Admiral Collingwood

by Max Adams

  The Admiralty have been exceedingly kind and attentive to me; they have sent me the best ship in the navy, and have reinforced my squadron; but what I most want is a new pair of legs, and a new pair of eyes. My eyes are very feeble; my legs and feet swell so much every day, that it is pretty clear they will not last long.38

  Collingwood might surely have stayed in Menorca now. It was a place he liked, he was welcome there, and it was a sound base from which to order operations. He chose, instead, to rejoin the Toulon blockade, where he stayed for the whole summer. Not that he was idle. His political and strategic brain was as active as ever, and there exist hundreds of letters and dispatches, mostly in his own hand still, which testify to the scope of his responsibilities and the attention he paid to every one of them.

  One preoccupation was what he saw as ineffective leadership in the army. Of one general, a relative of his sister-in-law, he wrote:

  What do you think of your cousin Gen. Clavering? What a delightful head that man must have for the front rank of an army! It needs no helmet, they might hack their swords to saws without harm to it. I always thought Sir Thomas had the most distinguished head in that family, but I have been mistaken.39

  Collingwood was becoming increasingly frustrated with another army officer, Sir John Stuart, the general in charge of the British force in Sicily. Stuart, under the influence of the court at Palermo, undertook to capture the two little islands of Ischia and Procida that lay in the Bay of Naples. It made him popular with the court, but as Collingwood pointed out to him in a polite but brutally honest letter, their possession was of no use to anyone who did not possess Naples, and they required garrisons who would have been better employed in Sicily or elsewhere. Much more valuable was Collingwood’s idea of using marines to make lightning amphibious assaults all along the Italian coast, to disrupt French forces and divert them from engaging the Austrian army. The Austrians, encouraged as all Europe was by events in Spain, were beginning once more to undertake offensive operations on the Italian peninsula, and Collingwood had been in communication with them to offer just such support. It was from this time that the Royal Marines began to establish their reputation for small, secretive and highly effective coastal operations. As it happened, Austria’s campaign against Napoleon, which had started with promise in Bavaria in the spring, had gone disastrously wrong, ending with defeat at Wagram in July, one of the bloodiest encounters in the entire war.

  As for General Stuart’s land forces, Collingwood thought they would be far better deployed in an attack on the Ionian Islands, specifically Xante and Cephalonia, where intelligence suggested the people would happily combine with them to turn the French out. Possession of the islands, especially Corfu, by Britain, would be of inestimable benefit in supporting operations in the Adriatic, and in discouraging Napoleon from any ideas of invading the Greek mainland. More discreetly, Collingwood had prepared secret orders for the Pope to be evacuated from Rome, and Archduke John to be rescued from Trieste. Above all, he was exercising what he called ‘the patient courage which waits for the opportunity which it cannot create’, trying to maintain a presence in all places and at all times, ready to pounce when the time was right. It had served him well in his relations with Spain, and it would serve him well twice more – though it would never have done for Nelson.

  However obsessed Collingwood was with the destruction of his arch-foe, he managed never to lose sight of the objects for which war was fought, namely to obtain an honourable peace for the benefit of all mankind. This was the diplomatic moral force which he applied in his dealings with all foreign powers, and the deys, beys, pashas and emperors with whom he dealt instinctively recognised the fundamental honesty of his position. But whether the objects in his view were large or small, simple or complex, he never forgot what war meant for ordinary people, as he confided to his sister-in-law in April 1809:

  When I look abroad, the prospect is bad: when I look to home, it is worse. And unless mankind can be made honest and to act from public spirit, uncontaminated by their individual interest, and reconcile themselves to justice though to their own disadvantage, the longer we live the worse we shall see it. I am thankful my head is grey. The people in England know nothing of war but the taxes, and what they read in a newspaper of the destruction of twenty-eight or thirty thousand men, the impression is slightly felt at Charing Cross. But were we to witness the inhabitants flying from their town in flames, and before they gain the next discover it in the same state, women and children running from death and when they come to the Po or the Pavia find the bridges broken down, it was scenes like these, to which human creatures are now daily exposed, that made me so desirous my girls should learn to swim, then they might have set such chance and circumstance at defiance, and a river or two would have been no bar to their safety.40

  Collingwood amplified this theme in another letter to his sister-in-law later that year. It not only shows that his sense of humour was intact, and as dry as ever, but it encapsulates what, for an eighteenth-century gentleman, was a surprisingly modern attitude towards women in general, and daughters in particular. It makes the irony of their disinheritance all the more poignant:

  The women [under siege at Gerona] are dressed in the habits of men, are armed with muskets and behave with the greatest gallantry. The soul of a woman is the excellence of creation, but how they would spoil it by foolish fashion, affecting a timidity which they do not feel. I wish my girls were taught their exercise and to be good shots. I think it will be useful to them before long. I am sure Sarah would be a sharp shooter, a credit to any Light Corps.41

  While Stuart invented more excuses for deferring an expedition to the Ionian Islands, Collingwood sensed another opportunity for disrupting French schemes. This time it was in his own hands, and although he wrote to the Admiralty informing them of his plans, he did not wait for approval when the time came to strike. It was a masterly coup de main in which Collingwood used his knowledge of the French intelligence network to his own advantage. He had known for some time that the French were to attempt to resupply their garrison at Barcelona with a convoy from Toulon. It was perfectly clear this convoy would not sail with the blockading squadron stationed off Toulon. If the British were driven off the station by autumn gales, the convoy would very likely get through. So it was of the first importance that Collingwood determined the timing of the convoy’s departure: it must sail when he wanted it to.

  In October he sailed from Toulon for Menorca to water and provision his ships. It was an obvious ruse to tempt the French out, and on its own would not have worked. But Collingwood anticipated French reaction. At Mahon, a few days after the fleet’s arrival, he received a French spy who had fed him reliable information on a number of occasions in the past. The spy told him that a convoy would sail from Toulon to relieve Barcelona in two or three weeks. Collingwood perfectly distrusted this man who, he was sure, had come to Mahon to determine the state of the British fleet. Now Collingwood executed the first part of his ‘sting’, as Abraham Crawford recalled:

  [The fleet’s] condition, however, when he arrived at Mahon, was well calculated to deceive a better judge than the Frenchman as to the probable time of its being ready for sea. Some of the ships, with sails unbent, were blacking yards and rigging; some with scaffolding over the sides, were caulking; some painting; while a few, with yards and topmasts struck, seemed almost dismantled. In fact, it looked as if the fleet had gone into harbour for the purpose of re-fitting, and that the time of its again sailing was quite indefinite.

  In an hour or so after his arrival, the Frenchman was dismissed, and the frigate which brought him again made sail for Toulon. Scarcely, however, had she left Cape Mola a league astern, when the signal was flying on board Ville de Paris for all Captains, and immediately after for the fleet to prepare for sea.42

  The result of Collingwood’s rather brilliant deception was that the British fleet came up with the convoy, escorted by three sail of the line and two frigates, on 23 October
1809, two days after the anniversary of Trafalgar. The convoy made off, and during an unpleasantly long night Collingwood thought he had lost them. But Admiral Martin’s detachment found them the following day, and gave chase. A French 80-gun ship and a 74 ran ashore and were destroyed by the French admiral. Another 74 ran ashore at Cette and five of the convoy ships were burnt. In the event the second 74 got away, but the final tally of the action was the destruction of two line ships and thirteen of the convoy (including a powder ship that blew up), while four other convoy ships were captured.43

  Collingwood may have hoped for something a little more spectacular, and it is true that this episode has never excited historians to hyperbole. Nevertheless, it was a highly effective action, and showed once again that Collingwood at sea was a match for any French plans in the Mediterranean. The Duke of Northumberland, on hearing of this success, wrote to him to say:

  I never can forget the accuracy with which you viewed the whole of this Spanish Business from the very first, and I only lament the Ministers shou’d give their confidence to those who, from their former situations, are not able to give them such good Information, as others, on whose Judgement they might more safely depend.44

  That was not all. Finally, Collingwood had prevailed on the reluctant Stuart to embark on offensive operations in the Ionian Islands, with the result that four of them had been wrested from the French. It was another triumph for a naval commander who had truly become, as the political diarist Thomas Creevey said …

  the prime and sole minister of England, acting upon the seas, corresponding himself with all surrounding States, and ordering and executing everything upon his own responsibility.45

  The cost to his own health and happiness had been terrible, but Collingwood accepted that as part of the duty of service he owed his country. But as if to twist the knife, the fates now contrived to deprive him of his most cherished companion, as he told his sister:

  You will be sorry to hear my poor dog Bounce is dead. I am afraid he fell overboard in the night. He is a great loss to me. I have few comforts, but he was one, for he loved me. Everybody sorrows for him. He was wiser than [many] who hold their heads higher and was grateful [to those] who were kind to him.46

  Bounce was, of course, irreplaceable. After an animal of such shining parts, Collingwood ‘could not bear a common creature’.47 He was to lose other friends as well. Alexander Ball died at Malta, much lamented not just by Collingwood, but by the Maltese themselves. And he finally determined to sell his beloved house on Oldgate, in Morpeth – partly because Sarah, now installed at Chirton, was spending so much money. And if she was not, then her father had become very free with it. But Collingwood assured his sister (evidently concerned at the apparent dissoluteness prevailing at Chirton) in a long and very detailed letter, that his daughters’ futures were secure, the title apart, and that he had taken steps to regain control over his finances from his wife’s family. He found the whole domestic situation depressing; it made him feel impotent and even more dislocated from the world than he was already. He had been at sea, almost unbroken, for nearly seven years, without having seen England or his family once. He had survived the battle of Trafalgar and two smaller fleet actions. He had kept the French fleet bottled up in Toulon, apart from two failed excursions, for four years. He had conducted a diplomatic and political plate-spinning exercise that is breathtaking in its scope and achievement. As the most eminent historian of the Mediterranean theatre, Piers Mackesy, wrote: ‘The scale was heroic; and over the vast canvas towers the figure of Collingwood.’48

  By the middle of November Collingwood had returned to Port Mahon. He was now very ill, weak and unsteady in his limbs, and suffering almost continually from his painful bowels. It was probably now that he rented the house at El Fonduco, though how much time he spent ashore is impossible to know. His doctors recommended that he try riding a horse, but it was too painful for him. He could barely eat, as the tumour in his stomach took hold and strangled his digestive system. At least from the house he could see Ville de Paris, moored in the deep clear waters of the harbour.

  Menorca can be a surprisingly grim place in winter. At this time Mahon was ‘a respectable little city, clean with no appearance of poverty or meanness about it’49 and a population of nearly sixteen thousand. But from October to April it is blasted by the tramontana and the mistral, and during the stormy season of 1809–10, with the Commander-in-Chief in failing health and with little sign of progress in the war (despite Wellesley’s victory at Talavera in July; now he had fallen back on Torres Vedras), good cheer must have been in short supply. British officers, who in summer and at carnival time would congregate at the Posada Alexandra in Mahon, to be taught their first, faltering steps in the contradansa Espanola,50 now kept to their ships and eked out their precious luxuries with little hope of being resupplied until spring.

  At the end of February 1810, now almost unable to walk, and forced to dictate letters for the first time in his life, Collingwood wrote to Lord Mulgrave resigning his commission as Commander-in-Chief. The game was up. The British government and the Admiralty had squeezed all the blood that could be squeezed from that stone.

  On 3 March Collingwood wrote a last letter to his brother:

  MY DEAR BROTHER, – My health has become so bad, and I am so weak that application to business is impossible. I have therefore informed the Admiralty that I shall leave this port tomorrow for Spithead, as the medical gentlemen here inform me my return home is the only means I have for a prospect of recovery.

  I should be glad to have Lady Collingwood and my daughters, or some of my family, in London, ready to join me at the port I arrive at, from whence I shall write to them (addressed at Ommaney’s) to tell them whither I intend to go for advice, and as soon as they arrive in London, I beg them to write a letter addressed to me at the Port Admiral’s at Portsmouth and one for Plymouth, so that I may know when I arrive whether they are in Town or not. Ever, my dear brother, Your affectionate, COLLINGWOOD.51

  Enclosed with this letter was one from Collingwood’s secretary, William Cosway, which needs no comment:

  SIR, – Your brother, Lord Collingwood, is extremely ill, and very much reduced. I believe it is supposed that Bath would be the best place for him to go, and if that should be decided on, we shall put into Plymouth. I shall in such case go with him to Bath and write to Ommaney the moment we get to port, or before if we meet any thing going home to inform you how it is.

  I think, Sir, you will judge it right to prepare Lady Collingwood and the Admiral’s daughters and family, for any event. His complaint is of that nature that it is impossible to foresee the result, and the Admiral aware of it, has arranged his affairs, which I am in possession of. His mind is as calm and serene as possible …52

  On the same day, 3 March 1810, Collingwood surrendered his command of the Mediterranean to Rear-Admiral Martin:

  The two following days were spent in unsuccessful attempts to warp the Ville de Paris out of Port Mahon; but on the 6th the wind came round to the westward, and at sunset the ship succeeded in clearing the harbour, and made sail for England. When Lord Collingwood was informed that he was again at sea, he rallied for a time his exhausted strength, and said to those around him, ‘Then I may yet live to meet the French once more.’ On the morning of the 7th there was a considerable swell, and his friend Captain Thomas, on entering his cabin, observed that he feared the motion of the vessel disturbed him. ‘No, Thomas,’ he replied, ‘I am now in a state in which nothing in this world can disturb me more. I am dying; and I am sure it must be consolatory to you, and all who love me, to see how comfortably I am coming to my end.’53

  Collingwood died at eight in the evening, on 7 March. On 21 April the Newcastle Courant reported:

  A mail from Malta and Gibraltar arrived on Tuesday; it has brought intelligence which will be received with the deepest concern, viz. the death of our highly distinguished and gallant townsman, Admiral Lord Collingwood. His health had long been i
n a declining state, but he persisted in keeping the sea, being anxious to bring the Toulon fleet to action, and by the defeat of the last naval force of the enemy, to complete the destruction of the French navy. He had not above once set his foot on shore since the great battle of Trafalgar. At length his health declined so much that he was under the necessity of determining to return to England. It pleased Heaven, however, that he should see his native land no more. On the 6th ult. He left Menorca, on board the Ville de Paris, and on the 7th he breathed his last. The Ville de Paris brought his honoured remains to Gibraltar; and on Monday they arived at Portsmouth on board the Nereus frigate … For some time before his death he was incapable of taking any sustenance whatever. Leaving only two daughters, the title dies with his Lordship; but his services will forever live in the memory of a grateful country.

  From Portsmouth Nereus carried the Admiral’s body to the Great Nore, where it was transferred into a barge and taken up the Thames to Greenwich. There it lay in state from 26 April to 11 May when the coffin was borne to St Paul’s cathedral by carriage, and buried next to that of Nelson in a plain and simple tomb, the coffin itself bizarrely enclosed in Cardinal Wolsey’s sarcophagus, donated by the Duke of Clarence. Mourners at the funeral included Lord Eldon, on whose arm a common seaman wept through the entire ceremony; Lord Cochrane, and Earl St Vincent: Old Jarvie – still alive and tough as old boots. Thirty admirals and captains of the fleet were also in attendance, along with scores of seamen of all ranks. Many he had served with, and many more may simply have turned up to see ‘Old Cuddy’ off in style. Even if they had never served under him, his reputation for humanity and fairness, for severe discipline tempered by humour and kindness, honed in more than forty years at sea, must have been known to all of them. It was a grand state occasion, even if it did not quite have the pathos or bathos of Nelson’s funeral. But by naval custom Collingwood’s servant Smith, who had been so astonished by the Admiral’s calmness before battle, was given the privilege of placing his baron’s coronet on the coffin.