[NILE, Battle of the.]
View 1st. of the memorable victory of the Nile, gained in August 1798, over the French by the British fleet in Aboukir Bay. The British fleet on the evening of the 1st. of August, led by the Goliath and Zealous, in their course of progressively bearing down to the enemy at anchor, to take that splendid station in which was obtained the glorious conquest.
London, published by G. Riley, 1799.
340 x 445 mm, aquatint view.
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View 1st. of the memorable victory of the Nile, gained in August 1798, over the French by the British fleet in Aboukir Bay. The British fleet on the evening of the 1st. of August, led by the Goliath and Zealous, in their course of progressively bearing down to the enemy at anchor, to take that splendid station in which was obtained the glorious conquest.
This view of Nelson’s victory at the Nile illustrates the opening of the action at the point where the Goliath, her captain having realised that the French were at single anchor, daringly sneaked his ship inshore around the head of the French line. It proved to be a decisive point in the battle, the next four ships in the line followed his example, and, as Captain Foley had predicted the French guns were not prepared on their landward side. ‘In the words of Foley’s family, “so far was Lord Nelson from taking any credit for the thing that he told Sir Thomas Foley after the action, that he, Sir Thomas, had done it, but so hazardous did he, Lord Nelson, think it, that had he had a signal ready in time he would have stopped him” ’ (Knight, Pursuit of victory pp. 291–2).
The engraving was made from a drawing ‘in the possession of Capt. Sir T. B. Thompson’, captain of the Leander at the battle. ‘Although not a ship of the line, by taking up a position between two of the French ships, the Leander was able to rake these French ships and the ships beyond them with terrible effect, while remaining herself in comparative safety. Thompson was afterwards ordered by Nelson to carry home Captain Edward Berry with his dispatches; but encountering the French 74-gun ship Généreux, near the west end of Crete on 18 August the Leander, after a defence of six-and-a-half hours, was captured and taken to Corfu. Both Thompson and Berry were severely wounded and were allowed to return overland to England. Thompson was tried by court martial for the loss of his ship but acquitted and praised for the length and determination of Leander’s resistance to so superior a force. He was knighted in 1799 and awarded a pension of £200 per annum’ (Oxford DNB). The drawing was finished by the artist Edward Chesham and engraved by William Ellis.
T2681
