Horatio Nelson and the naval supremacy of England . was entirely with the mu-tineers of the Fleet in their first complaint. Weare a neglected set, he wrote, and when peacecomes are shamefully treated. The health of hisseamen was always the first essential considerationwith him. In 1803 he was writing that the squadronhad been within ten days of five months at sea, andwe have not a man confined to his bed. He wasthe nations pride indeed, but pre-eminently was hethe sailors darling. The night of the 3d of July, 1797, witnessed thebombardment of Cadiz. Nelson was in his bargewith, what he terms,
Horatio Nelson and the naval supremacy of England . was entirely with the mu-tineers of the Fleet in their first complaint. Weare a neglected set, he wrote, and when peacecomes are shamefully treated. The health of hisseamen was always the first essential considerationwith him. In 1803 he was writing that the squadronhad been within ten days of five months at sea, andwe have not a man confined to his bed. He wasthe nations pride indeed, but pre-eminently was hethe sailors darling. The night of the 3d of July, 1797, witnessed thebombardment of Cadiz. Nelson was in his bargewith, what he terms, a common crew of ten men,besides the coxswain. Captain Fremantle, and him-self, when he was boarded by the commander of theSpanish gunboats in a barge that rowed twenty-sixoars, and numbered in all thirty of a crew. Thehand-to-hand fight that followed is assuredly themost memorable of the thrilling incidents of Nelsonscareer. The Spanish commander was taken, eighteen * Blackwoods Magazine, 1848, p. 598. f Dispatches and Letters, vol. iv., p. 5 3 IO 3 e z CO o 1797-98] The Bombardment of Cadiz. 79 of his men killed, and a number wounded. Nelsonscoxswain, John Sykes, twice saved the Heros Nelson had exhausted in his friendJohn Jervis the language of eulogy. All that could say of him in reference to this hand-to-hand fight was that his actions speak for them-selves ; any praise of mine would fall very short ofhis merit. One follows with pain the narrativeof this bombardment. The Spaniards, yielding toFrench influence, were nevertheless our friends atheart. There might have been fear, but there wascertainly friendship in the reluctance with whichthey fought us. The bombardment barbarously in-jured the beautiful town ; it was on fire in threeplaces, and the houses of the inhabitants were plun-dered by the villains among them— a glorious sceneof confusion, Nelson calls it. A shell struck a con-vent and killed several priests— that s no harm,he says d
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