Lot Essay
Robert Melliphant served as a Landsman aboard H.M.S. Royal Sovereign at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21.10.1805.
'Royal Sovereign carried the Flag of the Second-in-Command, Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, with Edward Rotheram as Captain, and led the Lee Column at Trafalgar, on 21 October 1805. In the actual fighting there was no ship which covered herself with greater distinction. For a time she was engaged single-handed with several of the enemy's ships, before tackling Alava's Flagship, the Santa Ana. Her losses on this occasion amounted to 144, including 14 Officers killed and wounded. Her injuries were very severe. Her main and mizzen masts and fore-topsail-yard were shot away, and her fore-mast, having been shot in several places and stripped of nearly the whole of its rigging, was left in a tottering state. By the time the Spanish Three-decker Santa Ana struck to her, Royal Sovereign was almost unmanageable; and at 6 p.m. Admiral Collingwood, who had succeeded the dead hero as Commander-in-Chief, was compelled to shift his Flag into the Euryalus Frigate, by which, and afterwards by the Neptune, she was taken in tow' (MacKenzie's The Trafalgar Roll refers).
'Royal Sovereign carried the Flag of the Second-in-Command, Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, with Edward Rotheram as Captain, and led the Lee Column at Trafalgar, on 21 October 1805. In the actual fighting there was no ship which covered herself with greater distinction. For a time she was engaged single-handed with several of the enemy's ships, before tackling Alava's Flagship, the Santa Ana. Her losses on this occasion amounted to 144, including 14 Officers killed and wounded. Her injuries were very severe. Her main and mizzen masts and fore-topsail-yard were shot away, and her fore-mast, having been shot in several places and stripped of nearly the whole of its rigging, was left in a tottering state. By the time the Spanish Three-decker Santa Ana struck to her, Royal Sovereign was almost unmanageable; and at 6 p.m. Admiral Collingwood, who had succeeded the dead hero as Commander-in-Chief, was compelled to shift his Flag into the Euryalus Frigate, by which, and afterwards by the Neptune, she was taken in tow' (MacKenzie's The Trafalgar Roll refers).