Trafalgar quotes

… the popping of the artillery, imagining ourselves to be the nationalities represented by our respective standards, and almost believing that in the world of grown-up men and great events the nations too would leap for joy, looking on at the victories of their splendid fleets.

Boys see things through strange windows.

Those were times of great sea-fights, for there was one at least every year and a skirmish every month.

Those were times of great sea-fights, for there was one at least every year and a skirmish every month.

I thought that fleets met in battle simply and solely because they enjoyed it, or to prove their strength and valor, like two bullies who meet outside the walls to stick knives into each other.

I laugh when I recollect the wild ideas I had about the persons and events of the time. I heard a great deal about Napoleon and how do you think I had pictured him to myself!

To prove how obstinate his determination was it is enough to mention that he dared to oppose his wife’s strong will, though he avoided all discussion; and to give an adequate idea of all that his opposition implied I ought to mention that

Don Alonso was afraid of no mortal thing or creature⁠—neither of the English, the French, nor the savages of Magellan, not of the angry sea, nor of the monsters of the deep, nor of the raging tempest, nor of anything in the earth or sky⁠—but only of his wife.

The last person I must mention is Marcial the sailor, the object of Doña Francisca’s deepest aversion, though Don Alonso, under whom he had served, loved him as a brother.

“Christ, Mother Mary and Saint Joseph!” shrieked Doña Francisca almost beside herself. “And they are taking you too? That is too much. Your duties are on land, my friend.

Tell them to manage as best they may; if they want men let them find them.

Upon my soul this is beyond a joke!”

and the same thing was done between decks. My curiosity prompted me to ask the boy who stood next to me what this was for.

“For the blood,” he said very coolly.

“For the blood!” I exclaimed unable to repress a shudder. I looked at the sand—I looked at the men who were busily employed at this task—and for a moment I felt I was a coward.

To a soldier, who was lying like a dead creature with the pain of his wounds and the misery of seasickness, he exclaimed as he whisked the slow-match under his nose:

“Take a whiff of orange-flower, man, to cure your faintness. Would you like to take a turn in a boat? Nelson has invited us to take a glass of grog with him.”

This took place amidships; looking up at the quarterdeck I saw that Cisneros was killed; two sailors hastily carried him down into his cabin. My master remained immovable at his post, but his left arm was bleeding severely.

The feeling that I was no longer a spectator but an actor in this stupendous tragedy for the moment blew all my alarms to the winds; I was eager and excited, or at any rate determined to appear so.

That moment revealed to me the truth that heroism is often simply the pride of honor.

Marcial’s eye—the eyes of the world were upon me; I must bear myself worthy of their gaze.

The glorious flag, the emblem of our honor, pierced and tattered as it was, which had gathered so many fighting-men under its folds, ran down the rope never to be unfurled again.

The idea of stricken pride, of a brave spirit giving way before a superior force, can find no more appropriate symbol to represent it than that of a flying standard which sinks and disappears like a setting sun.

And our flag thus slowly descending that fatal evening, at the moment when we surrendered, seem to shed a parting ray of glory.

The old man’s wound was not serious, and though a ball had carried away his right foot, as this was only the lower end of his wooden leg the mishap only left him a little more halt than before.

“Here, Gabrielillo,” he said, giving me a heap of biscuits, “take these. No ship can sail without ballast.”

And then he pulled out a bottle and drank with intense satisfaction. As we went out of the biscuit-room we saw that we were not the only visitors who had made a raid upon it;

Don Alonzo did not heed me, and if I may trust my memory he merely said without looking round:

“How Paca will laugh at me, when I go home after such a terrible defeat!”

“Sir, the ship is sinking!” I insisted, not indeed exaggerating the danger, but in vehement entreaty.

Some may laugh at a philosopher of fourteen; but I will not heed their laughter; I will try to write down the thoughts that occupied me at this juncture.

Children too can think great thoughts and at such a moment, in face of such a spectacle, what brain but an idiot’s could remain unmoved.

There were both English and Spaniards in our boat—though most Spaniards—and it was strange to note how they fraternized, helping and encouraging each other in their common danger, and quite forgetting that only the day before they had been killing each other in hideous fight, …

And as I noted it I said to myself: “

Good God! why are there wars? Why cannot these men be friends under all the circumstances of life as they are in danger?

Is not such a scene as this enough to prove that all men are brothers?”

… one that before long the inhabitants of the different islands will be convinced that they are committing a great folly in making such tremendous wars, and that a day will come when they will embrace each other and all agree to be like one family.”

So I thought then; and now, after sixty years of life, I have not seen that day dawn.

The launch labored on through the heavy sea.

“Good God!” said I to myself, “what infinite misery! and all brought about by the obstinacy of a single man!” And child as I was, I remember thinking:

“One man, however mad he may be, can never commit such extravagant follies as whole nations sometimes plunge into at the bidding of a hundred wise ones.”

I shared the general dismay and could not help reflecting on the irony with which Fate mocks at our surest calculations and best founded hopes, on the swiftness with which she flings us from happy security to the depth of misery.

Here we were, on the wide ocean, that majestic emblem of human life.

A gust of wind and it is completely transformed, the light ripple which gently caressed the vessel’s side swells into a mountain of water that lashes and beats it, the soft music of the wavelets in a calm turns to a loud, hoarse voice, threatening …

Half a century later I remembered Don José María Malespina and I said: “

He seemed to us a bombastic liar; but conceptions which are extravagant in one place and time, when born in due season become marvellous realities!

And since living to see this particular instance of the fact, I have ceased to think any Utopia impossible, and the greatest visionaries seem to me possible men of genius.”

I need hardly say that the sails were close reefed and that as this proved insufficient in such a furious tempest the topmasts were lowered; at last it was even thought necessary to cut away the masts to prevent her from foundering.

In great storms a ship has to humble herself, to shrink from a stately tree to a lowly plant; and as her masts will no more yield than the branches of an oak, she is under the sad necessity of seeing them amputated and losing her limbs to save her life.

The loss of the ship was now inevitable. The main and mizzenmasts were cut through and sent overboard, and our only hope was that we might be able to cast anchor near the coast. The anchors were got ready and the chains and cables strengthened.

Still, hope never forsakes us; and I, at any rate, consoled myself with the belief that things might remain as they were now till daybreak and with observing that the foremast had not yet gone overboard.

I looked up at the tall mast, round which some tatters of sails and ends of ropes still flapped in the wind, and which stood like a dishevelled giant pointing heavenward and imploring mercy with the persistency of despair

; and I fully determined that if the rest of the hull sank under water I would climb it for a chance of life.

These triumphs consoled France for the defeat of Trafalgar; Napoleon silenced the newspapers, forbidding them to discuss the matter; and when the victory of his implacable enemies, the English, was reported to him he simply shrugged his shoulders and said:

“I cannot be everywhere at once.”