Nelson & His World

In a rare idle moment this morning I Googled 'England expects'. Though much in the wiki entry was familiar, I thought members might find some details of interest, such as the fact that the signal is wrongly quoted at the base of Nelson's column. I found the literary references of interest too. And, I'm sorry to say, the irreverent Blackadder reference made me laugh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_ex ... o_his_duty

I liked that one too, it's quite clever I love Blackadder.

I imagine Nelson regularly turning in his tomb at the misquote of it there, and perhaps its use in relation to something as comparatively frivolous as football. And, reading that Napoleon used it (sort of), I thought "How dare he!"

Am I right in thinking that Collingwood also misinterpreted the signal and was a little annoyed by it, in a "Of course we'll do our duty!" way?

I'm away from my reference books at the moment so can't give a precise reference but I believe Collingwood said, with some irritation, 'I do wish Nelson would stop sending signals. We all know what to do.'

On another ship, the captain (I think it was Blackwood) said the men grumbled a bit on receiving the signal, 'Do our duty? I've always done my duty, haven't you, Jack' etc. etc., but (rough quote here) 'the sailors gave a cheer, but more out of love and admiration for their admiral than for the signal itself.'

Home Popham's code was fairly new so it was quite a novelty for ships to be able to 'talk' to each other in this way. Nelson himself talked of making a signal that he thought 'would amuse the fleet'. I suspect he was amusing himself too with this new and exciting aid to communication.