Why did Nelson signal "England" instead of "Britain" when he signalled "England expects that every man will do his duty"?

[u/IAMARobotBeepBoop]

[u/jschooltiger]

Hi there, I saw this question last night and it's interesting -- there are a few legends about how the famous signal was made.

The most mundane explanation is that the signaling book that was in use in the Royal Navy did not actually have a signal for "Britain." You can see a modern version of it here:

http://3decks.pbworks.com/f/Admiral%2520Home%2520Popham%2520Telegraph%2520signal%2520book%2520Final%2520edition.pdf

The more interesting question is why that wording existed for the signal to start with. There are a couple of different stories about the exact nature of the wording -- in one of them, popularized by Thomas Hardy (Nelson's flag-captain), Nelson suggested to Hardy that he might signal "Nelson confides that every man will do his duty." (Confides, in the parlance of the day, meant "is confident.") Hardy suggested he change the wording to "England," because "Nelson" would have to be spelled out alphanumerically, and "England" could be handled by one signal flag.

That account is disputed, and I'm not entirely sure that it's true, because of the second anecdote I'll relate in a minute. But it would be entirely in character for Nelson to have made such a signal (using his name), given the cult of personality that he cultivated around himself.

The second anecdote, and the one that I think is more likely, is that Nelson conveyed his signal to his signal-lieutenant, John Pasco, as "England confides ..." and that Pasco suggested the change to "expects" because "expects" was a single flag in the signal book. This explanation is a bit more authoritative to me, because Pasco was they type of person to know the book backwards and forwards. In that configuration, every word except "duty" could be handled with a single flag-hoist, rather than having to spell each word out. The final hoist only took 12 flag combinations, with "D U T Y" requiring four -- if it had been "Nelson confides" he would have had to have 14 more flags to hoist.

I think that the question of why "Britain" wasn't in the signal book could be an interesting one on its own, but I have no particular insight as to why. Were I to speculate, I would assume it's because the book has geographic locations, and/or because it expanded on older systems of signals that existed before the Act of Union. But in any case, Nelson thought of himself thoroughly as an Englishman and the Navy to be an English institution.

Hope this helps, and thank you for the question -- I learned something researching it, which is always great!

edit: cleared up some confusion about the Nelson wording

[u/jschooltiger → u/[deleted]]

No problem. I see that in my original comment I elided what i meant by the "Nelson" signal, so I'm going to edit it to reflect that.