Editorial I always act as I feel right, without regard to custom. Nelson writing to his father, aboard La Minerve, January 1797. My character is, that I will not suffer the smallest tittle of my command to be taken from me; but with pleasure I give way to my friends… Nelson writing from Palermo,August 1799. What is Napoleon doing in this journal? Whither the Georgian sailing navy? Whilst we support the Earl St. Vincent’s famous assessment – ‘All agree: there is but one Nelson’– we also recognise that there are two sides to every coin, and certainly this should be so in any debate. Though the general field of our research will always be naval history, this year Nelson gives way to others. We have actively commissioned new articles to engage unfamiliar subjects and to direct the focus of research onto individuals previously overlooked. It is no accident that the words ‘revisiting’, ‘recovering’, and ‘reviving’recur within our text this year. The impetus of The Trafalgar Chronicle continues, as ever, to be the encouragement of debate and the exploration of fresh perspectives. To this end we have looked to our membership as well as farther afield for scholarly contributions that may enrich our understanding of ‘maritime imaginations’. As to this year’s content: we have been blessed both in quantity, and, more importantly, in quality, and we already have a number of contributions on the stocks for future years. In 2007 we could not ignore two eminently important anniversaries. Firstly, earlier this year on 14 March, at twelve noon, the bells of All Saint’s Church, Southill Park, Bedfordshire, tolled fifty-two times – once for every year of Admiral John Byng’s life, marking the moment exactly two hundred and fifty years before when it was cut short by a firing squad on board HMS Monarque. Likewise, just over fifty years afterwards, on 25 March 1807, King George III gave his formal assent – Le Roi le Veut – that a bill for the abolition of the slave trade be enacted. True, it would be more than twenty-five more years before the business was finally abolished, but Britannia was finally making waves. Whilst the jury may still, perhaps quite rightly, deliberate the dubious verdict passed on Byng, there surely can be no doubt left in the modern mind when it comes to the iniquity of the slave trade. However absolutely wrong the one may be, it should still compare itself to the notion that wrongs can gradually be righted. Either way, it is appropriate that these two anniversaries are reflected in essays at the beginning and end of our volume. Both beg questions. Thus, we look in more detail at naval justice and the court-martial system in the latter half of the eighteenth century. However awkward it may be, we also consider Nelson’s attitude to Wilberforce and the slave trade. vi
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