H05080 NELSON AND TRAFALGAR -10/12/05 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES ____________________________________________________________________________
From: kgwilson@uottawa.ca
Subject: Hardy and Trafalgar
Date: October 12, 2005 3:56:43 AM PDT
Despite the hoopla in Britain surrounding this year's 200th anniversary of
the Battle of Trafalgar, there seems to have been little mention of "The
Dynasts." Perhaps even at this late hour -- the actual anniversary is 21
October -- Hardy scholars should be trying to nudge the work that he and
many of his contemporaries saw as his most major achievement out of the
shadows of neglect. It seems to me that what he does with the
circumstances surrounding the death of Nelson, for example, is
definitionally Hardyan, presenting this familiar national tableau scene in
a perspectivally striking way that goes straight to the heart of his own
moral and philosophical speculations.
The aspect that seems particularly suggestive is his version of Nelson's
response to news that the French sniper who has shot him has himself been
killed: Nelson replies to the messenger:
'Twas not worth while! -- He was, no doubt, a man
Who in simplicity and sheer good faith
Strove but to serve his country. Rest be to him!
And may his wife, his friends, his little ones,
If such he had, be tided through their loss,
And soothed amid the sorrow brought by me. (Book 1, V, iv, 67-72).
This is a remarkable example of the quality of human response summed up in
the Spirit of Pities, and like Pities's own responses, very vulnerable to
the bleak judgements of a Spirit Ironic or a Spirit Sinister, who embody
equally human, if less compassionate, responses. In practical terms,
Nelson's words achieve nothing: the sniper is already dead and the tragedy
for his putative wife and children already exists. But the fact that
Nelson is made to respond as he does in the moments before his own death
is surely part of Hardy's celebration of the human capacity to suspend
self and imagine oneself into the situation of others, of compassion, of
that resonant Hardy positive "loving-kindness." When he ended "The
Dynasts" on a Choric speculation that Consciousness might come to inform
the Will "till It fashion all things fair!", he was presumably suggesting
the possible final evolutionary triumph of this most positive aspect of
human consciousness. Even given his acknowledgement that he wouldn't have
ended "The Dynasts" on this note had he written it after rather than
before the First World War, the choice of curtain-line -- and more to the
point the addition to the cameo scene of Nelson's death of this
bitter-sweet impulse of human generosity, and self-inculpation for
unwittingly contributing to the totality of pain ("the sorrow brought by
me") via the poignant complexity of cause and effect that governs all
human actions -- may help explain why English literature's most famous
"pessimist" seems as life-affirming to so many readers as he does.
Perhaps our own contribution to remembering Trafalgar 200 years on should
be a decision to re-read Hardy's own memorializing of it, and preferably
the rest of "The Dynasts" as well.
Keith
Keith Wilson
University of Ottawa
70 Laurier Avenue East
Ottawa
Ontario, K1N 6N5
CANADA
Tel: (613) 562-5800 Ext. 1160
Fax: (613) 562-5990
e-mail: kgwilson@uottawa.ca
==========
From: kgwilson@uottawa.ca
Subject: Nelson's death and puppet shows
Date: October 18, 2005 7:04:18 AM PDT
While referring in his review ("Thomas Hardy as Panoramatist," Saturday Review, 97 [30 January 1904]: 136-8) of Part One of "The Dynasts" to its "noble achievement" overall, Max Beerbohm unflatteringly invoked in his comment on the death of Nelson a popular seaside entertainment near allied to a puppet show. He wrote:
"I confess that I, reading here the scene of the death of Nelson, was irresistibly reminded of the same scene as erst beheld by me, at Brighton, through the eyelet of a peepshow, whose proprietor strove to make it more realistic for me by saying ' 'Ardy, 'Ardy, I am wounded, 'Ardy. Not mortially, I 'ope, my lord? -- Mortially, I fear, 'Ardy.' "
It has often seemed to me that one of the difficulties Hardy faced with this scene in particular -- which makes (pace Beerbohm!) his degree of success with it all the more striking -- is that it is so much the stuff of national myth that, perhaps analogously with the death of Wolfe after its rendering by Benjamin West, or even the death of Chatterton after its rendering by Henry Wallis, it had become too familiar to handle without the risk of descent into parody. It is one of those iconographic moments seen in the public mind through the popular tableau-like pictorial representations of it. In fact, by a century on, it must in some degree have already become one of those "every English schoolboy knows" scenes that invite debunking playground mimicry, which would have made handling it in a non-parodic way quite difficult. Hence Hardy's striking attempt to come up with a novel perspective on the overly familiar.
Keith.
Keith Wilson
Professor of English/President, ACCUTE
University of Ottawa
70 Laurier Avenue East (Room 313)
Ottawa, Ontario
CANADA K1N 6N5
Tel: (613) 562-5800, Ext. 1160
Fax: (613) 562-5990
e-mail: kgwilson@uottawa.ca
==========
From: michael@perceptivecreation.co.uk
Subject: Re: Nelson's death and puppet shows
Date: October 18, 2005 7:47:29 AM PDT
From: Keith Wilson
Good Heavens, Keith, the memories you invoke! One of my earliest acting moments, circa 1955, middle school scout hut, the death of Nelson, all of us in a dramatic tableau, all mute save for one actor with one line, Nelson himself, a sturdy Yorkshire lad - even at that age I'm sure I recognised the "descent into parody" as we listened to the broadest possible rendition of "Thank God, ah've dun me dewty" - Immortal indeed!
I've just been watching Tom Lessup's pointer to the Pathe footage - wonderful! So many people! So Rosemarie, don't hold your breath for me to come up with a production, I'm afraid! Resources like that are restricted to universities, the National and RSC companies, the Northcott once in a blue moon (they've forged excellent community connections in the town over the years). I'm lucky if I can round up 6 or 7 professional actors and find some cash to costume them with, let alone fuel to transport them about with! Attempting to finance a production, even with a large amateur presence, could take 2 or 3 years out of one's life and still fail!
I think Betty is right - animation is the answer! When she suggested it, I suddenly saw again the animated footage in "The Charge of the Light Brigade" - crude maybe but dealing with large forces quite effectively. The trouble is the subject matter is too intelligent/ intellectual for the mass audience needed to find the cash for animation. Now if the TTHA's Japanese chapter can round up some enthusiastic Manga artists - something startling could emerge!
I'll certainly let the whole idea marinate within me for a few months however!
Cheers
Michael Barry
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From: hardycor@owl.csusm.edu
Subject: Trafalgar
Date: October 18, 2005 1:12:21 PM PDT
I was rather surprised when I first read Hardy's account of Nelson's death
in _The Dynasts_ to see that he included "Kiss me Hardy" among the
Admiral's last words. Hasn't this frequently been deemed apocryphal?
Betty
==========
From: aghewitt@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Nelson's death and puppet shows
Date: October 18, 2005 1:38:42 PM PDT
Prof Wilson's comment reminded me of a very different ironic approach to this 'iconographic' scene of Nelson's death -- the scene in Golding's Rites of Passage in which the commercial artist Brocklebank reveals the 'truth' behind popular 'artistic' depictions of sea battles to his fellow-passengers and the officers of the ship. It reads in part:
"...Did you know I was first in the field after the death of Lord Nelson with a lithograph portraying the happy occasion?"
"You were not present!"
"Neither was any artist. I must admit to you freely that I believed at the time that Lord Nelson had expired on deck."
"Brocklebank," cried I, "I have seen it!...How the devil did that whole crowd of young officers contrive to be kneeling round Lord Nelson in attitudes of sorrow and devotion at the hottest moment of the action?"
"You are confusing art with actuality, sir."
"It looked plain silly to me, sir."
"It has sold very well, sir....And imagine, sir, Lord Nelson died down below in some stinking part of the bilges, I believe, with nothing to see him by but a ship's lantern. Who in the devil is going to make a picture of that?"
"Rembrandt perhaps."
(from the chapter headed 'Gamma')
Brocklebank goes on to explain how an 'accurate' depiction of a battle at sea would be impossible (too much smoke) and anyway unacceptable (the client wouldn't have it: whatever the actual course of the battle, the client's ship must be shown 'belching more fire than smoke' and 'being attacked by all the enemy at once', while the client himself must be 'dashed in' somewhere on deck, even if it means ignoring the rules of perspective).
Earlier this year there was an excellent adaptation of William Golding's 'Sea Trilogy' (Rites of Passage, Close Quarters, Fire Down Below) on television in Britain. I don't know if it's been picked up anywhere else but it is worth watching.
Andrew
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From: tomlessup@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Nelson's death and puppet shows
Date: October 18, 2005 3:52:51 PM PDT
Rosemarie Morgan wrote:
I believe he [Hardy] knew of John Stuart Mill's visits to the Punch and Judy show which performed outside the House of Commons satirizing activities within.
A satirical show was allowed to perform outside the House of Commons? Ah, Dawn, what bliss to have been alive in a democracy that practised such freedom of speech!
Tom Lessup
==========
From: nhardyboy@aol.com
Subject: Re: Trafalgar
Date: October 18, 2005 3:45:17 PM PDT
This is the first I've heard of the story being apocryphal (though, admittedly, my interest in Nelson waned in college when I discovered Hardy--OUR Hardy). Regardless, it's certainly part of the Nelson legend and I would imagine that in Hardy's lifetime the historical revisionists who'd attack the story were few and far between.
Speaking of historical revisionism, here's something I got from _The Times_ online. The date is from five months ago, so I'm not sure what followed; but it's enough to make me cross my politically incorrect eyes:
*****
May 22, 2005
Nelson sunk by PC raiding party
Andrew Porter
ADMIRAL NELSON saw off the mighty Franco-Spanish fleet at the battle of Trafalgar but 200 years on, he has been sunk by a wave of political correctness.
Organisers of a re-enactment to mark the bicentenary of the battle next month have decided it should be between "a Red Fleet and a Blue Fleet" not British and French/Spanish forces.
Otherwise they fear visiting dignitaries, particularly the French, would be embarrassed at seeing their side routed.
Even the official literature has been toned down. It describes the re-enactment not as the battle of Trafalgar but simply as "an early 19th-century sea battle".
A host of French dignitaries will attend the event, which will take place off Southsea near Portsmouth, the home of Nelson's fleet.
The aim is to create a spectacular "son et lumière" re-enactment with pyrotechnics, lights and effects from barges in the Solent. Tall ships will create the illusion of a real battle.
But the organisers of the event confirmed last week that there would be no national "sides", a fact that has surprised some of the event's sponsors.
One said: "It seems remarkable that we are not saying this is Britain versus France in this re-enactment. Surely 200 years on, we can afford to gloat a bit. Not even the French can try and get snooty about this."
In the 1805 sea battle off the coast of Spain, Nelson's 27 ships destroyed a combined French and Spanish fleet of 33 ships. The British lost no ships but sank or captured 22 of their opponents' vessels.
Although Nelson died in the battle, his victory paved the way for Britain's naval supremacy, which lasted a century.
A spokeswoman for the Royal Navy said: "This is an illustration and theatre on water. Nelson is featured, but we are not billing it as Britain versus France . . . This will not be a French-bashing opportunity."
The battle will be staged in the evening of the international fleet review on June 28. The Queen and senior royals will attend the day's events and government leaders from 73 countries have been invited.
Also present will be the Argentine navy, which fought the British fleet in 1982 over the Falkland Islands.
*****
Best,
Paul Niemeyer
==========
From: hardycor@owl.csusm.edu
Subject: Re: Trafalgar
Date: October 18, 2005 4:25:13 PM PDT
Revisionism is probably right Paul. What prompted me to think the words
"kiss me Hardy" might be apocryphal stemmed from a childhood memory of my
elders talking amongst themselves, saying Nelson REALLY said "Kismet
Hardy," kismet being Turkish for destiny or fate. I am sure now that this
was a revisionist attempt to stave off any homosexual implications in
Nelson's statement.
Betty
==========
From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Re: Nelson's death and puppet shows
Date: October 18, 2005 5:28:24 PM PDT
I think he (J. S Mill) said that he went to the Punch and Judy before going into the House in order to get a "release" on what was going on there ( I gathered that this was said tongue in cheek of course though he wouldn't have said it the way I did) .
Does anyone have the source ? (way back in my undergrad days) for Tom Lessup?
Rosemarie
==========
From: aghewitt@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Trafalgar
Date: October 19, 2005 12:57:11 PM PDT
The last hours of Nelson's life were detailed by Victory's surgeon, William
Beatty. Shot through the ribs, lung, and spine, Nelson was carried below to
the orlop deck -- the lowest level of the ship, where the surgery was
located -- where, while the battle continued, he had the time and presence
of mind to describe in detail what he was going through to Beatty, ask after
the course of the battle (which was still raging), and express
disappointment that the English had not taken/sunk more enemy ships than
they did. Hot, thirsty, in what must have been terrible pain, he knew he was
going to die and made his farewells. Hardy kissed his forehead. His last
words were, "I am satisfied, thank God, to have done my duty".
Since others have alluded to it, I wonder did Hardy offer any thoughts on
the coincidence of his name with that of Nelson's flag captain?
Andrew Hewitt
==========
From: nhardyboy@aol.com
Subject: Re: Trafalgar
Date: October 19, 2005 3:53:09 PM PDT
I know that Hardy liked to believe he was related to Thomas Masterman Hardy, and he may not have been wrong, since both were from Dorset. There's also a very nice scene in The Trumpet-Major where T.M. Hardy appears, and TH's admiration of him is very evident. I'm sure some of our members who are more familiar with TH's correspondence will provide a better answer, though.
Best,
Paul Niemeyer
==========
From: fjhp82@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Trafalgar
Date: October 20, 2005 5:08:00 AM PDT
Wasn't there special mention in The Dynasts about Hardy (as in TMH) being from Dorset/Wessex? I can't quote it because I don't own a copy, but I remember thinking at the time that Hardy (TH) was making a point of it! Hm, too many Hardys!
...Fiona
-
Dr Fiona Hyde Page
Sutherland Veterinary Clinic
37 East Pde.
Sutherland 2232
==========
From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: John Masterman Hardy -- Nelson's Hardy.
Date: October 20, 2005 6:29:39 AM PDT
Millgate doesn't go there in his version of the Hardy Family Tree. But another Hardy -- a William Masters Hardy - published a book in 1908 called Old Swanage or Purbeck Past and Present: A Collection of Articles, topographical, historical, antiquarian, biographical, and anecdotal (Dorset County Chronicle Printing Works), in which he provides a "Simplified Pedigree of the Hardy Family." Our man isn't highlighted in this particular Family Tree but he does feature in it. Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy (Nelson's guy) also features (1769-1839), as son of Joseph Hardy and Anne Masterman. Both our TH and Sir Thomas are descendants of a Thomas Hardy (1556) and a Joan Ferret of Dorset.
The Pedigree also lists the Drouet le Hardye's (1494) of Jersey (to which our TH claims kinship) but I can't see, on this hand-drawn Pedigree, quite what happens with their four sons, Edward, John, Richard and William. It says, in parenthesis, inserted between John and Richard, "to Dorset 1488 living 1505" but there are no marks to indicate offspring connecting them with Thomas and Joan.
The sources for this Pedigree are stated as being from family bibles.
Cheers,
Rosemarie
==========
From: kgwilson@uottawa.ca
Subject: Re: FW: TTHA
Date: October 21, 2005 9:39:13 AM PDT
But that's not why I'm writing. Now that Trafalgar Day is actually here, I thought members might be interested in being reminded of Hardy's thoughts on it 100 years ago today. In a letter to Florence Henniker dated "Sat. eveng.I Oct 21. 1905" (with the subscript "Centenary of Trafalgar Day"), he wrote: "Dorchester has been celebrating Trafalgar to-day. You may like me to tell you that my relations are the only people we can discover in this part of the county who are still living in the same house they occupied on the day of the battle 100 years ago (in the direct line of descent). Ld Ilchester's people are in the same house, but the present Ld is not descended directly: & so with most others." (Collected Letters 3: 185).
Eight days earlier he had written to J. L. Garvin, declining to provide a Trafalgar poem for publication in the Outlook: "It is very good of you to suggest a Trafalgar poem; but nothing seems to occur to me beyong what I printed in the First Part of The Dynasts. I am, in fact, pumped dry by the Second Part, which I have just finished." (Collected Letters 3: 183).
Best,
Keith
Keith Wilson
Professor of English/President, ACCUTE
University of Ottawa
70 Laurier Avenue East (Room 313)
Ottawa, Ontario
CANADA K1N 6N5
Tel: (613) 562-5800, Ext. 1160
Fax: (613) 562-5990
e-mail: kgwilson@uottawa.ca
==========
From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Re: FW: TTHA
Date: October 21, 2005 10:45:53 AM PDT
And here's the poem Hardy permitted Newbolt to publish (see my earlier posting), "The Night of Trafalgár " (from The Dynasts, Part First) in his 1905 publication (I'm not sure if the formatting will transfer correctly though). Cheers, Rosemarie.
______________
The Night of Trafalgár
(Boatman's Song)
I
In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the land,
And the Back-sea met the Front-sea, and our doors were blocked with sand,
And we heard the drub of Dead-man's Bay, where bones of thousands are,
We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgár.
(All) Had done,
Had done,
For us at Trafalgár!
II
'Pull hard, and make the Nothe, or down we go!' one says, says he.
We pulled; and bedtime brought the storm; but snug at home slept we.
Yet all the while our gallants after fighting through the day,
Were beating up and down the dark, sou'-west of Cadiz Bay.
The dark,
The dark,
Sou'west of Cadiz Bay!
III
The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgár.
The deep.
The deep,
That night at Trafalgár.
TH has the note, re "Backsea" -- " In those days the hind-part of the harbour adjoining the scene was so named, and at high tide the waves washed across the isthmus at a point called 'The Narrows.'"
==========
From: jww543@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: FW: TTHA
Date: October 21, 2005 5:52:46 PM PDT
Dear Rosemarie and Keith,
Thanks for your messages. I have been trying to explain the importance of this event to my students, but as with our so-called President, ignorance and/or apathy are the general reaction to such significances. I did send some copies of last month's National Geographic, which has a nice article and some wonderful art on Trafal-GAR, so at least some on this side of the pond have some sense of history.
Cheers!
Julian
==========
From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Re: FW: TTHA
Date: October 21, 2005 6:33:05 PM PDT
To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu
Julian -- you are a treasure!
Is this NG accessible online?
And Now to End Trafalgar Day !
Cheers RM
==========
From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: FW: TTHA
Date: October 21, 2005 9:49:35 PM PDT
Rosemary, I like The Night of Trafalgár but personally think that the description of the Victory's passing Portland Bill, which I think you alluded to in an earlier post, is one of the best things that Hardy ever wrote.
Anne took the glass, and he supported it by his arm. 'It is a large ship,' she said, 'with three masts, three rows of guns along the side, and all her sails set.'
'I guessed as much.'
'There is a little flag in front--over her bowsprit.'
'The jack.'
'And there's a large one flying at her stern.'
'The ensign.'
'And a white one on her fore-topmast.'
'That's the admiral's flag, the flag of my Lord Nelson. What is her figure-head, my dear?'
'A coat-of-arms, supported on this side by a sailor.'
Her companion nodded with satisfaction. 'On the other side of that figure-head is a marine.'
'She is twisting round in a curious way, and her sails sink in like old cheeks, and she shivers like a leaf upon a tree.'
'She is in stays, for the larboard tack. I can see what she's been doing. She's been re'ching close in to avoid the flood tide, as the wind is to the sou'-west, and she's bound down; but as soon as the ebb made, d'ye see, they made sail to the west'ard. Captain Hardy may be depended upon for that; he knows every current about here, being a native.'
'And now I can see the other side; it is a soldier where a sailor was before. You are SURE it is the Victory?'
'I am sure.'
After this a frigate came into view--the Euryalus--sailing in the same direction. Anne sat down, and her eyes never left the ships. 'Tell me more about the Victory,' she said.
'She is the best sailer in the service, and she carries a hundred guns. The heaviest be on the lower deck, the next size on the middle deck, the next on the main and upper decks. My son Ned's place is on the lower deck, because he's short, and they put the short men below.'
Bob, though not tall, was not likely to be specially selected for shortness. She pictured him on the upper deck, in his snow-white trousers and jacket of navy blue, looking perhaps towards the very point of land where she then was.
The great silent ship, with her population of blue-jackets, marines, officers, captain, and the admiral who was not to return alive, passed like a phantom the meridian of the Bill. Sometimes her aspect was that of a large white bat, sometimes that of a grey one. In the course of time the watching girl saw that the ship had passed her nearest point; the breadth of her sails diminished by foreshortening, till she assumed the form of an egg on end. After this something seemed to twinkle, and Anne, who had previously withdrawn from the old sailor, went back to him, and looked again through the glass. The twinkling was the light falling upon the cabin windows of the ship's stern. She explained it to the old man.
'Then we see now what the enemy have seen but once. That was in seventy-nine, when she sighted the French and Spanish fleet off Scilly, and she retreated because she feared a landing. Well, 'tis a brave ship and she carries brave men!'
Anne's tender bosom heaved, but she said nothing, and again became absorbed in contemplation.
The Victory was fast dropping away. She was on the horizon, and soon appeared hull down. That seemed to be like the beginning of a greater end than her present vanishing. Anne Garland could not stay by the sailor any longer, and went about a stone's-throw off, where she was hidden by the inequality of the cliff from his view. The vessel was now exactly end on, and stood out in the direction of the Start, her width having contracted to the proportion of a feather. She sat down again, and mechanically took out some biscuits that she had brought, foreseeing that her waiting might be long. But she could not eat one of them; eating seemed to jar with the mental tenseness of the moment; and her undeviating gaze continued to follow the lessened ship with the fidelity of a balanced needle to a magnetic stone, all else in her being motionless.
The courses of the Victory were absorbed into the main, then her topsails went, and then her top-gallants. She was now no more than a dead fly's wing on a sheet of spider's web; and even this fragment diminished. Anne could hardly bear to see the end, and yet she resolved not to flinch. The admiral's flag sank behind the watery line, and in a minute the very truck of the last topmast stole away. The Victory was gone.
Anne's lip quivered as she murmured, without removing her wet eyes from the vacant and solemn horizon, '"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters--"'
'"These see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep,"' was returned by a man's voice from behind her.
Chuck Anesi
charles.anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 480-575-3478
cell 612-940-3345
fax 480-575-3519
==========
From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Re: H.MS Victory
Date: October 22, 2005 5:52:35 AM PDT
Chuck -- how good of you to transcribe this long passage for us! And thank you for crediting me with the idea - I wish I could claim it as mine!
This is surely one of best descriptions of the Victory? And despite the fact that her male companion, the old mariner, has all the terminology, Anne has powers of observation, precision and eloquence worthy of an artist (she has missed her vocation -- she should switch roles with Ethelberta!). Many of Hardy's contemporaries would have made Anne the dumb female that the male has to educate but, instead, she not only initiates male interest and participation but also acts the role of primary observer: the mariner has to see the great warrior ship through her eyes.
I have a technical question for the Naval types among you. Thomas Masterman Hardy was an Admiral. So was Nelson. Was Hardy made an Admiral after Nelson was killed or can you have two Admirals aboard one ship?
Ignoramus- Rosemarie
PS As for The Night of Trafalgár I think it's main virtue is its pantomimic quality. Even the lowly characters in The Dynasts.
==========
From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: Re: H.MS Victory
Date: October 22, 2005 6:55:50 AM PDT
According to my husband - an ex-sailor - Hardy was made a vice admiral after Nelson's death. At the time he served with Nelson he was a Post Captain, and at the time of TrafalGAR Nelson was what is known as a Rear Admiral of the White in charge of the whole Mediterranean fleet.
Best
Jacky
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Re: H.MS Victory
Date: October 22, 2005 7:59:32 AM PDT
Thanks Jacky -- and please thank your husband from me (Anne Garland knows a good deal more about ships than I do-- "fore-topmasts" and all).
Cheers,
Rosemarie
==========
From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: H.MS Victory
Date: October 22, 2005 10:49:43 AM PDT
Correct. Hardy was the fleet Flag Captain and was fairly junior, as was usually the case for a Flag Captain, having been in his rank (post captain) for only seven years. If he had not been with Nelson he would probably have had command of a frigate or a small line-of-battle ship. Regulations allowed a Flag Captain of a Vice Admiral the pay of a captain of a second-rate ship unless, as in this case, he commanded a first-rate. I have seen Hardy described as "Captain of the Fleet" at Trafalgar, but this is incorrect; the Captain of the Fleet was Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Fleet, and was a senior officer, usually a rear admiral, not a captain.
Many sources for this kind of thing, but Brian Lavery, an acclaimed authority on sailing navies, produced a masterpiece with his Nelson's Navy (remarkable book with a foreword by Patrick O'Brian).
Chuck Anesi
charles.anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 480-575-3478
cell 612-940-3345
fax 480-575-3519
==========
From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: Re: H.MS Victory
Date: October 22, 2005 11:49:24 AM PDT
I hope I'm not stepping too much out of line here, but we could be described as 'A Hardy Household', in that I research Thomas Hardy whilst Ian, my husband is very interested in naval history, including Captain Hardy, and builds plank on plank model ships, and, having completed the Victory, he is now working on the Agamemnon, reputedly Nelson's favourite ship.
Best
JACKY
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From: jww543@hotmail.com
Subject: Trafalar
Date: October 22, 2005 2:59:41 PM PDT
Dear Rosemarie,
Just go to www.ngm.com and look for the archive section. Go to the October, 2005 issue. They have a digitally manipulatable image of the Stanfield painting painting as well as some other neat features accessible by putting Trafalgar into the search box. Among the latter is a map which can be printed in high-definition. It beats cutting up the magazine!
Cheers,
Julian
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