Nelson
Source
The shorthand notebooks of Charles Dickens and Arthur P. Stone [ref: cdc5890009_04 and cdc5890009_02], Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia.
Description
A shorthand dictation exercise concerning the death of Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Transcription
There are some circumstances connected with the death of Nelson which are always interesting as having in them a kind of alternative picture of the events of the day. Thus when the Admiral persists in his usual courtly custom of dressing himself in full uniform with gold lace, silk stockings and God knows what orders and decorations, he is warned by his officer(s) most emphatically that his life is particularly sought by the French and that he exposes himself to very great danger. It is represented to him that the enemy has a new custom of carrying riflemen in the tops of his ships and that by making himself conspicuous to the meanest observation as the Admiral of the Fleet, he hazards his safety and, necessarily with it, the fortune of the day. Apart from these representations no man can better know the real extent of the danger of such a practice than the great man to whom they were made because it is a fact in his history that he had always opposed himself to this use of the rifle as cowardly and cruel. Nevertheless he persists, is shot in the back and is […]. After he has been taken below in a dying state the old quarter master on board the Victory who is standing on the poop by the wheel says to a midshipman that there is a man in a blouse whom he has seen hiding on the main top of the ship to which the Victory is lashed yard arm to yard arm who fired at and struck (down) the Admiral as he saw with his eyes. During the remainder of the progress of the fight the two men watch for this man. In the moment of his emerging from behind some concealment of rigging or sail the quarter master points up and cries out “There he is”. In the same moment the quarter master falls shot by the same man through the mouth. In the same moment the midshipman fires and is so convinced that he has hit the man that as soon as possible after the battle is over he climbs onto that main top to see. Sure enough there he finds the man lying dead with a ball in his heart.
It is a circumstance not belonging to this story but not un[…] of the delicacy or want of delicacy of the time that Nelson’s body was said to have been very […] conveyed to Gibraltar in a cask of rum and that any really or pretendedly choice rum offered on the market for a long time afterwards was called “The Admiral”. But it is easier to transmit the […] weaknesses and grimness of men’s bodies than the worth of their souls and so […] fiction may have had some foundation of truth in it.
Source text
To date, no direct source text has been identified for the entire piece.
The Dickens Decoders did identify similarities with George Walter Thornbury's article, 'Old Stories Re-told', published in All the Year Round (27 July 1867), although Stone's lessons took place a decade earlier. The text also corresponds with aspects of William Beatty's account in Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson (first published in 1807).
The most promising source of inspiration, identified by Elizabeth Agnew, is Robert Southey's Life of Nelson. While 'Nelson' does not quote Southey word-for-word, Southey details Nelson's choice of dress and describes the identification of the sniper in detail in chapter nine.
Transcription credits
With thanks to: Alexander Minto, Amy D, Clarissa Parkinson, D. Viehmann, Daniel Viehmann, Elizabeth Agnew, Frances T, Jenn Fallon, Ken Cox, Lucy Kwok, L. P. Wist, Lynda Chater, Tony Richards, and Vita Minichiello.
Rights
Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Please seek further permission from the Free Library to reuse the image.