At Trafalgar “Nelson’s Hardy,” Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy, was captain of the _Victory_. He was not the “Captain of the Fleet,” that post being officially vacant during Captain George Murray’s absence on leave in England owing to urgent private affairs. Hardy’s charming manner and tact, however, and his pleasant way of “getting on” with everybody he had to do with in all circumstances, enabled Nelson to manage for the time being without so invaluable an aid as “Friend Murray” had ever proved himself. Hardy and Nelson had served together for nearly nine years on and off, ever since they first met, when Hardy was a lieutenant in the _Meleager_, a frigate in Nelson’s flying squadron off the Eastern Riviera. When Nelson hoisted his broad pennant on board the _Minerve_, towards the end of 1796, Hardy went with him, and he owed something to Nelson during the cruise. Just before the battle off Cape St. Vincent, when the _Minerve_ was passing the Straits off Gibraltar, with the Spanish fleet in pursuit of her, Hardy, then first lieutenant, put off in a boat to rescue a man who had fallen overboard. The man was picked up, but the boat was swept by the current right across the bows of the fast approaching enemy. On board the _Minerve_ they gave the boat up for lost, when Nelson, risking the capture of the ship and all on board, brought-to. “By God,” he called out, “I’ll not lose Hardy!” “Back the mizen topsail!” They picked the boat up almost under the bowsprits of the enemy, and got off scot-free. After that, the brilliant way in which Hardy led the _Minerve’s_ boats at the cutting out of the French brig-of-war _Mutine_ won him his post-captaincy and the command of his prize, in which he served until after the battle of the Nile when Nelson moved him into the _Vanguard_ in place of Flag-Captain Berry, sent home with the dispatches. Ever since the battle of the Nile Hardy had followed Nelson’s fortunes as his flag-captain in the various ships on board which Nelson had his flag—in the _Vanguard_ first of all, then in the _Foudroyant_, the _San Josef_, and the _St. George_. It was Hardy also who, on the night before the attack on Copenhagen, with cool daring, pulled with muffled oars close alongside the ships of the Danish line and took the soundings which practically enabled Nelson to win the battle. “A bachelor of 35, rather stout in build, with light eyes, bushy eyebrows, square broad face, plenty of chin, and a mouth whose corners played between humour and grimness,” is the portrait that a contemporary gives of Captain Hardy in 1805. Hardy—he lived to be Sir Thomas and K.C.B.—now lies in the mausoleum of the old pensioners’ burial ground at Greenwich Hospital—a veteran laid to his rest among veterans. No more fitting last abode surely could have been found for “Hardy of the _Victory_” than amongst those with whom he had lived and fought and had his being.