ing caught, and never to anchor on a
lee shore; and if perchance you get trapped, as hundreds have been,
get out of it quickly, if you can, before a gale comes on. But in no
case is it good seamanship to anchor. There is always a better chance
of saving both the ship and lives by driving ashore in the square
effort to beat off rather than by anchoring. The cables, more often
than not, part, and if they do, the ship is doomed, and so may lives
be. Hundreds of sailing vessels were saved in other days by the skill
of their commanders in carrying out a plan, long since forgotten,
called clubhauling off a lee shore. Few sailors living to-day will
know the phrase, or how to apply it to advantage. It was a simple
method, requiring ability, of helping the vessel to tack when the wind
and sea made it impossible in the ordinary way. A large kedge with a
warp bent on was let go on either the port or starboard quarter at an
opportune moment to make sure the vessel would cant the right way, and
then the warp was cut with an axe. In the writer's opinion, it would
have been just as unwise to anchor at Trafalgar after the battle, in
view of the weather and all circumstances, as it would be to anchor on
the Yorkshire or any part of the North-East Coast when an easterly
gale is blowing. But apart from the folly of it, there were none of
the ships that had ground tackle left that was fit to hold a cat.

Without a doubt, Nelson's mind was distracted and suffering when he
gave Hardy the order to anchor. The shadows were hovering too thickly
round him at the time for him to concentrate any sound judgment. Some
writers have condemned Collingwood for not carrying out the dying
request of his Commander-in-Chief. It was a good thing that the
command of the fleet fell into the hands of a man who had knowledge
and a mind unimpaired to carry out his fixed opinions. When Hardy
conveyed Nelson's message, he replied, "That is the very last thing
that I would have thought of doing," and he was right. Had Nelson
come out of the battle unscathed, he would assuredly have acted as
Collingwood did, and as any well-trained and soundly-balanced sailor
would have done. Besides, he always made a point of consulting "Coll,"
as he called him, on great essential matters. If it had been
summer-time and calm, or the wind off the land, and the glass
indicating a continuance of fine weather, and provided the vessels'
cables had been sound, it might have paid to risk a