Admiral Collingwood

by Max Adams

  Nelson lamented Mediator’s departure, writing that ‘had it not been for Collingwood, it would have been the most disagreeable station I ever saw’. Wilfred missed him as well. The two brothers would not see each other again.

  4

  A comfortable fire and friends

  1787–1792

  Collingwood arrived in England in July 1786, paid off his ship’s company, and went to London to see about getting another command. There was little chance of success. He was still a relatively junior post-captain on a list of four hundred or so.1 He might justly feel that he had fulfilled his duty in the West Indies, but had his behaviour found favour with the Admiralty? The Royal Navy was, after all, the executive tool of a British mercantile empire. In any case, and whatever the Admiralty’s opinion of Collingwood’s professional merits and operational judgement, Britain was now at least nominally at peace with the other powers of Europe, and the navy’s capability was being reduced. No one was being given a ship.

  Collingwood stayed in London that autumn, dealing with the legal aftermath of his and Nelson’s enforcement of the Navigation Acts. William Pitt the Younger was prime minister. The Prince of Wales had scandalously, and in secret, married Maria Fitzherbert. Henry Cort had invented the puddling process for smelting iron with coke that would make iron the engineering material of the industrial revolution, and Edmund Cartwright had developed the power weaving-loom. James Watt’s patent rotary steam engine was already replacing Newcomen’s old atmospheric engine and was beginning to revolutionise the mining industry. The Marylebone Cricket Club was founded later that year, and Thomas Lord opened his first cricket ground in Dorset Square. The world was changing. As winter came, Collingwood at last went north to see his family.

  There is no record of his having been to Newcastle since he left in Shannon at the age of thirteen, though he may have been home for short visits during his brief periods ashore. His father was dead. His ailing mother and his sisters Dorothy and Mary were still apparently at Newcastle.

  His home town had changed too. The old bridge with its shops and houses had been destroyed by flood in the winter of 1771–2 and its elegant replacement, partly designed by John Smeaton of Eddystone lighthouse fame, had just been finished.3 The bull-ring and parts of the city walls by the Quayside were gone, and for the first time there were street signs. There was now a theatre and Assembly Rooms, and in the last few months of 1786 a Mr Lunardie had ascended in a hot-air balloon from the Spital, his too-rapid descent proving fatal.4 A Royal Mail coach had just started a service to London via Leeds at a cost of four guineas, taking more than forty hours to complete the journey.5

  Some things did not change. Newcastle’s newspapers were full of familiar items, such as deserting pitmen and indentured servants, or rumours of counterfeit guineas being circulated, but also the finding of a young woman’s body half-buried in a churchyard. One William Smith, a surgeon, was advertising a course in midwifery, and to ensure his students had ample material to practice with, he offered poor women in the town and neighbourhood ‘free delivery’. There were also advertisements for a variety of panaceas, guaranteed to cure all sorts of ailments in improbable ways:

  MOLINEUX’S SMELLING MEDICINE

  For the Scurvy, Itch, Pimpled Faces, Scald heads, Films in children, and all cutaneous eruptions, by Smelling Only. 1s 1d per box.

  It was specially recommended for all captains of ships. Had he been given a ship, Collingwood might also have tried Dr Pitcairn’s eye-water, the Cephalic Snuff, or Dr Bodrum’s restorative cordial. The work of Scottish doctor James Lind on the causes of scurvy had been known for a generation and more, and the anti-scorbutic properties of lime juice and sauerkraut had been proved by James Cook in his circumnavigations. However, Collingwood was among many in the navy who clung to the virtues of their own experience. ‘I have less alarm about scurvy than most people; clean and dry ship and good air of the poop are my specificks,’ he once said.6 When he wrote that he had been at sea for fifteen months without dropping anchor, and had an empty sick bay, so it is hard to argue with him. But his journals, even as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean fleet, show that he took great pains to ensure his crews got regular supplies of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. This was a better diet, and a healthier lifestyle, than many enjoyed at home, especially since industrial and agricultural innovations were exacerbating rural unemployment.

  Now there was bad news for the Collingwood family. On 23 June 1787 the Newcastle Courant carried the following death notice:

  On 20th April last, in the West Indies, Captain Wilfred Collingwood, Commander of His Majesty’s Ship Rattler. By his death his friends have lost a most valuable and affectionate relative, and his country an active and zealous officer.

  The news had been received by Cuthbert himself, in a letter from Nelson. It was written on 3 May from Boreas at the island of Nevis where Nelson, almost bereaved by the absence of Mary Moutray, had been paying court to the widow Fanny Nisbet, and married her:

  MY DEAR COLLINGWOOD,

  To be the messenger of bad news is my misfortune, but still it is a tribute which friends owe each other. I have lost my friend, you an affectionate brother, too great a zeal in serving his Country hastened his end. The greatest consolation the survivor can receive, is a thorough knowledge of a life spent with honour to himself, and of service to his Country. If the tribute of tears be valuable, my friend had it. The esteem he stood in with His Royal Highness was great. His letter to me on his death is the strongest testimony of it. I send you an extract from it. ‘Collingwood, poor fellow, is no more. I have cried for him; and most sincerely do I condole with you on his loss. In him His Majesty has lost a faithful servant, and the service a most excellent officer.’

  A testimony of regard so honorable is more to be coveted than anything this world could have afforded, and must be a balm to his surviving friends. The Rattler had been refitting at English Harbour, and, when I arrived there in the middle of April, Wilfred was a little complaining, but I did not think at first any thing dangerous was to be apprehended. But in a few days I perceived he was in a rapid decline. Dr Young told me to send him to sea, as the only chance. He sailed on the Tuesday for Grenada, where I was in hopes, could he have reached Mr Hume’s, some fortunate circumstance might turn out; but it pleased God to order it otherwise. On Friday the 21st April, at ten at night, he left this life without a groan or struggle. The ship put into St Vincent’s, where he was interred with all military honours; the regiment, president, and council, attending him to the grave. I mention this circumstance to shew their respect for his character. It is a credit to the people of St Vincent’s, which I did not think they would have deserved. Adieu, my good friend, and be assured I am, with the truest regard, your affectionate friend,

  HORATIO NELSON7

  The Royal Highness referred to by Nelson was the Duke of Clarence, later William IV, variously known as the Sailor King or Silly Billy. He had been sent to the West Indies in command of the frigate Pegasus shortly after Collingwood’s return to England, and became close to Nelson. He was a competent sea officer, but no more; a strict disciplinarian, volatile, self-conscious and a hard drinker.8 Later in life he wrote admiringly to Collingwood, although they never met. Nelson himself returned to England in the summer of 1787, having been so ill before he left that he shipped a puncheon of rum for his body to be preserved in. He would have to wait even longer than Collingwood for his next command.

  For two years Collingwood’s correspondence almost dried up. There were occasional letters to the Admiralty, assuring them of his continued and immediate readiness to be of service, but they were written with little hope of fulfilment. The lack of letters means we do not know where he was living during this time. Judging from his later life, he spent much of the time walking in the hills and fields of Northumberland, carrying pocketfuls of acorns to drop into hedgerows and patches of waste ground so that England’s navy would never, in the future, want for oak to build her ships wi
th. He read a great deal too, of history and literature, and he kept a weather-eye on the news. A convict colony had been established at Botany Bay on the far side of the world, and His Majesty’s armed transport ship Bounty had set off for the Pacific Ocean to bring breadfruit plants back to the West Indies. Here they might be cultivated to reduce the islands’ dependence on imported food.

  In 1788 a proposal to abolish the slave trade failed in the House of Commons, and there was a constitutional crisis. The first of the King’s apparent attacks of madness occurred, causing a mental collapse towards the end of the year. In February 1789 Pitt introduced a Regency Bill into the Commons in a panicked attempt to limit the potential powers of the Prince of Wales, a Foxite Whig whose politics were inimical both to his own father and to Pitt’s conservative government. Shortly afterwards, to widespread relief, the King recovered his health and the bill was dropped. In April the crew of the Bounty mutinied in Tahiti, and set their commander, William Bligh, adrift in the ship’s launch. Bligh, who had been James Cook’s sailing master, navigated this tiny open boat more than three thousand miles to the East Indies and returned to England, like a ghost reborn, in 1790. He later fought in some style at the battle of Camperdown. He was also present at the battle of Copenhagen and in 1805 became governor of New South Wales, where he was overthrown and imprisoned by the army garrison. He died a vice-admiral.

  Unexpectedly, in the summer of 1789, there was a prospect of action for Collingwood. The great maritime powers of Europe guarded their territories jealously, no matter how remote they were. Trading companies had for hundreds of years been planting their countries’ flags wherever there was the chance of exploiting local and regional resources. When other countries became interested, there was conflict. Such was the case with the eastern Pacific seaboard. Spain had traditionally claimed rights to exploit it from Cape Horn in the south all the way up to Alaska. Whaling, fur-trading and timber were huge potential sources of wealth requiring only the establishment of settlements and infrastructure to profit from them. But, as the world grew smaller, notably after Cook’s voyages in the 1770s, Britain extended her maritime interests further, believing she had little naval competition. Cook himself had refitted his expedition at a tiny settlement called Nootka Sound on Vancouver island, and by 1789 the British East India Company had established a fur-trading post there.9

  In May of that year Spain sent a small squadron from Mexico to seize the company’s assets. The crews of the impounded British vessels were treated as prisoners of war and taken to a Spanish port. Strong diplomatic representations were made on both sides. Spain appealed to France for support. Britain prepared to mobilise, spending an astonishing £3 million in funding the navy for a full-scale war. Collingwood, like most of the other post-captains ashore on half-pay, followed these events with interest. Although the word in the service was that Spain could not possibly fight the Royal Navy alone, and would back down, he began to watch developments with an even keener eye than usual. Six years of peace had seen the navy’s battle fleet run down to fifty-five ships of the line. The so-called Spanish Armament would come just in time for Britain to prepare for the largest conflict in European history.

  In that same year, 1789, there was turmoil in France where, on 14 July, the Bastille was stormed by the Paris mob. France was bankrupt. Autocratic and centralised, with her maritime strategy crippled by the expense of a continental army, her involvement in the American War of Independence had created a financial crisis. The size of the debt itself was somewhat smaller than Britain’s. But the British government’s debt was founded on economic reality, scrutinised by parliament; and it attracted interest of three per cent. France’s debt was founded on and legitimised by the unaccountable fiscal and divine authority of King Louis XVI, and at eight per cent interest it was crippling.10

  Britain’s economy was recovering from the loss of her colonies by finally resuming trade with them, and was boosted by the rapid growth of her unfettered manufacturing revolution at home. France, flooded by cheap mass-produced English goods, was overwhelmingly an inefficient agricultural economy with an overly complex and largely unenforceable tax system. Failure of successive harvests led to riots in 1788 and a demand for the King to summon the Estates-General, which had not convened since 1614. The aim, ironically, was to emulate Britain by forming a constitutional monarchy. Amidst economic collapse the attempt failed, and anarchy ensued.

  In such circumstances Spanish appeals for French help in the Nootka Sound affair unsurprisingly fell on deaf ears. Nevertheless, Spain decided to play its hand to the brink of war. The British government, aware that its indecision in American affairs had already led to one disaster, continued to mobilise the navy and prepared to take on a Spanish fleet it was sure of beating. While politicians and economists complacently predicted an accommodation with Spain, Collingwood decided to return to London to pursue his claim for a ship, just in case. From May 1790 his pen was again taken up, this time at 62 Dean Street, in Soho, from where he wrote to the Admiralty:

  SIR, As I understand a naval armament is about to be fitted out and a Number of ships to be commissioned, I beg to offer myself to serve in any ship to which their Lordships may be pleased to appoint me to command, the duty of which appointment their Lordships may be assured I will most faithfully execute to the utmost of my ability and power …11

  While he waited, he did not hesitate to pull any strings he could think of. All the plums12 had been bagged by captains with superior interest: sons of parliamentary members, captains who were themselves members, or those who had influence at the Admiralty. Captain Conway, and Admiral Bowyer, both of whom Collingwood knew, had mentioned his name to Lord Chatham, the First Lord, as had Collingwood’s kinsman W. Spencer Stanhope, MP for Hull. There was a vague promise of a 32-gun frigate, which might mean anything and nothing. It was now that he would find out whether his experience and reputation counted for anything.

  Nelson, back home in Norfolk, was to have no luck in finding a ship. He was in bad odour with the Admiralty, having turned a blind eye to some of the Duke of Clarence’s indiscretions in the West Indies. His infatuation with royalty, like his predilection for amphibious assaults and flirtatious women, was a character trait which nearly cost him his career on more than one occasion.

  Just in case he did get a ship, Collingwood wrote to his sister Mary, asking her to get his sea things ready for him. Typically, the letter contains very detailed instructions, leaving absolutely nothing to chance, with the same attention to minutiae with which he would later draft orders for rescuing the Pope or procuring bullocks from Tetuan. He enclosed the key to his bureau …

  The key to my trunks are in it. Every thing that is in my bureau except the ragged shirts leave in it, fill it with linen from the trunk, so as to prevent its shaking but with such things as are least heavy. All the papers that are in it leave just in the state they are, all the plans and draft books put into the larger chest, with such books of navigation and signals as are on the book shelves and, in the drawers under them, three spy glasses. The shortest night glass not to be packed, it may stay; in a right hand drawer in the top of the bureau is the great object glass of the largest telescope, it must be screwed in its place …13

  And so on. Copies of Addison’s Spectator and Shakespeare were to be included too, along with linen, table cloths, plain spoons, ‘fish things’ and teaspoons. He still thought it improbable that the Spanish would fight without the French, but in case they did he would not be left behind for the sake of a few necessaries, though he thought his heavy candlesticks were not worth packing for the extra postage they would incur. In a postscript he reminded Mary that she would find the object glass for the telescope rolled in an old glove. Two weeks later, in another letter to Mary that was full of gossip, he reported on his new dog, which he does not name but which may be Bounce, who was to be with him for nineteen years:

  My dog is a charming creature, every body admires him but he is grown as tall as the table I
am writing on almost.14

  By the middle of June he could report that he had at last received a summons from the First Lord, and been offered a ship. The letter is full of nervous excitement at the prospect of going to sea again. He had turned down the chance to command a 64-gun ship, the Ardent, because he suspected she would be stuck on boring convoy work. Instead he was appointed to a 32-gun frigate, Mermaid, chosen to be part of a squadron under Admiral Cornish bound for the West Indies where Collingwood’s experience would be valuable. He was pleased. He had been given an important command more or less solely on his own merits, and he dismissed Mary’s unasked question about taking a pay cut:

  As for the difference in emolument; in a frigate the expenses are somewhat less and if I can get her into the W’t Indies I will make the Dons [Spaniards] pay me the difference once or twice a month I hope.15

  The same letter offers an insight into naval recruitment that paints a more civilised picture than the press gang. Captains were, by virtue of their sole authority on board ship, petty warlords whose officers and men were tied to them by mutual bonds of protection, trust and reward. Thus, years later, Lord Cochrane could recruit volunteers with a handbill calling for experienced seamen who could run a mile carrying a barrel of Spanish pewter on their shoulders. A disparate crew might, during a long commission of several years, be brought to resemble an extended family, as Collingwood himself achieved. But in a newly commissioned ship, quite apart from the difficulty of making up the numbers, there was a distinct danger that officers and men would not bond quickly enough to make the ship instantly ready for battle or dangerous manoeuvres.