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A section for all you budding etymologists where each week the origin of a word or phrase is investigated.
This week it is..... Nail your colours to the mast
To defiantly display one’s opinions and beliefs. Also, to
show one’s intention to hold on to those beliefs until
the end.
In 17th century nautical battles colours (flags) were
struck (lowered) as a mark of submission. It was also
the custom in naval warfare to direct one’s cannon fire
at the opponent’s ship’s mast, thus disabling it. If all of
a ship’s masts were broken the captain usually had no
alternative but to surrender. If the captain decided to
fight on this was marked by hoisting the colours on the
remnants of the ship’s rigging, that is, by ‘nailing his
colours to the mast’.
It is correct to use the English spelling, rather the the US
‘nail one’s colors to the mast’, as the phrase originated
in England. It is generally agreed that the expression
was coined in reference to the exploits of the crew of
the Venerable, at the Battle of Camperdown, a naval
engagement that was fought between English and Dutch
ships as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, in 1797.
The English fleet was led by the Venerable, the flagship
of Admiral Adam Duncan. The battle didn’t initially go
well for the English. The mainmast of Duncan’s vessel
was struck and the admiral’s blue squadronal standard
was brought down. This could have been interpreted
by the rest of the fleet as meaning that Duncan had
surrendered. Step forward, horny-handed son of the sea
and subsequent national hero, Jack Crawford. Crawford
climbed what was left of the mast with the standard and
nailed it back where it was visible to the rest of the fleet.
This act proved crucial in the battle and Duncan’s forces
were eventually victorious. Some historians believe that
the victory at Camperdown proved to be the end of the
dominance of the Dutch at sea and the beginning of the
period in which ‘Britannia ruled the waves’. Crawford
returned home to Sunderland to a hero’s welcome.
The stalwart reputation of English seamen soon became
part of the national consciousness. An address to the
House of Commons by the playwright Richard Sheridan
was reported in The Edinburgh Advertiser in January
1801:
“I have no hesitation in saying that the Maritime Law
is the charter of our existence, the banner under which
we all should rally; it is the flag which, imitating the
example of our gallant seamen, we should nail to the
mast of the nation, and go down with the vessel rather
than strike it!”
The first use of the precise expression ‘nail your colours
to the mast’ that can be found is from the English
newspaper The Hereford Journal, August 1807. This
reported a naval engagement between British and
American ships in which the US captain surrendered
without a fight, much to the disgust of his military
superiors:
“You [Commodore James Barron] ought to have nailed
your colours to the mast, and have fought whilst a
timber remained on your ship.”
Whether or not Jack Crawford was the first to ‘nail his
colours to the mast’ we can’t be completely sure, but
it does look highly likely. The phrase wasn’t known
before