Deeds that Won the Empire | Page 4

guns were mounted, while the three decks were thronged with
some 1300 men. When floating batteries like these swept each other
with the flame of swiftly repeated broadsides at a distance of a few
score yards, the destruction may be better imagined than described. The
Spanish had an advantage in the number of guns and men, but the
British established an instant mastery by their silent discipline, their
perfect seamanship, and the speed with which their guns were worked.
They fired at least three broadsides to every two the Spaniards
discharged, and their fire had a deadly precision compared with which
that of the Spaniards was mere distracted spluttering.
Meanwhile the dramatic crisis of the battle came swiftly on. The
Spanish admiral was resolute to join the severed fragments of his fleet.
The Culloden, the Blenheim, the Prince George, and the Orion were
thundering amongst his rearmost ships, and as the British line swept up,
each ship tacked as it crossed the gap in the Spanish line, bore up to
windward and added the thunder of its guns to the storm of battle
raging amongst the hindmost Spaniards. But naturally the section of the
British line that had not yet passed the gap shortened with every minute,
and the leading Spanish ships at last saw the sea to their leeward clear
of the enemy, and the track open to their own lee squadron. Instantly

they swung round to leeward, the great four-decker, the flagship, with a
company of sister giants, the San Josef and the Salvador del Mundo, of
112 guns each, the San Nicolas, and three other great ships of 80 guns.
It was a bold and clever stroke. This great squadron, with the breeze
behind it, had but to sweep past the rear of the British line, join the lee
squadron, and bear up, and the Spanish fleet in one unbroken mass
would confront the enemy. The rear of the British line was held by
Collingwood in the Excellent; next to him came the Diadem; the third
ship was the Captain, under Nelson. We may imagine how Nelson's
solitary eye was fixed on the great Spanish three-deckers that formed
the Spanish van as they suddenly swung round and came sweeping
down to cross his stern. Not Napoleon himself had a vision more swift
and keen for the changing physiognomy of a great battle than Nelson,
and he met the Spanish admiral with a counter-stroke as brilliant and
daring as can be found in the whole history of naval warfare. The
British fleet saw the Captain suddenly swing out of line to leeward--in
the direction from the Spanish line, that is--but with swift curve the
Captain doubled back, shot between the two English ships that formed
the rear of the line, and bore up straight in the path of the Spanish
flagship, with its four decks, and the huge battleships on either side of
it.
The Captain, it should be remembered, was the smallest 74 in the
British fleet, and as the great Spanish ships closed round her and broke
into flame it seemed as if each one of them was big enough to hoist the
Captain on board like a jolly-boat. Nelson's act was like that of a single
stockman who undertakes to "head off" a drove of angry bulls as they
break away from the herd; but the "bulls" in this case were a group of
the mightiest battleships then afloat. Nelson's sudden movement was a
breach of orders; it left a gap in the British line; to dash unsupported
into the Spanish van seemed mere madness, and the spectacle, as the
Captain opened fire on the huge Santissima Trinidad, was simply
amazing. Nelson was in action at once with the flagship of 130 guns,
two ships of 112 guns, one of 80 guns, and two of 74 guns! To the
spectators who watched the sight the sides of the Captain seemed to
throb with quick-following pulses of flame as its crew poured their shot
into the huge hulks on every side of them. The Spaniards formed a

mass so tangled that they could scarcely fire at the little Captain
without injuring each other; yet the English ship seemed to shrivel
beneath even the imperfect fire that did reach her. Her foremast was
shot away, her wheel-post shattered, her rigging torn, some of her guns
dismantled, and the ship was practically incapable of further service
either in the line or in chase. But Nelson had accomplished his purpose:
he had stopped the rush of the Spanish van.
At this moment the Excellent, under Collingwood, swept into the storm
of battle that raged round the Captain, and poured three tremendous
broadsides into the Spanish three-decker the Salvador del Mundo that
practically disabled her. "We were not further from her," the