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In Nelson’s lifetime the day was always observed by the family at Burnham Thorpe with special festivities, and Nelson himself often called it, it is on record, “the happiest day of the year.” More than that too, Nelson himself more than once half playfully expressed his conviction that he too might some time fight a battle on another 21st of October, and make the day for the family even more of a red-letter day. As a fact, during the last three weeks of his life on board the Victory off Cadiz, in October, 1805, Nelson, with a prescience that the event justified, used these words both to Captain Hardy and to Dr. Beatty the surgeon of the flagship: “The 21st of October will be our day!”

Captain Maurice Suckling’s “Dreadnought” sword was bequeathed to Nelson and was ever kept by him as his most treasured possession. He always wore it in battle, it is said; notably at St. Vincent, when he boarded and took the two great Spanish ships the San Nicolas and the San Josef; and his right hand was grasping it when the grape shot shattered his arm at Teneriffe.