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Further Reading

HMS Victory - Later Career

On the firing at Trafalgar ceasing, the "Victory" had lost 57 killed and 103 wounded, and found herself all but a wreck. The tremendous fire to which she was exposed, when leading her line into action, had caused great damage, and at a very early period of the battle, and before she herself fired a gun, many of her spars were shot away, and great injury was dene to the hull, especially the fore part of it. At the conclusion of the action, she had lost her mizen-mast, the fore-topmast had to be struck to save the foremast; the mainmast was not much better, and it took all the exertions of her crew to refit the rigging sufficiently to stand the bad weather that followed. "Victory," accompanied by the Belicisle, sailed on the melancholy duty of conveying the body of her hero to England, and, after a most boisterous passage, reached Spithead, on December 4th.

In the commencement of 1808, Sweden being threatened by an invasion by Russia, a fleet was sent to the Baltic to assist them, of which Sir James Saumarez was appointed Commander-in-Chief, and the "victory" was once more called into active service as his flagship. The operations in the Baltic in this, and the other four years in which the "victory" was flag ship of Sir James Saumarez, were, as far as she herself was concerned, mainly confined to political schemes and transactions; the active work, such as it was, being done by the frigates and gun-boats. The naval operations in 1812 were more active than before; but "Victory" was not herself in action. In October, orders were received from England to send his flagship home, and on the 15th of that month, Sir James shifted his flag to the Pyramus, and "victory" sailed for England, and arriving at Portsmouth, was paid off in November 1812.

This was the last active service of this glorious old ship, though she was on the point of being sent to sea again in 1815, when no less than six Admirals, on applying for commands, named the "victory" as the ship they would wish to have, although there were many new ships, larger, and carrying much heavier ordnance; but the prestige attached to the "victory," besides her well known sailing qualities, outweighed every other consideration. Waterloo however, soon put an end to that war, and the "Victory" was never re-commissioned.

In 1825 she was made flag ship in Portsmouth harbor, and since that date, with but few intervals, she continued to bear the flags of Admirals, who, having like her, spent their lives in the service of their country, terminate their active careers by holding the highest post in the British Navy, the command at Portsmouth. The custom of holding Trafalgar Anniversary Dinners on board her began in 1824 along with those of toasting The Immortal Memory, flying the signal "England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty" on Trafalgar Day, and laying wreaths at the places where Nelson fell and later died. Every year, as the 21st October, the anniversary of Trafalgar, came round, day-light discovered the "Victory" with a wreath of laurel at each mast-head, a continual memorial of the deeds of that ever-to-be-remembered day, when at one blow the naval power of two great nations was crippled, and the superiority of England established without dispute.

In 1844, Queen Victoria happened to be passing through the harbor on this day, and learning the cause of the decoration of the "victory," at once pulled on board, and went round the ship. Her Majesty evinced much emotion, when shown the almost sacred spots where the hero fell and died; and plucking some leaves from the wreath that enshrined the words on the deck, " England expects that every man will do his duty," kept them as a memento.

The Victory now no longer bears the Admiral's flag; the increasing numbers of seamen in Royal Navy depots, rendered in 1869 a larger ship more convenient, and she retained in her position in the harbor solely as a reminiscence of the past. Over the years, Victory?s condition deteriorated with only minimal repairs carried out to her. The Society for Nautical Research mounted a rescue, achieving funds through a national appeal. She again took pride of place in Portsmouth Dockyard No 2 dock in 1922. Thousands of annual visitors form a better idea of the state of the decks of a man-of-war of the olden time when going into action; and that in these days of rapid and enormous changes in both ship-building and ordnance, a type of the man-of-war that won England her pre-eminence, might be preserved to all time. She received her last battle wound in World War II, when a German bomb exploded in her dry-dock.