“The Admiral spoke to me,” related Smith, Collingwood’s servant, “about the middle of the action and again for five minutes immediately after its close; and on neither occasion could I observe the slightest change from his ordinary manner. This, at the moment, made an impression on me which will never be effaced, for I wondered how a person whose mind was occupied by such a variety of most important concerns could, with the utmost ease and equanimity, inquire kindly after my welfare, and talk of common matters as if nothing of any consequence were taking place.”
Twenty minutes after the _Sovereign_ had by herself beaten off the _Fougueux_, the leading British ships following astern of the _Sovereign_ began to reach the spot, and to take off her enemies one by one, except the _Santa Anna_. With Admiral Alava’s flagship the _Royal Sovereign_ continued in close encounter, until the _Santa Anna’s_ colours came down. It was just at that moment that Collingwood received, by an officer of the _Victory_, Captain Hardy’s first message that Lord Nelson had been “dangerously wounded.”
The stubborn stand that the _Santa Anna_ made was a disappointment, it would appear, to the _Sovereign’s_ men. Their terrible raking broadside at the outset had plainly “sickened” the Spaniards—as our men expressively put it—and many on board believed that the enemy must surrender forthwith. Captain Rotheram, indeed, “came up to the Admiral, and, shaking him by the hand, said: ‘I congratulate you, sir; she is slackening her fire, and must soon strike!’” The gallant fellows who were fighting at the _Royal Sovereign’s_ guns actually thought, it is on record, that their ship would have the proud distinction of capturing an enemy’s flagship in the midst of her own fleet before another British ship had got into action. In the end, though, they had this consolation: when at length the _Santa Anna_ did surrender; “No ship besides ourselves fired a shot at her,” wrote one of the _Sovereign’s_ officers, “and you can have no conception how completely she was ruined.” “Her side,” wrote Collingwood himself, “was almost entirely beat in.”
“The _Santa Anna_,” to quote Mr. Newnham Collingwood, “struck at half-past two o’clock, about the time when the news of Lord Nelson’s wound was communicated to Admiral Collingwood, but the _Royal Sovereign_ had been so much injured in her masts and yards by the ships that lay on her bow and quarter that she was unable to alter her position. Admiral Collingwood accordingly called the _Euryalus_ to take her in tow, and make the necessary signals. He dispatched Captain Blackwood to convey the Spanish Admiral on board the _Euryalus_, but he was stated to be at the point of death, and Captain Blackwood returned with the Spanish captain. That officer had already been to the _Royal Sovereign_ to deliver his sword, and on entering had asked one of the English sailors the name of the ship. When he was told that it was the _Royal Sovereign_, he replied, in broken English, while patting one of the guns with his hand, ‘I think she should be called the _Royal Devil_!’”