Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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THE “VICTORY” AT CLOSE QUARTERS WITH THE “REDOUBTABLE.”

“And still, though seventy years, boys,

Have gone, who, without pride,

Names his name—tells his fame

Who at Trafalgar died?”

May we always have a Nelson in the hour of national need!

The day for such battles as this is over; there may be others as gloriously fought, but never again by the same means. Ships, armaments, and modes of attack and defence are, and will be, increasingly different. Those who have read Nelson’s private letters and journals will remember how he gloried in the appreciation of his subordinate officers just before Trafalgar’s happy and yet fatal day, when he had explained to them his intention to attack the enemy with what was practically a wedge-formed fleet. He was determined to break their line, and, Nelson-like, he did. But that which he facetiously christened the “Nelson touch” would itself nowadays be broken up in a few minutes and thrown into utter confusion by any powerfully-armed vessel hovering about under steam. Or if the wedge of wooden vessels were allowed to form, as they approached the apex, a couple of ironclads would take them in hand coolly, one by one, and send them to the bottom, while their guns might as well shoot peas at the ironclads as the shot of former days.