Just read "Victory, the life of Lord Nelson" for about the fourth time .. I just keep on pulling stuff out that I missed before .. and I did my new trick .. I go on line and augment what I just read with side comments not covered by the Author, in this case Oliver Warner. Poem - the boy stood on the burning deck.

Nelson was Buried in the wood from the main mast of the "L'Orient" .. the French ship who's burning deck the boy was standing on. English sailer's saw him and did not shoot .. night time. Seven British ships sailed up at sun set and the French didn't come out .. the bay of Alexander. Nelson sailed in and sank or captured 23 French ships who decided to wait for dawn to fight .. four ships fled. Dawn never came for most of them. Over five thousand men dumped into the bay alive or dead. Napoleon transportation to Egypt .. cut off.

A page with five signatures of Nelson .. two before he had his right arm blown off.

The consistency of having such a close relationship with his superiors that he knew during the battle .. what was completely 180 out from regulations but was the right thing to do for what was going on .. and then telling his junior officers to disregard everything if they could not see his signals for gun powder and smoke .. if the winds changed (sailing ships with cannon out the sides .. shoot and the ship would lay over and your gun wouldn't break off from the deck) .. you would not be considered as having left your post if what you were doing put you along side the enemy.

Nelson went to sea at 12 because his pastor father couldn't feed him .. died at 47 .. the most highly decorated English Officer to ever command a British Man of War. The ship Victory .. blown apart by WWII German bombers and rebuilt after the war. Trafalgar Square .. a short one armed man with one eye and a face scarred by gravel from an exploding cannon shell which hit next to him .. later, shot by a French sharp shooter from the rigging of a ship.

He could walk through any town in England out of uniform and be mobbed by crowds.

His divorced faithful wife received a pension of 2,000L per year after his death .. his mistress got 40,000. The tangled webs we weave.