Nelson & Empire [15min]

The building of the British Empire could not have happened without ships to carry goods, slaves and adventurers and other ships to protect them. The British always had to cross seas and oceans to get to their possessions. Colonies were at least hundreds and usually thousands of miles from Britain. "This Sceptred Isle: Empire" is a narrative history of the British Empire from Ireland in the 12th century to the independence of India in the 20th, told in 90 programmes written by historian Christopher Lee and narrated by actor Juliet Stevenson. (You may listen again online to the five most recent episodes of "Empire".)

At the start of the 19th century the British felt vulnerable to naval attacks from the French and Spanish. This was the time of the wars against Napoleon. Therefore, world trade throughout the Empire and with increasingly rich America relied entirely on protected sea power. Peppers, spices, sugar, ores and wools and wheat would have to come to the British Isles by ship. Everything the British made or re-exported would have to go by ship. The all-but -unbroken progress of the Empire relied entirely on the sea-lanes being kept open.

On 21 October 1805, Nelson all but destroyed the combined Spanish and French fleets. That battle off Cape Trafalgar is mainly remembered for Nelson's death. The bigger story for Britain is what Trafalgar did for the British Empire.

After Trafalgar the French fleet rarely threatened the British. From October 1805, Britannia really did rule the waves as James Thomson had said it should when he wrote "Rule Britannia" in the 18th century (see below). That rule would continue until well into the 20th century, until the emergence of the German High Sea Fleet.

Nineteenth century British imperialism was unstoppable after 1805 and, at its peak during the first two decades of the 20th century, more than half the ships in ports throughout the world would be flying the British red ensign. Thus, it became easier for the British to exploit the technological and trade advantages of their industrial revolution. Trade could therefore expand and so could the Empire. Much of the capability was possible because the freedom of the seas that Nelson's victory provided.

James Thomson, 1700-1748: James Thomson was born in Kelso and became a student at Edinburgh in the belief that he had been called to be a minister in the Scottish kirk. However he abandoned liturgy for verse and moved to London where, in 1726, he published his first poem of the seasons, "Winter". He became a tutor and, with one of his pupils, did the Grand Tour. His verse "Liberty" was dedicated to the then Prince of Wales. Thomson was clearly a political poet and his verse "Britannia" was critical of the prime minister Robert Walpole. It was in what a century later became known as jingoism that Thomson wrote the words to "Rule Britannia", perhaps with another Scot, David Malloch or Mallet (1705-1765). Thomson scholars point to "The Castle of Indolence", published in his final year, as his finest work.