THE NEWLY-DISCOVERED RELICS OF NELSON.

Evening Star, Issue 3923, 20 September 1875, Page 3

THE NEWLY-DISCOVERED RELICS OF NELSON.

While rumaging 'lately an out-of-the-way loft in the Dockyard at Chatham, there have been found certain old waifs, concerning which a few words ought, we think, to be said. In appearance the relics seemed nothing better than three or four thick bundles of navy canvas ; and a marine-store dealer, turning them over, would have offered very little indeed for the lot. There was a maintop sail, a foretopgallant sail, and a foretop sail, which had all evidently belonged to a large vessel ; but the canvas was withered and mildewed, the bolt-ropes had perished, the cringles and thimbles were rusted, and besides all this the cloths of the musty suit were torn and tattered in the most extraordinary manner, so that it would have puzzled a master sailmaker to cut out from the biggest the lugsail for a man-o’-war’s pinnace This useless cwavv.s was on the point of being condemned t-> the “clearing-out auction,” along with other rubbish, when somebody thought of overhauling it for further information. (Jpou the bonnet of one of the sails was then found marked “Miller, contractor, Portsmouth, 1805,” aud fastened to the stops of another was a label bearing an Inscription which in a moment changed the value of that yellow old duck into something that, if the Lords of the Adurraity know thtir business, all the marine-fitce. dealers living have not cash enough to buy. For, written on the label was ** Victory, 1805, ’’ and it was at once pc reived that these same topsails were none other than the fore aud main upper canvas of the nob e ship in which Ncl-on led the weather division of the British fleet on the ever glorious day of Trafalgar. 'those rents and tatters in the venerable stuff were not the ravages of’time or holes gnawed by dockyard rats, but the thick and honoraole wounds which our brave old fighting ship took a'oft when French and Spanish shot t re screaming over nor tops, when Nelson was bearing down upon Villeneuve and Gravioa, amid the thickening tire and smoke of that tremendous noon on the 21st of October, 1805. In the foretop sail there were over eighty boles, great and small; in the maintopsdil there were more than four dozen shot and bullet marks In a word, this was part of the very suit that the famous o d liue-of-battle ship bent on going into action ; and, when the battle was over, those very sails, as full of holes as s potatoe-atraiuer, carried the Victory, with the dead Admiral’s body on board, into Gibraltar, as immortal history records. The Victoiy was subsequently paid off at Chatham, and the relics have reposed there for seventy long years. What a story of perfect manhood and loy u fiance of death

those ancient sails recift, under whose shadow Nelson feP, obeying faithfully his own signal, “ England expects every man to do his duty !” Bearing the details of the great sea fight in mind, it is easy to see why the shot-holes are so numerous in the Victory’s upper canvas. The wind was very light on that morning, and the British ships set everything they could carry—topgallants, royals, studding sails, and all—in order to bear down upon the enemy. Nelson’s flagship, ahead of all, made but two knots an hour ; and when it was suggested to him that the i’emerarie should go .ahead a little to draw the fire of the great three and four deckers fast coming into range, the hero would not allow a reef to he taken in or a sheet to be started on board bis ship, but ran on, intending to break through the com bined fleet, and to cut them off from Cadiz, which was lying under their lee. As the glorious old man o’-war rolled down upon the Sautissima Trinidad and Buccntaure, the latter vessel, just after noon, fired four shots at the flagship, and the third and fourth of these went through her fore and maintopgallant sails, Upon this, finding her within range, seven of the enemy at once opened a furious fire on the Victory, and before she was as near as four cable leugt-ns from h- v foes the miz-miopuiast was shot away. By the time she had ranged up alongside the Bucentaeie, and given her that terrific broadside which made tin Frenchman i;eci tbrei streaks into the --g a, hvr upper canvas —the accounts of the battle tell us- utro

’ all in ribbons, ’ and fifty men lay killed or wounded upon her decks before oho got h-iriy intotheaclioa. One may almost say.! solon: at ihoic!alteredraga(if triumph hrouglp. ’•oliulP'at Chatham, r hat. wesco therein ■ iurcaipe of prison’s denth ; tor when he rounded. m;d r the atom of rho Hu- entanro. tin t i-jnie op n the sta- bo-:rd t-ick to eneago C at .-.hip as will as the Spanish, admiral in his va-fc four decker, the big Viet- ry could not haul her wind quick enough, because ’‘the featheis were so much knocked out of Iter,” and thus the Redoubtable came on board of her, locking the lower yardarms together and entangling the anchor flukes. All this took place seventy years ago ; hut has the time come when luiglishmen ought to forget the way in which the Vici'ory fought in tins memo able position with one antagonist of equal force fast to her starboard bow, and two of greater powo.’ at pistol-shot distance upon her port side? These very sails just found flutteied aloft while she blazed .away with one broadside into the Redoubtable and with the other into (d ravine. and Vilieneuve, lighting all -hrm at o ce till the Turno aTo ran into. I the write and took the first of lit trie i oil' her hands. Hut it was in that i very hour of terrible confl.ot-while the ' Yic ory lay locked with the french 80 gun ship, and could not draw out because of her torn upper sails and broken spars—that the

fatal bullet was fired from right above her quarter-deck which laid Nelson low. We must not have this venerable duck mislaid again, or handed over to the marine-store dealers No nobler stuff could drape the roof or walls of our chief naval institutions than Nelson’s own top ads and we trust that the hirst Lord wB give fitting directions forthwith for the preservation and cartful exhibition of such almost snored mcnioriabs. One of the ancient relics should be treasured, we venture to suggest, on board the V.ctory ut Piin.soir.uih, and, on !■ very suuivcr ary of Trafalgar, the grand old ship might proudly set the tatter .1 ■ loth- ii(i--n her f ucraa t, ami frt on tin

again with a taste of tin-, s-an and -.sod vi the powder f r mh -r guns w:luti ig. m> one of them, we think, should go to G re-mi-wieh Hospital, to bo festooned abo,. the spot where in the hallowed i lue coat with the bullet, hole in the shoulder, and the In c kerseymere w.ostcoat having the faded sDou upon it which was once bright soar ! et with the bravest blood ever shed for Kngland.