board
the Royal Sovereign, to communicate the melancholy event, and the nature of
HIS LORDSHIP'S last orders, to Admiral COLLINGWOOD.

[19] The Redoutable lay alongside and still foul of the Temeraire for some
time after this, and till several Seamen were sent from the latter to the
assistance of the two Officers and men belonging to the Victory who had
before taken possession of the prize.

[20] These were the ships commanded by Admiral DUMANNOIR, and afterwards
captured by the squadron under the command of Sir RICHARD STRACHAN. They
were nearly half an hour in passing to windward, during the whole of which
time they continued firing on the British ships.

[21] About twenty of the Redoutable's guns were dismounted in the action.
Those on that side of her lower deck opposed to the Victory, were all
dismounted except five or six.

[22] Many of those who were slightly wounded did not apply for assistance
till after the public return of killed and wounded had been transmitted to
Admiral COLLINGWOOD, which therefore reports a smaller number than here
stated.

[23] Brandy was recommended by the Surgeon in preference to rum, of which
spirit also there was plenty on board. This circumstance is here noticed,
because a very general but erroneous opinion was found to prevail on the
Victory's arrival in England, that rum preserves the dead body from decay
much longer and more perfectly than any other spirit, and ought therefore
to have been used: but the fact is quite the reverse, for there are several
kinds of spirit much better for that purpose than rum; and as their
appropriateness in this respect arises from their degree of strength, on
which alone their antiseptic quality depends, brandy is superior. Spirit of
wine, however, is certainly by far the best, when it can be procured.

[24] Of the Victory's wounded, three died before she reached Gibraltar, one
on the day of her arrival there, and another at the naval hospital at that
place a few days afterwards: all the rest got well on board except the five
left at Gibraltar, and five others not perfectly recovered from their
wounds in January following; when the Victory being put out of commission
at Chatham, they were sent to the Sussex hospital-ship at Sheerness.

[25] The ball was _not_ fired from a rifle piece.

[26] It was not deemed necessary to insert in this Report the precise time
which HIS LORDSHIP survived his wound. This, as before stated, was in
reality two h