The three Dorset captains at Trafalgar: Thomas Masterman Hardy, Charles Bullen, Henry Digby

Front matter

Ex Libris ,

: C. K. OGDEN

?M r

Preface

OF all the subordinate characters in the tragedy of Trafalgar, the personality of Thomas Masterman Hardy is unquestionably by far the most interesting, striking, and attractive. The " Kiss me, Hardy " of the dying Nelson has perhaps taken a firmer hold on the popular imagination than either the "Remember" of Charles Stuart, or the real or supposed " My country, oh my country" of William Pitt.

Another of the " greatest sailor's " utterances during the brief interview which preceded Hardy's return to his duties on deck, within about half an hour of " his Lord's " death, is scarcely less distinctly graven on men's minds. It was, as we are told by the able author of Nelson and his Captains, the timely quotation of the words, " Anchor, Hardy, anchor," more than forty years later, by which Sir Herbert Edwardes steadied in a moment of supreme difficulty, the iron nerve of the worn-out and over-wrought Sir John Lawrence.^

No sooner did the belated news of the battle reach England than the whole kingdom was flooded with popular mementoes of the great event which had saved her from the long-feared foreign invasion, while depriving her of her foremost sailor. In all these souvenirs — songs, broadsides, glass-pictures, engravings, or pottery — the favourite theme was that of the most familiar death scene in naval history — Nelson expiring in the arms of Hardy. 1 Nelson and his Captains, W. H. Fitchett, p. 63.

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Two-and-twenty years after Trafalgar, the late Admiral Sir VV. William Phipps Hornby was serving with Hardy, then Commander-in-Chief of the Experimental Squadron at Portsmouth. Shortly before his death, Sir William Hornby communicated to Mr Henry Newbolt an old Trafalgar ^ong, " The Quarter-gunner's Yarn," i containing the following verses : —

" Our captain was Hardy, the pride of us all, I'll ask for none better when danger shall call. He was hardy by nature and Hardy by name. And soon by his condoct to honour he came.

" The Victory led, to her flag it was due. Though the Tenieraires thought themselves Admirals too, But Lord Nelson he hailed them with masterful grace, ' Cap'n Harvey I'll thank you to keep in your place.'

"To our battering next the Redoubtable struck, ■But her sharpshooters gave us the worst of the luck, Lord Nelson was wounded, most cruel to tell, ' They've done for me, Hardy,' he cried as he fell.

" When the captain reported a victory won, 'Thank God,' he kept saying, 'my duty I've done' ; At last came the moment to kiss him good-bye. And the captam for once had the salt in his eye.

"' Now anchor, dear Hardy,' the admiral cried, But before we could make it he fainted and died ; All night in the trough of the sea we were tossed, And for want of ground tackle good prizes were lost.

"Then we hauled down the flag, at the fore it was red, And blue at the mizzen was hoisted instead By Nelson's famed captain, the pride of each tar Who fought in the Victory off Cape Trafalgar."

In the times immediately following Trafalgar the ■" Mummers Play " was still enacted every succeeding Christmastide in the mansions and farmhouses of the "West, and specially in the county of Hardy's birth,

1 The Year of Trafalgar^ by Henry Newbolt, p. 232-3-4. London: John Murray, 1905.

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" St George," " Captain Bluster," " Room," and the " Egj^ptian King," may claim direct descent from the Middle Ages, but an interlude was added dealing with the absorbing topic of the hour, and in which the sole dramatis persotKE were Nelson and Hardy. For the nonce the floor of the room in which the rustic actors performed was supposed to be the deck of the Victory. The following dialogue, for half a century at least, never failed to provoke the utmost enthusiasm : —

Nelson. " Hardy, I be wounded."

Hardy. " Not mortually I hopes, my lord."

Nelson. " Mortually I be afeared. Kiss me, Hardy, thank God I've done my duty."

The friendship which existed between Nelson and Hardy for over ten years was of the closest description. Nothing could ever interrupt it. Nelson regarded Hardy not merely as " a right-hand man " like the resourceful Berry, or an able and courageous seaman like Ball, Troubridge, Keats, and others. Hardy possessed all their good qualities, but he had other attributes which led Nelson to feel he might safely make him the recipient of his most intimate confidences. Possibly the strong union of sympathy which linked them together was intensified by their strange diversity of both temperament and physique. It is difficult to imagine a more striking contrast than that presented by the pale-faced, stunted, and attenuated Admiral — "that cripple-gaited, one-eyed, onearmed little naval critter," as Sam Slick has been made to describe him — and the captain — tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, robust, rubicund of countenance and hearty in manner, like his stalwart Dorset forebears. Nelson was habitually moody, sensitive and fretful^ at times he was despondent, but Hardy could always cheer him with a ringing laugh, an unruffled temper, and a constant disposition to look on the bright side of things. The intense personal regard for one another of these two xii PREFACE

comrades imparts a peculiar interest to the letters of Hardy which will now be read for the first time.

At Nelson's funeral it was Thomas Masterman Hardy who bore the " banner of emblems." It must not be forgotten that Hardy took part in all Nelson's principal naval engagements — St Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen, as well as Trafalgar — but so important was the role played by Hardy at Trafalgar that it overshadows many notable occurrences in his career both before and after the most memorable 21st October of history. From December 1796, when Nelson hoisted his broad pendant on board the La Mincrve^ of which ship Hardy had been appointed lieutenant on the preceding 20th August, they became inseparable friends. The victor of the Nile very soon realised the merits of the future captain of the Victory. " I never knew Hardy wrong upon any professional subject," said Nelson; "he seems imbued with an intuitive right judgment." It was not, therefore, surprising that Nelson trusted Hardy implicitly, and the same confidence was placed in him by Lady Nelson and other members of their family. To all of them he was "dear Hardy," and their affection was repaid by the most sterling loyalty. Hardy was ever jealous of the fair fame of the great admiral, who regarded him as one of his best friends and ablest officers almost from the day he saved him from capture by the Spaniards in February 1797. That Hardy often told Nelson home truths is abundantly evident from the voluminous correspondence which now sees the light.

When Hardy returned to England after Trafalgar he was in his thirty-seventh year. He survived Nelson for fourand-thirty years, dying in harness as Governor of Greenwich Hospital on the 20th September 1839, having served the State under no less than four sovereigns, including her late Majesty, Queen Victoria. Between 1806 and 1827 (when he finally struck his flag), on the 22nd anniversary of Trafalgar, Hard\' rendered invaluable services to his country both on the North and South America

PREFACE xiii

Stations. It has even been said that his tact and prudence alone saved England from a third war with the United States. In 1830, when Lord Gre\' formed his first Cabinet, William IV. only accepted the nomination of Sir James Graham (whose name he declared he had never heard of) to the post of First Lord of the Admiralty on the under-, standing that Sir T. M. Hardy, whom he knew well, and of whose ability and prudence he entertained the highest opinion, should be First Sea Lord. Hardy moved to Whitehall, where for four years he threw all his constitutional energy into the discharge of his official duties. In the traditions of the Admiralty he is remembered as one of the best and most far-sighted men who ever held that responsible post. A portion of the Hardy correspondence deals with that all-important epoch of his career, as well as with the closing da\'s of his life, which he spent in company with many other Trafalgar survivors at Greenwich Hospital, of which he became governor, and where he more than once welcomed his brother sailor, the "jolly young tarry breeks " of 1782, now known as "Good King William."

It is somewhat surprising that the life of Thomas Masterman Hardy has never been written, and that until a very few months ago, the places of his birth and baptism were matters of historic doubt. Last July, however, a Nelson and Trafalgar Exhibition was held at Dorchester, the capital of Hardy's county, under the auspices of the Rev. S. E. V. Filleul, Rector of All Saints' Church, in that town, assisted by a local committee. The result of the activity of Mr Filleul and his associates was to bring together, in one room, a number of rare, and in many cases, unique relics connected, not only with Lord Nelson himself, but with the lives and exploits of Thomas Hardy, captain of the Victory, Charles Bullen, captain of the Britannia, ^.nd Henry Digby, captain of the Africa. The portion of the Dorchester Exhibition devoted to Hardy was of quite exceptional interest, for it contained relics of every xiv PREFACE

-description, ranging from medals and miniatures to the watch he wore while he held the dying Nelson in his arms, the pencil-case he used to note the signals during the battle of Trafalgar, with the marks of his teeth still clearly visible upon it, and the silver shoe buckle, shattered by a splinter only a few minutes before the British Commander-in-Chief received his death wound.

Mr Filleul was fortunate enough to obtain the active co-operation of Hardy's direct descendants and representatives, including Sir Malcolm MacGregor, Lady Helen MacGregor, Mrs John Thynne, and Mr Atholl MacGregor, while Mrs Manfield and her son Mr William Hardy Manfield, the present possessors of Sir T. M. Hardy's old home at Portisham, contributed other objects of great historic value. The loan was also obtained of several autograph letters written by Hardy to his brother-in-law, Mr John Callard Manfield, a former Mayor of Dorchester, who, in the days of Trafalgar, and for some years previously, carried on the solicitor's business which has now, after various changes, passed into the hands of Mr H. A. Huxtable, like his predecessor, an ex - Mayor of Dorchester, and who now holds the post of Town Clerk of Weymouth. The presence of these autographs in the exhibition eventually led to the discovery of several other bundles of Hardy's letters, beginning 26th May 1798, and ending 29th April 1839, less than five months before his death. Mr Manfield died 21st June 1808, and the latter portions of the Hardy correspondence are addressed to Joseph Hardy, the admiral's elder brother, who survived him.

In addition to this unlooked-for discovery of hitherto unknown Hardy letters, the writers have been enabled to use other important MSS., including a letter written by Hardy to his brother Joseph at the age of thirteen, now in the possession of Mrs John Thynne, and other communications addressed by him to Mr Edmund Noble, Sir Benjamin Hallowell-Carew, K.C.B., and others.

PREFACE

XV

The captain of the Victory had no pretence to scholarship in the modern sense of the word. He often wrote in a hurry, and under circumstances of considerable excitement. Sometimes he is racked with anxiety for the reputation of his " dear Lord " ; other letters are jotted down in the intervals of travel by land or sea. Occasionally he writes with the din of battle still ringing in his ears,; to give the Dorset folk the earliest news of great victories and stirring events, quorum pars magna f nit ^ for Thomas Masterman Hardy was ever in the thickest of the fight. From first to last, Hardy wrote from the heart, and it has been deemed expedient to publish the letters just as he penned them, with the errors uncorrected.

Hardy's letters may not throw aa important light on the larger questions of naval history, but they certainly very materially help us to a closer acquaintance, with the personality of Nelson, as well as that of all those who played a prominent part in the great naval drama,, of which he was the central figure. They are remarkable also for the spirit of affectionate regard to his own people which they breathe throughout, and the deep love he entertained for his native county. With him, charity always commenced at home. Digby might want him to give a berth to the son of some meritorious clergyman, but Hardy preferred the recommendations which came from Dorchester or " Possum." In very many of these letters we have ample evidence of his constant care for the boys from Dorset — the Balstons, the Robertses, and the Manfields — as well as of that singular sweetness of disposition and temper, which endeared him to " old Nelson " (as Hardy affectionately called him), who, just after Copenhagen, wrote to Alexander Ball at Malta : " All in the fleet are so truly kind to me that I should be a wretch not to cheer up. P'oley has put me under a regimen of milk at four in the morning ; Murray has given me lozenges — Hardy is as good as ever'' The picturesque side of life in the Navy during the Great War, as graphically depicted in Commander C. N. Robinxvi PREFACE

son's deservedly popular Britisli Fleet, is reflected throughout the earlier portions of the Hardy correspondence. Without the information there given, it would have been difficult to understand many of the matters to which Hardy frequently alludes.

The Appendix contains a complete pedigree, not only showing Hardy's lineal connection with Clement le Hardi, Bailly and Lieutenant-Governor of Jersey in i/j-83 and 1488, but giving the names of the whole of his descendants alive at the centenary of Trafalgar. It is certainly an auspicious coincidence that at the present moment Hardy's grandson, Sir Evan MacGregor, K.C.B., is Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty. The room he now occupies is in close proximity to the apartments tenanted sixty years since by Sir Thomas and Lady Hardy, the latter of whom lived till 1877, and is vividly remembered by Sir Evan. " Little," writes Sir John Briggs,^ " could Lord Nelson's favourite captain have anticipated that his own grandson would, at the end of the nineteenth century, assist in carrying out the views he entertained, and the opinions he expressed as First Sea Lord of Sir James Graham's Board of 1830, and as his representative witness all those great and important changes which he then predicted science and steam would render inevitably necessary throughout every branch of the Naval Service."

From two roughly-bound folio volumes of stamped receipts in the possession of Messrs Maggs, of 109 Strand, the writers have been enabled to compile a complete and accurate muster-roll of the Victory on the 21st October 1805. The earlier of these records, dated August 1806, deals with the division pro rata of the ^^300,000 voted by Parliament for the whole of the Trafalgar Fleet, while the latter, begun in April 1807, shows in the minutest detail the distribution of the sum total of the Trafalgar Prize Money and Bounty J^ills. The first page of the Victory ^ Naval Administrators^ 1827-1892. London, 1897, p. 44,

PREFACE xvii

section of both these vakiable registers (which should certainly find a home either at Whitehall or in the British Museum) have been reproduced (by Messrs Maggs' permis'iion) amongst our illustrations.

The writers desire to offer their thanks for valuable assistance rendered to them in the course of their labours by Mr H. A. Huxtable, by whose kind permission the Hardy correspondence in his possession is now published, as well as to Lady Helen MacGregor, Sir Evan MacGregor, K.C.B., Miss Eva Mary MacGregor, Mrs J. C. Thynne, Mr Atholl MacGregor, Mrs William Manfield and her son Mr William Hardy Manfield, the Rev. S. E. V. Filleul, Commander Charles N. Robinson, R.N., Colonel Bullen of Catherston [great-great-nephew of John Bullen, father of Admiral Sir Charles Bullen], Lord Digby of Minterne, Mrs Wingfield Digby of Sherborne Castle, Mr Owen F. Daniel, Miss M. M. Roberts of the Grove, Burton Bradstock, and the Rev. H. Pentin, Vicar of Milton Abbas, for useful aid either as regards incidents in the careers of Hardy, Digby, and Bullen, or the reproductions of original portraits and other illustrations. They gratefully acknowledge the courtesy of Messrs Maggs in lending them the Trafalgar Receipt Books, and that of the Rev. Sir John Molyneux, Bart., Vicar of Portisham, the Rev. W. F. Cornish, Rector of Steepleton, the Rev. H. Pigou, Rector of Long Bredy, and the Rev. F. W. Crick, Rector of Litton Cheney, for allowing them access to the registers of their respective parishes.

In order to explain as far as possible the true import of Hardy's letters, and to give something like an adequate idea of the invaluable services rendered to his " king and country," by the captain of the Victory during a career extending over nearly sixty years, the writers have had recourse to the works of standard authors dealing with our naval annals between the years 1780 and 1840. They desire to express the deep obligations they are under to

b xviii PREFACE

Captain Mahan,^ Mr Henry Nevvbolt,'- Commander Charles N. Robinson,^ Mr W. H. Fitchett, B.A., LL.D.,* Professor John Knox Laughton,^ Secretary of the Navy Records Society (probably the greatest living authority on Nelson bibliography), Mr David Hannay,*^ and last but not least, the able correspondent of The Times'^ whose masterly elucidation of the tactics of Trafalgar in a series of articles recently published, has been the admiration of all those interested in the achievements of Lord Nelson and his captains.

While the sheets of this work were going through the press, another very interesting discovery was made, viz., the " remark book" of Richard Francis Roberts, one of Hardy's midshipmen on board the Victory at the battle of Trafalgar. It has been used with the sanction of its owner. Miss Roberts, in the chapter relating to that momentous event in Hardy's career.

For many years a Dorset or Dorsetshire figured in the list of British ships-of-war. The first Dorsetshire, a third-rate of 80 guns, was built at Southampton in 1694. She was a vessel of 1 176 tons, and carried a crew of 476 men. She was rebuilt at Portsmouth in 17 12, and finally taken to pieces in 1749. Then- came the Dorset^ a large yacht with swivel guns only, constructed at Deptford, November 1752 — August 1753. She survived the Great War, and in the spring of Waterloo year fetched £^0. The second Dorsetshire ,\xdiS a third-rate of 80 guns, built at Portsmouth in 1757. She was broken up in 1775. Two men-of-war

' T/ie Life of Nelson^ Captain A. T. Mahan. London : Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., 1897.

- T/ie Year of Trafalgar. London: John Murray, 1905.

^ The British Fleet, Commander C.N. Robinson. London : Cdorge Bell, 1896.

■* Nelson and his Captains. London : Smith, Elder & Co.-, 1904

•'' The Nelson Memorial., by John Kno.x Laughton. London ; George Allen, 1896. Biography of N6ls6n in D. N. B., etc., etc.

•^ Introduction to. reissue of Southey's Life of Nelson:

^ The Times, September 16, 19, 26, 30, and October 19, 1905.

PREFACE xix

have been named after Lord Hood — like Hardy, a native of Dorset — viz., the Hood (late Edgar), a second-rate of 80 guns, launched in 1856, and sold in 1888 for ;^50oo. The existing //ic^^/, a battleship of 14,150 tons, was completed for sea at Chatham in 1893, and is now in commission in reserve at Devonport. The disappearance of Dorsetshire and Dorset as ship names is unaccountable, and for a time the county of Hardy and the Hoods has had to console herself with the reflection that the ancient regiment of foot, bearing her name, can still boast of the proud device, " Primus in Indis," as well as that of " Mortis Insignia Calpe." If, in years to come, the name of the Dorset, the Dorsetshire, or possibly the Hardy, be bestowed on one of the armour-clads, of which the First Sea Lord of 1830-4 foretold the existence and realised at least some of the possibilities, the story of Hardy, Bullen, and Digby, the three Dorset captains at Trafalgar, will not have been told in vain.

Contents

CilAP. PAGE

I. Dorset and her Famous Sailors . . . r

II. The Dorset Hardys and their Jersey Forei;ears. 7

Chapter I Dorset And Her Famous Sailors

ALTHOUGH Dorset is one of the smallest of the maritime counties of England, she has played an important part in our naval annals ever since the faroff days of the ninth century, when the Wessex fishermen and peasantry looked down with dismay from the cliffs of Golden Cap and Thorncombe Beacon on the destruction of the fleet of King Ethelwulf by their Danish adversaries. The disaster of A.D. 843 was evidently taken to heart by the vanquished Saxons, for thirty-four years later it was signally avenged by the brilliant victory won by the marine forces of King Alfred in Swanage Bay, when no less than 120 Danish ships were sunk and the few vessels which contrived to evade pursuit were dashed to pieces on the Peverel Rocks. The Dorset littoral from Liliput Hill and Canford Cliffs on the east to Lyme Regis and Charmouth on the west, measures about 70 miles. In the centre the peninsula of Portland, assuming the shape of a booted foot, apparently kicking contemptuously at any possible invader of England's shores, helps to form West Bay on one side of the Chesil Beach and Weymouth Bay on the other. The latter terminates in the chapel-crowned headland of St Aldhelm (commonly known as St Alban), while further eastwards, towards the

A

2 DORSET AND HER SAILORS

Hampshire borders, lie the smaller bays of Swanage and Studland, and the land-locked harbour of Poole, once securely guarded by the castle of Brownsee or Branksea Island. Lines of lofty cliffs, bare of verdure, inaccessible and often well-nigh perpendicular, broken here and there b^y verdant valleys and st.retches of golden sand, are the cfliaracteristic features of the Dorset sea-board, the scene of some of the most terrible shipwrecks of history and the home of many generations of sturdy sailors. The Dorset smuggler was in his day quite as adventurous as his Cornish cotifrere, and in the . beautiful and picturesque hinterland hidden behind the yellow cliffs, all sorts of cleverly-contrived hiding-places and over-spacious cellars still k^ep the memory of their prowess, green. In the print-room of the British Museum may be seen a set of maps. portraying the coasf of Dorset as it was in Henry Vill.'s time. They are embellished with rude drawings pf- towns, castles, churches, ships, and beacons, to say nothing of sundry stately swans and stags with enormous antlers. The greater part of the names (notwithstanding the primitive spelling) are easily recognisable, and the " Cobbe " at Lyme Regis looks very much like what it is now and what it must have been two hundred and twenty years ago, when the luckless Monmouth stumbled and fell as he set his foot upon it on his way to Sedgemoor and Tower Hill. These charts demonstrate sufficiently the importance of Dorset' as a naval centre in the middle of the sixteenth century, which was to close with the complete' discomfiture of the Armada called " Invincible," off PortTand T3ill.

~ We must not forget, however, that long before that '^crowning victory " was achieved, Weymouth, Poole, Lyme Regis, and Wareham had all made notable contributions of men and ships to the force which crossed the Channel to win the battle of Crec^ and cover the knglish arms with glory. Tn this expedition, at least 31 Dorset ships and 479 Dorset mariners took part. As far back as King John's reign the best cordage came

BINGHAM AND SUMMERS 3

from Bridport, which, as " Byrportte," figures conspicuously in the suggestive sketches of the Tudor hydrogirapher. In 1322 Sir Nicholas Cheney, Sheriff of Dorset, sought in vain to recover from the king his out-of-pocket expenses — 70 shillings and some odd pence — incurred by the dispatch of six "ropers " from Bridport to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. About the time of the elaboration of these early maps of the Dorset littoral, an Act of Parliament made short wOrk of unauthorised " ropers" on the ground that " Time-out-of-mind Bridport (' Byrportte ') had made all the great cables, ropes, hawsers, and other tackling for the Royal Navy and the most part of other ships within this realm." The ingenious Leland came to Bridport and was evidently taken in by the ancient joke arising out of the varied uses to which good rope was put, for he asserts gravely that " at Bridportt be made good daggers." The old saw about being " stabbed by a Bridport dagger " (/.<•., hanged), was evidently in vogue in the days when Sir Richard Bingham [1528-1598-99], the first of Dorset's famous seadogs, was giving proof of his skill as a sailor, soldier, and statesman. The captain of the Sioiftsurc eventually became Marshal of Ireland, but died before he coiild assume the reins of office. As Governor of Connaught, ten years before, he had mercilessly butchered the Spanish sailors who had survived the engagement off Portland Bill, only to meet with a still more terrible fate on the rock-bound shores of Ireland. Bingham's native county had placed 8 ships and 340 men at the disposal of the Lord High Admiral, who commenced the destruction off the Dorset coast,- on which various relics of the Armada have been cast up by the waves ever since.

Sir George Summers or Somers [1554-1610], the shipmate of Raleigh and the discoverer of the Bermudas, was born at " Lyme of the King." Summers was one of the boldest and most successful of the, early sixteenth-century "adventurers." Having taken many prizes, including a particularly rich " carrack " off Lisbon, he came home to be

4 DORSET AND HER SAILORS

knighted by James I., and sit in Parliament for L}'me Regis. Having escaped the perils of the Gunpowder Plot, he once more crossed the Atlantic to colonise Virginia and discover the Bermudas, where he unfortunately died "of the surfeit of eating of a pig." His nephew and heir, Matthew Summers, brought his embalmed body back to Berne Manor, the mansion on the banks of the Char which he bad purchased with the proceeds of his "prize-taking." The house still exists, but American travellers look in vain for his grave or any memorial of him in the beautiful church of St Candida and Holy Cross, where he was laid to rest. Forty-three years after the death of Summers, the Portland waters were again the scene of another memorable engagement. For three entire days (February 18-20), Robert Blake maintained a death-struggle with Van Tromp, upon whom he finally inflicted a complete defeat, capturing 1 1 men of war and 30 merchantmen.

Within easy walking distance of Summers' home at Whitchurch is the modernised farmhouse of Little Windsor, where, in Charles H.'s reign lived Alexander Hood, from whom the six seamen bearing that name are descended. Lieutenant Arthur Hood, R.N., lost on the Poj/iona, Captain Alexander Hood, who fell in the naval duel between the Mars and the Hercule on the 21st April 1798, and Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, were his great-grandchildren, through his eldest son and namesake ; while from the youngest, the Rev. Samuel Hood, Vicar of Thorncombe and Master of the Beaminster Grammar School, sprang the much more celebrated Admiral Samuel Hood, Viscount Hood, and Admiral Alexander Hood, Viscount Bridport. P'rom the cliffs of West Bay (the modern name for what was only twenty years ago generally known as Bridport Harbour), one can see Thorncombe Beacon to the west, as well as the heights of Lewesdon and Pillsdon (the "Cow" and " Calf" of the sailors of Nelson's time), which rise above the aboriginal home of the Hoods at Little Windsor and the old-fashioned town of Beaminster where Samuel

THE HOODS AND DIGBYS 5

Hood, the schoolmaster, espoused Mary Hoskins the mother of two naval peers — Lord Hood and Lord Bridport. The Bullens, from whom came Admiral Sir Charles Bullen, who commanded the Britannia at Trafalgar, have long been associated with Charmouth, which immediately adjoins both Lyme Regis and Whitchurch — the birthplace and burial-place of Summers.

Close to Thorncombe, Charmouth, and Whitchurch is Hawkchurch, whence came Admiral Sir William Domett [1752-1828J, another hero of the Great War, who distinguished himself as flag-captain to Lord Bridport, assisted Thomas Hardy to promotion in the earlier days of his career, and eventually represented the united boroughs of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in the House of Commons. Sir William Domett sleeps in his native village, in one of the most romantic of Dorset God's acres, where a lengthy inscription on a tablet inside the church sets forth all his professional achievements.

Admiral Robert Digby [1752-1815], the first instructor of William IV. in his "jolly young tarry breeks " days, and Admiral Henry Digby [1770- 1842], who commanded the Africa at Trafalgar, are both associated with Minterne in central Dorset, but turning eastwards on the rising ground above West Bay, a massive column some seven miles away at once arrests the view. It stands out boldly on the grassy summit of Blagdon on Blackdown Hill, where, as at Thorncombe, Norchard, Lewesdon, Cerne Abbas, Badbury, Bubb Down, Blackdown (in Hawkchurch), Bulbarrow, Frampton, Lytchett, Ridgeway, Woodbury, and Penbury Hills, the Dorset yeomen in 1805, and the years which preceded it, guarded and watched the beacons which were to announce the always-expected arrival of the " Corsican ogre " on these shores. The obelisk in question commemorates the valour and virtues of Dorset's favourite naval hero, Thomas Masterman Hardy, captain of the Victory^ at once the most intimate and the most trusted of all Nelson's companions in arms, and to whom the dying