On the _Victory's_ arrival at Spithead with Nelson's remains aboard,
preserved in spirits, the body was taken out and put in a leaden
coffin filled with brandy and other strong preservatives. On the
arrival of the _Victory_ at the entrance of the Thames, the body was
removed, dressed in the Admiral's uniform, and put into the coffin
made out of the mainmast of _L'Orient_ and presented to Nelson some
years before by Captain Hallowell. It was then put into a third case,
and on the 9th January, 1806, after lying in state for three days, the
remains were buried in St. Paul's.
The imposing demonstrations of sorrow could not be excelled.
Parliament voted a monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, and others were
erected in all the principal towns in England and Scotland. There were
neither material honours nor eulogies great enough to express the
gratitude that was felt throughout the United Kingdom for the late
Admiral's achievements. His widow, whom he had not seen for years, and
from whom he was definitely parted, was granted £2,000 per annum for
life. His brother was made an Earl, with a perpetual income of £6,000
a year, and £15,000 of national money was voted to each of the
sisters, while £100,000 was given for an estate to be attached to the
title. The human legacy left by Nelson of Emma Hamilton and their
daughter Horatia were not mentioned, though he seems to have implored
Heaven and earth in their behalf. Obviously, the Government felt that
they dare not be generous to everybody, even though it were Nelson's
dying injunction. Collingwood, who had as much to do with the triumph
of Trafalgar as Nelson himself, without making any ado about it, was
treated pretty much like a provincial mayor. The mayor, of course,
may and often does adopt a luxurious Roman style of living in
order that his local deeds may not escape observation, but such
self-advertisement was entirely foreign to Collingwood's character.
It was fitting that every reasonable honour should have been paid to
the memory of a great Englishman, whose deeds, in co-operation with
others, have never been surpassed. But to make grants and give honours
of so generous a character to Nelson's relatives, and especially
to his wife, who had been a torment to him, and to measure out
Collingwood's equally great accomplishments with so mean a hand, is an
astonishing example of parsimony which, for the sake of our national
honour, it is to be hoped rarely occurs. Even the haughty, plethoric
nobles of a fourth-rate town council (if it be not a libel to mention
them in connection with so discreditable an affair) would have judged
the manifest fitness of things better than to make any distinction
between Admiral Collingwood and his lifelong friend Nelson.
Surely this famous and eminently worthy public servant was as
deserving of an Earldom as was Nelson's brother, and his wife and
daughters of a more generous allowance than that of his dead chief's
widow and sisters!--this distinguished man, who helped to plan the
order of battle at Trafalgar and was the first to take his ship into
action in a way that inflamed the pride and admiration of the
Commander-in-Chief, and made him spontaneously exclaim, "See,
Blackwood, how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship into
battle! How I envy him!"
No one knew as well as Nelson that his comrade, next to himself, was
to play the leading part in not only assuring a victory, but in
completely annihilating the French and Spanish fleets. Yet the British
Government of that day only counted the services he had rendered to
the nation worthy of a peerage, plus the same pension as Nelson's
widow; i.e. he was to have a pension of £2,000 a year, and after his
death Lady Collingwood was to have the munificent sum of £1,000 per
annum and each of his two daughters £500 a year. He never drew his
pension, as they kept him in the service he had made so great until he
was a physical wreck. He died on his way home aboard the _Ville de
Paris_ on the 7th March, 1810, and was laid to rest in St. Paul's
Cathedral alongside of his distinguished friend Lord Nelson.
I have already drawn attention to Nelson's blind prejudice to and
hatred of the French. Collingwood was tainted with the same one-sided
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 scandal-mongers 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]
I have given this communication in full as it appears in O'Meara's
book, because the scribes would have it that Villeneuve was destroyed
by the Emperor's orders. There was not at the time, nor has there ever
appeared since, anything to justify such a calumny on a man who
challenged the world to make the charge and prove that he had ever
committed a crime during the whole of his public career. No one has
taken up the challenge except in sweeping generalities of slander,
which are easily made but less easy to substantiate. If the Emperor
had really wished to take Villeneuve's life, it would have been more
satisfactory to have him condemned to death by a court-martial
composed of his countrymen than to have the already ruined man
secretly destroyed for mere private revenge. The common sense of the
affair compels one to repudiate the idea of the Emperor's complicity
in so stupid a crime. It is more likely that Napoleon wished to save
him from the consequences of a court-martial, so ordered him to remain
at Rennes. He rarely punished offenders according to their offences.
After the first flush of anger was over, they were generally let down
easily, and for the most part became traitors afterwards.
We need not waste time or space in dilating on what would have
happened to Nelson had he put at defiance the authority that
controlled him and the irreparable disaster that would have followed.
Villeneuve has been belauded for his gallantry in the fight at
Trafalgar; indeed, we learn, from sources that may be relied upon,
that his bravery, dispositions in battle, and art of enthusing his
followers could not be surpassed. His signals to the fleet were almost
identical with Nelson's. Here is one: "Celui qui ne serait pas dans le
feu ne serait pas à son poste"; the literal translation of which is:
"He who would not be in the fire would not be at his post"; or, "The
man who would hold his post must stand fire," which is quite an
inspiring signal. But I wonder what the eulogists of Villeneuve would
have written of him had he been the victor instead of the defeated. It
is generous to give praise to the unfortunate Admiral for whom Nelson
had such an aversion and who was constantly threatened by him with
vigorous chastisement when he caught him; but generosity was not the
motive--it was only part of the loose-lipped, unclean policy of
decrying Napoleon. It is horrible, ungrateful, and foul brutishness of
the Corsican tyrant to court-martial so amiable and brave a man as
Villeneuve because he proceeded out of Cadiz against orders and
suffered a crushing defeat! It is quite permissible for a French
admiral to put authority at defiance if doing so complies with the
sentiments of anti-Napoleon writers, who were either ill-informed,
purblind critics or eaten up with insincerity or moral malaria! But it
is the maintenance of discipline to have men like Sir John Byng
court-martialled and shot after being tried, it is said, by a not
entirely impartial court, on the supposition that he had neglected his
duty in an engagement with the French off Minorca on the 20th May,
1756, and committed an error of judgment. A rather remarkable method
of enforcing discipline, to shoot an admiral for an error of judgment!
Take another case of high-ordered, solemn devotion to discipline: Sir
Robert Calder, who had gained an important victory over the French at
Finisterre, was court-martialled, condemned and ruined, ostensibly
because he did not achieve a greater victory. The decisions of both
cases were crimes, not desire for the maintenance of discipline. It
was, and ever will be, a stain on the name of justice. I need not
carry this further, except to say that according to the solemn logic
of some writers, it was murder for Napoleon or some of his ministers
to have the Duc d'Enghien shot for having conspired with others for
the overthrow of the established French Government, but it is the
saintly enforcement of discipline to have a British admiral shot and
another ruined for no other reason than an error of judgment on the
one hand and an insufficient victory on the other. Sir Robert Calder's
heart was broken by cruelty. Villeneuve lost his fleet and killed
himself, not that he had anything to fear from the decision of the
court-martial--so it is said on the authority of an English writer of
note. Certainly he had nothing to fear from the Emperor, who has
indicated that he had no intention of dealing severely with him. It
was fitting that he should be reprimanded, and no doubt he would have
been, after which, as was his custom, the Emperor would have conferred
some kindly favour upon him. Serene authors have entangled themselves
a good deal over this matter in their efforts to take up the
impossible position of making the Emperor and not Villeneuve
responsible for the disaster at Trafalgar to the Spanish and French
fleet. Of course, Napoleon was badly chagrined, and so would the King
of England have been, if it were thinkable that such a calamity could
possibly have befallen any British fleet. The head of the French
nation would have been less than human had he not felt the full force
of the terrific blow to his country, and especially to himself.