DEATH OF VILLENEUVE. 73 In attempting to account for this signal defeat of their fleets, foreign writers adopt every mode of reasoning but the right one: it is vain to attribute the loss of the day to tactics, when tactics seem to have been disregarded; the order of battle, at the beginning of the action, was more favourable to the enemy than to the English. The Count de Dumas says the French admiral neglected to give to the officers under his orders particular instructions, relative to the various positions in which the combined fleet might find itself in the two cases of attack or defence. This is little more than unsupported assertion, and an unjust reflection on the memory of a brave but unfortunate officer: his orders were concise, his determination fixed; he did his duty both by precept and example. "Celui qui ne serait pas dans le feu ne serait pas à son poste" was almost equivalent to "England expects every man will do his duty;" and nearly a literal translation of the words of Nelson, " No captain can do wrong who lays his ship alongside of an enemy." Villeneuve evidently laboured under the displeasure of his master for many months previous to the affair of which we have been speaking; he was ordered to be superseded the moment he should appear before Brest, and Rossily had been sent to Cadiz to take the command of the combined fleet, when it put to sea with so much precipitation. On the return of this unhappy man to France, soon after the battle, he was found dead in his apartment, in the town of Rennes, on his way to the capital, and his death was imputed to the orders of Napoleon. Whether it was so, or that the stabs were inflicted by his own hand, I have no means of judging, nor do I wish to cast a reflection on the overloaded memory of Bonaparte; but that personage is made to say that "Villeneuve studied anatomy on purpose to destroy himself;" as if a French admiral knew not where his heart lay, without the assistance of anatomical plates to ascertain its position. This lame apology, and the order which Napoleon acknowledges he sent to him not to come to Paris, induce us to suspect rather than acquit the ungrateful Emperor. See O'Meara, Napoleon in Exile, vol. i. p. 56. What could the gallant and unfortunate chief have had to fear from a court-martial, unless it were such a one as tried the Duke D'Enghien? Villeneuve's conduct in this action at least has been acknowledged by all present to have been that of a distinguished sea officer; and the state of the Bucentaure shows that he had no consideration for his own person. He would indeed have shifted his flag to another ship, and renewed the action, but he had not a boat that would swim; and when deserted by Gravina and Dumanoir, who took away with them 14 sail of the line, what more remained for Villeneuve but to submit to his destiny? The voyage of Villeneuve to the West Indies had answered no reasonable purpose: he had done nothing, and the year had been suffered to glide away in idle dreams of great conquests, naval battles, and successful invasions; when the end of October, and the beginning of November, saw Bonaparte without a Channel or a Mediterranean fleet, and the flotilla in Boulogne rotting on the mud. How much he felt the loss of his fleet may be easily conceived; but no one could suppose it possible that an Emperor would dare to insult a nation with a false account of the action, pretended to have been taken from Admiral Collingwood's official letter, and circulated, and for a time believed, throughout the greater part of the Continent. The following, however, is a faithful extract from the Journal de Paris, 16 Frimaire, An XIV., 7th Dec. 1805. This was a kind of demi-official paper; and this lying document was inserted by order of the Government, and will be found to contain exactly as many falsehoods as lines : London, Nov. 26, 1805. In the fashionable circles, at the theatres, or at balls, the ladies in full dress wear a crown of cypress, in memory of Lord Nelson. The death of Lord Nelson is not the only loss which we have to deplore in the terrible battle which our fleet sustained, on the 21st of October, before Cadiz, against the combined fleet; we may judge of them by reading the following extract of a report sent by Viceadmiral Collingwood to the Admiralty. State of the British squadron after the battle of the 19th and 21st of October. Ships which joined the Fleet at Five o'clock in the Morning of the 90 Royal Sovereign 110 Le Leger 21st of October. Under sail. (We had no such ship.) (Sunk, with £400,000 on board for Malta. (Commanded by the author in 1815.) Towed by a frigate. (No such ship.) 74 (No such ship.) 80 74 JA la voile. (Named above as being at { "This report," says the editor, "is a brilliant homage paid to French valour." It would be insulting to the understanding of the English nation to attempt a refutation of it, farther than by pointing out the ships which were not in the action, or which did not exist at the time: I give it as a specimen of Imperial veracity, and leave the reader to compare it with the real facts as detailed in the admirable letters of Vice-admiral Collingwood. By these he will learn that no British ship was lost he will see that the prayer of Nelson was heard; that humanity after the victory was the predominant feeling in the British fleet; and he will see how gloriously and effectually the officers and men exerted themselves to save their subdued enemy from the destructive elements, against which these people knew not how to contend. LONDON GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY. Admiralty Office, Nov. 6, 1805. Despatches, of which the following are copies, were received at the Admiralty this day, at one o'clock, A. M., from Vice-admiral Collingwood, commander-in-chief of his Majesty's ships and vessels off Cadiz : SIR, Euryalus, off Cape Trafalgar, The ever-to-be-lamented death of Vice-admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, who, in the late conflict with the enemy, fell in the hour of victory, leaves me the duty of informing my lords commissioners of the Admiralty that on the 19th instant it was communicated to the commander-in-chief, from the ships watching the motions of the enemy in Cadiz, that the combined fleet had put to sea. As they sailed with light winds westerly, his lordship concluded their destination was the Mediterranean, and immediately made all sail for the Straits' entrance with the British squadron, consisting of 27 ships, three of them sixty-fours, where his lordship was informed by Captain Blackwood (whose vigilance in watching and giving notice of the enemy's movements has been highly meritorious) that they had not yet passed the Straits. On Monday the 21st instant, at daylight, when Cape Trafalgar bore E. by S. about seven leagues, the enemy was discovered six or seven miles to the eastward, the wind about west, and very light. The commander-in-chief immediately made the signal for the fleet to bear up in two columns, as they are formed in order of sailing; a mode of attack his lordship had previously directed, to avoid the inconvenience and delay in forming a line of battle in the usual manner. The enemy's line consisted of 33 ships (of which 18 were French and 15 Spanish, commanded in chief by Admiral Villeneuve, the Spaniards under the direction of Gravina), wore with their heads to the northward, and formed their line of battle with great closeness and correctness. But, as the mode of attack was unusual, so the structure of their line was new; it formed a crescent convexing to leeward, so that, in leading down to their centre, I had both their van and rear abaft the beam before the fire opened; every alternate ship was about a cable's length to windward of her second ahead and astern, forming a kind of double line, and appeared, when on their beam, to leave a very little interval between them, and this without crowding their ships. Admiral Villeneuve was in the Bucentaure in the centre, and the Prince of Asturias bore Gravina's flag in the rear, but the French and Spanish ships were mixed without any apparent regard to order of national squadron. As the mode of our attack had been previously determined on, and communicated to the flag officers and captains, few signals were necessary, and none were made, except to direct close order as the lines bore down. The commander-in-chief, in the Victory, led the weather column, and the Royal Sovereign, which bore my flag, the lee. The action began at 12 o'clock, by the leading ships of the columns breaking through the enemy's line; the commander-inchief about the tenth ship from the van; the second in command about the twelfth from the rear, leaving the van of the enemy unoccupied; the succeeding ships breaking through in all parts, astern |