Trafalgar Quotes

“Nelson was due for a rest. He was forty-six years old, blind in one eye, going blind in the other. He had lost an arm in battle and endured recurring pain in his side from an old stomach wound. His hernia produced a lump the size of his fist every time he coughed. He suffered headaches from a head wound and was prone to regular bouts of fever, toothache and depression. For a man who had been in action 120 times by the age of thirty-nine, Nelson was bearing up well, but he was long overdue for an honourable retirement. It was only the war that kept him at sea. But there was no rest for Nelson, or anyone else, for that matter. They had all been at sea far too long. Officers and men alike were dreadfully”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“HMS Victory returned eventually to Portsmouth and is still there, still commissioned in the Royal Navy.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The news could hardly have been worse. The fall of Ulm was a disaster of epic proportions”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The cask was then filled with brandy to preserve the corpse for burial.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“He also got hold of Nelson’s breeches and stockings and kept them for the rest of his life.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“All that remained was a small tuft at the back of his neck which Rotely promptly removed for himself.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“French officer declared that this shot alone had killed or disabled nearly forty men.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“A raking shot, which entered in the lower deck, had glanced along the beams and through the thickest of the people,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“He turned away, unable to watch as Fournier lowered the colours”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Villeneuve looked at Lieutenant Fulcran Fournier and gave him the nod. It was time to surrender.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The whole enterprise had been doomed from the start, right from the day the French fleet left Toulon six months earlier.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Passing another ship, she learned that firing had been heard off Cape Trafalgar for ‘five hours’.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The Canopus was on her way back from Gibraltar with 300 tons of water for Nelson’s fleet.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“the French and Spanish should have closed their line,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“With Nelson and Collingwood coming straight at them,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The French and Spanish ships were bigger and better armed, but the British were better sailors.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“the teeth marks he left in it on the day of Trafalgar are visible still.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Hardy had a silver pencil case with him, for jotting down signals. He chewed on it in moments of stress.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The enemy hauled our colours down and the slaughter ceased entirely after a while.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“to get the box containing the signals and ship’s orders and throw it into the sea.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Everything else on deck vanished as well, the Fougueux’s rigging, her upper works, everything.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“At his command, three decks of guns fired simultaneously into the Fougueux,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Captain Harvey held his fire until the Fougueux’s yardarms were almost touching the Téméraire’s”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“some torn in half, some blinded and maimed, others mutilated beyond all recognition.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The effect was devastating.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“It was followed in sequence by the fifty broadside guns on the Victory’s port side,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“carronade fired straight through the windows of the Bucentaure’s upper cabin,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Loaded with one 68-pound shot and a keg of 500 musket balls,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The first shot came from the carronade on the Victory’s port fo’c’sle.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“His ships might arrive in time to save the day, or they might arrive in time to be destroyed in their turn.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar