following note: " Subsequent information has proved this statement wanted confirmation : " * a note that, we verily believe, would not have been added, but for our positive denial, in the first edition of this work, of the statement to which it refers.

" I have not only, " says Vice-admiral Collingwood, " to lament, in common with the British navy and the British nation, in the fall of the commander-in-chief, the loss of a hero whose name will be immortal, and his memory ever dear to his country, but my heart is rent with the most poignant grief for the death of a friend, to whom, by many years' intimacy, and a perfect knowledge of the virtues of his mind, which inspired ideas superior to the common race of men, I was bound by the strongest ties of affection ; a grief to which even the glorious occasion in which be fell does not bring the consolation which perhaps it ought. His lordship received a musket ball in his left breast about the middle of the action, and sent an officer to me immediately with his last farewell, and soon after expired. "

Admiring, as we must, the feeling and impressive manner in which the death of Lord Nelson is here adverted to, we are obliged to refer to a previous page of this work for a satisfactory proof that the statement with which the extract concludes is incorrect. � The death of Lord Nelson in the moment of victory, and the delay until then of any announcement to the second in command that the first was incapable of acting, show that the following passage in Vice-admiral Collingwood's letter, as far as regards the inference meant to be drawn from it, rests upon no better foundation. " The Royal-Sovereign having lost her masts, except her tottering foremast, I called the Euryalus to me while the action continued, which ship, lying within hail, made my signals ; a service which Captain Blackwood performed with great attention. "

The few signals, made by the Euryalus for the dismasted Royal-Sovereign, while the action continued, must have been such only as the second in command of the fleet had been directed to make, if necessary, to his own division or column. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, when Lord Nelson flatly refused to give up the command of the fleet, and did not breathe his last until the action had virtually terminated ? Even then, agreeably to the rules of the service, the Victory's flag remained flying.

Among the numerous omissions and mistatements that pervade the official accounts of this celebrated battle, the most extraordinary, as well as the most unjust, is the neglect to notice the services or even to mention the name of the Victory's captain ; of the officer who, from a few minutes before the action was at its height to the moment of its successful termination, a period of three hours, acted in the capacity, and held the responsibility,

* Brenton, vol, iii., p. 475.

�  See p. 83.

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