Nelson’s Hardy

For more than a century and a half the Navy has commemorated Nelson’s captains - his ‘band of brothers’ - by naming its ships after them: Berry, Blackwood, Trou-bridge, Saumarez, Hardy. ‘The elite of the Navy of England,’ St Vincent called them; but of them all only the last is generally remembered, and that not for his naval record, though it was a fine one, but for Nelson’s touching request for a kiss as he lay dying in the cockpit of the Victory.

The closeness of Nelson’s relationship to his captains is, of course, well known. In temperament, as in physique, he was unlike any of them: within his small, twisted body there was a nature that contained a strong feminine element, so that it was said of him that he could be little in little things, although he was never less than great in great ones.

To several of his captains, notably Troubridge and Hardy, he was inferior in seamanship; as a leader of men in battle he was no greater than they. What distinguished him was that indefinable quality of magnetism and intuition which commands not only loyalty but devotion and raises a man to legendary stature.