I have already drawn attention to Nelson's blind prejudice to and hatred of the French. Collingwood was tainted with the same onesided views, but tempered them with more conventional language. In his letters to Lady Collingwood he expresses delight at receiving a letter written to him in French by his daughter, and exhorts the mother to see that she converses when she can in that language, and to remember that she is never to admire anything French but the language. On another occasion he enjoins his daughter Sarah to write every day a translation of English into French, so that the language may soon become familiar to her; and then, as though he regarded these instructions as unpatriotic, he qualifies them by reminding her "that it is the only thing French that she needs to acquire, because there is little else in connection with that country which he would wish her to love or imitate." A kinsman of his, after the battle of Trafalgar, wrote to inform him that his family were descended from, and allied to, many great families, Talebois amongst the rest. He brushed the intended compliment aside, and in his quaint manner remarked that "he had never troubled to search out his genealogy but all he could say was, that if he got hold of the French fleet, he would either be a Viscount or nothing." This is one of the very rare symptoms of vaunting that he ever gave way to; and though his dislike of the French was as inherent as Nelson's, he never allowed his chivalrous nature to be overruled by passion. In a letter to Lord Radstock in 1806 he closes it by paying a high tribute to the unfortunate French Admiral Villeneuve by stating "that he was a well-bred man, and a good officer, who had nothing of the offensive vapourings and boastings in his manner which were, perhaps, too commonly attributed to the Frenchmen."
Collingwood was a man of high ideals with a deeply religious fervour, never sinning and then repenting as Nelson was habitually doing. Physical punishment of his men was abhorrent to him, and although he enforced stern discipline on his crew, they worshipped him. "I cannot understand," he said, "the religion of an officer who can pray all one day and flog his men all the next." His method was to create a feeling of honour amongst his men, and he did this with unfailing success, without adopting the harsh law of the land made by English aristocrats.
In a letter to his wife, dated September, 1806, Collingwood informs her that the Queen of Naples expected to be put on the throne of Naples again and had intimated the desire of showing her gratitude to himself by creating him a Sicilian Duke and giving him an estate. "If a Dukedom is offered to me," he tells her, "I shall return my thanks for the honour they wish to confer upon me, and show my estimate of it by telling them that I am the servant of my sovereign alone, and can receive no rewards from a foreign prince." Napoleon denounced Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples, as "a wicked shameless woman, who had violated all that men held most sacred." She had ceased to reign, and by her crimes she had fulfilled her destiny. Collingwood, who knew her public and private character to be notoriously untrustworthy and loose, looked upon the proposed honour from such a person as an affront, and refused to accept it if offered. Nelson, on the other hand, who had a passion for window-dressing and flattery, accepted with a flowing heart both a Dukedom and an estate from their Sicilian Majesties. His close intimacy with the Royal Family, and especially with the Queen, was a perpetual anxiety to his loyal and devoted friends.
There were no two men in the Service who had such an affectionate regard for each other as Nelson and the amiable Northumbrian Admiral, and certainly none equalled them in their profession or in their devotion to their King and country. Each was different from the other in temperament and character, but both were alike in superb heroism—the one, egotistically untamed, revelling at intervals in lightning flashes of eternal vengeance on the French fleet when the good fortune of meeting them should come; and the other, with calm reticence elaborating his plans and waiting patiently for his chance to take part in the challenge that was to decide the dominion of the sea. Each, in fact, rivalled in being a spirit to the other. Nelson believed, and frequently said, that he "wished to appear as a godsend"; while Collingwood, in more humble and piercing phrase, remarked that "while it is England, let me keep my place in the forefront of the battle." The sound of the names of these two remarkable men is like an echo from other far-off days. Both believed that God was on their side.
Neither of them knew the character or purpose of the exalted man on whom their Government was making war. Like simple-minded, brave sailors as they were, knowing nothing of the mysteries of political jealousies and intrigue, and believing that the men constituting the Government must be of high mental and administrative ability, they assumed that they were carrying out a flawless patriotic duty, never doubting the wisdom of it; and it was well for England that they did not. Men always fight better when they know and believe their cause is just.
Collingwood, like most of his class, gave little thought to money matters. He had "no ambition," he says, "to possess riches," but he had to being recognized in a proper way. He wished the succession of his title to be conferred on his daughters, as he had no son. This was a modest and very natural desire, considering what the nation owed to him, but it was not granted, and the shame of it can never be redeemed. In one of his letters to Mr. Blackett he says to him, "I was exceedingly displeased at some of the language held in the House of Commons on the settlement of the pension upon my daughters; it was not of my asking, and if I had a favour to ask, money would be the last thing I would beg from an impoverished country. I am not a Jew, whose god is gold; nor a Swiss, whose services are to be counted against so much money. I have motives for my conduct which I would not give in exchange for a hundred pensions."
These lines speak eloquently of the high order of this illustrious man. He despises money, but claims it as his right to have proper recognition of his services, which the Government should have given him generously and with both hands. In so many words he says, "Keep your money, I am not to be bought, but confer on me if you will some suitable token that will convince me that you do really, in the name of the nation, appreciate what I have done for it." Services such as he had rendered could never have been adequately rewarded by either money or honours, no matter how high in degree. In the affairs of money these two great Admirals were pretty similar, except that Collingwood knew better how to spend it than Nelson. Both were generous, though the former had method and money sense, while the latter does not appear to have had either. He was accustomed to say "that the want of fortune was a crime which he could never get over." Both in temperament and education Collingwood was superior to Nelson. The former knew that he had done and was capable of doing great deeds, but he would never condescend to seek for an honour reward; while Nelson, who also knew when he had distinguished himself in the national interest, expected to be rewarded, and on occasions when it was too tardily withheld, he became peevish, whimpered a good deal about his illtreatment, and on more than one occasion showed unbecoming rage at being neglected.
After Copenhagen, the wigs were fairly on the green because he was created a Viscount instead of an Earl. He talked a good deal about the Tower, a Dukedom, or Westminster Abbey, and had ways of demanding attention for which Collingwood had neither the aptitude nor the inclination, though his naval qualities were quite equal to Nelson's. But with all their faults and virtues, there was never any petty jealousy between the two heroes, who lie at rest side by side in the tombs at St. Paul's. Faithful to their naval orthodoxy that it was incumbent for every Christian sailor-man to wash clean his conscience when he was passing from time into eternity, Nelson on the 21st October, 1805, and Collingwood five years later, avowed to those who had the honour of closing their eyes for evermore that they "had not been great sinners," and then slipped into eternal sleep; each of them leaving behind a name that will live and descend into distant ages.
We left Villeneuve, the unfortunate but distinctly brave French Commander-in-Chief of the allied fleet at Trafalgar, aboard the Mars. He was subsequently sent a prisoner to England, and after a short stay, he was allowed to go to France, and broke his journey at Rennes on his way to Paris. The poor broken-hearted fellow was found dead in his room, having committed suicide. There is not the remotest foundation for the unworthy report that was spread that he was put to death by Napoleon's orders. The Emperor was much too big a man, occupied with human projects too vast, to waste a moment's thought or to stain his name over an unfortunate admiral who had brought his fleet to grief by acting against his instructions. It is only little men who write, not that which is founded on fact but that which they imagine will appeal to the popular taste of the moment; and so it was with the French Emperor; a lot of scandalmongers were always at work hawking hither and thither their poisonous fabrications. A great many people get their living by appealing to the lowest passions. Napoleon, when in captivity, referred incidentally to the misfortunes of Villeneuve, and made the following statement to Dr. O'Meara:—
"Villeneuve," said he, "when taken prisoner and brought to England, was so much grieved at his defeat, that he studied anatomy on purpose to destroy himself. For this purpose he bought some anatomical plates of the heart, and compared them with his own body, in order to ascertain the exact situation of that organ. On his arrival in France I ordered that he should remain at Rennes, and not proceed to Paris. Villeneuve, afraid of being tried by a court-martial for disobedience of orders, and consequently losing the fleet, for I had ordered him not to sail or to engage the English, determined to destroy himself, and accordingly took his plates of the heart, and compared them with his breast. Exactly in the centre of the plate he made a mark with a large pin, then fixed the pin as near as he could judge in the same spot in his own breast, shoved it in to the head, penetrated his heart and expired. When the room was opened he was found dead; the pin in his breast, and a mark in the plate corresponding with the wound in his breast. He need not have done it," continued he, "as he was a brave man, though possessed of no talent."[18]