Audio recording: Nelson
Dublin Core
Title
Audio recording: Nelson
Subject
deciphered shorthand
Description
Reading of 'Nelson', a shorthand dictation exercise from the notebooks of Dickens's shorthand pupil Arthur Stone
Creator
Gerrard, Dominic
Date
2023
Rights
You may use this recording in accordance with the license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Credit: Dominic Gerrard
Format
audio/wav
Language
English
Identifier
Nelson.wav
Sound Item Type Metadata
Duration
2:38
Transcription
Title: Nelson
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 officers 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 killed. 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-BLANK of the delicacy or want of delicacy of the time that Nelson’s body was said to have been 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 a tale of fiction may have had some foundation of truth in it.
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 officers 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 killed. 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-BLANK of the delicacy or want of delicacy of the time that Nelson’s body was said to have been 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 a tale of fiction may have had some foundation of truth in it.
Collection
Citation
Gerrard, Dominic, “Audio recording: Nelson,” The Dickens Code, accessed July 11, 2026, https://dickenscode.omeka.net/items/show/21.