The part directly played by the _Victory_ herself in the battle of Trafalgar was second to none. From the very first she received a raking fire from all sides, which must have been indeed severe, when we find the words extorted from Nelson, “This is too warm work to last long,” addressed to Captain Hardy. At that moment fifty of his men were lying dead or wounded, while the _Victory’s_ mizen-mast and wheel were shot away, and her sails hanging in ribbons. To the terrible cannonading of the enemy, Nelson had not yet returned a shot. He had determined to be in the very thick of the fight, and was reserving his fire. Now it was that Captain Hardy represented to Nelson the impracticability of passing through the enemy’s line without running on board one of their ships; he was coolly told to take his choice. The _Victory_ was accordingly turned on board the _Redoubtable_, the commander of which, Captain Lucas, in a resolute endeavour to block the passage, himself ran his bowsprit into the figurehead of the _Bucentaure_, and the two vessels became locked together. Not many minutes later, Captain Harvey, of the _Téméraire_, seeing the position of the _Victory_ with her two assailants, fell on board the _Redoubtable_, on the other side, so that these four ships formed as compact a tier as though moored together. The _Victory_ fired her middle and lower deck guns into the _Redoubtable_, which returned the fire from her main-deck, employing also musketry and brass pieces of larger size with most destructive effects from the tops. “_Redoubtable_ they called her—a curse upon her name! ’Twas from her tops the bullet that killed our hero came.” Within a few minutes of Lord Nelson’s fall, several officers and about forty men were either killed or wounded from this source. But a few minutes afterwards the _Redoubtable_ fell on board the _Téméraire_, the French ship’s bowsprit passing over the British ship. Now came one of the warmest episodes of the fight. The crew of the _Téméraire_ lashed their vessel to their assailants’ ship, and poured in a raking fire. But the French captain, having discovered that—owing, perhaps, to the sympathy exhibited for the dying hero on board the _Victory_, and her excessive losses in men—her quarter-deck was quite deserted, now ordered an attempt at boarding the latter. This cost our flag-ship the lives of Captain Adair and eighteen men, but at the same moment the _Téméraire_ opened fire on the _Redoubtable_ with such effect that Captain Lucas and 200 men were themselves placed _hors de combat_.