On this day 1805…pickled at Trafalgar

On this day 210 years ago, Britain’s greatest admiral, Horatio Nelson, died at the Battle of Trafalgar and in death became permanently pickled.

Britain’s greatest sailor was not the most noted of drinkers and is perhaps better remembered for his affair with Lady Hamilton, fighting Britain’s enemies at battles such as the Nile, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Cape St Vincent and Copenhagen and losing various parts of his anatomy in the process.

On the other hand, as Henry Jeffrey’s soon-to-be released Empire of Booze relates, Nelson was notable passing figure in the history of Marsala.

While stationed in Naples in 1798 – where his affair with Lady Hamilton began – Nelson met a rather eccentric Englishman involved in the local wine trade called John Woodhouse.

Despite the closeted Woodhouse’s apparent penchant for naked midnight scamperings, Nelson seems to have been much taken with his Marsala and promptly ordered two pipes. His signature on the contract is rather shaky as he was signing with his left hand, the right having been shot off at Tenerife the year before.

Nelson later wrote to his superior, Lord Keith, extolling the virtues of Marsala adding it was not only fit for a gentleman’s table but would also, “be of real use for seamen.”

However, libertine, cruel and dashing as Nelson was, aside from this brief association with Marsala his impact on drinks history is limited. He is today the face of many pub signs, the odd navy-themed beer and a cocktail called ‘Nelson’s Blood’ but there a few drink-related anecdotes about him. Even the best fictional Nelson quote from Peter Weir’s film Master & Commander is him asking a young Jack Aubrey to, “pass the salt.”

Yet if Nelson was not completely pickled in life he most certainly was in death.

As happened to General James Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham outside Québec in 1759, Nelson was cut down by French fire in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar as the moment of his greatest triumph approached.

Nelson and his fleet had sailed to Trafalgar, off the southern coast of Spain, to counter a combined Franco-Spanish fleet under admiral Villeneuve.

Originally Villeneuve had orders to sail to the English Channel to help escort the French invasion force, La Grande Armée, that was gathered at Boulogne in preparation for Napoleon Bonaparte’s planned invasion of Britain.

In the event, the entry of Austria and Russia into the War of the Third Coalition caused Napoleon to call off the invasion. He marched east and in December inflicted a catastrophic defeat on the Allied armies at Austerlitz in what was possibly his greatest campaign.

The French fleet though remained a significant threat to Britain and its trade. Its destruction was keenly sought by the British government. When it was spotted leaving Cadiz harbour on 20 October, therefore, Nelson immediately gave chase.

Outnumbered with his 27 British ships to 33 French and Spanish, Nelson came on aggressively with his fleet split into two columns, his own flagship, HMS Victory, at the head of one.

Declining suggestions to move to another ship, allow another vessel to lead the column or even to make himself less conspicuous by removing his decorations, Nelson ran up his famous signal to the fleet: ‘England expects that every man will do his duty”, as his ships bore down on the French.

Breaking through the enemy line, Victory moved to engage Villeneuve’s own flagship, the 80-gun Bucentaure, but was soon being pounded by the nearby Redoutable and massive, 130-gun, Spanish ship Santísima Trinidad.

Calmly pacing the deck with Captain Hardy, as roundshot and grape ripped Victory and her crew to pieces, Nelson was the very picture of unruffled calm amid the carnage.

His secretary, John Scott, was cut in two by a cannonball at his side, his replacement shot down soon afterwards, Hardy’s foot was saved when the buckle on his shoe deflected a splinter.

But his luck was not to last. Shortly after one o’clock Nelson was shot through the left shoulder by a French marksman in the rigging of the Redoutable. The marksman himself was soon afterwards shot dead by midshipman John Pollard.

The bullet cut through Nelson’s spine and lodged below his right shoulder. “Hardy, I do believe they have done it at last… my backbone is shot through,” he said. As he was taken below by a marine sergeant-major and two sailors he asked them to stop so he could give orders to a young midshipman laying a gun.

Aware his wound was mortal, Nelson was made comfortable and given lemonade or watered down wine (Marsala?) to drink whenever he complained of thirst. Despite its dangerous predicament, Victory was saved by Captain Eliab Harvey who brought his ship, the 98-gun HMS Temeraire (later the subject of Turner’s famous painting), alongside the Redoutable and smashed it with an enormous broadside as its crew prepared to board Victory.

The British ships, HMS Leviathan, HMS Conqueror and HMS Neptune then came up and forced the surrender of Bucentaure, while Santísima Trinidad was likewise isolated and forced to capitulate. Nelson died three hours after being shot having heard that the battle was won.

The Franco-Spanish fleet lost 22 ships in total, the British, none. Among the captured French ships were L’Aigle, Algésiras, Berwick, Bucentaure, Fougueux, Intrépide, Redoutable, and Swiftsure. The Spanish ships taken were Argonauta, Bahama, Monarca, Neptuno, San Agustín, San Ildefonso, San Juan Nepomuceno, Santísima Trinidad, and Santa Ana.

Redoutable was too badly damaged and later sank, while Santísima Trinidad and Argonauta were scuttled by the British. Achille exploded, Intrépide and San Augustín burned, and L’Aigle, Berwick, Fougueux and Monarca were wrecked in a gale following the battle.

Nelson’s body was placed into a cask of brandy mixed with camphor and myrrh. The cask was then lashed to the main mast and the Victory, badly damaged during the battle, was towed to Gibraltar.

In Gibraltar Nelson’s body (still in the cask) was transferred to the rather splendidly and aptly named HMS Pickle and from there was brought to London.

He was placed in a lead-lined coffin filled with “spirits of wine” (a preservative made from brandy or other spirit that had been repeatedly distilled), this was then placed inside a wooden coffin made from the mast of the French battleship L’Orient, which Nelson had captured on the Nile in 1798.

After a procession from Greenwich via the Admiralty, he was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral on 9 January 1806 at a funeral attended by tens of thousands of people.

This story first appeared on the drinks business in the Top 10 Nautical Drinking Traditions.