Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson was born at Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk 250 years ago, on 29 September 1758. When he was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, he had already been a celebrity throughout Europe since defeating Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. In Britain he was a national hero and was set to become almost a saint, with Victorians talking seriously about his ‘apotheosis’.
Immediately after Trafalgar the public mood alternated between joy, because a British victory had removed the threat of French invasion, and mourning because Nelson had been killed during the battle. But what would really have happened if Nelson had survived the battle unscathed? Would his continued relationship with Emma Hamilton have destroyed his reputation and negated his achievements? Certainly this seems to have been the view of many people at that time. Today, when fifteen minutes of fame seems to be an almost universal ambition, perhaps the most interesting question is whether the cult of Nelson the hero would have faded out, eclipsed by other celebrities. It is the classic paradox of the celebrity dying ‘at the right time’.
As it is, Nelson is perhaps the best-known figure in British history, but Nelson the admiral relied on the support of thousands of ordinary seamen and marines who served in the Royal Navy, many of whom were not there by choice. Whereas Nelson, and other officers like him, saw a career in the navy as the path to fame and fortune, few of the ordinary seamen shared his view. The navy was always short of manpower and constantly resorted to a crude form of conscription called impressment. The press-gangs were legally entitled to seize any man connected with shipping and the waterways and force him to serve on a warship, but in practice the press-gangs seized whoever they wanted, and it sometimes took years for an illegally conscripted man to regain his freedom.
The burden of impressment inevitably fell on the poor and the working class, since ‘gentlemen’ were automatically exempt. Although this merely reflected the general inequality caused by the rigid class structure of Britain at that time, the press-gangs sparked a great deal of resentment, and often open resistance. In some places riots and even pitched battles took place between the press-gangs and local civilians trying to prevent men from being seized, while in some ports the local authorities complained to the government that there were no men left to work the merchant ships and the fishing boats. It was a contradiction, often commented on at the time, that to preserve the liberty of British subjects, thousands of men were taken into virtual slavery on board navy ships.
Nelson has had over a thousand books written about him so far, and yet the voices of the many ordinary seamen and marines who served under him, and under commanders like him, are seldom heard. Our book Jack Tar: Life in Nelson’s Navy goes some way towards redressing the balance.
Posted 29/09/2008 09:37:42 by Roy and Lesley Adkins with 0 comments.
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