Born into an unremarkable but comfortable household, Horatio Nelson used family connections to join a British naval ship at twelve where he traveled to the Indian Ocean and the Arctic. After experience in the West Indies during the American Revolutionary War, he was promoted to lieutenant and later captain. His exploits were not unsuccessful but were unpopular because his enforcement of the Navigation Act hurt the incomes of other British captains involved in war smuggling with American merchants. At this rejection from fellow officers, Nelson's low morale led him to his wife who returned with him to England while wasting the time away between British involvement in the American and French Revolutions.
Losing his right eye at Calvi in 1794 and his right arm at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1797, Nelson captained the Agnememnon through the Mediterranean. At Cape St. Vincent, Nelson led an attack against a fleet of twenty-seven Spanish ships and alone fought off seven ships before his allies could reach the line.
One of the best examples of his genius and exploitation of his contemporaries's expectations, the Battle of the Nile in 1798 had Nelson's fleet decimate Napoleon's anchored ships and eliminated the French attempt to control the Suez Canal. A disaster for the French, Nelson's brilliant attack forced Napoleon to return to France without his army and without victory.
From a social standpoint, Nelson's most controversial brash act came while stationed at Napels shortly after the Battle of the Nile where he met Emma, his soul-mate mistress. By 1801 they were living together and had a daughter, but Nelson never divorced his wife. Despite his personal life's scandal, one of his most famous audacious acts occurred at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. Putting a telescope to his blind eye, he announced that he could not see the order to retreat. Victory in the resulting battle from this bold move gained him enormous popularity with the British public but created some tension with his high command.
After a long trans-Atlantic chase for the Spanish Armada, Nelson's fleet blockaded a large French-Spanish fleet at Cadiz, Spain. Under severe beratement by Napoleon and with the threat of losing command, the French Admiral Pierre Villeneuve sailed to meet Nelson. Outnumbered and with a weak wind, the British ships split into two columns and attacked the French-Spanish fleets head-on. Once the line broke, the British leads raked the enemy and divided the French column into three segments. The British had 27 ships but suffered no casualties against a combined French-Spanish navy of 33 ships that suffered seventeen captured and one sunk. Though Nelson lost his life in the battle, his reputation as a brilliant naval commander and the results of the Battle of Trafalgar secured British safety from a Napoleon invasion and gave them undisputed dominance of the sea for a full century.
Despite poor ongoing reports on the continent, the naval battle secured Britain from invasion and helped lead to Napoleon's defeat. The destruction of the alliance navy decimated Napoleon's confidence in his naval forces which led him to attempt to beat Britain economically with the continental system. This economic warfare led to tension with Spain and Russia and incited the Peninsular War which significantly contributed to Napoleon's defeat.
Aside from giving his country security for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, Nelson's victory at Trafalgar initiated the uncontested dominance of the British navy over oceanic traffic for over a century. This undisputed naval power enabled the blossoming of the great British Empire under Queen Victoria so that the sun could never set over the vast holdings. "England demands that every man should do his duty." That is exactly what Nelson did.
Agatha Tyche
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