Nelson & His World

Does anyone happen to have a list of all the Spanish commanders and their ships at the Battle of Cape St Vincent? The only apparently complete list I can find is on wikipedia, and it doesn't give a source so I'm reluctant to trust it.

Thanks

Vicki,
The only listing I could find was in a book called 'Battles of St Vincent and Camperdown' by Christopher Lloyd, printed B.T. Batsford 1963. The list found in my book is almost identical to that of the Wicki list. Just one small difference, the Wicki list has no officers listed for Cande de Regala(112), my book states Admiral P de Cardenas. But, Cardenas has a duplicate entry on my list, he also appears listed for Mexicano(112)?
Maybe he shifted flag, during battle? Did that ever happen?
The other thing that struck me was the Wicki list spelling of 'San Isidro', everywhere else I have seen it spells it 'Ysidro'.

Richard.

I don't have anything on my bookshelves that lists the commanders, but you are of course right to be wary of Wikipedia. The list of ships on Wikipedia includes four that were not present at the battle. Colin White in "1797: Nelson's Year of Destiny" points out that Neptuno and Bahama had been sent into Algeciras on their way through the Straits, and that San Pablo and Infanta del Pelayo were detached early in the morning of the 14th, and did not rejoin until after the battle.

The Wikipedia article, as is often the case, seems to rely heavily on old sources available online in the public domain, and ignores more recent research. One possible source may be: Colin White mentions Hugo O'Donnell's paper.

Richard,

I would think 'San Isidro' is likely the correct spelling. This is how it appears in 'Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy' by John Harbron, which the author researched using the Spanish naval archives.

Here is a Spanish source with fuller detail for the fleet with admirals and captains as of 1st February: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rWfj ... 97&f=false

Thankyou very much for the replies, and to Tony for the link!

Vicki,
I'm sure the link Tony supplied is much more reliable than the listing from my book. Looking at Tony's link it gives the officers for Cande de Regala , the duplicate entry for Cardenas found in my book must be a mistake of some description.
The link also confirms the correct spelling of San Isidro. Its amazing how often spelling variations crop up!
Almost all of the souces I have looked at spell it with a 'Y'?

A resident of present day Madrid would certainly spell the name of the city's patron saint as 'San Isidro' (the celebration of whose day in May marks the beginning of the local bull fighting season). But if you live in the Americas (San Diego for example) you would use the old version and would spell it San Ysidro.
Surely the question is not 'what is the correct spelling now'? but ' how was it spelt in 1797?' There is sufficient contemporary evidence - from William James writing in the 1820s, for example - that the spelling used then was indeed 'San Ysidro' and that modern historians have modernised it to conform with current usage. This is not uncommon particularly in Spanish or Portuguese. The modern Portuguese terminal nasal sound '-ão' for example was seldom used 150 years ago and the modern province of Maranhão appears in Cochrane's S American memoires as 'Maranham'. Anyone writing of these events now would use Maranhão to aid identification, but the archaic equivalent is not 'wrong' as such.

Brian

Vicki:

in view of your comment about variations in spelling that crop up, I thought this ancient post of mine would amuse!


viewtopic.php?f=1&t=92&p=459&hilit=demerara#p459

Oh, and Brian - how nice to hear from you! We can always bank on you for interesting and authoritative comment.

Quite right Anna. We mustn't forgot that some people then - as now - couldn't spell!
Thanks for your greeting. I've been out of action for a while having my knees replaced and delightfully befuddled with pain killers in the interim. But now I'm myself again!.

Brian

Brian,

Good to have you back, and also to know that you are on the mend.

Regarding different spellings between those of today and previous times, you are of course quite right and I never thought of it. I took a quick look in Sugden to see how he spelt it, and lo, and behold, he has it as 'San Ysidro' – somehow, I don't really feel as though I can argue with that. Thus, it would seem that Harbron used the modern spelling, but is not historically correct.

Very interesting, thankyou for all the replies

I live in Spain in a place called Almoradi and not far away is a town called San Isidro