Footnotes

Pasco provided Nicolas with a full account of how the signal was made: "His Lordship came to me on the poop, and after ordering certain signals to be made, about a quarter to noon, he said, 'Mr Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet, "England Confides that Every Man will do His Duty": and he added, 'You must be quick, for I have one more signal to make which is for Close Action.' I replied, 'If your Lordship will permit me to substitute the expects for confides the signal will soon be completed, because the word expects is in the vocabulary, and confides must be spelt.' His Lordship replied, in haste, and with seeming satisfaction, 'That will do, Pasco, make it directly.' When it had been answered by a few ships in the Van, he ordered me to make the signal for Close Action, and to keep it up: accordingly, I hoisted No.16 at the top-gallant mast-head, and there it remained until shot away" (DIspatches and Letters, vii, p.150). Edgar Vincent reconstructs the scene: "When the telegraph flag, a red and white diagonal, fluttered at the masthead, a host of telescopes throughout the fleet pointed towards Victory. For about four minutes thirty-two flags, generally in groups of three numeral flags, broke successively at the mastheads and on the yards. Numbers 253, 269, 863, 261, 471, 958, 220, 370 for the first eight words were followed by a single flag 4 and then three pairs of flags 21, 19 and 24, spelling out the word D-u-t-y" (Nelson: Love and Fame, pp.572-3). It is curious that in this presentation account - evidently written out for an autograph hunter - Pasco misquotes his own signal, although the variant he gives here ('England Expects Every Man to do His Duty') became so prevalent that it is to be found on the base of Nelson's Column, on his tomb in St Paul's, and on the monument erected by his friend Alexander Davison in 1807. From its paper, this inscription appears to have been written in the 1830s or 40s, although predating Pasco's elevation to flag rank in 1847. American Book Prices Current records only one other item by Pasco (one unrelated to Trafalgar) having been sold at auction.