Collingwood and Nelson

In a small but valuable collection of letters from Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood which has recently been bequeathed to the British Museum¹ there is one from the seaman to his kinsman, Walter Spencer-Stanhope. This was written on March 6th, 1806, within a few months of Trafalgar, and it adds a new fragment of information about the long and deep friendship of two of the greatest men belonging to the classic era of sail.

‘I have indeed had a severe loss in the death of my excellent friend Lord Nelson’, wrote Collingwood: ‘since the year’ 73 we have been on terms of the greatest intimacy; chance has thrown us very much together in service, and on many occasions we have acted in concert: there is scarce a naval subject that has not been the subject of our discussion, so that his opinions were familiar to me, and so firmly founded on principles of honour, of justice, of attachment to his country, at the same time so entirely divested of every thing interested to himself, that it was impossible to consider him but with admiration. He liked fame, and was open to flattery, so that people sometimes got about him, who were unworthy of him: he is a loss to his country that cannot easily be replaced.’

The remarkable fact about this statement is that in the year 1773 Nelson was a stripling of fifteen, while Collingwood, who was born in 1748 (not, as most respectable works of reference have it, two years later), was a comparative veteran of twenty-five, with thirteen years’ service afloat already behind him. The pair would have met in the brief interval when Nelson was exchanging from the Arctic conditions of what he described as an ‘expedition towards the North Pole’—which in fact did not get very far—to those of a protracted voyage to the East Indies. Recently, Cuthbert Collingwood had been serving in the Portland, and in his own thorough way keeping a meticulously illustrated log which is preserved by his family; he was then in the Lennox.

Collingwood was made a lieutenant two years before Nelson. He was promoted for service during the War of American Independence. He described the circumstances, with typical economy, in an account he gave of his career (by request) to the editor of the Naval Chronicle. ‘In 1774 I went to Boston with Admiral Graves, and in 1775 was made a lieutenant by him, on the day the battle was fought at Bunker’s Hill, where I was with a party of seamen supplying the army with what was necessary to them.’

The long, sad transatlantic struggle brought good fortune to both Nelson and Collingwood, for they came together again in 17775 when Nelson was sent to the West Indies in the Lowestoffe, Captain Locker, and was soon taken under the wing of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Peter Parker, who was equally kind to Collingwood.

Parker put Nelson into his flagship, then made him commander of a brig, afterwards appointing him to a frigate, the Hinchinbroke, which made him a post-captain while still a month or two short of the age of twenty-one. Collingwood succeeded Nelson at every stage: in the Lowestoffe, as commander of the Badger brig, and finally in the Hinchinbroke.

So from being a melancholy-inclined lieutenant with no influence and few prospects, Collingwood became a post-captain (nine months later than Nelson) at the age of thirty-two. The shattering mortality in the West Indies partly accounted for the transformation; there was also Admiral Parker’s favour to merit.

This was never forgotten by either Nelson or Collingwood. Later they were able to repay Parker to some degree by favouring members of his family (who in fact deserved it), though the old Admiral survived to see both his illustrious pupils buried in St. Paul’s.

Collingwood and Nelson went to Nicaragua to fight ashore, the Spaniards as well as the French having decided to aid the Colonists against Great Britain. A large proportion of the modest outline of Collingwood’s life which appeared in the Naval Chronicle in 1810 is given over to the events that followed, and they are, indeed, extraordinary.

‘At the port of San Juan’, he wrote, ‘I joined the Hinchinbroke, and succeeded Lord Nelson, who was promoted to a larger ship: but he had received the infection of the climate before he went from the port, and had a fever from which he could not recover until he quitted his ship, and went to England: my constitution resisted many attacks, and I survived most of my ship’s company, having buried in four months 180 of the 200 which composed it.

Mine was not a singular case, all the ships that were as long there suffered in the same degree: the transports’ men all died... but transport ships were not wanted, for the troops they brought were no more; they had fallen, not by the hand of the enemy, but sunk under the contagion of the climate.’

Nelson recovered at Bath, and Collingwood, after taking the Hinchinbroke back to Jamaica, was given charge of the Pelican. In August 1781 this ship was wrecked by a hurricane on Morant Keys, near Jamaica, ‘in the middle of a most tremendous night’, as Collingwood described it, but after ten days sheltering in sand dunes, with little food or water, the entire ship’s company were taken off by the Diamond, Collingwood having managed to send away a boat with news of his plight.

After the war was over, Collingwood, Nelson, and Collingwood’s young brother Wilfred had a further spell of service in the West Indies. All three of them showed commendable zeal, and got into great trouble with the local people by insistence on interfering with the traffic between the British-held islands and the former North American colonists, whose merchants were now (as being foreigners) legally debarred from their former commerce.

Wilfred Collingwood, commander of the Rattler, died in the Caribbean in 1787. Nelson married there, and the elder Collingwood added to his already massive store of sea experience. At Antigua, they drew one another’s portraits— Nelson is shown wearing a yellow wig (the result of shaving his head after fever); Collingwood’s handsome head is rendered in an appropriately stately version.

When war with France broke out in 1793, a struggle that with one brief intermission was to extend for over twenty years, Collingwood and Nelson were appointed to two different fleets. Collingwood served under Lord Howe in Home waters; Nelson went to the Mediterranean with Lord Hood. It was Collingwood’s luck to be the first to take part in a major fleet action, that of the Glorious First of June, 1794. He was flag-captain to Rear-Admiral Bowyer in the Barfleur.

Bowyer had a leg blown off during the course of the engagement, and Collingwood afterwards fought the great three-decker in splendid style, though he was unfortunate enough to be omitted from the list of admirals and captains who received George Ill’s gold medal. This affected him like a wound, for no man was more jealous than Collingwood of professional reputation, and he felt he had been slighted, which was true.

Nelson, meanwhile, had had varied service under Hood and his successor Hotham, including at least two actions that could have been decisive had Hotham shown more enterprise, and he had made a name for himself off the blockaded coasts of Italy. No one was more welcoming when Collingwood joined Hotham’s fleet in 1795, though by that time the situation on the Continent was everywhere so unfavourable that it seemed probable that the Mediterranean would have to be abandoned: the fleet could do no good there, and bases were insecure. In the winter months of 1796 Sir John Jervis, who succeeded Hotham, withdrew from the area, basing his force on Lisbon, which was friendly, and Gibraltar, watching the Spaniards at Cadiz as a cat does mice, for Spain had once again joined her fortunes with those of France.

On February 14th, 1797—Valentine’s Day—Collingwood and Nelson were in action together under Jervis, and it would be hard to say which of them gained more distinction. Collingwood fought the Excellent as spiritedly as he had fought the Barfleur under Howe, while Nelson, whose broad pendant was flying in the Captain, excelled himself by boarding two Spanish first-rates and receiving their surrender. This time Jervis, who was created Earl of St. Vincent for this victory of 15 against 27, saw to it that all his captains were recommended for their medal.

When the Earl told Collingwood that he would receive his with the rest, Collingwood told the Commander-in-Chief that he could not do so while that for the First of June was withheld. ‘I feel’, he said, ‘that I was then improperly passed over, and to receive such a distinction now would be to acknowledge the propriety of that injustice’. ‘That is precisely the answer which I expected from you, Captain Collingwood’, said St. Vincent, and it was a very short time indeed before Lord Spencer, then presiding at the Admiralty, sent Collingwood a most appreciative letter, accompanied by medals for both actions. Honour was satisfied.

Collingwood, like Nelson, was an admirable letter-writer, and he invariably sent home accounts of his adventures, first to his elder sister, later, after he married, to his wife and father-in-law. Among the letters newly acquired by the British Museum is one addressed to Edward Collingwood of Chirton, a kinsman, giving a graphic idea of the two sailors in action.

‘We fought our way through their line until we got up to the Santissima Trinidada of 130 guns’, wrote a proud officer. ‘I had an envious longing for the Santissima Trinidada which is the largest ship in the world—a four decker—and at one time had no doubt of her... Three ships that the Excellent engaged was not more distant than the breadth of your dining room, so that we literally burnt their whiskers...

Two of them that ran on board of each other Commodore Nelson boarded and took sword in hand and (what may never happen again) received the submission and swords of the officers on the quarter deck of the first rate San Josef, while one of his seamen made a bundle of them, with as much composure as if he had been tying faggots. I lost eleven men and have a few wounded; the protection of Providence was great, considering what a scene we were engaged in. I have got the picture of San Ysidro the Patron of my ship; the least I could do for his holiness after he had delivered his charge up to me was to give him a good berth in my cabin: I understand the Spanish ships always carry the picture of their Patron Saint to sea with them: this is a very good one...’

The general action off Cape St. Vincent was the last in which Collingwood took part for eight long years, all but one of them spent in arduous watch on the Atlantic ports of France and Spain. Nelson’s fate was different. The battle brought him a knighthood, in addition to the prized gold medal, and he became a Rear-Admiral, by seniority, almost at once, Collingwood having to wait another two years for his next step.

Collingwood missed serving at Teneriffe, where Nelson lost his right arm, and at the Nile and Copenhagen, having to be content to remain with an increasingly exacting and crotchety Commander-in-Chief, for that is what Earl St. Vincent became. Both men had a year ashore during the brief Peace of Amiens (1802-03), Collingwood with his devoted family at Morpeth in Northumberland, Nelson with the Hamiltons at Merton in Surrey.

When the struggle was resumed, Nelson went to the Mediterranean as Commander-in-Chief, while Collingwood was employed in the Channel under Cornwallis and Gardner. But in the summer of 1805, the friends once again came together. Nelson vainly chased Villeneuve and the combined Franco-Spanish fleet to the West Indies; and, after Villeneuve returned to Europe, Collingwood had a narrow shave when he found himself up against the entire enemy force, as the fleet made its way towards Cadiz.

An obituarist in the Naval Chronicle, writing five years later, put the episode succinctly when he described Collingwood standing on the poop of his flag-ship, which was then the Dreadnought, ‘smiling at thirty-five sail of the enemy, with only five ships under his command: and when they wore back, he wore himself in their face, and actually blockaded the bay of Cadiz, they within.’

The scene was now set for Trafalgar. Outside Cadiz, Collingwood kept close watch, being gradually reinforced from England. Nelson had gone home in the Victory for a few weeks’ leave, but on September 7th he sent a note from the Admiralty in his old familiar style. ‘My dear Coll’, he wrote, ‘I shall be with you in a very few days, and I hope you will remain as Second in Command. You will change the Dreadnought for the Royal Sovereign, which I hope you will like...’ The Dreadnought was a fine ship, but she needed docking, while the Royal Sovereign, though reckoned a slow sailer, was newly coppered.

Nelson joined Collingwood off Cadiz on September 28th, and electrified his officers by explaining the tactics he would employ if, as he hoped, Villeneuve ventured out. He would attack not in the old line ahead, which had produced so many inconclusive encounters, but in two columns, one under his own direction, the other under Collingwood. This would, so he believed, bring about a mêlée, which was what he wanted. He was utterly confident of the result.

Between September 28th and October 19th, when Villeneuve at last prepared to obey Napoleon’s orders to proceed from Cadiz to the Mediterranean, Nelson and Collingwood resumed their old habits of discussion, but they were changed men since last they had seen much of one another. Collingwood had been worn down by being incessantly at sea.

Nelson, although he had been luckier in that he had had at least a short recuperative spell at Merton, was unhappy in his private life, and if—ever since the Nile—he had been a national hero, he was not looked upon with favour by the Court. At first there were three other flag officers with the fleet, Calder, Louis, and Lord Northesk, but Calder went home to face an enquiry; Louis was sent off to water and provision, and Nelson and Collingwood managed most of the administration between them, a trunk being sent between theVictory and the Royal Sovereign, to which each Admiral had a key.

On the very day that Villeneuve began to get his ships out of Cadiz, Nelson had invited Collingwood to dine with him, but the signal was annulled by the best news that either man could have had: action was imminent. They had met for the last time.

During the morning of October 21st, the day which would decide matters, a pretty little comedy was recorded in the signal logs. Nelson was leading his own line, but on looking across to Collingwood’s he saw that the Royal Sovereign was sailing towards the enemy so much faster than the rest of her column that he feared Collingwood would expose himself to the full weight of enemy fire unsupported. In spite of his agreement that he would leave Collingwood the entire management of his own part of the fleet, Nelson signalled direct to Captain Duff of the Mars, not once but twice, to ‘head the Larboard column’.

This was too much for Collingwood, who crowded on more sail in the Royal Sovereign, and ordered his other ships to do the same. The result was that he was in action long before the rest, and was lucky to escape Nelson’s fate. Even as it was, he received several what he called ‘thumps’, including a nasty wound in the leg, which he tied up with a handkerchief, and did not mention for months in his letters home.

Nelson received his fatal wound at the height of the struggle, and Captain Hardy of the Victory at once sent away an officer by boat to Collingwood, to give him the news. Describing the event in a letter home, Collingwood wrote:

‘Though the officer was directed to say the wound was not serious, I read in his countenance what I had to fear; and before the action was over, Captain Hardy came to inform me of his death. I cannot tell you how deeply I was affected; my friendship for him was unlike any thing that I have left in the Navy—a brotherhood of more than thirty years. In this affair he did nothing without my counsel, we made our line of battle together, and concerted the mode of attack, which was put in execution in the most admirable style.’

Nelson’s legacy to Collingwood was a staggering burden. An already weary man was left with the conduct of the fleet, scattered and disorganized as it was by the shocks of the day, with the collection and salvage of prizes to see to, ships to be safeguarded as far as possible from the effects of the storm which was gathering from the west, and the writing of despatches home that would be worthy of the completest, saddest victory in the country’s naval annals.

Furthermore, until he was relieved, the entire ordering and administration of the Mediterranean command, which extended in area from Cadiz to the Dardanelles, would also fall upon him. Collingwood had no previous experience of so ramified and responsible a post, diplomatic almost as much as naval, and his flagship was in no state to serve him any longer as office and signal station—even his signal lieutenant had been killed in action. He removed at once to the frigate Euryalus, Captain Blackwood, on whom Nelson had so much relied as ‘the eyes of the fleet’.

Blackwood did not then know Collingwood, but he perceived one fact soon enough—he would snap the head off anyone who even ventured a whisper that a single officer or man had not done his utmost in the engagement. Collingwood had bitter personal memories of Lord Howe’s discrimination after the Glorious First of June. Nothing like that should happen in the fleet he now commanded off the shores of Spain. As for the impression made on Blackwood by Nelson and Collingwood, this was well expressed in a latter home written almost immediately after the battle.

‘I hope it is not injustice to the Second in Command... who fought like a hero, to say that the Fleet under any other, never would have performed what they did under Lord N. But under Lord N. it seemed like inspiration to most of them... Admiral Collingwood, who came to hoist his flag here for a week or so, because his own ship was dismasted, and unfit for him, is a very reserved, though a very pleasing good man; and as he fought like an angel, I take the more to him.’

It was on board the Euryalus, tossing in a heavy swell, amid constant interruption and the need for instant, critical decisions, to say nothing of the need to be civil to Villeneuve, who was Collingwood’s prisoner, that the two letters were composed which appeared in the London Gazette for November 6th, 1805, as the Trafalgar despatch. Many of the details were, of necessity, inaccurate, but the tone and spirit were so exactly right that no sooner had George III read them, than he was sure that Collingwood was the only possible man for the Mediterranean Command. He was so moved that he directed his private secretary, Colonel Taylor, to write to the Secretary of the Admiralty to say that while:

‘...every tribute of praise appears to His Majesty due to Lord Nelson, whose loss he can never sufficiently regret... His Majesty considers it very fortunate that the command, under circumstances so critical, should have devolved upon an officer of such consummate valour, judgement and skill, as Admiral Collingwood has proved himself to be, every part of whose conduct he considers deserving his entire approbation and admiration.

The feeling manner in which he has described the events of that great day and those subsequent, and the modesty with which he speaks of himself, whilst he does justice, in terms so elegant and so ample, to the meritorious exertions of the gallant officers and men under his command, have also proved extremely satisfactory to the King.’

This letter became Collingwood’s proudest possession. ‘It is there’, he wrote to his wife, ‘I feel the object of my life attained.’ Next to the letter was the praise of every officer in the fleet. ‘Many of the captains here,’ he wrote, ‘have expressed a desire that I would give them a general notice whenever I go to Court; and if they are within 500 miles they will come up to attend me.’

Collingwood was given a peerage, and as he had no son, he hoped that it might descend through his daughter’s children. His wish was not attended to, so he became the first and last Lord Collingwood. He had a dog called Bounce, who had lived with him happily enough on board many ships, though Bounce could never reconcile himself to the sound of gun-fire. The admiral told Lady Collingwood that he was out of all patience with his pet.

‘The consequential airs he gives himself since he became a right honourable dog are insufferable. He considers it beneath his dignity to play with commoner’s dogs, and truly thinks that he does them grace when he condescends to lift up his leg against them. This, I think, is carrying the insolence of rank to the extreme; but he is a dog that does it.’

The right honourable Bounce lived to what was old age for a dog, and then was washed overboard one night in 1809, when Collingwood was watching the port of Toulon in his last flag-ship, the Ville de Paris. For many years he had been his master’s inseparable companion, almost every day of them spent at sea.

Collingwood, who never saw his home or family again after the summer of 1803, had only two further excitements to brighten his load of care. In 1808 he was able to encourage the efforts of the Spanish people when they began to throw off the yoke of subjection to France. In August of that year he landed at Cadiz, where he was received with immense enthusiasm.

The townsmen had never forgotten his chivalrous behaviour to the Spanish wounded and prisoners after Trafalgar, and they looked up to him as to no other foreigner. Then, a few months before he died at sea, in March 1810, his fleet had a success against a French squadron which ventured out of Toulon in a vain attempt to relieve Barcelona. Two ships of the line and thirteen transports were destroyed, and Collingwood had the satisfaction of seeing an enemy ship ablaze as he reconnoitred the Bay of Rosas. It was a last gleam.

His body was brought home, and it lay in state at Greenwich before being put near that of Nelson at St. Paul’s. Nelson, romantic to the last, is buried in a splendid sarcophagus, exactly beneath the centre of Wren’s dome. Collingwood is to one side, and the lack of pomp around his tomb seems fitting. He was a martyr to duty, and the pattern of a fully equipped sea officer, but successive governments who refused to relieve him found him more—a natural diplomatist, and one whose strategic judgement was never faulted or even questioned during his years of chief command.

The same could not quite be said of Nelson, though Collingwood was exactly right when he wrote to Admiral Pasley of his friend that ‘he possessed the zeal of an enthusiast, directed by talents which nature had very bountifully bestowed upon him, and everything seemed as if by enchantment to prosper under his direction: but it was the effect of system and nice combination, not of chance’.

¹ Add MSS: 52780