18 September] 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer whose inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

He fought in several minor engagements off Toulon and was important in the capture of Corsica, where he was wounded and partially lost sight in one eye, and subsequently performed diplomatic duties with the Italian states.

His naval career began on 1 January 1771, when he reported to the newly commissioned third-rate HMS Raisonnable as an ordinary seaman and coxswain under his maternal uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, who commanded the vessel.

[7] Raisonnable had been commissioned during a period of tension with Spain, but when this passed, Suckling was transferred to the Nore guardship HMS Triumph and Nelson was dispatched to serve aboard the West Indiaman Mary Ann of the merchant shipping firm of Hibbert, Purrier and Horton, in order to gain experience at sea.

Nelson remained in the West Indies in order to take part in Major-General John Dalling's attempt to capture the Spanish colonies in Central America, including an assault on the Fortress of the Immaculate Conception on the San Juan River in Nicaragua.

"[45] This letter was published in 1807, by the anti-abolitionist faction, eighteen months after Nelson's death, and out of context, in an apparent attempt to bolster their cause prior to the parliamentary vote on the Abolition Bill.

[citation needed] During the Georgian era, breaking a marital engagement was seen as quite dishonourable,[75] and so Nelson and Nisbet were married at Montpelier Estate, on the island of Nevis, on 11 March 1787, shortly before the end of his tour of duty in the Caribbean.

[107] Nelson formulated ambitious plans for amphibious landings and naval assaults to frustrate the progress of the French Army of Italy, which was now advancing on Genoa, but could excite little interest in Hotham.

[108] In November, Hotham was replaced by Sir Hyde Parker, but the situation in Italy was rapidly deteriorating for the British: the French were raiding around Genoa and strong Jacobin sentiment was rife within the city.

[110] In January 1796, the position of commander-in-chief of the fleet in the Mediterranean passed to Sir John Jervis, who appointed Nelson to exercise independent command over the ships blockading the French coast as a commodore.

[146] Although surgeons had been unable to remove the central ligature from his amputation site, which had caused considerable inflammation and infection, it came out of its own accord in early December, and Nelson rapidly began to recover.

[172] However, King Ferdinand IV, had just faced an extended period of pressure from his wife, Maria Carolina of Austria, who was advocating for an aggressive foreign policy towards France; a country which, five years earlier, had beheaded her sister, and its queen, Marie Antoinette.

[174] With the departure of the Royal Family, Naples descended into anarchy, and news reached Palermo, in January, that the French had entered the city under General Championnet and proclaimed the Parthenopaean Republic.

[175] Nelson was promoted to Rear-Admiral of the Red on 14 February 1799,[176] and was occupied for several months in blockading Naples, while a popular counter-revolutionary force, under Cardinal Ruffo, known as the Sanfedisti, marched to retake the city.

[48][49] Nelson returned to Palermo in August, and in September, became the senior officer in the Mediterranean, after Lord John Jervis' successor, George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith, left to chase the French and Spanish fleets into the Atlantic.

Nelson had a difficult relationship with his superior officer; he was gaining a reputation for insubordination, having initially refused to send ships when Keith requested them, and on occasion, returning to Palermo without orders, pleading poor health.

[190] Keith's reports, and rumours of Nelson's close relationship with Emma Hamilton, were now circulating around London, and Lord Spencer wrote a pointed letter suggesting that he return home: You will be more likely to recover your health and strength in England than in any inactive situation at a foreign Court, however pleasing the respect and gratitude shown to you for your services may be.

The battle began badly for the British, with HMS Agamemnon, Bellona and Russell running aground, and the rest of the fleet encountering heavier fire from the Danish shore batteries than had been anticipated.

In court, Nelson recollected his service with Despard in the Caribbean, during the American War: "We went on the Spanish Main together; we slept many nights together in our clothes upon the ground; we have measured the height of the enemies walls together.

It was while awaiting one of these meetings, on 24 September, with Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, that Nelson and Major General Arthur Wellesley—the future Duke of Wellington—met briefly in a waiting area.

[235] Nelson returned briefly to Merton to set his affairs in order, and bid farewell to Emma, before travelling back to London and then on to Portsmouth; arriving there early on the morning of 14 September.

Drawing on his own experience from the Nile and Copenhagen, and the examples of Duncan at Camperdown and Rodney at the Saintes, Nelson decided to split his fleet into squadrons rather than forming it into a similar line parallel to the enemy.

The lead coffin was then placed inside a wooden one, made from the mast of L'Orient, which had been salvaged after the Battle of the Nile and given to Nelson as an ironious gift by captain Hallowell of the HMS Swiftsure.

His approval of the wave of reprisals against the Jacobins, who had surrendered under the terms agreed by Cardinal Ruffo, as well as his personal intervention in securing the execution of Francesco Caracciolo, are considered by some biographers, such as Robert Southey, to have been a shameful breach of honour.

A prominent contemporary, politician Charles James Fox, was among those who attacked Nelson for his actions at Naples, declaring in the House of Commons: I wish that the atrocities of which we hear so much and which I abhor as much as any man, were indeed unexampled.

I fear that they do not belong exclusively to the French – Naples for instance has been what is called "delivered", and yet, if I am rightly informed, it has been stained and polluted by murders so ferocious, and by cruelties of every kind so abhorrent, that the heart shudders at the recital ... [The besieged rebels] demanded that a British officer should be brought forward, and to him they capitulated.

In the 1860s, Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson appealed to the image and tradition of Nelson, in order to oppose the defence cuts being made by Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.

[282] Nelson has been frequently depicted in art and literature; appearing in paintings by Benjamin West and Arthur William Devis, and in books and biographies by John McArthur, James Stanier Clarke and Robert Southey.

[290] The architect of the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, Sir Aston Webb placed a window high in the chapel such that annually, on 21 October at the time of Nelson's death, the light from it falls on the statue of Christ behind the altar.

He was a Colonel of Marines from 1795 to 1797[126] and voted a Freeman of the cities and boroughs of London (10 March 1797), Bath, Salisbury, Exeter (15 January 1801),[297] Plymouth, Monmouth, Sandwich, Oxford (22 July 1802),[298] Hereford, Haverfordwest (in 1802)[299][300] and Worcester (30 August 1802).