e, and,
with the profuse flow of blood, blinding him completely. He exclaimed,
"I am killed! Remember me to my wife!" and was falling, but Captain
Berry, who stood near, caught him in his arms. When carried below to
the cockpit, the surgeon went immediately to him, but he refused to be
attended before his turn arrived, in due succession to the injured
lying around him.

The pain was intense, and Nelson felt convinced that his hurt was
mortal; nor could he for some time accept the surgeon's assurances to
the contrary. Thus looking for his end, he renewed his farewell
messages to Lady Nelson, and directed also that Captain Louis of the
"Minotaur," which lay immediately ahead of the "Vanguard," should be
hailed to come on board, that before dying he might express to him his
sense of the admirable support given by her to the flagship. "Your
support," said he, "has prevented me from being obliged to haul out of
the line."[64] From the remark it may be inferred that the French
"Aquilon," their fourth ship, which became the "Minotaur's"
antagonist, had for a measurable time been able to combine her
batteries with those of the "Spartiate" upon the "Vanguard," and to
this was probably due that the loss of the latter was next in severity
to that of the "Majestic" and of the "Bellerophon." The inference is
further supported by the fact that the worst slaughter in the
"Vanguard" was at the forward guns, those nearest the "Aquilon."

After his wound was bound up, Nelson was requested by the surgeon to
lie quiet; but his preoccupation with the events of the evening was
too great, and his responsibility too immediate, to find relief in
inactivity,--the physician's panacea. He remained below for a while,
probably too much jarred for physical exertion; but his restlessness
sought vent by beginning a despatch to the Admiralty. The secretary
being too agitated to write, Nelson tried to do so himself, and it was
characteristic that the few lines he was then able to trace, blinded,
suffering, and confused, expressed that dependence upon the Almighty,
habitual with him, which illustrated a temperament of so much native
energy and self-reliance, and is more common, probably, among great
warriors than in any other class of men of action. This first outburst
of emotion, excited in him by the tremendous event wrought by his
hands, was identical in spirit, and not improbably was clothed in the
same words, as those with which began the despatch