Allan Mallinson

Waiting for the Bogeyman

issue 23 November 2002

On 19 August 1805, two months before his death at Trafalgar, Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson rejoined Emma Hamilton at their home in Merton after an absence of almost two and a half years. During that time, he had been continuously at sea, at first in the Mediterranean watching for Admiral Villeneuve to break out of Toulon to join the squadrons from the Atlantic ports, and then in the Atlantic itself, where the French tried to lure him into the Caribbean before dashing back to concentrate in the Channel to cover the invasion of England and Ireland.

Meanwhile the people of the eastern and southern counties especially lived in fear of the Bogeyman of Europe’s landing; the army, yeomanry and militia were all but wearing away the cliff tops and coastal paths in their ceaseless watch, and spies and inventors plied the Admiralty and the Horse Guards with ‘intelligence’ and novel devices.

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