pirit, in words worthy of his life,
"Thank God! I have done my duty."[51]

The French and Spaniards had fought together against Nelson; but not in
the same spirit. The former were determined and malignant enemies; the
latter generous friends, hurried, by the excitement of temporary and
pardonable passion, into hostilities against the only power which could
afford their country any chance of avoiding that political slavery,
under which it was now the settled purpose of Napoleon's ambition to
crush every nation of Europe. But the unprincipled conduct of Dumanoir,
who escaped from Nelson to be captured shortly after, as has been
mentioned, by Strachan, at once brought out the different feelings
under which the two allied fleets had been acting. This French officer,
retreating with his four ships, which had had no part in the battle,
discharged his broadsides, as he passed, into English vessels no longer
capable of pursuit,--conduct which, as the victory was complete, could
have no object but that of carnage. Nay, such was the ruffian nature of
this man's soul, he fired into the Spanish ships which had yielded to
the English, thus, for the sake of trivially injuring his enemy,
sacrificing without scruple the blood of his own unfortunate friends.
The Spanish prisoners, in their indignation at this brutality, asked
their English captors to permit them to man their guns against the
retreating French; and such was the earnestness of their entreaty, and
the confidence of Englishmen in the honour of Spaniards, that these men
actually were permitted to do as they had requested. A mutual
interchange of good offices ensued. In the evening after the battle a
gale sprung up, and some of the captured vessels drifting on shore, a
number of British seamen fell into the hands of the garrison of Cadiz.
They were received as friends: for the accommodation of their wounded
the Spanish soldiers gave up their own beds. Collingwood, who succeeded
to Nelson's command, sent all the wounded Spaniards on shore to be cured
in their own country, merely taking their parole that they would not
serve again during the war: and the governor of Cadiz, with still more
romantic generosity, offered his hospitals for the use of Collingwood's
wounded seamen, pledging the honour of the Spanish name that they should
be cared for like his own men, and sent back to their admiral whenever
they had recovered. It will appear, hereafter, what illustrious
consequences t