Within the image Dr. Beatty, Captain Adair, Lieutenant Ram, Sergeant Secker of the Marines and a sailor bearing the ensign of the captured ship surround Nelson.
Included in the painting are two black people; this is likely to be historically accurate as two men from Africa were included in the crew of HMS Victory. At this time people of African descent were integrated with other members of the crew, although they tended to work in the lower ranks.
One of the Africans is pointing towards the assassin of Nelson. That revenge fell to one of a pair of young midshipmen who were stationed on the poop deck. One of whom was named Pollard. He was still alive in the 1860s, as a pensioner at Greenwich in very reduced circumstances, and he was one of the very many authorities consulted by Maclise.
Three women are depicted tending a sailor slumped amid carnage of the engagement, although not on the muster they were probably prostitutes, nevertheless, they did play a role in the historic engagement tending to the wounded.
This image engraved by Charles William Sharpe (1818-1899) was first published in 1872 by the Art Union of London and again as a transfer lithograph in 1876.
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