page_title: HMS Temeraire (1798)
section_title: Return to England
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Temeraire (1798) / Storm / Return to England
caption_attribution_description: English: The Battle of Trafalgar. Captain Harvey of the Temeraire... clearing the deck of the French and Spaniards....
context_page_description: HMS Temeraire was a 98-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1798, she served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought only one fleet action, the Battle of Trafalgar, but became so well known for her actions and her subsequent depictions in art and literature that she has been remembered as The Fighting Temeraire.
  Built at Chatham Dockyard, Temeraire entered service on the Brest blockade with the Channel Fleet. Missions were tedious and seldom relieved by any action with the French fleet. The first incident of note came when several of her crew, hearing rumours they were to be sent to the West Indies at a time when peace with France seemed imminent, refused to obey orders. This act of mutiny eventually failed and a number of those responsible were tried and executed. Laid up during the Peace of Amiens, Temeraire returned to active service with the resumption of the wars with France, again serving with the Channel Fleet, and joined Horatio Nelson's blockade of the Franco-Spanish fleet in Cadiz in 1805.
context_section_description: Temeraire finally put into Gibraltar on 2 November, eleven days after the battle had been fought. After undergoing minor repairs she sailed for England, arriving at Portsmouth on 1 December, three days before Victory passed by carrying Nelson's body. The battle-damaged ships quickly became tourist attractions, and visitors flocked to tour them. Temeraire was particularly popular on her arrival, being the only ship singled out by name in Collingwood's dispatch for her heroic conduct. Collingwood wrote
  A circumstance occurred during the action which so strongly marks the invincible spirit of British seamen, when engaging the enemies of their country, that I cannot resist the pleasure I have in making it known to their Lordships; the Temeraire was boarded by accident; or design, by a French ship on one side, and a Spaniard on the other; the contest was vigorous, but, in the end the combined ensigns were torn from the poop and the British hoisted in their places.
   Collingwood's account, probably based largely on Harvey's report in the immediate aftermath of the battle, contained several errors. Temeraire had closely engaged two French ships, rather than a French and a Spanish ship, and had not been boarded by either during the action. Nevertheless, the account was popular and a print was rushed out purporting to show Harvey taking the lead in clearing Temeraire's decks of enemy seamen.
  A number of artists visited the newly returned Trafalgar ships, including John Livesay, drawing master at the Royal Naval Academy. Livesay produced several sketches of battle-damaged ships, sending them to Nicholas Pocock to be used for Pocock's large paintings of the battle. Temeraire was one of the ships he sketched. Another visitor to Portsmouth was J. M. W. Turner. It is not known whether he visited Temeraire, though he did go aboard Victory, making preparatory notes and sketches and interviewing sailors who had been in the battle. The story of Temeraire had become firmly ingrained in the public mind, so much so that when the House of Commons passed a vote of thanks to the men who had fought at Trafalgar, only three were specifically named. Nelson, Collingwood, and Harvey of Temeraire.
caption: The Battle of Trafalgar. Captain Harvey of the Temeraire ... clearing the deck of the French and Spaniards ..., a popular engraving of 1806 based on Collingwood's dispatch, depicting a highly fictionalised version of events
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