LATTENANT J:ax Ras Lavors of the PICKLE SCHOONER. He was promoted to the rank of Commander on tenging home the dispatches of the Battie in November 1913, was Posted in August 1sil, and died on the 26th of January, 1534.

+ LIEUTENANT ROBERT BENJAMIN Yorne of the ENTREPRENANTE CUTTER. He was not promoted wal the 21st of October, 1810, and is still a Com

mander.

• It is erroneously said in James' "Naval History," that L'Entreprenante was commanded at Trafalgar by Lieutenant John Puver."

NELSON'S "FIGHTING COAT,"

Such is the absurd designation given by Drs. Clarke and M'Arthur to the Coat worn by Lord Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar; and they relate the following anecdote respecting it :

"He put on the Coats which he had so often worn on the day of Victory, and which he kept with a degree of veneration. The various splendid honours he had received from different Nations, were plainly worked upon it, and the Star of the Order of the Bath which he had always worn with a peculiar pleasure, as the free gift of his Sovereign, he resolved should appear in the Battle, and be nearest his heart when he fell: 'In honour,' he exclaimed, 'I gained them, and in honour I will die in them".""

That a statement so ridiculous in itself, and so inconsistent with Nelson's character, should have ever been made, is the more extraordinary when Dr. Beatty's "Narrative" must have been before its authors; where it is expressly said that "Lord Nelson came upon deck soon after daylight; he was dressed as usual, in his Admiral's frock coat, bearing on the left breast four Stars, of different Orders, which he always wore with his common apparel."

Many of Lord Nelson's other biographers have repeated, with some trifling variations, this story; and it is still generally believed to be true". In July 1842, the statement

"It had been his custom for years to preserve what he termed his fighting Coat, but through inadvertency he omitted to wear the Sword so much regarded, which had belonged to Captain M. Suckling."-Clarke and M'Arthur, vol. ii, p. 442.

6 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 442.

7 Vide p. 137, ante.

For the following account of the Coat worn by Lord Nelson in the Battle of the Nile, and now in Greenwich Hospital, the Editor is indebted to the Right Honourable Sir Alexander Johnston :

"The late Lord William Campbell, a Post-Captain in the British Navy, (the father of Lady Johnston, and the grandfather of Lieutenant Frederick Erskine Johnston, now first Lieutenant of H. M. S. Terrible,) who had known a great deal of Lord Nelson when he first entered the Navy, had formed, even at that time, a high opinion of his bravery, zeal, and activity, and had been accustomed to speak of him frequently as a distinguished and a rising young man, to his niece, the Honourable Mrs. Ann Seymour Damer, (the daughter of his sister, the Countess of Aylesbury, and her husband, Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway,) who had devoted herself from her childhood to the study of different branches of the Fine Arts, particularly to that of sculpture, in which she had attained, at an early period of her life, the greatest proficiency, as is shown by the very fine and numerous specimens of her genius and talents, in the collection now in the possession of her cousin, Lady Johnston, to whom she left them at her death.

"When Lord Nelson, by his Victory off the Nile, had become an object of interest throughout all Europe, Mrs. Damer, who, from what she had previously heard of him from her uncle and others, had formed the most enthusiastic idea of his character as a Hero, made an offer to, which was gladly excepted by, the

was publicly contradicted by Captain William Henry Smyth, of the Royal Navy, in a letter to the Editor of the "United Service Magazine," wherein he stated, on the authority of Sir Thomas Hardy, Captain Quilliam, and other Officers of the Victory, that on the morning of the 21st of October 1805, Nelson "dressed himself in the same Coat which he had City of London, to execute, at her own expense, and to present to the City, a colossal bust in marble of Nelson, who, in consequence of the friendship which he bore to her uncle, the late Lord William Campbell, very willingly sat to her as often and as long as she wished, in order to enable her to make the very striking likeness which she did of him. Having finished the bust, she, at the request of the City, placed it in that part of the Council Chamber in Guildhall in which it still stands, and in which she thought, as an artist, it would be seen to the greatest advantage.

"The last time he sat to her, he good humouredly asked her what he could give her for the high honour which she had conferred on him, and for all the trouble which she had taken on the occasion. She answered, 'one of your old Coats,' on which he replied, you shall immediately have one, and it shall be the one which I value the most highly, the one which I wore during the whole day of the Battle of the Nile, and which I have never worn, nor even allowed to be brushed, since, in order that my Naval as well as other friends may know, from the streaks of perspiration and hair-powder which are still to be seen on it, the exertions which I made, and the anxiety which I felt, on that day to deserve the approbation of my King and Country.'

44

Shortly after Mrs. Damer had presented the bust to the City of London, His late Majesty King William the Fourth, then Duke of Clarence, who had known her uncle, Lord William Campbell, in early life, and who had always been an admirer of her talents for sculpture, requested her to give him (which she did) a cast in plaster of Paris of that bust. Some years afterwards, when he was appointed Lord High Admiral of England, he called on her, and told her that he wished to show her, now that he had the power of doing so, how sincere the respect was which he entertained for her uncle's distinguished conduct as a Naval officer, and for her own enthusiastic zeal for Nelson's heroic acts, and that he was therefore most anxious to place in the Navy the grandson of her uncle, Lord William Campbell, the present Lieutenant F. E. Johnston of the Terrible, and to put up the finest bronze bust which she could execute of Nelson along with his Coat, on the stump of the foremast of the Victory which stood in his library at Bushy. Mrs. Damer having obtained the consent of the parents, Sir Alexander and Lady Johnston, of her cousin, young Mr. Johnston, to her doing so, accepted the offer of His Royal Highness to place him in the Navy, and at the same time promised to execute for and present to His Royal Highness, for the purpose for which he intended it, the finest colossal bust of bronze which she could make of Nelson.

"Notwithstanding Mrs. Damer's great age, she being at the time nearly eighty years old, she finished this bronze bust a few days before her death, but not having been able to present it to His Royal Highness herself, left directions that her cousin, young Mr. Johnston, should present the bust and the Coat to His Royal Highness as soon as possible after her death.

Upon His Royal Highness hearing of Mrs. Damer's directions with respect to the bust and Coat, he immediately appointed a day on which he was to receive Mr. Johnston with them; and having invited Sir Alexander and Lady Johnston and their son to Bushy, the bust was placed by His Royal Highness in their presence on the stump of the foremast of the Victory in the library; and the Painted Chamber in Greenwich Hospital having, on further consideration, been deemed a more appropriate place than Bushy for the Coat, it was put into the case in which it is now seen, with a glass over it, and sent to the Painted Chamber at Greenwich Hospital."

No. CLXIV. for July 1842.

commonly worn since he left Portsmouth; it was a plain blue Coat, on which the Star of the Bath was embroidered, as was then customary;" and that all which occurred respecting his Decorations was, that " while walking the deck, and after the firing had commenced, Hardy remarked that the badge might draw attention from the Enemy's tops, to which the Hero coolly replied,—He was aware it might be seen, but it was now too late to be shifting a Coat."" Dr. Beatty says, that before the Action began, several of the Victory's Officers felt anxious about Lord Nelson's personal safety, and that he (Beatty) expressed to Dr. Scott, a wish that the Admiral might be entreated by somebody to cover the Stars on his Coat with a handkerchief; and there is no other variation between the description given of the Coat in Captain Smyth's letter, on the authority of Sir Thomas Hardy, &c., and that given by Dr. Beatty, than that the former mentions only one Star-that of the Bath,-while the latter, in one place, speaks of" four Stars," and in another place of "Stars."

The facts are simply these:-Lord Nelson was entitled to wear four Stars-those of the Orders of the Bath, St. Ferdinand and Merit, the Crescent, and St. Joachim. It was then the custom to embroider the Stars of Orders on the Coat, instead, as now, of occasionally fixing them on it by a clasp, like a brooch, so that when the Coat was worn, the Decorations being sewn upon it, were necessarily worn at the same time. It was also usual before and long after 1805, for Knights to wear their Insignia at all times; and conformably with that practice, Lord Nelson never appeared without them. This is an answer to the assertion that he purposely put on his Decorations on the eventful day; and to the insinuation that his vanity caused him to wear his Orders more frequently than was then usual. The evidence on this subject is conclusive :

1st, The statement of Dr. Beatty.

2ndly, The authority of Sir Thomas Hardy, Captain Quilliam, and other Officers of the Victory, referred to in Captain Smyth's letter in the "United Service Magazine."

3rdly, The following Extract from a Letter to the Editor, from Captain Pasco, who was Lord Nelson's Flag Lieutenant, at Trafalgar', dated on the 11th of October 1844:

"The Coat Lord Nelson wore on the 21st of October 1805, was such as he always wore while I had the honour and happiness of serving under his Flag (nearly three years). It had four stars on the left breast, and certainly no additional Order, or alteration of dress was used on that day.'

1 Vide p. 140, ante.

4. The following Extract from a Letter to the Editor, dated Brighton, November 20th, 1844," from Captain Sir George Westphal, who, being then a Midshipman of the Victory, was wounded at Trafalgar :—

- From the veriod of his Flag being hoisted at Spithead, at the mmencement of hostilities with France in 1803, to the hour of his death. I kse no rollinnon of ever seeing him wear a fulldess mujer Cost a bovend, the Vizory, or elsewhere; and I am most positive that the Coat which his Lordship wore on the day the Battle was fezzen, was an uiiuxiress Uniform, the skirts being lisad with white shalloa or zea. The four Orders that he invareally wore were embroidered on the breast of every Coat I had ever seen him wear from his first hoisting his Flag. They were placed thas en the left breast of his Coat-the Order of the Bath being uppermost. I feel persuaded that you cannot have better authority than my own for the truth of this disputed question, because when I was carried down wounded, I was placed by the side of his Lordship, and his Coat was rolled up, and put as the substitute for a pillow under my head, which was then bleeding very much from the wound I had received; and when the Battle was over, and an attempt made to remove the Coat, several of the bullions of the epaulette were found to be so firmly glued into my hair, by the ecagulated blood from my wound, that the bullions, four or five of them, were cut off, and left in my hair, one of which I have still in my possession."

5thly, THE COAT ITSELF, which indeed would supersede the necessity of any other evidence, were it not that the statements above alluded to are proofs of its authenticity.

The existence of the Coat was made known to the Editor by Mrs. Ward (Lord Nelson's daughter, so often mentioned in his Letters), in his first interview with her, on the 2nd of October 1844. In reply to the Editor's inquiry whether she had any information respecting the statement that Lord Nelson had put on his Orders on going into Battle, Mrs. Ward told him that the Coat itself was preserved, and after minutely describing it to him, added, that it was sent to Lady Hamilton on the Victory's return to England, by Captain Hardy, together with all Lord Nelson's other effectsthat she had known it from her childhood,-and that it was then in the possession of Mrs. Smith of Twickenham, the widow of Alderman Smith, who had advanced money to Lady Hamilton in her distress. The propriety of this Relic being deposited in Greenwich Hospital, naturally suggested itself to the Editor's mind; and he determined, if possible, to accomplish it. Had his own resources enabled him to gratify his wishes, the Coat would have been immediately bought, and presented to Greenwich Hospital; but as this was