Lieutenant John Pasco not only flew the most famous signal in British history, he helped write it.
On October 21st, 1805, the Royal Navy crushed a French and Spanish fleet at Cape Trafalgar, Spain. This permanently deprived Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Emperor, of sea-power, and ended his hopes of conquering Britain. Though Admiral Nelson died that day, his call to arms remains one of the best-known sentences in the English language. Here, Lieutenant John Pasco recalls how it was made.
A year into his reign as Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte had much of Europe under his government but the United Kingdom still eluded him.
Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of the French on December 2nd, 1804. He dreamt of a European empire, and as Jawaharlal Nehru recalls here on land none could resist him. On the seas, however, it was another story. Barely a year into his imperial reign Napoleon was forced to accept two facts: he would never command the seas, and he would never conquer Britain.
When Horatio Nelson stepped aboard HMS Victory in September 1805, the great Admiral knew he had every reason to stay on dry land.
At dawn on Sunday 15th September, 1805, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson gave the order for his flagship HMS Victory to weigh anchor. Never had Nelson’s duty to go to sea been greater; never had his reasons to stay ashore been stronger. His diary recorded his feelings on the previous Friday night, as his chaise rattled towards towards Portsmouth, and again in the moments before the Battle of Trafalgar.
The Whitby man held his nerve to keep five enemy ships busy at Trafalgar, and subsequently led Nelson’s funeral procession.
The Battle of Trafalgar near Spain on October 21st, 1805, in which the victorious Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson was shot and killed, is one of the defining events in British history. Many played a vital part in it, including Captain Robert Moorsom of Whitby in Yorkshire.