Great Britain gained enormously in prestige as a result of Nelson’s overwhelming victory. Amongst other important consequences Trafalgar led Napoleon to enforce his disastrous Continental System, by means of which he hoped to exclude from the Continent the goods of his persistent enemy. This, in its turn, brought on the war with Russia, a big step towards the final catastrophe of Waterloo. More than two weeks passed before the people of England received certain intelligence of the great rout of the enemy in Trafalgar Bay. On the 6th November 1805, guns at the Tower and elsewhere announced the victory, and the glad tidings flashed through the length and breadth of the land-- _The heart of England throbbed from sea to sea._ But, alas! the idol of the nation lay dead in the keeping of his comrades and sorrowing England could never again greet in life the son who had loved her so well. Nelson had touched the imagination of high and low, and only the sad circumstance of an early death in the moment of glorious victory was wanted to ensure him the proudest place in all the long annals of British naval history. Mr William Canton has written an exquisite poem[76] which well expresses the mingled feelings of elation and grief with which the nation received the great news. He imagines a “glittering autumn morning” in Chester, the Cathedral bells clashing a jubilant peal for the victory. But while yet the air is filled with the glad tongues of the joy-bells-- _Hark, in pauses of the revel--sole and slow-- Old St Werburgh swung a heavy note of woe! Hark, between the jocund peals a single toll, Stern and muffled, marked the passing of a soul! English hearts were sad that day as sad could be; English eyes so filled with tears they scarce could see; And all the joy was dashed with grief in ancient Chester on the Dee!_ After Nelson’s remains had been embalmed at Gibraltar they were conveyed in the _Victory_ to Portsmouth, which was reached on the 2nd December 1805. In the early days of the New Year there was a lying-in-state in the beautiful Painted Hall of Greenwich Hospital, but comparatively few of the many thousands of people who wished to pay a last tribute of respect to the Admiral’s memory were able to do so. The coffin, made out of the mainmast of the famous _l’Orient_ which blew up at the Nile, enclosed in an outer case, was then removed to the Admiralty, where it remained until the 9th January 1806, the day of the public funeral. The Prince of Wales, Dukes of the realm, prelates, statesmen, admirals, aristocrats and plebeians crowded into St Paul’s Cathedral, a fitting shrine for the dust of the greatest sailor of the country-- _Whose flag has braved a thousand years The battle and the breeze._