Admiral Collingwood

by Max Adams

  By now General Wellesley was advancing towards Junot’s army as it marched on Lisbon. The British were outnumbered, but Wellesley had already honed his legendary positional sense during his Indian campaigns and his troops were well-drilled, like their naval counterparts. The two armies met at the village of Vimeiro, thirty miles north of Lisbon, and Junot was decisively defeated. Absurdly, Wellesley’s superiors agreed to a truce at Cintra which allowed the French army to embark and sail for France so they could fight another day. It caused a huge scandal in England. Collingwood was appalled: what was the point in beating an enemy merely to allow him to go home and regroup?

  Wellesley returned to England in disgust. He was replaced by another talented young general, Sir John Moore, who had as many as thirty thousand men at his disposal. After a successful cavalry action at Sahagun he was confronted by Marshal Soult at the head of a large army of French reinforcements which Napoleon was pouring into the country, and cornered. The resultant disastrous retreat to Corunna was followed by the forerunner of the Dunkirk evacuation of 130 years later – again with the navy as the army’s saviour. Moore was fatally injured there in January 1809. It looked as if this might be the end of the British Army’s expedition to the Peninsula, but Wellesley, pulling all the political strings he could lay his hands on, persuaded the government to allow him to return to Portugal in the spring with a new army. This time he would stay.

  Collingwood spent the summer dealing with the junta of Cadiz, and with the political and military repercussions of the uprising. He tried to arrange a supply of horses for the Cadiz militia with the Emperor of Morocco. He dispatched cruisers to harry French privateers along the Spanish coast (one of these, Impérieuse, was commanded by Lord Cochrane, whom Collingwood warmly commended for his initiative) and support rebels where they could. In particular he sought supplies of guns and ammunition, begging two thousand muskets from his friend Ball at Malta. He also ensured the protection and resupply of the army in Portugal; and, as ever, he saw that the French fleet at Toulon were watched day and night.

  All these operations had to be carried out with great delicacy. On the matter of the horses, his initial approach was turned down by the Emperor on religious grounds. But Collingwood was far too well informed to be intimidated by such a response. He wrote, with a tremendous moral force only too well-known to those who served with him:

  I regret that granting to your neighbour this great good should be considered as in any degree militating against the tenets of your holy religion. I respect all those who are true to their faith. Mahomet was a wise and great law-giver; – he knew how fallible and weak mankind were; – he knew how much they required the assistance of each other: and one of his commands to his people was, (and it is a sacred tenet in all religions,) ‘To do good to all’. What greater good can His Imperial Majesty do, than assist a loyal people in repelling an enemy, who regards not the laws of God, and maintaining their existence as a nation.17

  Understandably, the Spanish on their part wanted to feel it was their armies and their sense of independence which were so disrupting the French occupation of their country – as indeed it largely was. It was crucial to tread carefully, and proposals to land a British force at Cadiz to garrison the forts in the port, which had been handled poorly by diplomats, required Collingwood’s light touch, and his reputation with the Spanish, to carry them through. The trust in which Collingwood was held by the Spanish was of additional benefit to the British government. It meant that he became the most useful source of political intelligence on the Peninsula. His performance met with the approval of the First Lord, Lord Mulgrave, who wrote admiringly to him in July, albeit with a prolixity and awkwardness which contrast with the economy and elegance of Collingwood’s own phrases:

  No object can be of equal importance to this Country with the vigorous and preserving exertions of Spain, and that entire confidence in the zealous and disinterested aid of Great Britain, without which it is hardly to be hoped that the Spaniards will make such efforts as will be indispensably necessary to the successful conclusion of the great and interesting struggle in which that nation is engaged. I feel most highly gratified in considering that the establishment of that confidence, and the encouragement in their efforts, will depend so much upon the exertion of your Lordship’s talents and zeal, and shall be happy to hear that your health has not suffered from the anxious vigilance which you have had to exercise for so many months.18

  For elegance and warmth the First Lord of the Admiralty was effortlessly out-done by the Supreme Council of Seville, who sensibly admired:

  the talents and penetration of the English Admiral, which they have seen displayed in the capacity with which he comprehends all our interests, and the foresight by which he would avert every danger. No Spaniard could have pleaded the interests of Spain with a warmer zeal than Lord Collingwood has done. Our gratitude to him will be eternal.19

  There was a much less approving letter from Sarah, to whom Cuthbert had sent a portrait of himself, painted at Syracuse by Giuseppe Sorcevani. Collingwood reckoned it a good likeness; but then, he had not seen his wife for more than five years, and he had aged at least ten in that time. It is, to be sure, an unprepossessing likeness, and she was shocked. He replied, with more than a hint of pique:

  I am sorry to find my picture was not an agreeable surprise … you expected to find me a smooth-skinned, clear-complexioned gentleman, such as I was when I left home, dressed in the newest taste, and like the fine people who live gay lives ashore. Alas! it is far otherwise with me … The painter represented me as I am, not as I once was. It is time and toil that have worked the change, and not his want of skill.20

  Collingwood tried to raise Sarah’s and his own spirits by changing the subject to his musings on Mrs Currell’s son Tom.21 This was the young man, a midshipman, who was so hopeless and lethargic that Collingwood thought he ought to be apprenticed to an apothecary, where his grave manner might suit. Now he wrote of the boy that ‘he is of no more use here as an officer than Bounce, and not near so entertaining.’22 Lady Collingwood’s acquaintance with the Currells brought her into contact with the unfortunate son some years later, and it seems the whole family came to share Collingwood’s opinion of him. Sal wrote to a friend:

  Mrs Currell dined with us on Tuesday; but not her son. She says he has got boils on his neck, which prevents his calling. My mother saw him when she called, and she thinks nothing can be worse than he is. We have not had the pleasure of seeing him yet.23

  By the early autumn of 1808 Collingwood was back on the Toulon blockade. At Cadiz he was too readily available as a sort of universal saviour; attempts had been made to manipulate him politically, and although he saw through them all (he had, after all, been acquainted with midshipmen in the Royal Navy for forty years: he knew trickery when he saw it), he longed to escape the machinations of the juntas. Besides, both for the safety of Sicily and for the support of the Spanish insurrection in Catalonia, it was once again critical that the French fleet be bottled up. And as ever, Collingwood trusted no one more than himself. But despite his support, affairs in Spain continued to promise more than they delivered. At Rosas, just south of the French border, a rebel garrison had held out for several months, supported by the indefatigable efforts of, among others, Lord Cochrane. But in December the town fell for want of good leadership, and soon Catalonia was overrun:

  In my prospect of Spanish affairs, from the beginning, I have not been mistaken. Their country is without Government, their armies without Generals; the only classes who are and have been true to the cause, which all talked of, were the priests and the people – they are brave, love their country, and detest the French.24

  Once more the internal affairs of the Sicilian court surfaced. Queen Maria Carolina and King Ferdinand sent Collingwood their son, Prince Leopold, with a view to planting him as a Bourbon regent on the Spanish throne – a plot so stupid that Collingwood dismissed it out of hand. Collingwood’s sister wrote to him asking i
f he had not been a little high-handed with the King of Sicily:

  There is no fear of the King of Sicily being offended with me – nothing can be greater friends than we are. I had one of the kindest letters possible from him a week since, but very desirous that I come to Palermo, and I will go there whenever I can. All the people of Palermo are impatient to see me.25

  No doubt they were: Collingwood had managed to avoid attending the court at Palermo for two years. He had no intention of going there now, for he had written to the Admiralty saying that he was too ill to continue as Commander-in-Chief, and must come home. Mulgrave, the First Lord, deployed a mixture of flattery and blackmail in response:

  I lament to learn that your health and strength have [been] impaired from the long and interrupted exertions by which you have so ably conducted the delicate, difficult, and important duties of your command; upon a former intimation of the injury which your health had received I took the liberty to press strongly upon your Lordship’s consideration the importance which I attach to your continuance in a situation in which through a variety of great and complicated objects, of difficult and delicate arrangements of political as well as professional considerations, your Lordship had in no instance failed to adopt the most judicious and the best concerted measures. Impressed as I was and am, with the difficulty of supplying your place, I cannot forbear (which I hope you will excuse) suspending the recall which you have required, till I hear again from you.26

  Collingwood cannot have been much surprised by this response; he may even have been relieved, because at least part of him wanted to stay until he had had one last go at the French. Even so, he must have bitterly regretted that after his extraordinary record of service, it had not so far proved possible to change the terms of his peerage to ensure the girls their inheritance, and the continuity of his title. And to Sarah he wrote of the dilemmas faced by a man of his complex emotions, when charged with great responsibility:

  Perhaps you may think I am grown very conceited in my old age, and fancy myself a mighty politician; but indeed it is not so. However lofty a tone the subject may require and my language assume, I assure you it is in great humility of heart that I utter it, and often in fear and trembling, lest I should exceed my bounds … I do everything for myself, and never distract my mind with other people’s opinions. To the credit of any good which happens I may lay claim, and I will never shift upon another the discredit, when the result is bad … that the public service might not suffer from my holding a station, and performing its duties feebly, I applied for leave to return to you, to be cherished and restored …27

  With so many worries both at home and at sea, it is unsurprising that he now opened his heart to his oldest friend, Mary Moutray, in the most intimate terms:

  MY DEAR FRIEND, – I wish you had one of those fairy telescopes that can look into the hearts and souls of people a thousand leagues off, then you might see how much you possess my mind and how sincere an interest I take in whatever relates to your happiness and that of your dear Kate … it is evident that I shall not get home very soon and my heart was bent on it. My girls are young women; my wife an old one, and I have hardly seen them I may say for sixteen years. If this is not giving up comforts for my duty tell me what is.28

  If Collingwood was wearing out fast, he had at least lasted longer than his flag ship. Ocean was only three years old but already falling apart at the seams, unable to cope with an unusually stormy autumn off Toulon. Collingwood put this down to ‘the new whimsies and absurd inventions of those who, having little science, would be thought to have it because they have an office from which science should proceed.’29 In particular he disdained the new fashion for ‘wall-sided’ ships, preferring the old-fashioned tumblehome where the ships’ sides curved inwards. It was a design developed over centuries which had arrived at a state of near perfection, and that body of knowledge was being tampered with in favour of ‘philosophic plans’. Ocean would not survive the winter on blockade duty, so Collingwood sailed to Malta, where the ship was ‘new-bolted’ with iron. This at least gave him the chance to meet his very old friend Alexander Ball, whose governorship of Malta had proved a political and economic revelation. In the few years since the island’s recapture, it had become the hub of Mediterranean trade, thriving under a man whose honesty and decency won him wide regard.

  While he was at Malta, in January 1809, Collingwood received news that he had been appointed Major-General of Marines. This was a sinecure, until recently held by the late Admiral Gardner. It involved no specific duties, and paid a reasonably handsome stipend of £1,200–1,400 a year – though as Collingwood pointed out to his sister, it would be offset against his half-pay if and when he retired. As usual, he was quick to recognise a bribe when he saw it, and to take it as an insult to his pride: ‘I am jealous of their supposing such an excitement necessary to retain me.’30 Nevertheless, the money would prove useful in defraying the increasing debt being generated at Chirton. It was around this time that Collingwood found out that Sarah’s father, in attempting to pay off the debts of a collateral member of the family, had borrowed £2,200 off Collingwood, and repaid it with shares in a fire insurance company.31 To be associated with such low commerce must have reminded him very painfully of his own upbringing, and he was furious. How could the King possibly respect a gentleman who dealt in insurance?

  The high society life of Valetta was no more to Collingwood’s taste than that of Gibraltar or Cadiz, so he was not unhappy to leave. But he could no longer put off a visit to Palermo and sailed there in February, ostensibly to confer with the commanding officer of British forces there, Sir John Stuart. Collingwood wanted to detach part of his force to Spain, where he thought an efficient, well-led British unit might shore up Spanish military morale. Once again showing acute foresight, Collingwood emphasised that in order to defend Sicily (and the same went for Corfu, Malta, Algiers, Morocco, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire) France had to be strangled, or at least tied up. He had been almost the first to realise that exploiting the Dos de Mayo was critical: ‘The fate of Europe depends on Spain, and lesser interests should be subservient to our efforts there,’ he had written.32 But Stuart, probably influenced by the Queen’s obsession with recovering her lost kingdom, would have none of it, insisting that the threat from Naples was too great. Sending British troops to Catalonia would be throwing bad money after good. In the meantime, Collingwood wrote to his sister:

  I took the opportunity to pay my respects to the King and Queen. I arrived on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, when by closing the jollities of the carnival the Queen gave a ball to the nobility. I rec’d an invitation the moment we anchored. We went and were most graciously received. The King is a good humoured man, free and affable in his manners, and had he not unhappily been born to be a king would have been a respectable country gentleman. Matters of state weary him, and I understand he does not attend much to them. His country amusements of hunting and shooting occupy him. On the other hand, the Queen is the great politician and is continually engaged in intrigues for the recovery of their lost [kingdom] of Naples …33

  Abraham Crawford, visiting Palermo around the same time, called it ‘gay, idle and rich … having … the air of a metropolis, but with that mixture of squalor and splendour, meanness and magnificence, which characterize all great towns – those of the south of Europe, perhaps, more than others.’34 Crawford was a lieutenant under Admiral Duckworth in the Royal George. He met Collingwood several times, greatly admired him, and wrote the most penetrating existing portrait of the Admiral in his last years. The King of Sicily, meanwhile, recognising in Collingwood a keen fellow gardener, took him to dine at his country lodge just outside Palermo: La Palazzina Cinese. It was an extravagant caprice in the Chinese style, with beautiful formal gardens, and hunting grounds close by in the hills: ‘the prettiest thing you can conceive’ according to Collingwood.35 He must have been delighted and appalled in equal measure by the dining arrangements. There was a round table with a cent
ral section, supported on some mechanical device which allowed it to be lowered to the kitchen, where it would be cleared and replenished and then raised up again.

  Nevertheless, Collingwood was not fooled by the royal attention paid to him. The Queen was still seething over the snub Collingwood had delivered to Prince Leopold, and such was her pathological addiction to intrigue that she was sure he was plotting to rid the court of all her French advisors. Nothing could have been further from Collingwood’s mind, and he was as glad to see the back of Palermo as the Queen was to see him go. As he wrote in semi-disbelief to Admiral Purvis:

  God protect them: I wish you had seen that court. I consider it as a sort of curiosity, and how such a one can exist in civilised Europe is a matter of great astonishment.36

  In March, it became obvious that Ocean was simply not up to the rigours of Mediterranean service. She would have to return to England for a complete overhaul. A replacement was sent out to Collingwood, and she arrived when he was taking shelter in the lee of Menorca. So for the first time since 1799 Collingwood returned to Port Mahon, whose harbour he had surveyed as a midshipman in his late teens aboard Liverpool, and there he transferred to his last flag ship, Ville de Paris. She was a huge 110-gun three-decker, built in 1795 and named after the French flag ship captured by Rodney at the battle of the Saintes in 1782.

  Access to Mahon’s magnificent deep-water harbour was the navy’s reward for its support of the Spanish uprising. Returned to Spanish control under the terms of the Peace of Amiens, Menorca’s governors and people found they enjoyed French influence even less than the previous century of British possession. It had taken a few months of delicate negotiation to ensure a welcome for British warships there, but for both parties it was a matter of necessity. The Spanish garrison had been reduced to less than a hundred men37 and, as ever, the island was vulnerable to attack because of its rocky coastline and numerous coves and inlets. Not only did Mahon provide shelter for the storm-battered ships of the British fleet, but it was close enough to the coast of Catalonia, and to Toulon, to keep an eye on the French fleet without maintaining the constant rigours of a full blockade. Collingwood needed all the advantages he could get, as he wrote to Sarah: