Who killed Admiral Nelson and who killed his killer?

It is widely known how,where and when Nelson died. Standing on the quarterdeck of HMS “Victory”,conspicuous by the medals on his officer's uniform, he was hit by a bullet and died below deck several hours later. The battle of Trafalgar was the beginning of the end for Napoleon's dreams of world power and made Nelson an immortal.

A question arises. Who was the sniper and what happened to him afterwards ? It seems Nelson did not see his killer but eyewitnesses saw him being shot by a French marine who, with others, fired shots from the poop of the “Redoubtable” after she and the “Victory” had locked masts. Standing on the poop deck, above where Nelson fell, were signal mid-shipman John Pollard firing his musket at the French, and a quartermaster who supplied him with shot and who is also believed to have identified the Frenchman who killed Nelson. Fellow mid-shipman Francis Collingwood, who had briefly joined Pollard,fired one shot and left. Thereafter Pollard shot the Frenchman pointed out to him, and who seems to have attempted to climb down from the rigging, after his fellow snipers had been killed. Pollard was complimented by Sir Thomas Hardy and other officers for killing the killer of their admiral. Thus ran the widely accepted version of events.

However, in due course controversy arose as to the identity of Nelson's avenger. Sir William Beatty, Nelson's surgeon and author of “Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson”, published in the Gibraltar Chronicles of November 1805, is in agreement with this version, which of course is also Pollard's. In 1813 the poet Robert Southey wrote “The Life of Nelson” and interestingly gives credit to both Pollard and Collingwood: the French sniper had been shot in the mouth a n d in the chest. During Collingwood's lifetime - he died in 1835 – this does not seem to have been disputed.

Nearly 30 years later in a surprising demarche Pollard claimed, unequivocally, that Collingwood had only ever fired one shot whereas he had killed the sniper who shot Nelson. This was confirmed by one of his descendents in 2009.

And what do the French say on this matter? Their claim that Sergeant Robert Guillard, a Provencal marine,fired the fatal shot and of course survived the battle was never taken seriously in this country. There was a surprise development in 2005. Claude Shopp, a Dumas expert, was able to piece together from contemporary newspapers ,a novel, “Le Chevalier de Ste.Hermine”, intended for serialisation shortly before the author's death. In typical Dumas fashion , a fictional character put into historical context, is presented as Nelson's killer. If anyone is interested and knows enough French the novel,carefully edited and completed,is available from Amazon.com.