Champions of the fleet : $b Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empireFraser, Edward
History
Champions of the fleet : $b Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empire
Fraser, Edward
Great Britain -- History, Naval; Naval battles -- Great Britain
Of those who fought on board the _Victory’s_ special companion-in-arms
at Trafalgar, the “Fighting” _Téméraire_, Ireland contributed just
two-fifths of the total ship’s company—220 men out of 550.[14] They
came from all parts, according to the ship’s books, mostly from
Waterford, Belfast, Limerick, and Wexford; and about a third from
Dublin, Newry, Kildare, Galway, Kilkenny, and Cork. Scotland supplied
the _Téméraire_ with 58 men; hailing, the greater number of them, from
Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee, Greenock and Glasgow, Leith and Edinburgh.
Wales contributed 38 men all told; from Swansea, Cardiff, Pembroke,
and Milford, for the most part. Of all the Englishmen on board the
“Fighting” _Téméraire_ at Trafalgar, one county by itself contributed
practically a third of the number—Devonshire. They counted 52 men,
drawn from all over the county: Bideford and Barnstaple, Exeter,
Tavistock, Dorlish [_sic_], Ilfracoome [_sic_], Tiverton, and Dartmouth
and Paignton. From London came 30 men in all. Lancashire had as many
representatives in the ship as all Wales, 38—all except three hailing
from Liverpool or Manchester. Somerset had 24, Cornwall 20, Yorkshire
13, Northumberland and Durham 10 each. These are the numbers from the
other English counties: Norfolk 8 men, Hampshire 7, Kent 6, Cumberland
and Gloucestershire each 5; Essex, Dorset, Chester each 4; Middlesex 3;
Derbyshire, Warwick, Sussex, Cambridge, Worcester, and Suffolk each 2;
Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Shropshire, Leicester, Surrey, Hereford,
and The Isle of White [_sic_] 1 man each. There were 8 Manxmen at
Trafalgar on board the “Fighting” _Téméraire_; 2 Jerseymen, and 1 man
from Guernsey. Jamaica had 1 man on board, and Newfoundland 2 men. As
usual, a number of foreigners figure on the books—66 altogether. They
included: 28 Americans, 9 Germans (mostly from Hamburg and Emden),
6 Swedes, 5 Portuguese, 3 Frenchmen, 3 Spaniards, 1 Dutchman, 1
Cape-Dutchman, 1 from “Sclavonia” (Peter Valentine by name), 1 Viennese
(Emil Joaquim), 1 from Old Calabar (a negro named Ephraim) and the
remainder from Santa Cruz and other non-British islands in the West
Indies.
The log of the _Victory_ for the day after the battle accounts for all
who fell on board Nelson’s flagship, whether killed or wounded. It sets
out the full list in this form:—
“A return of men killed and wounded on board his Majesty’s ship
_Victory_, bearing the flag of the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson,
K.B., Duke of Bronté, Vice-Admiral of the White and Commander-in-Chief,
on the 21st day of October, 1805, in an engagement with the combined
fleets of France and Spain off Cape Trafalgar. Thomas Masterman Hardy,
Esq., Captain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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