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San Bartolomeo — Boarded Barefoot

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San Bartolomeo — Boarded Barefoot

Generated illustration. Not a historical photograph. Earthworks by a harbour. Not San Bartolomeo, and not a portrait.

Overview

Hinchinbrook San Juan Mortality — 1780 already records the crew-mortality figure. The manchineel spring stays on its own page. This note covers the 9 April battery only: the leap, the lost shoes, and Despard.1

The Battery

Southey says that on the ninth of April they reached an island in the river called St. Bartolomeo, fortified as an out-post with a small semi-circular battery, mounting nine or ten swivels, and manned with sixteen or eighteen men. Nelson, at the head of a few of his seamen, leaped upon the beach. The ground was so muddy that he lost his shoes; bare-footed he advanced and, in his own phrase, boarded the battery. In this attempt he was bravely supported by Despard, then a captain in the army.2

The two-hundred / ten-survived figure stays on Hinchinbrook San Juan Mortality — 1780. The spring stays off this page. This page does not invent Despard’s later fate or the castle siege.

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Footnotes

  1. Complement two hundred; not more than ten survived: Hinchinbrook San Juan Mortality — 1780. Manchineel spring stays on Manchineel Spring — San Juan 1780. ↩

  2. “bare-footed, however, he advanced, and, in his own phrase, boarded the battery. In this resolute attempt he was bravely supported by Despard, who was at that time a captain in the army.” @southey1813nelson vol. 1, pp. 34–35 (1813). Do not add the castle siege or the spring. ↩

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