They reached Collingwood and the rest of the fleet off San Lucar a few hours later. At once the _Donegal_ found work to do in finishing off and taking possession of the stricken and dismasted Spanish three-decker _El Rayo_, one of the forlorn-hope squadron that had made the sortie from Cadiz on the 23rd, hoping to find the British fleet in serious distress after the battle and the storm, and to be able to recapture some of the prizes.
Most of _El Rayo’s_ men were taken on board the _Donegal_. In connection with one of them, Captain Brenton tells this story. “A man fell overboard from the _Donegal_ in a gale of wind on this occasion; the usual cry was raised, when some one thoughtlessly called out, ”He is only a Spaniard.” “Supposing he is only a Spaniard?” said a gallant English seaman, seizing the end of a rope, and darting into the sea at the same time; “no reason the poor ⸺ should be drowned!” Happy am I to say, from the information of Sir P. Malcolm, both men were picked up.
Besides that, the _Donegal_ rendered invaluable assistance to several of the badly-damaged British ships during the second gale between the 25th and the 28th; and in rescuing men from some of the prizes that had been driven ashore, or were in peril among the reefs here and there along the rock-bound coast.
Wrote Collingwood a day or two afterwards: “Everybody was sorry that Malcolm was not there, because everybody knows his spirit and skill would have acquired him honour. He got out of Gibraltar when nobody else could, and was of infinite service to us after the action.”
By way also of appreciation and acknowledgment of the magnificent services rendered by the _Donegal_ after the battle, the officers and men of the Trafalgar fleet, without one dissentient voice, agreed that the _Donegal_ should be specially permitted to have a share, equally with themselves, in the Nelson Monument, which the ship’s companies that fought at Trafalgar immediately after the battle jointly subscribed for, as their own personal tribute to their dead chief—the tall obelisk on Portsdown Hill at the back of Portsmouth Harbour.
The _Donegal_, three months later, was in the thick of the fighting in the brilliantly successful battle in the West Indies, when Vice-Admiral Sir John Duckworth, with a squadron detached by Collingwood off Cadiz, on special service, captured or destroyed an entire French squadron of five ships of the line from Brest, including the finest three-decker in the world, the great 110-gun ship _L’Impérial_, so named in honour of Napoleon himself. It was in this battle that the British flagship _Superb_ led down into the fight with a portrait of Nelson lashed to the mizen stay, and her band playing “Nelson of the Nile.”
