612. Nelson: The Final Showdown (Part 5)

Summary

The Rest Is History, Ep. 612

"Nelson: The Final Showdown (Part 5)"
Hosts: Tom Holland & Dominic Sandbrook
Release Date: October 27, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this deeply evocative episode, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook continue their magisterial deep-dive into the dramatic final weeks of Admiral Horatio Nelson’s life, culminating in the eve of the legendary Battle of Trafalgar (1805). While previous coverage of Trafalgar in the podcast focused on the mechanics of naval warfare, this episode zeroes in on Nelson’s personal world—his emotional farewells, his celebrity status, and the brooding sense of destiny that accompanied his last voyage. With vivid storytelling and psychological insight, the hosts explore Nelson's relationships, the tension suffusing Britain during the invasion crisis, and the preparations for the decisive confrontation with the Franco-Spanish fleet.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Parting at Merton: Nelson, Emma, and Horatia

[03:08–05:50]

• Tom reads a moving account (from Dominic’s own book) describing Nelson’s final farewell at Merton with Emma, Lady Hamilton, and their daughter, Horatia:
  • Nelson prays over Horatia, comforts a weeping Emma, and records a reflective journal entry accepting the risk he may not return.
  • “If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons.” (attributed to Nelson; [05:35])
  • Dominic acknowledges the melodrama as fitting: “It’s the kind of melodramatic thing that Nelson would say though, isn’t it?” ([05:50])

2. Setting the Scene: Invasion Panic and Nelson’s Reception

[06:30–08:07; 13:40–17:24]

• Britain is in the grip of full-on invasion panic, with fears of Napoleon’s imminent attack at a fever pitch.
• Nelson returns to England (August 1805), greeted as a national hero—crowds unhitch horses from his carriage, echoing previous triumphs.
• Tom quips: “It’s going to be like us in Sydney.” ([12:45])
• Public and government see Nelson not as just an admiral, but as the living embodiment of British resistance.
• Newspapers demonize Napoleon: “Corsican dwarf… murderer… a heart black with crimes of the deepest dye.” ([13:51])
• Visual imagery: rumors of “channel tunnels,” fleets of balloons, and “massive paddle boats.”

3. Homecoming: Family, Celebrity, and Domesticity

[08:41–12:45]

• Emma has improved Merton Place—gardens, merged houses, it’s now a grand estate.
• Nelson’s doting love for Horatia is noted, though she’s not officially acknowledged.
• Nelson’s anxiety over governmental criticism for not destroying the Combined Fleet is soothed when he’s hailed by the press as “the man who saved the Caribbean.”
• An American tourist:

  "When he enters a shop, the door is thronged till he comes out… the air rings with huzzahs… a dark cloud of the populace again moves on." ([12:02])

4. Nelson and National Destiny

[14:45–18:50]

• Britain’s military predicament:
  • Tiny army, huge threat from Napoleon.
  • “If the French ever got across the Channel, they would be pretty much unstoppable.” ([15:59])
• Only the Navy stands between Britain and catastrophe—stakes are existential.
• Elaborate invasion defenses: optical telegraphs, coastal batteries, Martello towers.
• Royal Navy dogma: aggressive action, no tolerance for caution since Admiral Byng's execution—Voltaire’s “pour encourager les autres” ([20:06])

5. Nelson's Campaign Planning and Fatalism

[21:30–26:26]

• Nelson develops his famous battle plan:
  • “I will go straight at the Combined Fleet. …I’ll have two attacking columns to splinter their line… It will bring forward a pell-mell battle and that’s what I want.” ([21:53])
  • Adam Nicolson described this as “the introduction of chaos as a tool of battle.” ([22:30])
• Deep sense of destiny—government and Admiralty put full trust in him: “I think… they are buying into this sense of Nelson’s destiny.” ([26:26])
• Rain and pathetic fallacy as Emma faces his imminent departure.

6. Last Days Ashore: Famous Encounters & Final Arrangements

[28:49–36:35]

• In London, Nelson has a famous, awkward encounter with Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington); initially vain and self-absorbed, but transforms on learning Wellesley’s identity:

  "He talked like an officer and a statesman… I don’t know that I’ve ever had a conversation that interested me more." (Wellington on Nelson, [29:38])

• Emma and Nelson exchange rings in a private “sacrament,” an unofficial marriage rite ([32:44]).
• Nelson is methodically arranging affairs, paying bills, and making plans for his family.
• He departs Merton with Emma sobbing, four returns to the house, and a final prayer.
• Writes:

  “If it is God’s good providence to cut short my days on earth, I bow with the greatest submission…” ([35:48])

7. Return to the Victory: Farewell and Public Adulation

[36:35–39:46]

• Nelson arrives in Portsmouth, oversees the cutting-edge Block Mills for ship rigging—technology still in use during the Falklands War in 1982 ([36:12]).
• Leaves Portsmouth via backdoor and bathing machines to avoid crowds, but people gather nonetheless:

  “As his boat pushes away towards the Victory, they give him three cheers and he waves his hat in farewell. …I had their huzzahs before, I have their hearts now.” ([37:13])

8. Nelson at Sea: The Waiting Game and Leadership

[39:46–46:45]

• Victory sets sail south, slows by poor winds; new, mostly inexperienced captains join the fleet.
• Nelson begins a campaign of team-building—hosting dinners, instilling confidence, and explaining his “Nelson touch”:

  “It was like an electric shock. Some shed tears, all approved. It was new, it was singular, it was simple.” (Nelson on unveiling his plan, [45:13])

• The navy is a multinational force; the black and yellow “hornet” paint scheme becomes a symbol of unity.

9. Countdown to Trafalgar: Tension and Anticipation

[46:45–52:02]

• Days drag on as both fleets wait for favorable conditions. Nelson dispatches for supplies, reducing numbers. He crafts detailed plans with Collingwood, entrusting subordinates:

  “No man has more confidence in another than I have in you… Your very old friend, Nelson and Bronte.” ([49:01])

• Nelson chooses to lead from the front—accepting the mortal risks.

10. The Enemy Moves: Villeneuve’s Decision

[52:02–54:39]

• In Cadiz, Villeneuve, under pressure from Napoleon, learns he is to be replaced—decides to sortie the fleet to restore his honor.

  “They will see if I know how to fight.” (Villeneuve, [54:04])

• Plan: turn the engagement into a “land battle at sea,” which ironically plays into Nelson’s intended pell-mell melee.

11. Final Letters and Eve of Battle

[56:11–59:00]

• Nelson writes deeply emotional letters to Emma and to Horatia as preparations for battle begin.

  “My dearest beloved Emma…the signal has been made that the enemy’s combined fleet are coming out of port. …As my last writing before the battle will be to you…” ([56:44])
  “You are ever uppermost in my thoughts… affectionate parental blessing of your father, Nelson and Bronte.” (to Horatia, [57:32])

• The British fleet sights the enemy. Nelson spends his final night awake, pacing on deck, meditating on “his king, his country, his friends and family—even his place in history…” ([60:14])

• Tom closes by reading a dramatic passage detailing the dawn before Trafalgar:

  “A sail on the starboard bow… a forest of masts emerging from the darkness…”
  “It was Monday, 21st October, 1805. The day of destiny had come at last.” ([61:00–61:48])

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons.” – Attributed to Nelson, referenced by Tom ([05:35])
• “It’s the kind of melodramatic thing that Nelson would say though, isn’t it?” – Dominic ([05:50])
• “He is the embodiment of the naval spirit itself.” – Dominic ([13:40])
• “When he enters a shop, the door is thronged till he comes out… the air rings with huzzahs…” – American observer ([12:02])
• “Our prosperity and glory… exciting that deadly enmity which would drown our island with blood.” – Newspaper excerpt on Napoleon ([13:51])
• “I will go straight at the Combined Fleet… I think it will surprise and confound the enemy.” – Nelson to Captain Keats ([21:53])
• “It was like an electric shock. Some shed tears, all approved. It was new, it was singular, it was simple.” – Nelson on his captains’ reaction ([45:13])
• “I had their huzzahs before, I have their hearts now.” – Nelson, after departure from Portsmouth ([37:13])
• “If it is God’s good providence to cut short my days on earth, I bow with the greatest submission…” – Nelson’s journal ([35:48])
• “He talked like an officer and a statesman… I’ve never had a conversation that interested me more.” – Wellington on Nelson ([29:38])
• “It is annihilation that the country wants, not merely a splendid victory.” – Nelson ([25:29])
• “May the God of battles crown my endeavours with success. At all events I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatia.” – Nelson, letter to Emma ([56:44])
• “Everything he had ever cared about... hung in the balance. This was more than a battle. It was the final chapter in a story that had begun long before he was born.” – Tom reading from Dominic’s book, on Trafalgar’s eve ([60:14])

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Structure & Flow

• The episode intersperses vivid storytelling, direct quotations, and interpretive conversation.
• Emotional intimacy (letters, farewells) balances with hard-edged analysis (naval strategy, invasion panic).
• The timeline is kept tight, tracking Nelson from home to ship to the eve of battle.
• Occasional comedic asides and banter (comparisons to podcast live tours, Emma’s bathing machine, Lord Minto’s judgments).
• Concludes at the pivotal moment: dawn on October 21, 1805, as the fleets sight each other and “the day of destiny” dawns.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Heard the Episode

This episode is an immersive, character-driven buildup to one of Britain’s defining moments. If you’ve ever wondered what Nelson meant to his contemporaries—not just as a tactician, but as a national myth and lover—you’ll find the emotional and political stakes laid bare as the ships move into position for Trafalgar. The hosts’ interplay mixes humor, drama, and deep empathy for Nelson’s inner world, bringing both the icon and the mortal man into focus. It is the perfect primer for the next episode’s account of the climactic battle itself.

Transcript

[Dominic]

Thank you for listening to the Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club that is thereestishistory.com.

[Tom]

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[Dominic]

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[Tom]

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[Tom]

When it was time to go, Nelson went up alone to the bedroom, where little Horatia lay fast asleep. For a while he knelt in silent prayer by her bedside. Then, very gently, he kissed her on the forehead and went downstairs. His boxes had been loaded aboard the coach. Emma was crying harder than ever now. Again, Nelson knelt on the ground in prayer and asked God to bless her for the last time. He clasped her to his chest. Brave Emma, heroic Emma, you encourage me to go forth, he said gently. If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons. Then he climbed up into the coach and raised his left hand and he was gone. Afterwards, Nelson wrote in his journal, Friday night at half past ten, drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all which I hold dear in this world to go to serve my king and country. May the great God whom I adore enable me to fill the expectations of my country. And if it is his good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the throne of his mercy. If it is his good providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying that he will protect those so dear to me that I leave behind. His will be done. Amen. Amen. Amen. An unbelievably moving scene. I mean, how I got through that without choking up, I do not know. It's the last farewell of Horatio Nelson to his beloved Emma, Lady Hamilton and their daughter Horatia on the evening of 13th September, 1805 and Dominic. It has been described many times, but I doubt it has ever been described in more powerful and emotional terms than in that passage of prose which comes from Adventures in Time. Nelson, hero of the seas. And you don't need me to tell you that you wrote it. And can I just compliment you on giving proper credence to Emma's report of his parting words to her? If there were more Emma's, there would be more Nelsons because there are some black hearted biographers who have doubted that he ever said that.

[Dominic]

It's the kind of melodramatic thing that Nelson would say though, isn't it? I agree.

[Tom]

I think. I absolutely think he said it.

[Dominic]

The thing is, I'm not a massive Lady Hamilton fan, as you know, but it strikes me as absolutely applausible that Nelson turned his departure, that both of them actually turned his departure into this enormously sort of melodramatic theatrical spectacle. And actually that's what this week's episodes are going to be, a massively melodramatic theatrical spectacle. Because it is, I think, the most dramatic, the most exciting, the most emotionally charged story in naval history, arguably in all British history. Nelson's last voyage to the day of destiny at Trafalgar.

[Tom]

And the measure of that is that we've already done it once. So this is, I think, is really the only great story that we're retelling but this time we're telling it with the focus on Nelson himself, aren't we?

[Dominic]

Yeah, because last time when we did three episodes about Trafalgar, we looked at it in a sort of. We brought all our knowledge of naval, military history, rope guns, ships of the line. But now we're bringing a psychological insight to discuss it from Nelson's own perspective, aren't we? At least that's the excuse. So the great man will always be in the foreground. And maybe for those people who've been on this voyage with us from the beginning, we can just do a little recap. So last time, Tom, we ended July 1805. And to quote Russell Crowe in Master and Commander, England is under threat of invasion. So after two years, not a laughing matter. No, it's not. Actually, I shouldn't be laughing. I'm laughing to stop myself sobbing with Patriot. Exactly. So after two years at sea, Nelson has pursued the combined fleet of France and Spain under Pierre Charles Villeneuve and Federico Gravina, all the way to the Caribbean and all the way back. And Villeneuve has holed up in the northern Spanish port of Ferrol. So the threat has faded for the time being. It's been bottled up, but it hasn't completely disappeared. And that gives Nelson the chance, after all these years at sea on his blockading mission, to go home at last to see his beloved Emma. And he lands in portsmouth on Monday 19th August.

[Tom]

And when he gets there, there's a reprise of what's been a feature of his landing in England, which is the determination of people to unhitch the horses from his carriage and to carry him, to pull him himself while doing huzzahs. And it's the measure of how desperate Nelson is to get back to Emma. But this time, when they try and unyoke the horses, he won't let them. Cause he's desperate to get off and he can't. He's not having any of this business.

[Dominic]

You were telling me before we started recording that you were hoping that Australians would do this for us when we arrived in Australia for our restless history tour. That's right, isn't it?

[Tom]

We'd love some huzzahing.

[Dominic]

Definitely. And people pulling us, pulling the carriage. I think that's very important. Anyway, so he sets off, he rushes to Merton and early the next day, his coach turns into the new carriageway that has been built at Merton Place. Now, Emma has been waiting anxiously for him. For two years. She's been what she was sea bathing in Southend on Sea, which has become.

[Tom]

Massively popular in England, so Brighton is the famous place where people go to do it. And Emma had actually become a fan of bathing in Italy because Sir William Hamilton, her husband, had brought her a bathing machine from England so that she could protect her complexion from the Italian sun. So she's very au fait with bathing.

[Dominic]

How does the machine protect you from the sun?

[Tom]

I think you drive it out, don't you? And so you put your feet out.

[Dominic]

And protects you, but you're basically covered by some form of roof.

[Tom]

I don't know. I'm being ambushed here by questions about bathing machines.

[Dominic]

Yeah, yeah. You shouldn't have put that detail in if you weren't prepared to. To explore it.

[Tom]

Yeah, I know, I know.

[Dominic]

Well, anyway, she rushes home, she's incredibly excited and she has arranged, on hearing the news of his return, to have Horatia, who is now four, brought from Mrs. Gibson, who is her kind of guardian. So Nelson, when he arrives at Merton, he is absolutely overjoyed to see Horatia.

[Tom]

In particular, who he hasn't officially acknowledged as his own, has he?

[Dominic]

No, but he really dotes on her. He makes arrangements for her to go to Sunday school. He is, of course, the son of a vicar, so he takes that very seriously. I think there's an expectation, don't you, that he would like Horatio to live with them permanently, Merton from this point onwards. And he's also thrilled with the house. I mentioned, the new carriageway. Emma has done a lot of work in the last two years on the house, sort of grand designs have been in and she has got a new kitchen, there's a new library, loads of new pictures of Nelson and herself.

[Tom]

That's the key, the key thing. I mean, basically, there were kind of two houses and she's knitted them together and she's bought up lots of estates around it so that it's a much more prepossessing place than when Nelson had left.

[Dominic]

And she fancied herself as a garden designer as well, because Nelson, I think, said she was a regular Capability Brown or something of that ilk.

[Tom]

There's no end to her talents.

[Dominic]

Yeah, amazing. But actually, Nelson doesn't spend as much time in Merton as he would like, because his main business is in London. The very next day, after arriving in Merton, he goes into London to meet various kind of bigwigs from the government and the Admiralty, chief among them, William Pitt, Pitt the Younger, who is Prime Minister, and the new Secretary of State for War, who is Lord Castlereagh. And when he gets there, Nelson is quite anxious that he will be. That people will give him a lot of grief for failing to catch Villeneuve, because that of course was his ambition to catch up with the Combined Fleet and to destroy it. So he's a little bit anxious. People will say, gosh, you've let us down. But actually when he gets there to London, he finds that the newspapers are hailing him as the man who has saved the Caribbean for Britain. The West Indian Colony, basically the Sugar Islands, which are so important to Britain's economic prosperity.

[Tom]

Well, I mean, also I think they're recognizing the scale of his accomplishment in keeping his fleet together under such grueling circumstances and ensuring that Villeneuve can't do anything.

[Dominic]

Yeah, I think that's completely right. I think he is. Now at this point we've talked in previous episodes about things like when he went on a kind of progress around the countryside and people were hailing him and stuff. He is a genuine celebrity. He is the supreme patriotic hero. So an American tourist afterwards described seeing him in the Strand. He's sunburned, of course, because he's been at sea all this time. He walks with the sailors gait, so he has this amusing sort of rolling walk. And this American said, when he enters a shop, the door is thronged till he comes out when the air rings with huzzahs and the dark cloud of the populace again moves on and hangs upon his skirts. He's a great favorite with all descriptions of people.

[Tom]

It's going to be like us in Sydney.

[Dominic]

It is very similar scenes actually, and his mate Lord Minto, whom we've encountered previously, being extremely disparaging about the menage at Merton and the interior decoration. Lord Minto came across him in Piccadilly and found him mobbed by a crowd and actually went into the crowd to kind of get him out and said afterwards it was affecting to see the wonder and admiration and love and respect of the whole world. The moment he is seen, it's beyond anything represented in a play or a poem.

[Tom]

And I think also for the Admiralty, they are also affected by this, aren't they? The sense that he is something more now than just an admiral or an officer to be slotted into a chain of command. That his fame and his charisma have transcended that. That he is the person inevitably that they're going to turn to when and if the great moment of crisis comes.

[Dominic]

Yeah, he's become, from being a slightly difficult asset, which he was a couple of years ago, he's now more than that, isn't He. He's the embodiment of the naval spirit itself.

[Tom]

Yeah, he's an icon.

[Dominic]

Yeah. Now, I think to make sense of this, you have to see Nelson as part of a sort of a dichotomy. You've got Nelson on one side and you have Napoleon on the other. Because just as people are swooning before Nelson, hatred of Napoleon Bonaparte has now reached an absolute peak in Britain. So the newspapers paint him, which had actually not been entirely unadmiring in the 1790s, now paint him as this sort of Corsican dwarf, as I quote, a plunderer and murderer with a malignant spirit, a depraved imagination and a heart black with crimes of the deepest dye. Our prosperity and glory, our opposition to his schemes of universal conquest rankle in his mind and prey upon his heart, exciting that deadly enmity which would drown our island with blood. So Napoleon as the bogeyman is now at his absolute height.

[Tom]

I mean, it's kind of interesting because obviously there are people who still admire Napoleon and this will be the case right the way throughout the Napoleonic wars. So Byron is a kind of famous example. But even Byron admires Nelson. I think even the people at Holland House, the supporters of Fox and all these people, the Whigs even, they sense that in Nelson they have someone who is a kind of transcendently charismatic figure.

[Dominic]

And I think for the mass of the public, you know, the great sweep of European history is reduced in their minds, is simplified in their minds into a clash between these two men. And a lot of this is because London is now in the grip of a full blown invasion panic. So there are multiple invasion panics during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This one has been building since the war resumed in 1803. It's fueled by all these kind of Gillray cartoons and newspaper articles and so on. And, you know, you would see everywhere in London, if you walk around, pictures of all the French schemes, sort of massive paddle boats and fleets of balloons. A channel tunnel, all of this stuff.

[Tom]

Yes, And I think that that's a kind of subliminal memory that carried right the way up to the building of the actual Channel tunnel that exists now. People were kind of nervous about the.

[Dominic]

French will attack us.

[Tom]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dominic]

Yeah, they were completely. They were. And it's easy for us to laugh at it and say, oh, this is overblown, because we know the invasion didn't happen, but there were very good reasons for people to be frightened. I mean, just to get into the invasion panic. You know, the mood that Nelson encounters when he returns in 1805. If the French ever got across the Channel, they would be pretty much unstoppable. Britain has only a tiny army. What army it had, what professional army it had had been devastated by a failed invasion of Haiti in the 1790s and has never really been rebuilt. Napoleon's army, by contrast, the most formidable machine in Europe. They've destroyed every enemy in their path, They've left a trail of blood behind them, plundering and sacking all these towns and villages in Italy and so on. And people are. It's understandable that people think if the French ever did get across the Channel, the consequences will be nightmarish for Britain.

[Tom]

But also, they only need control of the Channel for a day to land their forces, and then essentially, Britain would be knocked out of the war. So there was a marshal of Napoleon, Andre Massena, who said, we were never going to conquer Britain. No one even dreamt of it. It was just a question of ruining it, of leaving it in a condition that no one would ever have wanted to possess it. And essentially, that would mean destroying the dockyards. So Portsmouth.

[Dominic]

Well, Chatham, of course, and Chatham would.

[Tom]

Have been right in the pathway.

[Dominic]

A place so close to your heart. Yeah.

[Tom]

So I think it's not entirely unjustified. I mean, the stakes are high. If the Royal Navy loses control of the seas, Britain is sunk.

[Dominic]

Yeah, that's marine metaphor there, Tom. Well done.

[Tom]

That's what I'm all about.

[Dominic]

So by August 1805, all of this has reached a climax. Napoleon assembles his invasion force. It's French, Dutch and Bavarian armies. They're camped along the coast, the Channel, all the way from Boulogne eastwards to Antwerp, including the French cavalry and the Imperial Guard, so the very kind of cream of the Napoleonic war machine. And on the 20th of August, so that's just the day after, I think Nelson has returned, he has a formal inspection in Boulogne. And there is a plan. I mean, the plan has been made that there would be a first wave of more than 100,000 men in 2,000 transports, and then a second wave of 50,000 men in another 600 transports. Now, we know that they don't come, and a lot of historians say it was actually never going to work, this plan. But nobody knows this in Britain. And the newspapers in August 1805 are telling their readers, and I quote, the movements on the French coast have given rise to the belief that the invasion of England will be attempted immediately. So there are all kinds of plans that have been made, a series of what are called optical telegraphs, to link the Admiralty with Chatham, Tom with sheerness, with all these. So these are people like waving flags and stuff to communicate with each other on hills, there are beacons, there are coastal batteries. They are working on the Martello towers, which actually don't get finished until after.

[Tom]

The Battle of Trafalgar and Domino. What about the sea fencibles?

[Dominic]

Well, the sea fencibles are the absolute crack troops, aren't they? People with one leg, disgruntled fishermen, anglers, whatever touching heads. They've been called out. And actually, I have to say, almost 400,000 volunteers are drilling as Nelson arrives. No. So people genuinely think this is going to happen. There are contingency plans to close the Stock Exchange, to safeguard the gold reserves in the bank of England, even to move the King and the government to the Midlands, should the French actually manage to land. Now, William Pitt and Cohn know that the control of the Channel is what this is all about. And that's, of course, why London had been thrown into panic by the news of Villeneuve and Gravina forming the Combined Fleet, because the Combined Fleet would outnumber Nelson's fleet. And they were also furious with this bloke, this bloke called Robert Calder, who had intercepted Villeneuve on his way home and basically allowed him to escape to Ferrol. And so everyone is saying, oh, this guy Calder is useless. Which is actually very unfair, because the Combined Fleet should have been killed off, it shouldn't have been allowed to get safe into port.

[Tom]

But it is a reminder of the absolute assumption that it's the duty of a Royal Navy officer to attack, which has been the case ever since poor old Admiral Byng got shot on the deck of his own boat to encourage the others, as Voltaire put it.

[Dominic]

So this is all the context to explain why Nelson's return home is such a popular sensation and why there is such a tremendous sense of mounting tension and excitement, of events speeding towards a showdown. John Sugden, in his brilliant biography of Nelson, has some excellent lines on this. He says, nowhere that summer could Nelson escape the feeling that he was in the centre of a huge unfolding drama, inexorably gathering pace towards some historic climax. He was the country's champion, arming himself for the decisive contest.

[Tom]

And I think we talked about this before, but I think he genuinely feels that he is kind of God's champion in this, that there is a kind of apocalyptic tinge to the whole drama that is brewing.

[Dominic]

I think so. I think he thinks, listen, this is it now. If I can destroy the Combined Fleet, that is it. The war at sea is over, it is done. Britain is the mistress of the seas, end of story. And actually in that case, the Royal Navy can take over the French and Spanish trade, it can blockade their ports and over time we can squeeze Napoleon into surrender. And basically that is what happens. That is what happens.

[Tom]

And that doctrine of annihilation, I mean, again, we've talked about this throughout the series. It's one that Nelson absolutely upholds. But it is also essentially Royal Navy dogma and increasingly getting up close, blasting the enemy ships out of the water, this is becoming the orthodoxy. But it takes Nelson to enshrine it and to reveal the full devastating impact that it can have.

[Dominic]

Yeah, I think that's right. I think all this time he's turning over the plan in his mind what he'll do, you know, he knows when the showdown will come and he's thinking, how will I do this? There's a very, very famous story. A guy called Captain Richard Keats visited Merton and Nelson went for a walk with him and said, okay, here is the plan. I will go straight at the Combined Fleet. When I see them, I'll have two attacking columns to splinter their line. He says, 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'm about. It will bring forward a pell mell battle and that's what I want. So get in really close and go for it.

[Tom]

So Adam Nicholson, in his brilliant book on Trafalgar, describes it as the introduction of chaos as a tool of battle. Because the kind of the traditional naval battle is like a kind of a waltz, a minuet, like the kind of thing that you see in a Jane Austen adaptation. His plan is to totally upend that and in the conditions of chaos rely on the fact that British gunnery is so superior that the Royal Navy ships will inevitably emerge triumphant.

[Dominic]

But will he get the chance? This is the question. So all the time he's waiting and waiting and waiting for news. And then at five o' clock in the morning on Monday 2nd September, a coach and four comes rattling down the drive towards Merton Place and out gets this naval officer who's quite a stocky bloke. He's come all the way by sea and by land, so he's covered with seawater and mercury mud. And this guy is called Henry Blackwood and he is the captain of the frigate Euryalus and he has come all the way from Cadiz with news from Admiral Collingwood, Cuthbert Collingwood, who's been keeping tabs on the Spanish port on the Spanish coast. And this is what Blackwood says to Nelson. He says Villeneuve has left feral. He left two weeks ago on 13 August. He clearly was planning to head towards France, but he was deterred by the sight of British cruisers and he's turned around and gone south. Villeneuve has now taken refuge in the port at Cadiz. He and Gravina have almost 40 ships between them, but they're very short on morale and they're very short on food and water and supplies generally. Now, in truth, Villeneuve is pretty much a kind of. Is a very demoralized, broken man. Villeneuve has lost faith completely, completely in his Emperor's plan, which he always thought.

[Tom]

Was mad, to be fair. The Emperor has also lost faith in him, which is also preying on Villeneuve's mind.

[Dominic]

It is. Now, Nelson doesn't know this, but he does know that Villeneuve cannot stay in Cadiz for long because there will not be enough supplies. He will have to leave to find supplies and when he does, you know, this is it.

[Tom]

But Dominic, also, there's a risk, isn't there, that he might go into the Mediterranean, which would cause chaos, or he might head northwards. So there's opportunity. But there is also risk in Villeneuve and the Spanish breaking out because there's.

[Dominic]

Another Spanish fleet at Cartagena and if Vilna was to link up with them and then to head into the Mediterranean, who knows where he could go? Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Egypt again, you know, it's hard. Or what if he then makes for the Channel? So Nelson thinks, right, this is my chance. The stakes are very high. If I can annihilate Villeneuve now, then the war is won at sea. So within hours, he's jumped into a carriage and he is heading into London. He goes straight to the Admiralty, then he goes to Downing street to meet William Pitt and the First Lord, Lord Barham. Nelson says, give me the chance. I want to strike immediately. That will eliminate the threat of invasion. That will give us command of the Mediterranean forever. And as he later told a friend of his, George Rose, who was a confidant of William Pitt, he said, it is annihilation that the country wants, not merely a splendid victory. So this is going to be a different kind of battle. The question is, will he get enough ships? Lord Barham says, look, I've only got about 70 ships of the line fit for service to cover the entire globe. But he Says, I will back you, go back to Cadiz, take over the Victory and take command of the fleet. You can name your own officers. I will send you whatever ships I can. You're probably going to get about 27 in total. And let us hope that is enough. And your instructions? I'll leave it very simple. To protect Britain's trade, to prevent the enemy getting to sea. Everything else is up to you. You handle it as you see fit. Fit.

[Tom]

And I think, don't you, that. That this is the, the. The Admiralty and the, and the, the Prime Minister and the government buying into this sense of Nelson's destiny. That fate has brought him to this point. And they are kind of going, yes, go for it.

[Dominic]

Yeah, I think so. You can really sense the mood at this point, this sort of sense of. That John Sutton described of events hastening towards Nelson, inevitable conclusion. And they were all really buying into this. The very next day it started to rain. You know, this sort of fantastic example of the kind of pathetic fallacy. It starts to rain grey skies. Emma Hamilton has been very downcast by the news that Villeneuve is out. She had hoped that Nelson would be ashore for months. But once again the clock is ticking and she writes this letter, doesn't she, to Lady Kitty Bolton. It seems as though I've had a fortnight's dream and I'm awoke to all the misery of this cruel separation. But what can I do? His powerful arm is of so much consequence to his country. But I cannot say more. My heart is broken. Of course, Nelson doesn't have that much time to think about this because he's thinking about his plan. He is anxious whether he's going to have enough ships. He's thinking about this business about smashing them into fragments. So he's rushing back and forth across London, making all the preparations, operations, getting all the stuff ready, making sure they'll have enough supplies. You know, is he going to link up with the victory, all of this kind of thing? Interestingly, there is a sense of fatalism, I think, to Nelson, isn't there? There's a sense that he knows this could be it for him.

[Tom]

And I think that that's not just fatalism, I think that's realism. Because as we've been saying, his plan is to form two columns that will drive straight into the French and Spanish lines, which is ripping up the orthodoxy of how you fight a battle. And I'm sure by this point there's no question that he on Victory is going to be leading one of those two columns. And that means that he will be directly in the line of fire because essentially he can't ask his men to risk such a dangerous course of action and not himself be in the forefront of the fighting. So he must think, you know, I'm going to be in more danger in this battle than I've ever been before. And doubtless he has told Emma this and that's why she is. Well, lachrymose would be an unfair word. I mean, that's why she's so devastated at the thought of him leaving.

[Dominic]

Yeah, I think so. So his last full day is Thursday 12th September, and again he spends most of it in London. He goes to see Lord Castlereagh at the Colonial Office in Downing Street. Very famous incident. Nelson is shown into an anteroom to wait for Lord Castlereagh. And another man is waiting there, who's a short man, another short man who has a very distinctive kind of beaky nose. And this other man makes some sort of polite small talk to Nelson. But Nelson is tired and of course he's nervous and he's excited and distracted. And the other man said afterwards he could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side and all about himself, and in really a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me.

[Tom]

So that's the tone of Lord Minto visiting Merton and seeing all the Nelson memorabilia everywhere.

[Dominic]

It is so Nelson just talking about himself. Then the other man must have said something that made Nelson think, because Nelson then went out and he had a word with the clerk or the official outside, obviously, to find out who this bloke was. And then he came in and was completely transformed, because this man is Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley, who is just back from India, having been smiting the Maharata empire and keeping India for the East India Company. And he is, of course, the future Duke of Wellington. And Wellington said, when this Nelson came back in, he was altogether a different man, both in manner and matter. What Wellington called his charlatan style had vanished. And he talked about strategy and politics, well, with a good sense and a knowledge that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done. He talked like an officer and a statesman. I don't know that I've ever had a conversation that interested me more. And there you have the two. I mean, obviously this is after the event, so maybe there's a tiny pinch of salt.

[Tom]

It plays very well for Wellington, doesn't it? Because on the one hand it makes him look good, but it also subtly makes Nelson look a bit of a coxcomb.

[Dominic]

But that said, this is Nelson to a T. Right? I mean, Nelson would have just talked about himself and being completely feigned self interested.

[Tom]

Well, maybe. I think Nelson has a capacity to take an interest in someone else.

[Dominic]

He has lapses. I mean, he's often had lapses. Remember that time when he was going from Naples all the way through Vienna and Prague and whatnot. And he wasn't always showing himself to. Yeah, possibly his best side then. Anyway, he's had that meeting with Lord Castaway and his very last meeting is at number 10 Downing street and this is his farewell to William Pitt. We don't know what was said, but we do know that Pitt unusually is said to have come down with Nelson and escorted him to his carriage, which was a marked gesture, I think, of affection and respect because Pitt didn't usually do this. Actually on his way out of town there is one last thing he makes sure. He stops to make sure that the very latest signal book has been sent to the fleet. A good example actually of attention to detail. Nelson knows these little things could really make a difference.

[Tom]

Do you think he already has a zingy slogan in mind?

[Dominic]

Well, a slogan that actually, as we'll find out, has to be corrected by his signals, Lieutenant, because he's trying to send a message for which there's no code anyway, that we're jumping ahead back. He goes to Merton. He's there in time for dinner. But it's a pretty sad occasion. Lord Minto, who is there, said that Emma could not eat and hardly drink and was near swooning. And Lord Minto, who's no Emma fan, found all this very over the top and very sort of showy and performative. So Emma is clearly very, very upset. You know, Nelson is going away and maybe this will be for the last time.

[Tom]

He will have shared the odds with her. I mean, you know, I don't think it's performative at all. I think if you're in love with someone and he's going off and likely to die, I think you're allowed the occasional tear.

[Dominic]

Oh, you are soft hearted. So the next day is Friday 13th September. It's the last day of their lives together. It's a cloudy, windy day and they are stuck inside and Merton. Now it may be today that there's a sort of celebrated incident. They took communion together, Nelson and Emma, and they exchanged gold rings in what they called a private sacrament. So Biographers often describe this as kind of unofficial betrothal or marriage ceremony. Nelson of course is married already to Fanny. His ring which I think recently came up for auction it was mounted with a large H and was actually engraved with the date the 13th of September. Probably afterward. Well it must have been afterwards I guess which suggests that they did something because they know as you've said this could be it. This could be the last time they ever see each other. You know it's a very humdrum day. Nelson's doing a lot of chores. He's making a lot of arrangements to pay, you know, bills, bills for prints no doubt of himself and wine and whatnot and architects bills. The coach has been ordered for 10 o' clock that evening to take him down to the coast to the victory. Night falls. The hour approaches the scene that you described earlier. He goes up to Horatia to say goodbye. The coach is loaded. Emma is in tears, she won't come outside. Nelson comes back in four times from the coach and finally he does this thing where he kneels and asks God's blessing. And he says these lines that Tom you find very moving. If there were more Emma's there would be more Nelsons and all of this. But that's not the last exchange. Actually the very last exchange is with his brother in law George Matcham who's married to Nelson's sister. And Nelson says to George I'm actually really sorry that I haven't done more for our family. You know I should have done more, made more money. Maybe this time I'll get some brides money. And George says to him we want for nothing. All that matters to us is that you're safe and away. Nelson goes into the night and then he writes that moving journal entry that you read out where he's again thinking about his own death. If it's God's good providence to cut short my days on earth, I bow with the greatest submission. And he hopes that God will protect those so dear to me that I leave behind. And as we'll see next time that's a running theme even in extremis. Before the battle and after the battle Nelson is thinking about those people that he's left behind. At six o' clock the following morning his carriage arrives at the George Inn at Portsmouth and Nelson writes a note. To Emma, my dearest and most beloved of women, Emma. Nelson's Emma I arrived here. Victories at St. Helens if possible I shall be away at sea this day. God protect you and my dear Horatia. Portsmouth is a Port preparing for war. Carts and wagons everywhere, loads of people. I mean, this is a great dockyard. It's one of the great motors of Britain's war effort. And Nelson actually, before he leaves, this is a lovely detail. He has the time to visit a new manufactory that is almost ready to kind of go online at Portsmouth, which is this Block Mills. Powered by steam, it's the most advanced factory on earth. It has been designed by a French exile called Marc Isambard Brunel and it has machines basically to create these blocks, these kind of blocks. I don't quite understand what these blocks do. They kind of to do with pulleys, aren't they?

[Tom]

Yeah, pulleys and ropes.

[Dominic]

Yeah, exactly. So brilliant rope work.

[Tom]

And the amazing detail that I remember from our previous series is that there was machinery operating in Portsmouth when Nelson left on Victory. That was still operating in 1982 when the Falklands task force left. I mean, it's incredible.

[Dominic]

That's a crazy detail, isn't it? So he goes back to the Georgian. After that, he goes through a back door to avoid the crowds and he's going to leave from the beach by the bathing machines.

[Tom]

So a nice Emma related touch there it is.

[Dominic]

It's not the normal place. He's trying to escape the crowds, but actually there are hundreds of people waiting. And as he comes down to the boarding point, there are people kneeling on the ground, there are people cheering, there are people trying to touch his coat. Some people are in tears. And as his boat pushes away towards the Victory, they give him three cheers and he waves his hat in farewell. And then, very famously, Nelson murmurs, I had their huzzahs before, I have their hearts now. And by 11:30, he is on the Victory and his last voyage begins.

[Tom]

Unbelievable drama. My heart is beating so fast that I need to go and calm down. But we will be back in a few minutes to continue the story of Nelson's journey to Trafalgar. This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude.

[Dominic]

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[Tom]

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[Dominic]

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[Tom]

This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude.

[Dominic]

Tom, as you know, history's most fascinating questions don't always have simple answers. And that's why I'd like you to meet Claude. Claude is the AI built for deep thinking. Whether you're tracing how ideas moved across empires or if you're just exploring why certain patterns repeat, Claude works through historical complexity with you, researching with citations and connecting threads across the centuries.

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[Tom]

Hello everyone.

[Dominic]

Welcome back.

[Tom]

It is Saturday, the 14th of September 1805. Horatio Nelson has been reunited with HMS Victory and he is preparing to sail south to face the combined fleet, the French and Spanish ships and Dominic. He has exactly one month and one week left to live.

[Dominic]

So the Victory, the victory with which Nelson is forever associated is an excellent nick. It is, you know, how old is the Victory at this point? It's about 40 years, I think. Yeah, 40 years old. It was named after the victories in the Seven Years War, wasn't it? It's had a full refit while he's been ashore, the rigging's been repaired, the deck's been scrubbed, the guns have been taken out and checked and run in again. The crew are pretty knackered. They haven't had a break, unlike Nelson and Hardy.

[Tom]

He's been flogging away.

[Dominic]

Who sneaks up behind you with his.

[Tom]

Big feet and his stooped shoulders?

[Dominic]

Yeah, he is absolutely exhausted. I mean, people when they saw him said he looked like he'd age 20 years in one year and you really look quite old. In their favor. They are very healthy. So Hardy has looked after their health as Nelson has. They're tired, but they are fit and they know their, you know, as we would discover, they are the best fighting men anywhere in the world. They know exactly what their goal is.

[Tom]

I'm pumped by having Nelson.

[Dominic]

Of course, they're delighted to see him. So now they sail south bound for Spain. They make quite slow progress because it's foggy and windy. Not windy in a good way. Nelson all the time, as so often is writing to Emma, entreating her to cheer up and saying, you know, we can look forward to many, many happy years and to be surrounded by our children, our children's children. As I said, they move quite slowly. They only glimpse Lisbon on 25th September, 11 days later, and they only reach the fleet off Cadiz three days after that. When they get there, there is this tremendous sense of excitement among the captains in Cadiz. So many of these captains are not familiar to Nelson. These are not the band of brothers from the Nile. These are often younger, much more inexperienced men. Only five of them have commanded a ship of the lion in battle before. Some of these are well known names. You know, they. Thomas Hardy, Thomas Freemantle, Edward Berry, Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, of course, Nelson's old friend from when they were very young, Collingwood, I mean, we talked about him in, ironically, the episode about Histories of Grace's Dogs.

[Tom]

We did his beloved dog, Bounce.

[Dominic]

Yeah. So Collingwood, who's been in charge of the fleet, he's a sort of. He's a really kind of kindly and decent man. Quite shy and retiring, but doesn't have Nelson's star quality, does he? He loves nothing more than his Northumberland garden.

[Tom]

He does, and planting oak trees there. But, I mean, Nelson doesn't know many of the captains. But of course, the captains know all about Nelson and for them it's like the arrival of a rock star.

[Dominic]

Very exciting moment. So it's Saturday 28th September that he reaches the fleet and he immediately says, let's pull back the fleet over the horizon. We'll leave the frigates to watch Cadiz. We don't want to blockade it too closely because we want Villeneuve to come.

[Tom]

Out, but having the frigates there, he's learnt the lesson from when the French fleet had escaped from Toulon. His blockade there had existed to encourage the French to come out, but it had left a gap that they had then utilised it. He's not going to let that happen now.

[Dominic]

No. So they're waiting for the French, but the weather is very fine, sort of dry, hazy, there's no wind. The French and the Spanish are not going to move in this kind of weather. The next day, the Sunday, is Nelson's 47th birthday. He has exactly 22 days to live. And that Sunday afternoon he starts the process of building team spirit and camaraderie among the captains. He invites them in batches to dinner aboard the Victory. And because they're younger and because they're not as experienced, he is very keen to make them feel part of the story. Part of the planning and whatnot. So he will gather them. This is one of the things that makes him a brilliant leader. A brilliant leader and a model of leadership. He will gather them in his great cabin which you can visit today in Portsmouth on the Victory. They'll sit around this big mahogany table. They have dinner off silver plate and wine and wine glasses and so on. It's very convivial and he makes them feel valued. It makes them feel seen to use today's kind of jargon.

[Tom]

Yeah, there's such kind of wonderful testimony. So, Captain Fremantle, we dined with Lord Nelson, the juniors. And I never passed a pleasanter day. I stand with him until eight at night. He would not let me leave him before then. There's another captain, George Duff, who never met Nelson and writes to his wife, I dined with his Lordship yesterday and had a very merry dinner. He is certainly the pleasantest admiral I ever served under. He is so good and pleasant a man that we all wish to do what he likes without any kind of orders. And you get there, the sense of the star quality. He's writing to his wife saying, I've met Nelson, but also he's great. He puts you at ease and he makes you feel like you are part of a band of brothers.

[Dominic]

This is exactly Nelson's plan. He wants them to feel calm and confident. He knows that they will be outnumbered so they have to completely believe in what they are doing. And what he wants to explain in particular is this thing that he calls the Nelson touch, which is a strategy that is based on speed and aggression. Striking really fast and hard under full sail. Get in close for this pell mell battle and annihilate the French and the Spanish and settle the issue at sea for good. It is annihilation that the country wants, not merely a splendid victory.

[Tom]

And of course the parallel there is with Napoleon on land. That's Napoleon's strategy. And in that sense Nelson is kind of the British Napoleon.

[Dominic]

You know, the comparison with Napoleon is an interesting one because both of them inspire this extraordinary affection and respect among their closest officers. Nelson described, and I don't think he's exaggerating, he wrote to Emma, he said, when I explained to them my plan, the Nelson touch, it was like an electric shock. Some shed tears, all approved. It was new, it was singular, it was simple. I think part of this is Nelson style quality. But also you mentioned earlier, this is becoming part of the culture of the Navy. The Royal Navy over the Last sort of 10, 20 years has developed this new ethos no more of the sort of stately minuets. You get in and you absolutely go for total destruction of the enemy. And that's something new in naval history.

[Tom]

And what he's saying to his captains is, you are the best and your men are the best. And my strategy reflects that. So it's very, very complimentary to them.

[Dominic]

But will they get the battle? September becomes October, and still they wait. Nelson's fleet has now been reinforced. It's grown to 33 ships of the line. Most of them are two Decker 74s, the kind of standard, you know, battleship warship of the day. And there are another four frigates and these ships to remind people these are effectively huge floating gun platforms. They are killing machines.

[Tom]

I mean, the firepower available to Nelson is massively in excess of, say, the firepower that Wellington will have at Waterloo. I mean, by an enormous quantity.

[Dominic]

And just a word on the men that he's commanding. 20,000 sailors and marines. And it's not a kind of modern contrivance to point out this is a genuinely multinational kind of force. So on the victory, for example, there are Englishmen, but there are also Scots, Irish, there are 22Americans, nine men from the West Indies, Maltese, there's a Russian, there's an African, There are even three Frenchmen.

[Tom]

Yeah, and you see that famously on the. The reliefs at the foot of Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square, very pointedly illustrated.

[Dominic]

Yes. An African guy who people identified as George Ryan. Yeah, I talk about him in the next episode. So for Nelson, keeping all these different men fit and healthy is the absolute priority. So actually, what he's doing in all this, all this time, day after day, is the kind of, you know, the bureaucratic work that he'd been doing during the blockade. He's getting supplies, he's organizing fresh food and water, he's organizing drills, he's doing all this kind of thing.

[Tom]

He sends Jane Austen's brother off to get oranges.

[Dominic]

That's right.

[Tom]

And so he then misses the. The battle and is devastated. But, of course, Dominic, what he's also doing is moping over Emma and writing poetry. Can I. Can I read a poem?

[Dominic]

I think everyone would love that.

[Tom]

So this is his last love poem to Emma. No calm at sea this heart shall know While far from thee midst Lengthening hours of absence and of woe I gaze in sorrow o' er the boundless deep with eyes which, were they not ashamed would weep. I think that's very good.

[Dominic]

I think it's solid. I think it's pretty good. Yeah. I agree with you. I definitely agree with you. And while he's doing this, his captains are also doing a very nice thing. Something will be very familiar to anyone who's visited HMS Victory at Portsmouth, and that is they are painting their ships black and yellow in imitation of the color scheme that Nelson preferred. I've read different things from his biographers. Some say that he ordered it and others, in their gesture that I prefer, say that his captains were motivated to do it voluntarily because they wanted to, as Captain Duff put it, paint their ships a la Nelson.

[Tom]

Kind of swarm of hornets as well.

[Dominic]

Yeah, this sense of being a team united in pursuit of a common goal. I like that. Now still, the Combined Fleet don't come out. On 2 October, Nelson sent a squadron under Sir Thomas Louis to collect food and water from Gibraltar and North Africa. So now his numbers are down by six from 33 to 27. Six fewer as it turns out, than the Combined Fleet. Still he waits. On 9 October, he sends Collingwood his final battle plan. And he says, I'm sending you this so you know exactly what I want to do and so that you can use your own initiative to carry out my instructions according to the general plan. He says, we can, my dear Col, have no little jealousies. We can only have one great object in view, that of annihilating our enemies and getting a glorious peace for our country. No man has more confidence in another than I have in you. And no man will render your services more justice than your very old friend Nelson. And Bronte. It's Nelson reaching out to his kind of deputy. So Nelson explains the plan. Basically there's two columns are going to attack and strike the enemy line head on. Nelson leading one in the victory, Collingwood leading the other in the Royal Sovereign. Now what is unusual about this is admirals usually like to keep their ships in the centre. But Nelson says, no, I will lead from the front. We won't fire until we're really close.

[Tom]

But I mean they won't be able to, will they? That's the key thing, because the reason that you have this minuet is that the ship can only fire at an angle. So if you're going straight at a line, you can't actually fire until you've broken through past the line.

[Dominic]

Exactly. But the danger is that if they're sight onto you, they will be blasting and blasting you while you're before you can turn to get into position to repay the compliments, as it were.

[Tom]

And so Nelson's presentiments of death, I think, are Entirely natural. I mean, that's what makes it so dangerous.

[Dominic]

Yes, exactly. However, still the combined fleet does not move. Still Nelson waits, and more than two weeks go by. And by about Friday the 18th, he's beginning to wonder if the combined fleet is ever going to come out at all. That day, the Friday, the wind of Cadiz changed and Nelson in his journal, wrote, fine weather, wind easterly. The enemy cannot have finer weather to set sail. Collingwood sent him a message that day saying, surely the combined fleet will move now. But the day passes and no news comes. And then the next morning, Saturday 19th October, 9 o' clock in the morning, Nelson is writing a letter to Collingwood. Dear Cole, to invite him for dinner and bounce and bounce and the dog. What a beautiful day. Will you be tempted out of your ship if you will hoist the ascent and Victory's pendants. And then, just a moment after Nelson has written that letter, there comes a signal from the frigates. And Nelson knows what that means, because 50 miles east, in the port of Cadiz, Villeneuve's nerve at last has cracked. And the French and the Spanish are going to put to sea.

[Tom]

So, Dominic, what has been happening in Cadiz? Because you said that they can't really stay there because they didn't really have the supplies. I suppose there's also the risk of. Of disease if they don't have enough fruit. There's scurvy and all that kind of thing.

[Dominic]

And they're ravaged by yellow fever, which.

[Tom]

They brought back from the Caribbean.

[Dominic]

Yes, Villeneuve has been basically skulking in Cadiz in a right misery. About half of his men were not sailors, they're infantrymen and they've been supplemented by slaves from France's Caribbean colonies. Villeneuve was very disparaging about the quality of his own men. He said they were herdsmen and beggars.

[Tom]

Well, he is an aristocrat and a.

[Dominic]

French aristocrat at that. The most aristocratic of all aristocrats. So in early October, he'd received orders from the emperor, from Napoleon, telling him to break out of Cadiz and head east towards Italy, because there Bonaparte was planning a new offensive against Naples. Now, at first, Villeneuve completely ignored his orders. He thought, it's absolute madness to try to break out of Cadiz with Nelson just there waiting for us. Better to try to sneak out in bad weather or to wait for the British to lose interest and to divide their fleet. But then, a week later, Villeneuve had heard two items of news that changed his mind. First of all, he heard this news that Nelson had sent Thomas Louis off to get supplies. So now the combined fleet had a numerical advantage. But secondly, and even more importantly, I think he was told that Napoleon was about to sack him, that his replacement in fact was already en route to Cadiz. Which is true. And Villeneuve knew that armchair critics in Paris were saying that he was a coward, that he'd run away at the Battle of the Nile and he didn't have the guts to face Nelson. And this is really his last chance if he's going to be sacked, to clear his name and to go down fighting. And he says to his officers, they will see if I know how to fight. Because Villeneuve, to be clear, I don't think Villeneuve is a coward. I don't think he's a bad commander. I think he's actually a pretty honorable and in many ways quite an impressive and admirable man. And I think wanting to put to sea, you know, wanting to, you know, roll the dice and see if he can clear his name, an understandable and admirable thing to do. So on the 18th of October, he said to Gravina, his Spanish counterpart, with whom he actually got on pretty well, he said, look, we're going to put to sea. The way we will deal with Nelson, if he catches up with us, because we've got so many infantrymen, we will turn this into a land battle.

[Tom]

Yeah, like the Romans.

[Dominic]

Exactly. The Romans were the Carthaginians.

[Tom]

But the irony of this is, of course, this is exactly what Nelson wants.

[Dominic]

Wants.

[Tom]

Nelson wants to go in close. So in a sense, Villeneuve's strategy is playing into his hands, giving Nelson what he wants.

[Dominic]

Exactly. But it's the only way Villeneuve could conceivably win. I think, you know, if they had fought an old fashioned sea battle, Vilna would still have lost anyway. Gravina, the Spanish guy, doesn't really. He's not massively convinced by this, but his orders are to go along with what Vilna wants. So he says, fine and fair enough. And so that afternoon, the 18th, a very, very cinematic scene. The French and the Spanish officers walk to mass together in the Church of the Virgin of Carmen, the patron saint of sailors in Cadiz. And then after 5 o', clock, these huge crowds have assembled on the quayside in silence because they know just how bleak the situation is. They start to set off from the harbour. It took them all night. And by the morning of the 19th, the first French and Spanish ships have reached the open sea. And this is the news that that morning the frigates have transmitted to the Victory.

[Tom]

That stops Nelson from getting Collingwood over.

[Dominic]

Yeah, his dinner plans have been ruined. So immediately he springs into action. He orders a general chase to windward, that is to the southeast. And within moments the entire British fleet is making sail and the crews, some of them already are frantically clearing the decks for action. They're rolling up the hammocks, they're removing the bulkheads and partitions, they're stowing the furniture, they're slaughtering the animals or throwing them overboard. But not the dog bounce.

[Tom]

No bounce stays there. Although he will be hiding in the bowels of Collingwood's ship because he doesn't like bangs. I think it's very unfortunate for a nautical dog.

[Dominic]

Dogs don't like fireworks, do they? They don't like fireworks or any form.

[Tom]

Of explosion in Nelson's cabin, you know, obviously. So all his personal effects are being stored away and among those of course, are his most treasured possessions, the pictures of Emma and of Horatia and people who listened way back to our episode on Emma Hamilton. We began with this moment because even in the hurly burly of preparations for battle, he's still thinking about Emma and Horatia.

[Dominic]

Tom, I know you love to read a moving, emotional, tear soaked letter.

[Tom]

Can I read it again?

[Dominic]

I think it would be a shame if you didn't.

[Tom]

So this is Nelson writing to Emma as the preparations for battle at Trafalgar are being made. My dearest beloved Emma, the dear friend of my bosom. The signal has been made that the enemy's combined fleet are coming out of port. May the God of battles crown my endeavours with success. At all events I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatio, both of whom I love as much as my own life. And as my last writing before the battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the battle. And if that sounds breathless, it's because Nelson has picked up Emma's habit of never putting any punctuation into her letters. But I think the lack of punctuation just conveys the kind of the hurly burly sense of his emotions.

[Dominic]

But this is only one of two letters that he writes there, Tom. So do you want to give us the second letter?

[Tom]

Yeah. So this is to his daughter Horatia. My dearest angel, I was made happy by the pleasure of receiving your letter of September 19th and I rejoice to hear that you are so very good a girl and love. My dear Lady Hamilton, who most dearly loves you. Give her a kiss for me. The Combined fleet of the enemy are now reported to be coming out of Cadiz. And therefore I answer your letter, my dearest Horatia, to mark to you that you are ever uppermost in my thoughts. I shall be sure of your prayers for my safety, conquest and speedy return to dear Merton and our dearest good Lady Hamilton. Be a good girl. Mind what Ms. Connor says to you. Receive, my dearest Horatia, the affectionate parental blessing of your father, Nelson and Bronte.

[Dominic]

Yeah, your father. He didn't often write that, did he? While Tom is mopping his eyes, I'll tell you what happened next. So they sail all day and all night. Overnight, the weather turns. By Sunday morning, the 20th, it is raining hard. It's very misty. And there is no sign of the combined fleet. Briefly, Nelson turns back towards Cadiz. Have they retreated into port? No. A frigate from Henry Blackwood's inshore squadron signals to him. The enemy are still definitely at sea and they are heading eastward. At 10 o' clock that Sunday, Collingwood is rowed to the victory with three other captains. And they have one last meeting. And Collingwood says, when we find them, we should attack at once. Nelson says, no, we're still too close to Cadiz. They could fight till darkness and then they could get away. And that's the last thing we want. Let us wait till the morning when we're all further out. We will only get one chance. We want the whole day to do this, so we cannot waste it midday. They're 20 miles southwest of Cadiz now and there is still no sign of the enemy. And all afternoon they continue sailing. And then at 6 o', clock, they get another signal from Henry Blackwood. His frigates have spotted the enemy, at least 30 of them. 30 ships to the northeast. So now you can imagine the tension. Darkness falls. The last night of Horatio Nelson's life. He can't sleep. Out at sea, he can see nothing but the blue lights, the frigates assuring him that they can still see the enemy ahead. And every hour, Henry Blackwood fires a gun from his frigate to signal that all is well. It is a scene, Tom, of unbelievable tension and drama. Now, many great historians have written about this moment, but I think there's only one book that truly does it justice. And we all know what that book is.

[Tom]

And for the avoidance of any doubt, that book is, of course, Adventures in Time. Nelson, Hero of the Seas by Dominic Sambrook. And I shall read it now. So I'm kind of giving a reading from the Bible or something. Still, Nelson paced the deck, unable to sleep. Everything he had ever cared about his king, his country, his friends and family. Even his place in history hung in the balance. This was more than a battle. It was the final chapter in a story that had begun long before he was born. Midnight came then. 1 o', clock, 2, 3, 4 o'.

[Dominic]

Clock.

[Tom]

The enemy fleet was close. Somehow, deep in his bones, he could feel it.

[Dominic]

Five o'. Clock.

[Tom]

The rain had stopped. The wind had dropped to a gentle breeze. In the east, the sun was rising, the faintest hint of red spreading across the far horizon. From the masthead came a shout. A sail on the starboard bow. And in the distance he saw them framed against the rising sun. A forest of masts emerging from the darkness. The awe inspiring spectacle of the Combined Fleet, the naval might of France and Spain. It was Monday, 21st October, 1805. The day of destiny had come at last. Do you know Dominic, that is great.

[Dominic]

That is.

[Tom]

Oh God, I can't wait for the next episode.

[Dominic]

Oh my word.

[Tom]

Well, this is going to be our last episode. You will know what it is. It's going to be the Battle of Trafalgar. Will Nelson, survivor? Only one way to find out. And if you are a member of the Rest Is History club, then of course you can hear it right away. If you would like to join them, go straight into the Battle of Trafalgar. Then you can head to the restishistory.com and sign up there. It's all set. We will see you for episode six of this epic, epic account of Nelson's life, the Battle of Trafalgar. Don't miss it. Bye bye.

[Dominic]

Goodbye.

[Gary Lineker]

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[Dominic]

Now, hello, I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turned spy novelist.

[Dominic]

And together we're the hosts of another Gohanger show called the Rest Is Classified, where We bring you the best stories from the world of secrets and spies.

[David McCloskey]

That's right, Gordon. And our new six part series tells the story of John F. Kennedy, the CIA and Cuba. It's a covert war of botched invasions, mafia deals and CIA plots to kill Fidel Castro.

[Dominic]

The CIA has a secret army, the mob has a vendetta and Kennedy is caught in the middle. So what if the answer to the 20th century's most infamous assassination is found not on the streets of Dallas, but not 90 miles off the coast of Florida?

[David McCloskey]

And for our declassified club members, oh, you're in for a treat because we've gone even further. We have an exclusive three part miniseries that digs deep into these conspiracies. We've also got as part of that a jaw dropping episode with Anthony Scaramucci, the mooch himself who says he has insider evidence that ties the mob directly to Lee Harvey Oswald. All this sounds good to you? You can listen to. The rest is classified wherever you get your podcast.

[Dominic]

If you think you know who killed jfk, think again.