will.  He commissions Hardy to give “dear Lady Hamilton his hair and other belongings,” and asks that his “body shall not be thrown overboard.”  Hardy is then asked in childlike simplicity to kiss him, and the rough, fearless captain with deep emotion kneels and reverently kisses Nelson on the cheek.  He then thanks God that he has done his duty, and makes the solemn thoughts that are troubling his last moments manifest in words by informing Doctor Scott, with a vital sailorly turn of speech, that “he had not been a great sinner,” and then bids him remember that he leaves Lady Hamilton and his daughter Horatia as a legacy to his country, and that Horatia is never to be forgotten.

Even at this distance of time one cannot help regretting that nature’s power did not sustain him to see the total debacle of the enemy fleets.  He knew that he had triumphed, and that his task had ended fatally to himself, but his sufferings did not prevent his spirit sallying to and fro, making him feel the joy of living and wish that he might linger but a little longer.  He was struck down at a critical stage of the battle, though there was never any doubt as to how it would end, thanks to the adroit skill and bravery of Collingwood and those who served under him.  It is a happy thought to know that our hero, even when the shadows were closing round him, had the pleasure of hearing from the lips of the faithful Hardy that fifteen of the enemy ships had struck and not one of ours had lowered a flag.  But how much more gladsome would the passing have been had he lived to know that the battle had ended with the capture of nine French vessels and ten Spanish, nineteen in all.  He died at 4.30 p.m. on the 21st October, 1805, just when the battle was flickering to an end.  Villeneuve had given himself up, and was a prisoner on board the Mars.  Dumanoir had bolted with four of the line, after committing a decidedly cowardly act by firing into the captured Spanish ships, the object being to put them out of the possession of the British.  They could not succeed in this without killing large numbers of their allies, and this was all they were successful in doing.  It was a cruel, clumsy crime, which the Spanish rightly resented but never succeeded in avenging.

Meanwhile the Spanish Admiral Gravina, who had lost an arm, took command of the dilapidated combined fleets, and fled into Cadiz with five French and five Spanish ships, and by 5 p.m. the thundering of the guns had ceased, and the sea all round was a scene of death, dismasted ships, and awful wreckage.  The Rear-Admiral Dumanoir was sailing gaily towards the refuge of Rochefort or Ferrol when he came into view of, and ultimately had to fight on the 4th November, a squadron under Sir Richard Strachan.  Dumanoir and his men are said to have fought with great fierceness, but his ships were beaten, captured, and taken in a battered condition, and subsequently sent to England, so that now twenty-three out of the thirty-three that came out of Cadiz with all the swagger of confidence and superiority to match themselves against Nelson and his fiery coadjutors were tragically accounted for.