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One April morning in 1771,

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a 12-year-old boy was rowed along
the River Medway in Chatham, Kent,

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to begin a new life as a
midshipman in the Royal Navy.

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In the waters all around him,

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the great warships of
the Navy lay at anchor.

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Having won a long and vicious
global conflict with France -

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the Seven Years War -
Britain was at peace,

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and much of her mighty fleet was
now mothballed, tied up in port.

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As the boy passed the mighty HMS
Victory, he would have looked up

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and seen that her decks were covered
and her gun ports were tightly shut.

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Little can he ever have imagined
their fates would one day collide.

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34 years later, he would stand on
the quarter deck of the Victory,

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commanding the fleet
in the most epic naval battle
in British history...

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Trafalgar.

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The boy's name was Horatio Nelson,
and within his lifetime,

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Britain would construct
the most powerful maritime
fighting force in history.

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Far more than just a wooden fleet,
the Navy was a national enterprise.

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Its voracious demand for ships
fuelled the Industrial Revolution,

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while funding it drove
radical financial reforms

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which we still live with today.

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At sea, its highly trained crews
and ambitious officers

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laid claim to a burgeoning empire,

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and pushed back the horizons
of the known world.

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But there would be a huge price
to pay for this global sea power.

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Britain and her Navy would soon be
dragged into the greatest sequence

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of wars the nation had ever seen.

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It would be a fight for Britain's
security, her way of life,

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her very identity -
a colossal struggle against
her old enemy, France.

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And the outcome would be
decided out here, at sea.

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A year before the young Nelson
began his career at sea,

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a Royal Navy ship was sailing
deep in the South Pacific ocean,

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12,000 miles from home.

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The skies had cleared after
heavy storms, and to the west,

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high cliffs emerged
through the cloud.

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The ship's captain decided to
name this uncharted piece of land

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Cape Howe, in honour of one
of the Navy's finest sailors.

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The captain made a precise note
of Cape Howe's co-ordinates in his

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private journal, and then continued
north along this unknown coastline.

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The date was 20th April 1770,
the ship was called the Endeavour.

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Her commander was James Cook.

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The son of a humble Scottish
labourer, Cook had worked his way up

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through the Navy's ranks to
become one of the service's

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most respected navigators
and cartographers.

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His reward was command of
a high profile mission...

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not to fight, but to explore.

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Bring the full mast round.
Come on, straight full over.

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Backed by the Royal Society,
the Admiralty

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drew up plans for a scientific
expedition to the Pacific.

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It would be a journey deep
into the unknown.

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In 1768, Cook set off
from Plymouth with a crew of 70,

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including artists,
astronomers and botanists.

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They sailed across the Atlantic,

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through the treacherous
waters around Cape Horn

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and then across the Pacific,
to begin observations in Tahiti.

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Then they turned south
into uncharted seas.

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Cook obsessively
logged the Endeavour's speed,
course and position

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so that future naval crews could
retrace his route precisely.

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Missions like this
were equipped with the latest
navigational technologies.

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Including a new British
invention to measure latitude

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which is still in use today...

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the sextant.

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Every day at noon, the ship's
officers would line up here
on the rail of the quarterdeck

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with their sextants,
to measure the angle between
the sun and the horizon.

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Now, this helped them to fix the
distance that the ship was north

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or south of the equator -
very sophisticated piece of kit.

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Very hard to use though,
particularly as the deck
was always rolling around.

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it was very difficult
to fix the sun precisely.

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The Navy also led a grand experiment
with cutting-edge precision clocks,

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known as chronometers.

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Cook would go on to pioneer their
use to measure a ship's longitude.

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The Navy was mastering the sea,
not through cannon fire,

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but by harnessing
innovative science and technology.

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As they journeyed further
into the unknown,

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the Endeavour's civilian crew

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documented more than 1,000
new animal and plant varieties

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and they painted vivid pictures
of local peoples and customs.

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But for the Admiralty,
Cook's expedition was

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not simply to satisfy the Royal
Society's thirst for knowledge.

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While the desire to collect
scientific data was real enough,

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Cook also had a set
of secret instructions.

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They told him to take possession
of convenient situations

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in the name of the
King of Great Britain.

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Cook was going to claim
undiscovered lands for the British.

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This shows that the mission was
as political as it was scientific.

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Cook was going to extend
British influence

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to the very furthest corners
of the globe.

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In the 18th century,
land was power -

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a source of new markets,
with new products to exploit -

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and there was
fierce competition for it.

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The French Foreign Minister
condemned Britain's
Imperial project.

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Britain, he said,
was a restless and greedy nation.

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As Cook crossed the Pacific,
the French explorer

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Louis de Bougainville was also
circumnavigating the globe.

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It was a perfect excuse
to claim lands for his king.

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Bougainville wanted to stop
what he described as Britain's
project of universal monarchy.

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"We must anticipate them," he cried.

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The race for global supremacy
was on.

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Bougainville and Cook were searching
for a mythical southern continent,

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another new world of riches believed
to exist deep in the southern ocean.

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So, when Captain Cook's look-out
spotted land at Cape Howe that

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April evening in 1770, the stakes
couldn't have been higher.

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Cook followed the coastline
until his look-outs spotted

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a beautiful natural harbour.

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When they sailed into it,
the sea was full of stingrays

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and he called it Sting Ray Cove,
but later,

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after he'd been ashore
and seen the bewildering
variety of plants there,

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he renamed it Botany Bay.

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Little did he know it at the time,
but this wasn't just some

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insignificant South Pacific island.
This was Australia.

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Cook claimed this
new land for his king.

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The Navy he sailed with
had grown beyond its traditional
role as a fighting force.

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It had become a vehicle of empire
building, projecting British power,

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driving commerce and conquest
to the far side of the world.

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Captain Cook drew up
more than 40 maps and surveys

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as he sailed
across the South Pacific.

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Today, they're held at the
British Library in London.

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This is a collection of sketches and
charts actually made by James Cook

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as he led the crew of the Endeavour

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on that extraordinary voyage
of discovery. This one shows

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the track of the Endeavour
through the South Pacific,
this dotted line here.

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And then it shows
him arriving at the east coast
of Australia here, where he

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went on to chart 2,000 miles of that
coastline, naming the key points and

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marking out navigational hazards.

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And he's written, probably quite
proudly here, "Discovered in 1770".

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Previous to his voyage, much of
this space here just would have

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been blank, but now he's sailing
through it, filling in the gaps.

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What I find so fascinating about
the Navy in this period

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is how these expeditions were
unlocking the secrets of the globe.

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This age of naval exploration
may not have involved
spectacular battles, but its

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impact was every bit as significant,
both for the Navy's own prestige and

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Britain's international standing.

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As soon as Cook got home,
the British Government published
these charts to prove that

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his discoveries were genuine,

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but it was about much more than
geography, it was about politics.

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Both the British Government
and Cook were laying claim

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to this coast of Australia, which
Cook even called New South Wales,

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and if you look at the other
names he's choosing, they're

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ostentatiously patriotic -

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particularly this one,
Cape St George.

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I mean, you can't get
more British than that.

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Australia would prove one of
Britain's most valuable colonies.

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English speaking, cricket playing,
British in institution and law.

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Yet, for the personalities and
skills of the crews involved,

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it could all have been
very different.

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One year before
Cook sighted Australia,

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Louis de Bougainville had
reached the Great Barrier Reef.

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But the French explorer was deterred
by the dangerous shallow waters.

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By 1771, goods from her colonies
were pouring into Britain.

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Dockside, merchant ships
unloaded precious hardwoods
from North America,

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salted fish from Canada,
exotic silks and spices from India.

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The Empire had never been
so rich or so extensive -

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and it was the Navy's job
to keep it that way.

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This was the inheritance of
young sailors like Horatio Nelson.

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One of hundreds of midshipmen,
trainee officers,

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being toughened up
to do their duty at sea.

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# When I was one I banged my drum
The day I went to sea

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# I jumped aboard a pirate ship
and the captain said to me

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# We're going this way, that way
Forwards and backwards

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# Over the Irish Sea... #

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Places, places!

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THEY GROAN

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Just as Nelson would have done
more than 200 years ago,

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these cadets, aboard
the training ship, Royalist,

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are being taught the dangerous and
demanding arts of tall ship sailing.

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What these guys are learning here
is that in order to make this ship

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work safely and efficiently,
you've got to work as a team
and you've got to obey orders.

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Everything has a set procedure.

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The Royal Navy was a meritocracy.
The sea was an unforgiving master,

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and to get promoted up
through the ranks,

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you had to prove that
you could sail and fight.

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Nelson initially showed
little sign of such promise.

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The captain of his first warship
asked, "What had poor Horace done,

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"who is so weak that he
above all the rest should be sent
to rough it out at sea?"

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Nelson was far from alone.

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Recruits as young as ten were
sent to sea for months at a time,
surrounded by the same faces,

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confined within
the same wooden walls.

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It was as much a psychological
test as a physical one.

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The Navy's solution to this was
to insist on a strict routine -

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the same no matter what ship
you were on, no matter
where you were in the world.

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The young men would have learned
self-reliance and to obey orders

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in order to overcome the terror
and the tedium of being at sea.

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I want that sheet secure.

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It was often a life of hard labour,
of lifting and mending sails and

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rigging, carrying cannon
balls and gun powder.

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Yet it was also,
for many young officers,

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a rare chance to get an education.

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The rigours of climbing aloft
were interspersed with
traditional school lessons,

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with emphasis on the complex
mathematics and trigonometry

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required for navigation.

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Through this regime, the Navy
turned children like Nelson

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from unpromising raw recruits
into experienced fighting men.

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Nelson himself remembered, "Thus,
by degrees, I became a good pilot

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"and confident of myself."

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By the age of just 19,
when he became a lieutenant,

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Nelson had travelled over
45,000 miles around the world.

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Like thousands of other young boys,

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Nelson was seeing the sheer scale
of Britain's global ambition at

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00:15:22,520 --> 00:15:26,320
first hand, and visiting
her growing empire.

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He'd been down
into the southern oceans,

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00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:31,640
rounded the Cape of Good Hope
and entered the Indian Ocean.

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00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:36,240
He almost died of malaria in Bombay,
helping safeguard British trading

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00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:41,680
interests in the east, and he'd even
fought pirates in the Caribbean.

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00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:53,520
Nelson had joined the ranks
of a highly professional force -

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sailors filled, as he said,
"with ardent ambition".

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00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:00,840
They were a band of brothers,

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00:16:00,840 --> 00:16:05,440
dedicated to the projection of
British power on a world stage.

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00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:17,000
The Navy's increasing global reach

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00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:21,400
changed how Britain saw the world
and their place within it.

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00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:27,960
In 1768, the Royal Academy of Arts
was established in central London.

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00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:33,840
It was an opportunity seized
upon by a canny Admiralty.

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00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:37,440
They put on display
paintings of naval missions,

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00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:42,080
some of which are held today
at the National Maritime Museum.

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00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:48,360
The Admiralty collection
includes works by Captain Cook's
onboard artist, William Hodges.

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00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:52,040
His paintings depicted
Britain's growing empire.

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00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:57,960
Britain was naming and
mapping the world and now,

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00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:02,560
by capturing it on canvas, in many
ways she was claiming it as well.

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00:17:02,560 --> 00:17:06,200
The people who saw these paintings
were left with a very simple and

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00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:13,000
immediate message - that Britain
didn't just rule the world's
oceans, but the world itself.

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00:17:19,440 --> 00:17:22,880
Visitors to the exhibitions
could furnish their own homes

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00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:24,920
with copies of these images,

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00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:28,160
as print shops opened up in the
streets around the Royal Academy.

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00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:31,600
Marine art
had never been so popular.

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00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:35,000
This is a view
of Portsmouth Harbour,

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00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:39,560
painted in 1770 by
Dominic Serres, and it's dominated

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00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:43,200
by this fantastic ship of the line,
a battleship anchored here

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in the middle with
its two rows of cannons

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00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:49,200
run out, hatches open and the
captain on the stern, perhaps

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00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:53,680
talking to the first lieutenant.
And there's some figures
here, in the foreground.

229
00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:58,040
An unfeasibly smart-looking seaman
here, perhaps in his Sunday rig,

230
00:17:58,040 --> 00:18:01,840
talking to a naval officer,
and two marine officers here,

231
00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:04,040
lounging around on some cannon.

232
00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:10,640
This, then, is how the Admiralty
wanted the British to see their

233
00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:15,080
Navy - ordered, well equipped,
ready for any eventuality.

234
00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:20,400
But these images disguised
an extraordinary truth.

235
00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:23,280
That a navy that wasn't fighting

236
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:26,280
risked falling into neglect
and disrepair.

237
00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:30,440
After a decade of peace, British
naval expenditure was at less than

238
00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:32,560
a quarter of its wartime levels,

239
00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:36,760
and much of the fleet was mothballed
or simply tied up in port.

240
00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:43,080
One admiral complained that,
of 35 ships under his command,
only six were seaworthy.

241
00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:45,960
To make matters worse,
across the Channel in France,

242
00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:49,120
the King wasn't just painting
pretty pictures of his fleet.

243
00:18:49,120 --> 00:18:52,160
He was building an entirely new one.

244
00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:59,320
Louis XVI was determined to end the
Royal Navy's pre-eminence at sea.

245
00:19:01,160 --> 00:19:06,880
He ordered the construction of
new docks and oversaw the
completion of 80 new warships.

246
00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:12,480
Ready to pounce, Louis
now waited for the right moment

247
00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:16,120
to deploy his powerful new fleet
and ruin Britain.

248
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:27,760
His opportunity would come
from 3,000 miles to the west,

249
00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:32,400
across the Atlantic Ocean,
from within the British Empire.

250
00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:49,880
On the 9th of May, 1768, British
customs officials in Boston harbour

251
00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:53,840
boarded an American merchant ship,
The Liberty.

252
00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:57,480
It was carrying a cargo
of imported Madeira wine.

253
00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:01,400
The next morning, customs officials
inspected the hold of the ship.

254
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:05,000
They were a little bit suspicious
when they discovered that it

255
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:08,560
contained only a quarter
of her total capacity.

256
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,120
They thought that
during the night people had

257
00:20:11,120 --> 00:20:15,640
been secretly unloading the cargo
to avoid paying customs duties.

258
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:19,200
They asked the Royal Navy
to impound The Liberty.

259
00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:27,600
Working alongside customs officials,
naval ships were enforcing stringent

260
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:30,000
tariffs on American trade.

261
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:34,120
The revenues raised helped pay for
the Royal Navy and for colonial

262
00:20:34,120 --> 00:20:38,800
defence, but the very principle
was anathema to the Americans.

263
00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:47,080
The Liberty's owner, John Hancock,
was arrested for tax evasion.

264
00:20:47,080 --> 00:20:51,880
He sat in the dock for five months
before the case collapsed.

265
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:58,800
All across the eastern seaboard,
American traders faced what they

266
00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:02,840
saw as harassment from an
aggressive British fleet.

267
00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:06,200
The Navy, which for centuries
had been held up by the British

268
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:09,400
as the defender of their
liberties from foreign tyranny,

269
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:13,760
was now seen by many in
America as a tyrant herself.

270
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:17,080
It was a perception that was
forcing them to reconsider

271
00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:19,600
their entire relationship
with Britain.

272
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:27,440
The tension would culminate
on the 4th of July 1776,

273
00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:31,520
with the Declaration
of American Independence.

274
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:35,960
Most prominent among
the signatures was John Hancock,

275
00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:38,360
the owner of the Liberty.

276
00:21:38,360 --> 00:21:42,880
Britain was now at war
with her own subjects.

277
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:56,640
Back home, the Navy board
went into overdrive

278
00:21:56,640 --> 00:22:00,640
to supply over 100 ships now
fighting a transatlantic war.

279
00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:07,160
But after two years of conflict,
as the new Navy board controller,

280
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:10,760
Charles Middleton, made his way
to work in London's Seething Lane,

281
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:13,560
the Navy was in deep crisis.

282
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:16,760
What had begun as a local
civil war between Britain

283
00:22:16,760 --> 00:22:19,880
and her rebellious colonists
with a rag-tag army,

284
00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:23,000
had now turned into a
truly global contest,

285
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:28,520
because a few months before, France,
sensing her opportunity for revenge,

286
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:30,640
had declared war on Britain.

287
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:41,160
In 1778, King Louis XVI ordered
his new fleet across the Atlantic
to support the American rebels.

288
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:46,520
Within months, the French navy had
forced British troops to abandon

289
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:49,840
America's biggest city,
Philadelphia.

290
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:52,840
The situation was perilous.

291
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:56,960
The enemy, Middleton warned,
outnumber us at every station.

292
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:05,200
The solution to the problem seems
obvious - to build more ships.

293
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:10,320
But it could take up to
five years and 2,000 trees to
construct a single warship.

294
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:19,080
Middleton didn't have the time or
resources to build a new fleet.

295
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:24,240
The only option was to improve
the ships he already had.

296
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,520
Just a few weeks after he
began work at the Navy board,

297
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:32,320
a letter from a Mr Fisher
arrived on Middleton's desk.

298
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:36,800
Fisher's original correspondence
doesn't survive, but its content

299
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:41,480
is referred to in records held
at the National Maritime Museum.

300
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:45,120
This is a letter written by the Navy
Board to their colleagues at the

301
00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:50,880
Admiralty on the 27th of January,
1779, and it contains a vital clue.

302
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:55,320
It mentions Mr Fisher, calls him
a ship builder from Liverpool

303
00:23:55,320 --> 00:23:58,680
whose ships did a brisk trade
with West Africa.

304
00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:02,840
Now, in these warm tropical waters,
shipworm were a real problem.

305
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:07,480
These little worm would burrow
into the hull of a ship and
weaken the fabric of the vessel,

306
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,160
but also, long tentacles of seaweed
would form, clinging onto the sides

307
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,000
of the ship and really slow it down.

308
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:17,400
Mr Fisher's solution was
copper sheathing.

309
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:22,360
Coating the underside
of the hull beneath the water
line with copper panels.

310
00:24:22,360 --> 00:24:26,440
Thus protecting the integrity
of the ship and, crucially,

311
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:30,360
making it travel a lot faster
through the water.

312
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:41,240
Middleton saw in this
experimental technology a possible
solution to his problem.

313
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:45,560
He would sheath the bottoms
of his wooden fleet in copper.

314
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:53,560
It was, though, an expensive process
and Middleton urgently needed money

315
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:59,880
if he was to, as he put it,
"Extricate us from present danger".

316
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:06,840
Middleton petitioned the king,
George III, for a personal
meeting at Buckingham House.

317
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:10,880
He said, "It was a matter
of the greatest consequence".

318
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:15,960
And what better way to convince the
King than to take along a beautiful

319
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,520
scale model? And this is the actual

320
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:22,400
one that Middleton brought to
that meeting with George III.

321
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:26,360
It's of HMS Bellona,
which was a 74-gun battleship,

322
00:25:26,360 --> 00:25:29,760
and the detail is wonderful -
you can see the wood carvings

323
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:33,120
and the paintings along the side.
But the really important detail

324
00:25:33,120 --> 00:25:37,000
is the copper plating below
the water line down here.

325
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:41,360
There would have been about
3,000 plates of copper on a
full-sized ship of this kind,

326
00:25:41,360 --> 00:25:48,240
but this detail is so intricate,
you can see the nails that actually
hold the copper plates to the hull.

327
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,160
It must have really impressed the
King because he threw his support

328
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:59,520
behind the Navy's bold project
to spend huge amounts of money on
a totally unproven technology.

329
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:04,880
It was a great industrial challenge.

330
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:09,360
Sheathing just one ship
could require 15 tonnes of copper.

331
00:26:09,360 --> 00:26:12,200
But Middleton drove
the project forward.

332
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:18,360
At Portsmouth docks, he
placed orders to copper-bottom 51
Navy ships within the year.

333
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,720
It was a uniquely British triumph.

334
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:31,880
Only British industry
had the ability to produce
copper on such a scale.

335
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,520
Here at Parys Mountain
in North Wales,

336
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:40,760
5,000 men worked the rich seams
of an open cast copper mine.

337
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:47,680
During its lifetime, Parys produced
over 130,000 tonnes of copper,

338
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:52,200
much of it to supply the Navy
with this vital munition of war.

339
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,920
The copper was sourced
exclusively from British mines

340
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:59,320
and the smelting process
required a vast quantity of coal

341
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,080
which itself needed mining,
often using new steam engines

342
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:07,280
which drained water
out of the deepest shafts.

343
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:12,160
The finished products
needed to be carried on new roads
and new merchant ships.

344
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:17,440
All of this created new jobs
and economic communities
all over the country.

345
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:19,960
The Royal Navy wasn't
just benefiting

346
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:25,000
from domestic industrialisation,
it was also accelerating it.

347
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:33,320
But as the naval dockyards
rushed to complete the task
of coppering the fleet,

348
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:37,120
across the Atlantic in America,
the war effort was crumbling.

349
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:44,800
In 1781, the French Navy
had blockaded the British Army
in Chesapeake Bay,

350
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:50,160
cutting off their supply lines by
sea and forcing them to surrender.

351
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:55,040
In that moment,
the American colonies were lost.

352
00:27:55,040 --> 00:28:00,440
One naval defeat,
and half a continent slipped
out of Britain's grasp.

353
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:07,240
20,000 stranded British
troops had to be evacuated.

354
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:09,840
The newly promoted Captain Nelson

355
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:13,320
joined a naval force sent
to bring them home.

356
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:18,040
And Louis XVI looked to build upon
his sudden maritime advantage.

357
00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:23,040
Flushed with victory,
the French turned their attention
and their fleets south.

358
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:26,280
They were after an even greater
prize, the very foundation of

359
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:30,480
Britain's imperial economy -
her colonies in the Caribbean,

360
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,480
and their most precious
commodity - sugar.

361
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:47,640
Barbados, St Lucia, Antigua and
most importantly of all, Jamaica,

362
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:51,480
were the jewels in
Britain's imperial crown.

363
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:01,240
These Caribbean islands were much
more valuable than the 13 colonies

364
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,280
clinging to the eastern seaboard
of North America.

365
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:08,680
Their lush soil and plenty
of rainfall - they were home
to the sugar plantations.

366
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,880
The lucrative sugar trade
powered the British economy.

367
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:21,440
Slaves in the Caribbean harvested
80,000 tonnes of sugar each year.

368
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,320
Customs duties on this
contributed the equivalent

369
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:29,080
of well over £250 million
annually to the Treasury.

370
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:33,360
The British sweet tooth paid
for the war effort.

371
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,120
King George III himself warned
that, "If we lose our sugar islands,

372
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,360
"it will be impossible to raise
money to continue the war.

373
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:42,480
"We must defend these islands,

374
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,560
"even at the risk
of an invasion of Britain."

375
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:58,480
This site at Kenilworth
in north west Jamaica

376
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:00,720
was a great sugar estate.

377
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:09,720
It stretched over 500 acres, and
was one of hundreds of plantations

378
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:14,720
built along this coast so
that their produce could easily
be exported to Britain.

379
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:19,840
But Kenilworth's proximity to
the sea also made it vulnerable.

380
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,240
Kenilworth wasn't
just a sugar factory.

381
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:24,800
It was also by necessity a fortress,

382
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,960
and this is what remains of that
18th century gun battery.

383
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:39,760
This cannon pointed out to sea to
stave off the threat of attack by
pirates and privateers as well as

384
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:45,400
the French and Spanish navies, but
never was the risk to this island

385
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,480
greater than in the spring of 1782.

386
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:55,600
On the 8th April,
a French fleet of 36 warships,

387
00:30:55,600 --> 00:31:01,640
accompanied by over 15,000 troops,
set sail from Martinique.

388
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:05,000
Their commander,
the Comte de Grasse, planned to

389
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:10,960
invade Jamaica's northern coast
and grab the spoils for France.

390
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:16,720
De Grasse was so confident
of victory that his
fleet was accompanied by

391
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:18,520
a convoy of merchant ships,

392
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:22,560
their holds stuffed with trade
goods to supply his new colony.

393
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,400
But Jamaica was just the
beginning, the first step.

394
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:29,360
His plan was to drive the British
entirely from the Caribbean

395
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:31,680
and destroy the British economy.

396
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,160
The future of Britain's
transatlantic empire depended on

397
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:39,920
defending this coast, this island,
from those French forces.

398
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:49,320
The task of protecting Jamaica fell
to the Royal Navy's Caribbean fleet

399
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:55,800
and its recently upgraded but as
yet untested copper-bottomed ships.

400
00:31:55,800 --> 00:32:00,800
Their commander, Admiral Sir George
Rodney, seemed a bit of a liability.

401
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:06,800
A gambler and a womaniser, he was
deeply unpopular at the Admiralty.

402
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:10,720
But Rodney did have what it took
to be an outstanding leader.

403
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,160
He'd joined the navy at just 14.

404
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:17,720
Since then he'd served 50 years,
and in that half century he'd become

405
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:21,640
thoroughly imbued with the
Royal Navy's aggressive ethos.

406
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:26,000
In battle, he was violent
and single minded.

407
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:30,280
If anyone could save Jamaica,
Rodney could.

408
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:35,200
On the 12th April at the
Saints Islands, Rodney attacked.

409
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:43,680
Conditions were actually
quite similar to those today.

410
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,720
The wind was very changeable
and kept moving direction,

411
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:48,960
but this gave Rodney
one key advantage.

412
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:52,600
His fleet was copper bottomed and
much quicker and more manoeuvrable,

413
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,120
particularly in these light
breeze conditions.

414
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,920
The French general, Antoine de
Bougainville, the man who'd raced

415
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:07,240
Captain Cook across the Pacific, was
now serving with de Grasse's fleet.

416
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:11,160
He was stunned by the speed and
agility of the British ships.

417
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,720
Bougainville described
the British advantage.

418
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:20,480
He said, "The French ships were like
tortoises chasing British stags."

419
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,880
One British midshipman who
fought at the Saints said,

420
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,480
"We knocked the
French fleet to atoms.

421
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:38,800
"It was," he said,
"the best day old England ever saw."

422
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:46,640
And after 11 hours of fighting,
the French surrendered.

423
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:52,600
Their admiral, Comte de Grasse,
conceded that his navy

424
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:56,320
was operating a full century
behind the British.

425
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:05,120
Rodney had saved Jamaica and her
precious sugar trade, the key
stone of the British economy.

426
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,200
In the Jamaican capital, Kingston,

427
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,000
a giant marble statue was
erected in his honour.

428
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:13,240
a giant marble statue was
erected in his honour.

429
00:34:13,240 --> 00:34:16,280
Here on the side, there's
some fantastic detail.

430
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,640
Britannia here in the middle,
with her union flag on the shield,

431
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:25,000
and at the very bottom, Britannia
is trampling on the French flag.

432
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:29,240
You can see here the fleur-de-lis,
symbol of the French monarchy.

433
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:35,640
It's fascinating to think
what would have happened if
de Grasse had won that battle.

434
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,440
Perhaps his statue would be
up there now looking down on me.

435
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,280
Britain would almost certainly
have lost her sugar islands and

436
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,880
all the trade with them that was
such a mainstay of her economy.

437
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:50,280
But even more important than that,
confidence, the great elixir

438
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,760
of the capitalist system,
would have dried up.

439
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:54,920
The stock market
would have collapsed,

440
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:56,520
and with it, the Government.

441
00:34:56,520 --> 00:35:00,760
Britain would have been no better
than a third-rate power.

442
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,320
Rodney's aggression was
widely credited as

443
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:16,200
the reason for the preservation
of Britain's Caribbean empire.

444
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,840
But he had an even greater edge
over his rivals,

445
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,600
thanks to the efforts
of a little known bureaucrat

446
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:27,600
working in a side street 3,000
miles away in the city of London.

447
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:32,640
Charles Middleton,
the navy board controller.

448
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:37,120
The man who had the
foresight and resolve to launch
a copper revolution.

449
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:45,440
Global peace was restored in 1783.

450
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:48,880
Britain gave up her
13 colonies in North America,

451
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:52,520
but retained key possessions
all across the globe,

452
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:56,040
including her vital
Caribbean colonies.

453
00:35:56,040 --> 00:36:01,920
Over the next 20 years,
the revenues from imperial trade

454
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:08,840
trebled in value, with
much of the profits re-invested
in a rejuvenated Royal Navy.

455
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:10,920
The French king, Louis XVI,

456
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:15,480
had failed in his attempt
to dismember the British Empire,

457
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:17,440
and he'd pay for it with his head.

458
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,840
In chasing his dream of
defeating the Royal Navy,

459
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,280
Louis bankrupted his kingdom.

460
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:29,120
France was torn apart by revolution

461
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:35,120
and on the 21st January 1793,
he was executed as a traitor.

462
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:39,280
Within days, the new
Republic of France

463
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:44,520
had declared war on Britain for
the sixth time in 100 years.

464
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:49,160
But this time, their aim was
to eradicate the British state.

465
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:07,720
A year after war was declared, a
vicar, James Hurdis, made his way to

466
00:37:07,720 --> 00:37:14,200
St Andrew's Church in Bishopstone,
Sussex, for a Sunday service.

467
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,280
Hurdis was no
typical country cleric.

468
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:21,800
He was an Oxford professor and an
ardent anti-republican, who believed

469
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:26,840
it was his patriotic duty to give
political guidance to his flock.

470
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,960
And he used a particular
naval allusion to do it.

471
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:34,160
Hurdis asked his congregation
to imagine that Britain

472
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:38,800
was a ship of war, and they,
the British people, were her crew.

473
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:42,520
The ship would operate effectively
if they did as they were told by

474
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:47,240
their senior officers
and respected their superiors.

475
00:37:47,240 --> 00:37:52,200
But, he warned, if they should all
conceive themselves to be equal

476
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:54,960
and each to be
guided by his own will,

477
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:59,720
then the ship would change its
course and they must be wrecked.

478
00:37:59,720 --> 00:38:04,400
He went on to say that if they
deposed the captain in a mutiny,

479
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:09,240
then they would instantly
divide and fall asunder.

480
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:13,560
To his audience,
the symbolism was clear.

481
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:20,960
Across the Channel in France, the
Reign of Terror was in full swing.

482
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:28,640
Thousands of enemies
of the state had followed
Louis XVI to the guillotine.

483
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,680
The congregation listening to Hurdis
here would have been filled with

484
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:41,080
a fear of French republican terror,
and his solution was that they unite

485
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,200
behind traditional values -

486
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,800
respect for church and king,
parliament and law.

487
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:48,840
It was a call to arms.

488
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,280
Hurdis's sermon struck a chord
with the people of Bishopstone.

489
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,200
Their parish was just a mile
inland from the English Channel.

490
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:08,160
And if the Royal Navy
was defeated at sea,

491
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,800
they'd be on the front line
when the French invaded.

492
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:16,000
Britain had faced invasion from
France countless times before,

493
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,320
but this time would be different.

494
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:22,000
This wouldn't just be a physical
conquest, a bit of regime change,

495
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,560
a subtle exchange of one group
of politicians for another.

496
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:27,960
This time it was ideological.

497
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:32,520
At stake was nothing less than
the entire British way of life.

498
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:41,040
The fear of French invasion
quickly spread across the country,

499
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,120
and, faced with utter destruction,

500
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:48,800
Britons looked yet again to
their navy for salvation.

501
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:59,560
The British public were well
used to paying for their navy.

502
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:06,080
Now, if Britain was to
preserve her national security,
they'd have to man it too.

503
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,720
The fleet had expanded
to more than 1,000 ships,

504
00:40:09,720 --> 00:40:13,200
and the biggest required crews
of up to 900 skilled men.

505
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:20,800
Commodore Nelson explained
the extent of the problem
to his brother, William.

506
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:26,360
"I've only got a few men
and very hard indeed are they
to be got," he said.

507
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:31,400
The Admiralty embraced a
solution that it had used so often

508
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:35,160
in wars of the past,
and that's legalised kidnapping.

509
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:39,360
For centuries, the Government
had sanctioned the use of
so-called press gangs.

510
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:42,880
These groups of armed men
now roamed the country

511
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,960
looking for sailors to send to
sea without their own consent.

512
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,720
This was a practice that
didn't really sit well with

513
00:40:49,720 --> 00:40:53,240
Britain's reputation as
the home of personal liberty,

514
00:40:53,240 --> 00:40:56,280
but it was the only sure way
of manning the fleet.

515
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:00,920
In the Bodleian library in Oxford,

516
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:04,800
the archive holds a collection of
the Gentleman's Magazine, a monthly

517
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:10,200
publication which often carried
stories about press gang activity.

518
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,640
I found one here that's a case
heard by the Old Bailey,

519
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:20,000
about a Mr William Godfrey,
who's a citizen and "cooper",
or barrel-maker of London.

520
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,840
It says that this particular lawless
body of sailors burst into his house

521
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:27,720
in open defiance of the law, seized
him, knocked him down and dragged

522
00:41:27,720 --> 00:41:32,280
him through the streets of London
with only one of his slippers on.

523
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,600
And then there's the wedding party
that turns into a huge brawl

524
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:37,680
as a press gang
tried to grab the groom.

525
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:40,120
Luckily, he and his new
wife managed to escape.

526
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:43,840
And there's the man who was torn
from his carriage on his way home.

527
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:47,440
On another occasion it says that
after some particularly vigorous

528
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:51,440
press gang activity, the River
Thames was swept clean of mariners.

529
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:59,120
The press gang clearly looms
large in the popular imagination
of the 18th century,

530
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:03,960
but despite some of the scare
stories, it wasn't total anarchy.

531
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:07,880
Most press gangs
operated only in ports.

532
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:14,360
Their mission was to try and press
merchant seamen, men who knew
their way around a tall ship.

533
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:18,000
It was in no-one's interest to fill
ships up with a bunch of landsmen -

534
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:20,200
people that had never
been to sea before.

535
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,640
They'd be a danger to themselves
and the rest of the crew.

536
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,960
And in fact most sailors were
pressed when they were out at sea,

537
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,880
when their ships were intercepted
by the press gang in small boats.

538
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:33,200
They were seized before
they'd set foot on dry land.

539
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:43,080
At the height of the war, almost 40%
of crews were pressed into service.

540
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:46,320
Although widely criticised,
impressment did boost naval

541
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:52,520
man power to 140,000 sailors,
seven times its peace time level.

542
00:42:54,760 --> 00:43:01,400
This was just as well, because the
Royal Navy was now outgunned at sea.

543
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:12,280
In February 1797, a British force
of 15 ships sailed south along

544
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:16,400
Portugal's Atlantic coast,
searching for a Spanish convoy.

545
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:26,120
A few months earlier,
Spain had joined forces with France
to wage war against Britain.

546
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:30,560
The commander of the British
fleet was Admiral John Jervis,

547
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,800
and this ship, HMS Victory,
was his flagship.

548
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:36,920
For sometime, he'd been waiting
off the coast of Portugal,

549
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,760
hoping to intercept the Spanish,
but terrible storms

550
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:43,520
had made it impossible
for him to track them down.

551
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:50,320
Then on 13th February 1797, a new
ship arrived to reinforce Jervis.

552
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:54,160
On board was a senior officer
with some vital information.

553
00:43:55,720 --> 00:43:59,440
That officer was Horatio Nelson.

554
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,440
In 25 years of service,

555
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:07,120
he'd earned a reputation as
an impulsive, aggressive leader.

556
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:09,400
"It is my disposition," he wrote,

557
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:13,680
"that dangers do but increase
my idea of attempting them."

558
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:18,240
Now, Nelson would prove
his words with action.

559
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:25,800
The night before reaching HMS
Victory, Nelson had, by chance,

560
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:31,240
sailed right through the Spanish
fleet at nearby Cape St Vincent.

561
00:44:31,240 --> 00:44:33,040
Armed with this intelligence,

562
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:35,640
the British had the
advantage of surprise.

563
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:41,480
Early the next morning,
they attacked.

564
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:54,000
The noise down here on the
gun deck during battle would
have been extraordinary.

565
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:58,680
The men's ears bled,
some were deafened for
the rest of their lives.

566
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:04,520
Just one enemy cannon ball coming
through these wooden walls
could kill an entire gun crew.

567
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:10,720
The deck was sprinkled with sand
to soak up the blood but, within
minutes of battle being joined, it

568
00:45:10,720 --> 00:45:17,440
was strewn with
severed limbs, torsos and other
unidentifiable human remains.

569
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:22,560
It's no surprise that the
men who fought down here
called it the slaughterhouse.

570
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:29,240
Amid the smoke and chaos,
Nelson spotted an opportunity

571
00:45:29,240 --> 00:45:32,480
and he would never look back.

572
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:39,720
Without waiting for orders, Nelson
spun his ship round and tore
into the heart of the enemy fleet.

573
00:45:39,720 --> 00:45:44,920
Once he was there, he drove
it alongside a Spanish vessel
and roaring,

574
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:48,320
"Westminster Abbey, oh, glorious
victory!"

575
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:53,480
he led his crew
armed with cutlasses
and pistols onto the enemy deck.

576
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:58,680
He managed to capture that ship
and the one next to it.

577
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:04,960
Taking two enemy vessels like this
was a unique achievement.

578
00:46:09,720 --> 00:46:11,680
Before the battle
of Cape St Vincent,

579
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:16,160
Nelson was considered just one
of a gifted generation of sailors.

580
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,200
But after, he'd marked himself
out as someone exceptional,

581
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:24,880
a daring leader with confidence and
abilities beyond his contemporaries.

582
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:31,800
Now Nelson showed that he didn't
just have a flair for combat,
but also self-publicity.

583
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:35,120
He immediately sought out an author
called Colonel Drinkwater,

584
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:39,240
who was travelling with the fleet,
to make a record of any fighting.

585
00:46:39,240 --> 00:46:43,680
He made sure that Drinkwater was
well aware of his heroics.

586
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:48,120
By the time he returned back to
Britain, he decided to write a
rather dramatic account of the

587
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:53,800
battle, which he modestly called
A Few Remarks Relative To Myself.

588
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:57,880
A copy of this was hand delivered
to the King and it appeared in two

589
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:01,720
popular newspapers,
True Britain and The Sun.

590
00:47:01,720 --> 00:47:04,800
Nelson was front page news.

591
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:11,600
For the Admiralty, Nelson's heroics
were a godsend,

592
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:15,480
some good PR to lift
the morale of a war weary nation.

593
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:26,960
By the summer of 1798,
Britain faced economic disaster.

594
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:32,080
The war was being fought on
a scale never before seen.

595
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:39,680
Through its course, the government
would spend a staggering
£1,657 million on defence.

596
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:43,360
A tenfold increase on
peacetime military expenditure

597
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:46,840
and the equivalent of
over £100 billion today.

598
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:53,480
Taxes had to be raised
time and again.

599
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:58,320
The political satirist,
James Gillray, condemned
the financial burden.

600
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:02,160
In his cartoon,
The Friend Of The People,

601
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:06,120
a tax collector is shown knocking on
the door of a modest British home.

602
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:12,720
"Taxes, taxes, taxes", bemoans
the owner, "how am I to get
money to pay them all?"

603
00:48:12,720 --> 00:48:14,480
But it still wasn't enough.

604
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:23,120
In the parliamentary archive in
the House of Lords, there is a
remarkable document revealing the

605
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:27,200
government's radical response
to the growing fiscal crisis.

606
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:35,680
In 1799, Parliament passed an act
designed to raise revenue and
in typically flowery language,

607
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:38,600
the preamble explains
what they intended to do.

608
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:42,480
"That we, your Majesty's most
dutiful and loyal subjects,

609
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:48,960
do voluntarily grant your Majesty
several rates and duties."

610
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:53,160
It was a new tax, designed to be
just a temporary measure to help

611
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,000
pay for the war
and fund the Army and the Navy.

612
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,400
It was called income tax.

613
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:06,200
From 1799, every British subject
earning more than £60 a year

614
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:10,760
was charged income tax at
a rate of 10 per cent.

615
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:15,240
Here at the end of the Act is
the first example of a tax return,

616
00:49:15,240 --> 00:49:22,000
listing all the types of
income to be taxed,
from property, rent and employment.

617
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:29,280
This document is such a
fascinating reminder of the way in
which this war of unprecedented

618
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:33,080
cost and intensity
was revolutionising British life.

619
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:37,480
In industry, commerce and now
here in finance and, of course,

620
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:41,360
we're still living with the legacy
of this act in the present day.

621
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:50,600
In its first year, income tax raised
£6 million towards the war effort,

622
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:53,120
enough to build 100 warships.

623
00:49:55,960 --> 00:50:00,800
Income tax, like impressment, was
highly contentious,

624
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:04,920
but its impact
was felt way beyond Westminster.

625
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:10,400
At sea, the Royal Navy
entered the most critical
phase of the war in rude health.

626
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:12,760
Fully funded and well manned.

627
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:17,960
It was the high tide
of British naval power.

628
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:24,200
Dominant on the seas of Europe,
the Navy began a campaign of

629
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:28,080
attrition, designed to
crush the enemy's trade and morale.

630
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:37,120
From 1803, major French and Spanish
ports were blockaded, encircled
by the fleet's wooden walls.

631
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:43,640
It was a highly effective strategy.

632
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:50,920
While the British trained at sea,
the enemy were trapped in harbour,
impotent and immobile.

633
00:50:55,680 --> 00:51:01,080
Here in Cadiz in autumn 1805,
a Franco-Spanish force

634
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:08,280
of 33 warships was tied up in ports,
its commanders desperate to break
out of the Navy stranglehold.

635
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:18,600
But a few miles out to sea, Admiral
Nelson was waiting for them with a
fleet of 27 heavily armed warships.

636
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:27,160
Aboard the flagship, HMS Victory,
Nelson summoned his senior officers

637
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:29,960
to his cabin to
discuss the battle plan.

638
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,440
What he called "The Nelson Touch."

639
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:39,160
Nelson's plan was confident and
aggressive, but it was also risky.

640
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:44,360
He was going to divide his ships up
and send them right at the heart
of the enemy.

641
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:51,200
This, he hoped, would break up their
formation and provoke the kind of
anarchic melee that he desired.

642
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:57,080
He wanted his captains to use
their initiative in selecting
their targets, but he told them,

643
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:02,680
"No captain can do very wrong
if he places his ship
alongside that of an enemy."

644
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:07,200
One on one, he was certain
that his ships would prevail.

645
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,680
Nelson knew that he was outnumbered
and outgunned, but he also knew that

646
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:17,640
he commanded the finest naval
weapon of the age of sail.

647
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:21,160
A combination of men,
ships and cannon that had been

648
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:26,680
honed to the point of perfection
over more than 200 years and this

649
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:33,480
was the moment that Nelson was going
to use that weapon to annihilate
Britain's greatest enemies.

650
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:43,320
On the 19th of October,
the enemy attempted to
break out of the blockade.

651
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:48,160
Two days later, the British caught
up with them, near Cape Trafalgar.

652
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,920
An able seaman serving on board
HMS Victory

653
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:57,000
said the sight cheered
the heart of every British sailor.

654
00:52:57,000 --> 00:53:02,480
He described the men around
him as being like lions,
anxious to be at it.

655
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:30,640
The Battle of Trafalgar has seared
itself into the national psyche.

656
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:33,760
In the Royal Gallery at
the House of Lords a vast

657
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:39,200
fresco commemorates the battle
in the very heart of government.

658
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:43,800
It measures almost 15 metres wide.

659
00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:49,520
This gigantic fresco shows the
quarterdeck of HMS Victory, Nelson's

660
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:53,840
flagship, at the very climax of the
Battle of Trafalgar and it's locked

661
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:59,560
in single combat with the French
warship, The Redoubtable, which you
can just see in the background.

662
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:02,440
The Victory and the French ship
were so close together

663
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:06,200
their rigging became entangled so
they couldn't part from each other.

664
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:09,840
The Victory's gun crews
couldn't even wheel out their
cannons to their full extent.

665
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:12,040
They were touching
the hull of the French ship.

666
00:54:22,240 --> 00:54:28,480
There are men here suffering from
musket wounds and terrible jagged
wounds from splinters that would

667
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:34,600
have spiralled, cart wheeled through
the air as cannon balls carved
into the oak decks of the ship.

668
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:48,200
In many ways, the first half of the
Battle of Trafalgar, the forgotten
half, is the blockade of Cadiz.

669
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:53,120
The Spanish and French ships
rotting at their moorings,
their crews unable to train,

670
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:56,440
to go through their gunnery
practise like, like the British.

671
00:54:56,440 --> 00:55:01,920
Yellow fever broke out, they had
scurvy, and perhaps most of all,
the depression, the malaise that

672
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:06,080
came from being bottled up in port,
knowing that you couldn't
go out to sea

673
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:09,360
because a far superior
British fleet was waiting for you.

674
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:17,120
In just four hours of fighting,
highly drilled crews on HMS Victory
fired more than 3,000 cannon balls.

675
00:55:17,120 --> 00:55:24,560
They fired so fast
that one French sailor claimed,
"The devil loaded their guns."

676
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:28,680
The Royal Navy crews were
tough veterans that had spent years

677
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:31,320
sailing the
Mediterranean, the Atlantic.

678
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,880
They'd gone through these drills
hundreds of times,

679
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:35,920
they'd fired these guns
thousands of times,

680
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:41,200
they knew exactly what they were
doing and they were able to
keep doing their jobs

681
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:45,080
in the most hideous,
destructive environment imaginable.

682
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:49,280
What you can see here are actually
the rhythms and the discipline of

683
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:55,800
the Royal Navy working, despite
coming under tremendous stress from
enemy fire.

684
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:03,480
At around 4.30pm
the cannons fell silent.

685
00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:06,840
Britain had secured an
overwhelming victory.

686
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:16,000
But as the Royal Navy celebrated,
news began to spread of
a terrible loss.

687
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:20,520
In the very centre of the painting
lies Admiral Nelson.

688
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:24,200
He's just been fatally wounded
by a shot fired by a sniper

689
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:27,360
who was perched high in the
rigging of The Redoubtable.

690
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:30,400
The shot had shattered his
left shoulder, entered his body,

691
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:34,720
cut his spinal column and is slowly
filling his chest cavity with blood.

692
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:43,240
The man who'd begun his naval career
as a young midshipman,
rowing past HMS Victory

693
00:56:43,240 --> 00:56:49,600
34 year before in Chatham,
was now lying mortally wounded
on her oak deck.

694
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:15,920
All positions where possible
set watch on Charlie group.

695
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:19,640
Today, Nelson is remembered as the
greatest commander in naval history.

696
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:24,840
So would the consequences
of his death be disastrous
for Britain and her Navy?

697
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:27,800
Well, no...

698
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:32,920
Nelson had inherited a fleet that
was an unparalleled military machine

699
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:35,600
and his death
had little impact on it.

700
00:57:35,600 --> 00:57:43,240
The powerful ships, the well trained
crews and the spirit of aggression
and ambition all lived on.

701
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:48,840
The commander of the Channel
fleets, Admiral Cornwallis,

702
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:53,040
described the true
foundations of Nelson's greatness.

703
00:57:54,640 --> 00:58:00,040
"Everything seemed as if
by enchantment to prosper
under his direction," he said.

704
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:04,240
"But it was the effect of system
not of chance."

705
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:13,800
At Trafalgar, the Navy's band of
brothers had paved the way for
France's ultimate defeat in 1815.

706
00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:17,600
Safeguarding Britain's independence
and her identity.

707
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:26,480
Thanks to the Navy, Britain had
decisively won the greatest
war in her history and proved

708
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:33,520
that no land empire, no matter how
powerful or large, could ever defeat
a nation that dominated the sea.

709
00:58:33,520 --> 00:58:40,480
The sea was the true source of
wealth and power and to control it
was to control the world.

710
00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:51,400
Next time, Nelson's victory gave the
Navy mastery of the seas, but in
time, new challenges and new enemies

711
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:54,840
would take Britain to the
very brink of disaster.

712
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:11,640
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713
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:14,600
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