Editorial When laurel’d NELSON, on TRAFALGAR’s day, Beheld his friend to glory lead the way, With glowing heart, the noble hero cried, ‘See GALLANT COLLINGWOOD THE LINE divide!’ Such were his words, in exultation given, ‘Ere VICTORY bore her glorious son to Heaven! Well was HE call’d GREAT NELSON’s honour’d friend, Who shar’d his triumph, and partook his end. Each died for ENGLAND – ONE, in battle’s roar; The other, ‘ere he reach’d his native shore. To both, BRITANNIA, grateful honours yield; NELSON thy thunderboldt! his friend thy shield! In the same monument let both appear! And where you plac’d THE LAUREL – shed THE TEAR! ‘On the Death of Lord Collingwood’, by William Thomas Fitzgerald, 20 April 1810. The 1805 Club – and The Trafalgar Chronicle, our annual offering – have now a score of years in their wake. According to some recent newspaper reports, such is the pace of the technological change we now enjoy, that should we continue on this course for another twenty years, we may all have a chance of immortality. Not falling at that moment of victory amid ‘battle’s roar’ but, instead, regenerated in the laboratory. That is to say, in the future shattered limbs will be replaced with bionic parts, vital organs regrown and illnesses cured. Death shall have no dominion. A far fetched tabloid vision, perhaps, but one thing will always be true: unless this immortal status has been deserved by the virtues of courage, self-sacrifice and devotion to duty, surely it is worth no more than a tin wreath? How the world has changed since that moment off Cape Trafalgar. And yet, so many things remain. The ‘President of our immortals’, borrowing an Aeschylean phrase, is, and will always be, Horatio Nelson. Our new editorial policy, that said, is to broaden our horizons. With this aim in mind, we are pleased to include essays of other lives, events and phenomena, some contemporary, others of a later age in order to encompass all those who served under Nelson, or perhaps came after him and took inspiration from his vi
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