The Bellerophon sailed into Gibraltar Bay on 28 October in company with the Agamemnon and the Colossus. There was still a heavy swell running but the westerly wind had moderated. She dropped anchor in 15 fathoms beneath the soaring crags of the Rock of Gibraltar. The strongly fortified harbour commanding the entrance to the Mediterranean was filled with warships and merchant vessels of all types. Coleridge had called in the year before, en route to Malta, and had noted the extraordinarily colourful, polyglot atmosphere of the naval base and the town. Soldiers of all regiments, naval officers and runaway sailors mingled with Arabs, Jews, Spaniards, Italians and Greeks. He had climbed to the summit of the Rock and found it to be a mysterious place full of warlike shapes and impressions: 'What a complex thing! At its feet mighty ramparts establishing themselves in the Sea with their huge artillery - hollow trunks of Iron where Death and Thunder sleep; the gardens in deep Moats between lofty walls; a Town of all Nations & all languages . . .'
The day after the Bellerophon arrived at Gibraltar the Victory was towed into the bay by the Neptune. The sun, breaking through the clouds for the first time for a week, illuminated her battered hull. She had lost her mizenmast and her foretopmast; her main mast was severely damaged; her main yard and her main topsail yard had been shot away; and her rails, gunports and the timbers of the head and stern were much cut by cannon shot. The white ensign flying from the staff at her stern was at half mast in honour of Nelson whose body lay below. Dr Beatty, the surgeon, had carried out a brief autopsy and then put the body in a cask of brandy to preserve it. The cask was lashed securely on the middle deck and was watched over by a marine sentry.
After less than a week in Gibraltar, where emergency repairs were carried out to her hull, masts and rigging, the Victory was ready to put to sea again. On 4 November she weighed anchor and set sail for England. She was accompanied by the Belleide and the Bellerophon. Both ships needed urgent attention from the shipwrights and riggers of the royal dockyards but in view of the heroic performance of their crews in the recent action it was appropriate that they should accompany the flagship which carried Nelson's body on the voyage back home.
The Bellerophon was now under the command of Captain Edward Rotheram. He took over from Lieutenant Cumby on the morning they sailed from Gibraltar. Rotheram had been Collingwood's flag captain on the Royal Sovereign and, although he had put up a brave performance during the battle, Collingwood was no doubt glad to see the back of him because he thought him a stupid man. They had got on so badly that they had to be reconciled by Nelson before the battle, and afterwards Collingwood wrote, 'but such a captain, such a stick, I wonder very much how such people get forward . . . Was he brought up in the Navy? For he has very much of the style of the Coal Trade about him, except that they are good seamen!' As it happened, Rotheram, who was the son of a Newcastle doctor, had spent his early years on colliers before joining the navy but unlike Captain Cook, the celebrated explorer, he had evidently not benefited from the exacting demands of the coal trade which involved navigating the shifting shoals and mudbanks of the East Coast in all weathers.
They sighted the coast of Devon on 2 December. When they were off Start Point the Victory parted company and headed eastwards up the Channel towards Portsmouth. The Belleisle and the Bellerophon made for Plymouth and dropped anchor in Cawsand Bay. Three weeks later the Bellerophon was alongside the sheer hulk and the riggers from the dockyard came aboard, stripped down the rigging and hauled out the main and mizen masts. On Boxing Day Lieutenant Cumby left the ship. In recognition of his conduct at Trafalgar he had been promoted to the rank of post-captain, with effect from 1 January 1806. In theory this was great news but it was a bad time to be a captain because there were not enough ships available. He lacked influence and for eighteen months was unemployed (and on half pay) before being given temporary command of a frigate on the Irish station.
The Bellerophon remained under the command of Captain Rotheram for the next two and a half years. For much of the time the ship was stationed off Ushant with the squadron blockading Brest, and it was back to the familiar routine of two months patrolling the coast of Brittany and two or three weeks back in Torbay or Cawsand Bay to take on provisions and carry out repairs. At some point during this period Rotheram produced a remarkably detailed survey of the Bellerophon's crew.
He concentrated his attention on the 387 seamen in the ship's company. He did not include the marines, and although he listed the names of the officers and warrant officers he did not record any details for them. However the resulting survey provides a unique picture of the composition, background and outward appearance of the crew of a British ship of the line in the years immediately following Trafalgar. Exactly why Rotheram decided to embark on such a survey is a mystery. Was it simply an exercise to pass the time during the monotonous days and weeks spent on blockade duty, or was there a more serious purpose? The two volumes of his journals and letters in the National Maritime Museum provide no obvious explanation. He was in the habit of making detailed notes on harbours and anchorages visited during the course of his voyages but this was a seamanlike exercise which many officers carried out, some even illustrating their notes to help them identify landmarks and coastal features on future occasions. A possible explanation for the survey is that it was carried out as an academic exercise. Rotheram's father, who was for a time the Senior Physician of a Northumberland infirmary, was described as 'a gentleman of high estimation . . . and a person of general science', and his brother John Rotheram studied under Linnaeus in Sweden and became Professor of Natural Philosophy at St Andrews University. It was Linnaeus who devised the system for classifying animal and plant species. It is therefore possible that his brother's researches may have prompted Captain Rotheram to carry out his survey in the spirit of scientific enquiry, although he does not appear to have made any attempt to analyse the data he gathered.
Whatever the reasons behind Captain Rotheram's survey, the results are fascinating. We find that most of the men are surprisingly short. The average height is 5 foot 5 inches. There is nobody of 6 foot or over and several men are under 5 feet tall. Since the effective standing headroom on the gun deck of the Bellerophon was only 5 feet 8 inches, Captain Rotheram's crew would have found it much easier to work in the confined space than the taller men likely to be found on a naval ship today. This also puts Nelson's height in perspective. It is commonly believed that Nelson, like Napoleon, was an unusually small man. In fact recent research has shown that he was between 5 foot 6 inches and 5 foot 7 inches tall, which means that he was above the average height of his seamen, and confirms the observations of many of his contemporaries. His nephew George Matcham, for instance, wrote, 'He was not as described, a little man, but of the middle height and of a frame adapted to activity and exertion.'