The Video Expects Every Viewer To Do His Duty

What a fascinating video.

There’s an enormous amount of information gathered and displayed. I’ve been to a lot of museums, and I’ve never seen this level of information presented in such an accessible way.

The HMS Victory was (is) a hell of a thing. It was Admiral Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar. Napoleon was planning on invading England and forcing the Anglos to eat frogs or something. That held no terrors for men who’d tasted haggis, so the British Navy went straight at the French and Spanish navies and sunk 20 ships, while losing none. Some people would call that running up the score. Of course all Nelson got out of it was a fatal wound and a square named after the battle instead of him.

The Victory is still above water. It’s docked in Portsmouth, and you can take a tour of it. Well, maybe you can. That’s Portsmouth England, not Portsmouth New Hampshire or Portsmouth Rhode Island, and I don’t swim so good, so I’ll never darken its poopdeck. Too bad. If you watch the video, you’ll understand it was the Starship Enterprise of its day, entirely whittled out of wood. No wonder there are only three trees left in England.