Two vessels bearing the name of _Hannibal_, an honoured one in the British Navy, were launched from Buckler’s Hard, but the first had the misfortune to be captured at Sumatra by the French, who handed her crew over to the tender mercies of Tippoo Sahib, and many of them died in captivity, owing to the cruelty with which they were treated. The second _Hannibal_ was launched about the year 1810, and not much more than twenty years ago there lived at Buckler’s Hard in one of the houses which are now, some of them, falling into positive ruin, an old man who remembered being present at the launch of this fine ship when a small boy, and who received “a quart pot of sugar” from one of the men who came to take the ship round to Portsmouth to be fitted out. But by far the most celebrated vessel which left the slips at this Hampshire shipbuilding yard of long ago was the _Agamemnon_, preceded by the _Brilliant_ and the _Zephyr_. This magnificent vessel was commanded by Lord Nelson at the siege of Celvi, where he lost his right eye, and afterwards took an important part in many of the actions of that time. She was one of the victorious fleet at Copenhagen, and in the action off Cape Finistère. But her greatest feat was when in company with the _Swiftsure_ and the frigate _Euryalus_ she played a gallant part in the Battle of Trafalgar. So important did this shipbuilding yard become that King George and Queen Charlotte came on a state visit to Beaulieu in 1789, and went over to see the _Illustrious_ leave the slips. And such was the skill of these Hampshire shipbuilders, and so considerable the resources of the place, that it is said a seventy-four gun battleship was frequently built in less than three years, although to her making went more than two thousand oaks cut in the New Forest hard by, some hundred tons of wrought iron, and thirty tons of copper rivets and nails. There were brave doings at Buckler’s Hard in those days when the ships were launched, and this although the spot was so secluded, lying as it did just beyond the verge of the New Forest itself, and was even less accessible than it is nowadays.