Litchfield enquirer., 1876-11-16

on board the "Victory." Scott had writ ten numerous manuscript notes on the margin of the copy; one of these, relating to the story of the dress-coat, was to the following effect: "This is wrong. Nelson wore the same coat he did the day before; nor was there the smallest alteration in his dress whatsoever from other days" He did wear his brilliant stars, however -four arranged diamondwise, thus& *, on his breast) ;but they were embroidered on his undress coat, and notssfxed on tenn porarily with clasps, as at the present day. This verltabie coat fell into the hands of Lady Hamilton, who pledged 1t with a London alderman for sum of money. In 1S45, after a quarrel between Sir Harris Nicholas and a curiosity deal- CT concerning the mode in which the coat was obtained from the window of the d. derman, the late Prince Consort bought the Trafalgar coat and waistcOat for E15O, and presented them to Greenwich Hospl- tai, where they are now reverentiy pre- served.
 A bit of bullion fringe from Nelson's epaulet is treasured up as a relic. Mir. Westphal, who was midshlpman on board the Victory at the battle of Trafalgar, wrote to the United Servlce Magazine, thirty-seven. years afterward tin 1842, un- der his higher designation of Sir. George Westphal, and gave the following account of one incident on that memorable 2lst of October: "When I was carried down wounded, was placed by the side of his lordship; and his coat was rolled up and put as the substitute for a pillow under my head, which was then bleeding very much from the wound I had received. When the battle was over, and an attempt l was made to remove the coat, several of | the bullions of the epaulet were found to be so firmly glued into my hair by the CO., agulated blood from my wound that theas l bulllons, four or five of them were cut off, and left in my hair, one of which have still in my possession" The coat to which this epaulet belonged was apparently the coat now displayed to visitors at Green wich Hospital.
 The musket-balI that killed the hero is in like manner treasured up as memen- to. The late Sir. William Beattie was, as MT. Beattie, surgeon on board the Vic l tory. In his Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson, he said: 'The ball struck the fore part of his lordship's epau- let, and entered the lett shoulder. On removing the ball, portion of the gold lace and part of the epaulet, together with a small piece of his lordship's coat, were | found firmly attached to it.. Indeed, this adhesion was almost as close as if the | fragments had been inserted into the metal of the bullet while in a molten state. Captain Hardy caused the bullet to be mounted in crystal and silver as a | locket, and presented it to Mir. Beattie. l In 1S4O this bullet-locket was in the pos session of the Rev. F. W. Baker, of Bath wick In 1851 it was stated to be in the possession of the Prince Consort.
 | It is known that when Nelson died, a miniature of Lady Hamilton was found suspended at his breast. with lock of her hair at the back, and her initials form ed in small pearls. This miniature was sold, many years afterward, among the effects of Sir Alexander Davidson, who had been private secretary to Nelson at the time of his death. There was also Q 1 kind of miniature cenotaph made of the guineas which Nelson had in his pocket when he fell. The ''whereabouts" of these two relics was earnestly inquired for few years ago in Notes and Queries. One 1 among small number of finger rings has been described, containing, instead of Q stone, a small bGss-reLief of Nelson, exe- cuted in some dark metal, said to be the bullet that killed him; but this is just the | sort of story that ''needs confirmation" especially if the account of the bullet locket is Gas appears to be the easel relia- ble. The Nelson car, in which the body of the hero had been conveyed to it's last resting-place in St. Paul's Cathederal, twas long retained as a relic. It was at first kept in the Painted Hall at Greenwich Hospital, and afterward at the foot of the dome over the chapel; but it became di--, lapidated, and then 1t was picked away piecemeal to form relics.
 The Nelson relic which became the sub. iect of lawsuit was the so-called Trafal- gar Sword, that which the hero wore at his last great battle. In 1846 Lord Save and Sele gave hundred guineas for this sword, and presented it to Green wich Hospital. Sir Harris Nicholas in spected it, and at once wrote to the Lon- don Times, announcing that the transac- tion was fraud, and that the dealer (the same person with whom he had had dis. pute in the preceding year) had knowing Iy deceived the nobleman who had pur- chased it. It was an undisputed fact that the dealer had bought for one G1 that which he sold for hundred guineas; but he continued to assert that the sword was genuine. Sir Harris asserted, on the contrary, that it was not such a sword as an English admiral was in the habit of wearing in the year 1805 and that the seabbard did not belong to the sword and that Nelson did not wear any sword on the day of Trafalgar. Dr. Scott in the manuscript notes above referred to, said
 "In this action he had not his sword with him on deck, which in his other actions he had always carried 1; the sword was left hanging in the admirals cabin. Other testimony corroborates this. The dealer then asserted that this was the sword which Nelson would have carried at Trafalgar if he had carried any. A trl- al for libel arose out of Sir Harris Nicho- lass letter to the London Times {; but the curiosity dealer was twice defeated. There was some proof that the sword had be- longed to Nelson but it was not what it professed to be-the Trafalgar sword.
 One of the most precious legac1es that Nelson left his country is, perhaps, the fa- nous Yatchword, "ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY P Sir Harris Nicholas, in his "Correepondenceand Let ters of Nelson,' deemed it worth while to ascertain as precisely as he could the cir cumstances under which those words were uttered. There are three accounts of the matter-one by Mir. James, in his Naval History :; one by Captain Blackwood, who commanded the "Euryalus" at the
 battle of Trafalgar; and one by Cap- tain Pasco, who had been Nelson's fiag-lieutenant in tine "Victory." Sir Harris Nicholas accepts Pasco's version,
 because that officer had himself to signal the words by means of flags. His ac- count runs thus : ''His lordship came to me on the poop, and after ordering cer- tain signals to be made. about quarter to noon he said, 'Mr. Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet, ''E'ngIond confdes that every nam sViU do has duty."' And
 he added, 'You must be quick, for I have one more to make, which is for close act
 ion.' replied. If your lordship will
 ::conades' the signal will soon be oom-
 pleted, because the word "ecpecta" is in
 fine vnnahnlarv whereas kha word acnal.