sails and drop astern; I shall break the line myself’.

Thomas Atkinson, Victory’s master, recorded the first shots from the enemy being fired at ten minutes to noon with the first direct hit tearing through her main-topgallant sail.  Nelson then turned to starboard with the 98-gun Temeraire, visible in the present work, and the 98-gun Neptune following.  As they sailed parallel to the line these vessels suffered the full broadside onslaught of three enemy ships; the Spanish 74-gun San Augustin and the 140-gun Santissima Trinidad as well as the French 74, Héros.  Victory endured terrible punishment and Nelson’s secretary, John Scott, was cut in two by a direct hit from a cannon ball.  By the time she reached Admiral Villeneuve’s flagship, the surgeon William Beatty, estimated twenty of her crew dead and another thirty wounded.  Relying on her reserve steerage, Victory made her final turn at such proximity that her yards crossed Bucentaure’s poop-deck.  Finally she could bring both port and starboard guns to bear, the moment depicted in the present work, and unleashed them to murderous effect.  Lieutenant Lewis Rotely of the Royal Marines recorded the experience thus,
‘…it beggars all description: it bewilders the senses of sight and hearing.  There was fire from above, the fire from below, besides the fire from the deck I was upon, the guns recoiling with violence, reports louder than thunder, the decks heaving and the sides straining.  I fancied myself in the infernal regions, where everyman appeared a devil…’

The battle that ensued produced the annihilation that Nelson had desired.  Only eleven enemy ships returned to Cadiz with the remaining fleet either captured or destroyed in the terrible storm that followed.  The victory was marred by Nelson’s death but there is some comfort in the fact that he lived long enough to hear from Captain Hardy that they had won the day with at least fourteen of the enemy ships having surrendered.
‘That is well’, he replied ‘but I bargained for twenty’.

Montague Dawson painted Trafalgar and H.M.S. Victory on a number of occasions.  In each case the majesty of an eighteenth century man-of-war is faithfully and impressively evoked.  The present work combines this majesty with the atmosphere and reality of a sea-battle creating a rare and fitting homage to arguably the greatest Naval engagement in history.

Bibliography
The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Viscount Nelson; Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas.  Henry Colburn, London.
Nelson - The New Letters.  Edited by Colin White.  The Boydell Press, 2005.
Trafalgar - The Men, The Battle, The Storm by Tim Clayton and Phil Craig.  Hodder and Stoughton 2005.
Nelson’s Battles – The Art of Victory in the Age of Sail.  Nicholas Tracy.  Chatham Publishing 1996.