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Hi, I’m new to this forum, so i wanted to know if there is any interest in a project that I’m working on?
For the last few years I’ve been writing n a novel set onboard HMS Victory, from the when it left Portsmouth in September of 1805 until it returned from the battle of Trafalgar, in December 1805 to Spit Head with Nelson’s Body onboard. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time on research, as rather like the Hornblower and Jack Aubrey Novels my characters are involved in the real time, real life events of the battle of Trafalgar and obviously interact with the men onboard the ship at the time. The Victory‘s muster shows this was continuously in flux, men and boys left or joined the ship on a daily basis as required by the fleet, or because they were discharged from service, either because they perished or because the Admiral ordered them to be.
Part of that exploration and process, has been the plotting of the course of the Victory during the period from when Nelson returned from the Blockade to Portsmouth in August until the ship returned to Portsmouth after the battle in 1805. This is because i needed to establish a time line of events, know what may or may not have happened onboard and when, not from purely a Captains perspective but from that of one of the ships boys. To this end i have acquired copies of Captain Hardy’s log, Ships Master Thomas Atkinson’s log and the Muster records from the Victory, whilst Atkinson does have some positional information, it is Hardy’s Log that has both the Longitude and latitude of the Victory at 12 noon for every day of her journey.
There are several things that really standout, one of the more interesting things was the dive into Ushant that the Victory took on it’s first return to Portsmouth after 2 years at sea in August, this can be nothing more than Nelson wanting to announce to the French that he was returning to England. In fact all of the papers /press releases of the time were full of his movements within England as soon as he arrived. I have no doubt he wanted the French to know exactly where he was, he wanted Villeneuve to know where he was, to entice him out of his French Port and create the conditions for a decisive Battle.
of the French Fleets movements, brought to him by Captain Blackwood confirmed that the ruse had been successful.
This hypothesis is partially confirmed by the route the Victory took on the route back to Trafalgar, which kept as far away from Ushant as possible, when Nelson didn’t want the French to know he had rejoined the fleet, in fact he sent one of the squadrons frigates ahead of the Victory to inform Collingwood not to offer the normal salute that an Admiral may expect, when he arrived, to try and keep the French somewhat in the dark. As it was, I believe it was Napoleon’s pressure, for Villeneuve to actually get of his butt and do something, that had more impact than Nelson Absence , but it just show’s you how much cloak and dagger, misinformation have been used in warfare even century’s ago.
Anyway, if anyone’s interested I‘m hoping to provide a file from Google earth pro that will allow anyone to see the route taken by Victory, from Early August 1805 to December 1805, including The return from Gibraltar and Quarantine upon her arrival in Portsmouth, the prelude to battle where she too was off Cadiz for weeks, the location of the Battle itself, where she drifted too following the battle, the return under tow to Gibraltar and and her journey home to Spithead. I’ll attach a link to the file here if there is any interest.
To be honest, there’s not allot of in depth information in the Log’s, however, there are some interesting omissions, it would appear for example that Hardy deliberately omits the desertion of 13 sailors from his log in September Just before the Victory set sail for Cadiz from Portsmouth. We know this happened from the ships muster, infact Hardy after the battle wanted to ensure that those who had dissapeared In Portsmouth did not get any recognition or any payment for the battle. For 13 men to have left the Victory which was at
at the time, off St Helens well off shore they would have to have stolen a boat. Hardy, despite what you may have read (Him being a progressive Captain) was very ready to punish those aboard ship for breaches of the Articles of War, the logs of both Atkinson and Hardy show this very clearly, he had men flogged in the days leading upto the battle and after the battle as well. You would have expected him to literally explode at what he would have seen as nothing more than an act of cowardice. For this they would have surely been hanged, but not even a mention in both Atkinson’s or Hardy’s log. It smacks of Hardy and Nelson, not wanting this information to become public knowledge as it’s not mentioned at all in the local press at the time either,
Punishment of the ships boys, however, is not recorded at all, as this was often meted out on the spot, it was certainly a hard life onboard the Victory, or any man of war at the time for all those involved. We also have to remember, that the kids who served on the Victory or any ship of the line and ther were allot of them, to us would have appeared to have been very young. Puberty in boys of this period would have been late onset, not until they were at least 15 because of lack of nutrition. They would have been small in stature, but tough as old nails. The youngest boy on the Victory at the Battle was Thomas Twitchett who was 12, he signed aboard the Victory at Portsmouth only 4 days before it sailed for Trafalgar, what a baptism of fire that must have been for him.
If you can let me know if your interested in either the book, information in the Log’s or Muster, or the course of HMS Victory let me know and I’ll help you out where I can.
For the last few years I’ve been writing n a novel set onboard HMS Victory, from the when it left Portsmouth in September of 1805 until it returned from the battle of Trafalgar, in December 1805 to Spit Head with Nelson’s Body onboard. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time on research, as rather like the Hornblower and Jack Aubrey Novels my characters are involved in the real time, real life events of the battle of Trafalgar and obviously interact with the men onboard the ship at the time. The Victory‘s muster shows this was continuously in flux, men and boys left or joined the ship on a daily basis as required by the fleet, or because they were discharged from service, either because they perished or because the Admiral ordered them to be.
Part of that exploration and process, has been the plotting of the course of the Victory during the period from when Nelson returned from the Blockade to Portsmouth in August until the ship returned to Portsmouth after the battle in 1805. This is because i needed to establish a time line of events, know what may or may not have happened onboard and when, not from purely a Captains perspective but from that of one of the ships boys. To this end i have acquired copies of Captain Hardy’s log, Ships Master Thomas Atkinson’s log and the Muster records from the Victory, whilst Atkinson does have some positional information, it is Hardy’s Log that has both the Longitude and latitude of the Victory at 12 noon for every day of her journey.
There are several things that really standout, one of the more interesting things was the dive into Ushant that the Victory took on it’s first return to Portsmouth after 2 years at sea in August, this can be nothing more than Nelson wanting to announce to the French that he was returning to England. In fact all of the papers /press releases of the time were full of his movements within England as soon as he arrived. I have no doubt he wanted the French to know exactly where he was, he wanted Villeneuve to know where he was, to entice him out of his French Port and create the conditions for a decisive Battle.
of the French Fleets movements, brought to him by Captain Blackwood confirmed that the ruse had been successful.This hypothesis is partially confirmed by the route the Victory took on the route back to Trafalgar, which kept as far away from Ushant as possible, when Nelson didn’t want the French to know he had rejoined the fleet, in fact he sent one of the squadrons frigates ahead of the Victory to inform Collingwood not to offer the normal salute that an Admiral may expect, when he arrived, to try and keep the French somewhat in the dark. As it was, I believe it was Napoleon’s pressure, for Villeneuve to actually get of his butt and do something, that had more impact than Nelson Absence , but it just show’s you how much cloak and dagger, misinformation have been used in warfare even century’s ago.
Anyway, if anyone’s interested I‘m hoping to provide a file from Google earth pro that will allow anyone to see the route taken by Victory, from Early August 1805 to December 1805, including The return from Gibraltar and Quarantine upon her arrival in Portsmouth, the prelude to battle where she too was off Cadiz for weeks, the location of the Battle itself, where she drifted too following the battle, the return under tow to Gibraltar and and her journey home to Spithead. I’ll attach a link to the file here if there is any interest.
To be honest, there’s not allot of in depth information in the Log’s, however, there are some interesting omissions, it would appear for example that Hardy deliberately omits the desertion of 13 sailors from his log in September Just before the Victory set sail for Cadiz from Portsmouth. We know this happened from the ships muster, infact Hardy after the battle wanted to ensure that those who had dissapeared In Portsmouth did not get any recognition or any payment for the battle. For 13 men to have left the Victory which was at
at the time, off St Helens well off shore they would have to have stolen a boat. Hardy, despite what you may have read (Him being a progressive Captain) was very ready to punish those aboard ship for breaches of the Articles of War, the logs of both Atkinson and Hardy show this very clearly, he had men flogged in the days leading upto the battle and after the battle as well. You would have expected him to literally explode at what he would have seen as nothing more than an act of cowardice. For this they would have surely been hanged, but not even a mention in both Atkinson’s or Hardy’s log. It smacks of Hardy and Nelson, not wanting this information to become public knowledge as it’s not mentioned at all in the local press at the time either,Punishment of the ships boys, however, is not recorded at all, as this was often meted out on the spot, it was certainly a hard life onboard the Victory, or any man of war at the time for all those involved. We also have to remember, that the kids who served on the Victory or any ship of the line and ther were allot of them, to us would have appeared to have been very young. Puberty in boys of this period would have been late onset, not until they were at least 15 because of lack of nutrition. They would have been small in stature, but tough as old nails. The youngest boy on the Victory at the Battle was Thomas Twitchett who was 12, he signed aboard the Victory at Portsmouth only 4 days before it sailed for Trafalgar, what a baptism of fire that must have been for him.
If you can let me know if your interested in either the book, information in the Log’s or Muster, or the course of HMS Victory let me know and I’ll help you out where I can.
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