Nelson & His World

The first quotation came at the end of a letter from Lord Bristol in 1795:


He took it from a rather good song 'by Berkeley':


I'm sure you are right about the poem by Dr William Beattie (as opposed to Beatty). He was physician to the Duke of Clarence and wrote the poem while accompanying him on a trip to Germany. Pettigrew ascribed the poem to Dr William Beattie (Beatty was by then Sir William Beatty) , and it seems it was Sichel that mistakenly ascribed it to Beatty.

Belated thanks for the information on the Emma epigrams, Tony.

I mentioned on another thread that sailors seemed to have a hard time of it once they were paid off, having won their victory at Trafalgar. Here is the poem quoted by Roy Adkins in 'Trafalgar: a biography of a battle' that appeared just over a decade after Trafalgar.

Who is it knocks so gently at my door?
That looks so way-worn, desolate and poor;
A paid-off sailor, once his country's pride
But now a wanderer on the highway's side;
Whose haggard looks real misery bespeak
Famine, and care o'erspread his sun-burnt cheek;
'Help a poor seaman,' is his suppliant cry,
'Grant me a pittance, lest for want I die -
At Trafalgar, I played a Briton's part,
Strength in my limbs and courage in my heart:
But now adrift, distress has brought me low,
As this poor wasted form will plainly shew.
I little thought, the day great Nelson fell,
That I should live so sad a tale to tell.
Far better I had died that glorious morn
Than live a wretch so miserably forlorn.'
'Come in, my friend, and share a poor man's meal,
Curse on the caitiff [villain] with a heart of steel,
That cannot for your fate some pity feel.'

I have just come across this poem by Edmund Blunden (1896-1974, so not contemporary with the events) narrating the story of the duel between Captain Macnamara of the Royal Navy and Colonel Montgomery after an altercation over their dogs.


INCIDENT IN HYDE PARK, 1803

THE impulses of April, the rain-gems, the rose-cloud,
The frilling of flowers in the westering love-wind !
And here through the Park come gentlemen riding,
And there through the Park come gentlemen riding,
And behind the glossy horses Newfoundland dogs follow.
Says one dog to the other, ' This park, sir, is mine, sir.'
The reply is not wanting ; hoarse clashing and mouthing
Arouses the masters.
Then Colonel Montgomery, of the Life Guards, dismounts.
4 Whose dog is this ? ' The reply is not wanting,
>From Captain Macnamara, Royal Navy : ' My dog.'
' Then call your dog off, or by God he'll go sprawling.'
' If my dog goes sprawling, you must knock me down
after.'
' Your name ?' ' Macnamara, and yours is —' ' Montgomery.'
' And why, sir, not call your dog off ?' ' Sir, I chose
Not to do so, no man has dictated to me yet,

And you, I propose, will not change that.' ' This place,
For adjusting disputes, is not proper ' — and the Colonel,
Back to the saddle, continues, ' If your dog
Fights my dog, I warn you, I knock your dog down.
For the rest, you are welcome to know where to find me,
Colonel Montgomery ; and you will of course
Respond with the due information,' ' Be sure of it,'
Now comes the evening, green-twinkling, clear-echoing,
And out to Chalk-farm the Colonel, the Captain,
Each with his group of believers, have driven.
Primrose Hill on an April evening
Even now in a fevered London
Sings a vesper sweet; but these
Will try another music. Hark !
These are the pistols ; let us test them ; quite perfect.
Montgomery, Macnamara six paces, two faces ;
Montgomery, Macnamara — both speaking together
In nitre and lead, the style is incisive,
Montgomery fallen, Macnamara half-falling,
The surgeon exploring the work of the evening —
And the Newfoundland dogs stretched at home in the firelight.
The coroner's inquest; the view of one body ,'
And then, pale, supported, appears at Old Bailey
James Macnamara, to whom this arraignment:
You stand charged
That you
With force and arms
Did assault Robert Montgomery,
With a certain pistol

Of the value of ten shillings,
Loaded with powder and a leaden bullet,
Which the gunpowder, feloniously exploded,
Drove into the body of Robert Montgomery,
And gave
One mortal wound ;
Thus you did kill and slay
The said Robert Montgomery.
O heavy imputation ! O dead that yet speaks !
0 evening transparency, burst to red thunder !
Speak, Macnamara. He, tremulous as a windflower,
Exactly imparts what had slaughtered the Colonel,
' Insignificant the origin of the fact now before you ;
Defending our dogs, we grew warm ; that was nature ;
That heat of itself had not led to disaster.
>From defence to defiance was the leap that destroyed.
At once he would have at my deity, Honour —
" If you are offended you know where to find me."
On one side, I saw the wide mouths of Contempt,
Mouth to mouth working, a thousand vile gunmouths ;
On the other my Honour ; Gentlemen of the Jury,
1 am a Captain in the British Navy.'
Then said Lord Hood : ' For Captain Macnamara,
He is a gentleman and so says the Navy,'
Then said Lord Nelson : ' I have known Macnamara
Nine years, a gentleman, beloved in the Navy,
Not to be affronted by any man, true,
Yet as I stand here before God and my country,
Macnamara has never offended, and would not,
Man, woman, child,' Then a spring-tide of admirals,

Almost Neptune in person, proclaim Macnamara
Mild, amiable, cautious, as any in the Navy;
And Mr. Garrow rises, to state that if need be,
To assert the even temper and peace of his client,
He would call half the Captains in the British Navy.
Now we are shut from the duel that Honour
Must fight with the Law ; no eye can perceive
The fields wherein hundreds of shadowy combats
Must decide between a ghost and a living idolon —
A ghost with his army of the terrors of bloodshed,
A half-ghost with the grand fleet of names that like sunrise
Have dazzled the race with their march on the ocean.
Twenty minutes. How say you ?
Not guilty.
Then from his chair with his surgeon the Captain
Walks home to his dog, his friends' acclamations
Supplying some colour to the pale looks he had,
Less pale than Montgomery's ; and Honour rides on.

Further to my musings about anchors: I started thinking about them because I was reading a poem by the new Nobel Laureate, the Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, in which he compares himself, metaphorically, to an anchor. Here's a more literal poem about anchors:

Anchors

In a breaker's yard by the Millwall Docks,
With its piled-up litter of sheaveless blocks,
Stranded hawsers and links of cable,
A cabin lamp and a chartroom table,
Nail-sick timbers and heaps of metal
Rusty and red as an old tin kettle,
Scraps that were ships in the years gone by,
Fluke upon stock the anchors lie.

Every sort of a make of anchor
For trawler or tugboat, tramp or tanker,
Anchors little and anchors big
For every build and for every rig,
Old wooden-stocked ones fit for the Ark,
Stockless and squat ones, ugly and stark,
Anchors heavy and anchors small,
Mushroom and grapnel and kedge and all.

Mouldy old mudhooks, there they lie!
Have they ever a dream as the days go by
Of the tug of the tides on coasts afar,
A Northern light and a Southern star,
The mud and sand of a score of seas,
And the chuckling ebb of a hundred quays,
The harbour sights and the harbour smells,
The swarming junks and the temple bells?

Roar of the surf on coral beaches,
Rose-red sunsets on landlocked reaches,
Strange gay fishes in cool lagoons,
And palm-thatched cities in tropic noons;
Song of the pine and sigh of the palm,
River and roadstead, storm and calm -

Do they dream of them all now their work is done,
And the neaps and the springs at the last are one?

And only the tides of London flow,
Restless and ceaseless, to and fro;
Only the traffic's rush and roar
Seems a breaking wave on a far-off shore,
And the wind that wanders the sheds among
The ghost of an old-time anchor song: -

'Bright plates and pannikins
To sail the seas around,
And a new donkey's breakfast
For the outward bound!'

Cicely Fox Smith