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When Nelson lay dying on the shattered deck of his flagship Victory, floating on the bloodstained waters off Trafalgar, he thought of his classically exquisite mistress Emma Hamilton; of his beloved England, forever spared the Napoleonic fury; of his own incredible career as eternally victorious demigod of the sea, climaxed now by the greatest naval victory of all time, a triumph so colossal as to satisfy even Nelson's enormous vanity.
The Lord Admiral, wounded in his left breast, had exclaimed as he fell, “They have done for me at last, Hardy.” Seemingly convinced of his inevitable end, Nelson sent his surgeon to tend the other wounded, “for,” he said, “you can do nothing for me.”
As he lay in great pain for hours he cried out for Captain Hardy, whose appearance with reports of total victory led Nelson to lament, “I am a dead man, Hardy, I am going fast:—it will all be over with me soon.” Yet, later he added, wistfully, “One would like to live a little longer, too.” Nelson commended Lady Hamilton to the care of Hardy and pleaded, “Don't throw me overboard,” requesting instead to be buried with his parents.
And then he uttered, from the depths of his heroic soul, what many consider the most poetic farewell of a great man: “Kiss me, Hardy.”
His old comrade in arms, Flag Captain Thomas M. Hardy, leaned over and kissed his dying leader on the cheek, presumably bypassing the Admiral's desire to be kissed on the mouth in a characteristic instance of English erotic restraint.
“Nelson said, ‘Now I am satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty.’ Hardy stood over him in license for a moment or two, then knelt again and kissed his forehead. ‘Who is that?’ said Nelson; and