General Eliott and the Battle of Trafalgar.
One of the few genuine relics of Nelson’s
victory at Trafalgar still to be seen in Gibraltar
is a rather ungainly sculpture of General Eliott, hero of the Great Siege.
The statue today
Govnr. General Ironside looks on in WW2
The statue of the General, residing in the Convent patio, has smiled
benignly on generations of governors. It serves to remind them of their duty
and of what might be expected of them in time of crisis. The direct link to the
Battle of Trafalgar is that this totem was carved from the bowsprit of the San
Juan Nepomuceno, last in the line of the Franco-Spanish fleet facing Nelson
in 1805.
The Navio (ship of the line) San Juan Nepomucemo (74)
was built at the Royal Yard in Guarnizo (Santander) during 1765. At 169 feet long and weighing in at some 2,700
tons she was very strongly built and in time she proved to be a good sea boat.
Her equipment included 28x 36 pdrs, 30x 18 pdrs, 8x 12 pdrs and 8x 8 pdrs and
she had a splendidly coppered bottom; which was the last word in protection
against the dreaded toredo. As a floating fortress she had a crew of over 700
men, including 212 infantry and 50 artillerymen, and could deliver a broadside
weight of metal of over 1,150lbs and, like any similar ship of the line, would
have scared her enemies witless. By the time of Trafalgar she was already an
old ship – but a distinguished one – having served her nation well, notably in
the Caribbean where she participated in
several sieges.
On the 21st October 1805 she was commanded by Brigadier Don
Cosme Damian Churruca y de Elorza, a highly intelligent tactician and
thorough-going seaman. His position leading the fleet, as Nelson approached,
changed to last in the line when Admiral Villeneuve abruptly reversed course
and headed for Cadiz.
Churruca observed to his second in command, “The fleet is doomed. The French
admiral does not understand his business. He has compromised us all”. He was
not alone in his opinion; but with little choice in the matter, he did what
good commanders do best – he fought. He fought bravely, at one point surrounded
by six British warships, his ship was dismasted and more than half his crew
were slain. Churruca instructed the crew to nail the colours to the mast and
declared that there would be no surrender whilst he lived. Fate determined that
his leg would be taken off by a Royal Navy cannon ball, and yet he sent for a
keg of sand on which to balance his stump whilst he continued to direct the
fight until death overtook him.
After the battle, the worn and injured crews of both sides had to
contend with a south-westerly gale. A number of vessels sank, ran aground or
were wrecked; some were retaken by a small French squadron from Cadiz and a few by their
own crews. Just four of the original 18 prizes were delivered to Gibraltar. They included the French Swiftsure and the Spanish Bahama,
San Ildefonso and San Juan Nepomuceno.
The San Juan Nepomuceno was
retained at Gibraltar, stripped out and kept
as a hulk for the next ten years, with the name HMS San Juan. It is said that the cabin in which Churruca had died
was kept locked, as a mark of respect to a brave officer. The ship’s only remaining
spar was her bowsprit, from which General Eliott’s effigy was carved and the
statue was installed in the new Alameda
in 1815, where it sat for the next 42 years. That was until the arrival of Sir
Traxton Eliott Drake, a descendant of the great man, who took an instant
dislike to what he perceived to be an unflattering likeness of his forbearer.
He was sufficiently moved to commission a more appropriate bust of the General,
which Governor Sir James Fergusson installed on a classical column and that remains
in the Alameda garden
to this day.
The wooden General is perhaps the only resident of Gibraltar
today, who was in the thick of the action at Trafalgar… and is still around to
tell the tale.
First published at Gibraltar Magazine Mar 2005, revisited 2025. Paul Hodkinson
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