England expects that every man will do his duty


"England expects that every man will do his duty" was a signal sent by
Vice-Admiral of the Royal Navy Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson from his flagship as the Battle of Trafalgar was about to commence on 21 October 1805. Trafalgar was a decisive naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars. It gave the United Kingdom control of the seas, removing all possibility of a French invasion and conquest of Britain. Although there was much confusion surrounding the wording of the signal in the aftermath of the battle, the significance of the victory and Nelson's death during the battle led to the phrase becoming embedded in the English psyche, and it has been regularly quoted, paraphrased and referenced up to the modern day.

Signals during the battle

As the British fleet closed with the opposing combined fleets of France and Spain, Lord Nelson signalled all the necessary battle instructions to his ships. Aware of the momentousness of events to come, Lord Nelson felt that something extra was required. He instructed his signal officer, Lieutenant John Pasco, to signal to the fleet, as quickly as possible, the message "England confides that every man will do his duty." Pasco suggested to Nelson that expects be substituted for confides, since the former word was in the signal book, whereas confides would have to be spelt out letter-by-letter. Nelson agreed to the change :
Thus, at around 11:45 a.m. on 21 October 1805, the signal was sent. The exact time the signal was sent is not known, as the message was repeated throughout the fleet, but Pasco puts it at "about a quarter to noon" and logs from other ships of the line also put it close to this time.
The signal was relayed using the numeric flag code known as the "Telegraphic Signals of Marine Vocabulary", devised in 1800 by Rear Admiral Sir Home Popham, and based on the signal books created earlier by Admiral Lord Howe. This code assigned the digits 0 to 9 to ten signal flags, which were used in combination. Code numbers 1–25 represented letters of the alphabet ; higher numbers were assigned meanings by a code book. The code numbers are believed to have been hoisted on the mizzenmast, one after another, with the "telegraphic flag" also being flown to show that the signals employed Popham's code. As well as digit flags, the code used "repeat" flags so that only one set of digits was needed; thus the word do, coded as "220", used a "2" flag, a "first repeat" flag here serving as a second 2, and a "0" flag. The word duty was not in the codebook, so had to be spelt out, and the whole message required twelve "lifts". It is believed that it would have taken about four minutes, with the end of the message indicated by an "end of code" flag. A team of four to six men, led by Lt. Pasco, would have prepared and hoisted the flags onboard Lord Nelson's flagship. The message shows one of the shortcomings of Popham's code—even the two-letter "do" required three flags hoisted for the signal. It is reported that a great cheer went up as the signal was hoisted and repeated throughout the fleet.
According to the historian John Knox Laughton:
It is said that, as he saw the flags going up, Collingwood remarked half-peevishly to his flag-lieutenant, "I wish Nelson would make no more signals; we all understand what we have to do." When, however, the signal was reported, he was delighted, and ordered it to be announced to the ship's company, by whom it was received with the greatest enthusiasm.

The message "engage the enemy more closely" was Nelson's final signal to the fleet, sent at 12:15 p.m., before a single British cannon had been fired at the enemy. This message was signalled using the telegraphic flag and flags 1 and 6. Nelson ordered this signal hauled up and kept aloft.
It remained up until shot away during the battle.

After the battle

Almost immediately, the signal began to be misquoted. A number of ships in the fleet recorded the signal as "England expects every man to do his duty". This version became so prevalent that it is recorded on Nelson's tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral. The word that is also omitted on the version around the base of Nelson's Column, as seen in the photo above. However, the Victory's log and the accounts of signal officer John Pasco and Henry Blackwood, both present at the preparation of the signal, agree on the form given here. On 26 December 1805, The Times newspaper in London reported the signal as; "England expects every officer and man to do his duty this day". In 1811, the tenor John Braham composed a song, "The Death of Nelson", including the words of the signal. The song became popular almost immediately and was performed throughout the British Empire during the 19th century. To make the words fit the metre, they were altered to "England expects that every man this day will do his duty". This version of the wording is also persistent.
Between 1885 and 1908 it was believed that the signal had been sent using the 1799 code book, as in 1885 it was pointed out that this had not been replaced until 1808. In 1908 it was discovered that the Admiralty had, in fact, changed the signal code in November 1803, after the 1799 version had been captured by the French, and new code books had been issued to Nelson's fleet at Cadiz in September 1805. As a result, books published between these two dates show the signal using the wrong flags.
The signal is still hoisted on the Victory at her dry dock in Portsmouth on Trafalgar Day every year, although the signal flags are displayed all at once, running from fore to aft, rather than hoisted sequentially from the mizzenmast.

Similar signals

The signal has been imitated in other navies of the world. Napoleon ordered the French equivalent, "La France compte que chacun fera son devoir", to be displayed on French vessels. At the opening of the Battle of Plattsburgh in September 1814, Commodore Thomas MacDonough of the United States Navy flew the signal "Impressed seamen call on every man to do his duty", referring to the fact that impressment of sailors had been a U.S. casus belli of the War of 1812.
A similar signal was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Russo-Japanese War. At the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905, Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō – who had studied naval tactics in Britain from 1871 to 1878, and was known as the "Nelson of the East" – signalled to his fleet: "The fate of the Empire depends upon today's battle: let every man do his utmost".

Later uses

quotes it in Chapter 43 of Martin Chuzzlewit:
In Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, the Bellman says:
In Ogden Nash's collection of poems I'm a Stranger Here Myself there is a short poem "England Expects".
During the Second World War, an Admiralty propaganda poster intended to increase industrial production on the home front, carried the slogan; "Britain expects that you too, this day, will do your duty". Nelson's flag signal was hoisted by the Royal Navy monitor HMS Erebus at the start of the bombardment for the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944.
It was also referenced by Margaret Thatcher during her crucial speech to the cabinet which finally persuaded them to rally behind her over the divisive issue of the poll tax. Further afield, it has been adapted by James Joyce in his novel, Ulysses, such as "Ireland expects that every man this day will do his duty".
Today "England expects..." is often adapted for use in the media, especially in relation to the expectations for the victory of English sporting teams. Such is the sentence's connotation with sport that a book on the history of the England national football team by James Corbett was entitled England Expects. A BBC Scotland television drama also bears its name.