Drake, Nelson and Napoleon Part 7

I am, ever, your most truly affectionate,

CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD.

I have ordered all the boys to be discharged into this s.h.i.+p; another such fight will season them pretty well. Brown is in perfect health. We had forty-seven killed, ninety-four wounded.

Great efforts were made to get all the people out of the disabled vessels before they drifted ash.o.r.e. It is really splendid to read the official account of the deeds of bravery of our fine fellows risking their own lives to save the lives of those they had defeated. Seven days after the battle, the Victory arrived at Gibraltar, and although her masts had been shot away and her hull badly damaged, she was refitted and sailed for England on the 4th November, the same day that the straggling Dumanoir and his s.h.i.+ps fell into the hands of Sir Richard Strachan in the Bay of Biscay.

XIV

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 princ.i.p.al towns in England and Scotland. There were neither material honours nor eulogies great enough to express the grat.i.tude 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 t.i.tle. 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-advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 surpa.s.sed. 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 astonis.h.i.+ng example of parsimony which, for the sake of our national honour, it is to be hoped rarely occurs. Even the haughty, plethoric n.o.bles 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 s.h.i.+p 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 n.o.ble fellow Collingwood takes his s.h.i.+p 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 a.s.suring 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 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 pa.s.sion. 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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 grat.i.tude 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 pa.s.sion 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 G.o.dsend"; 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 G.o.d 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 const.i.tuting the Government must be of high mental and administrative ability, they a.s.sumed 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 cla.s.s, 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 t.i.tle 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 G.o.d 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 apt.i.tude 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 inc.u.mbent for every Christian sailor-man to wash clean his conscience when he was pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sions. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 surpa.s.sed. 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 a 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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.

Disposition of Fleets at TRAFALGAR

TRAFALGAR, 21ST OCTOBER, 1805. DETAILED LIST OF s.h.i.+PS ENGAGED.

(A) BRITISH ORDER OF BATTLE, WITH THE NAMES OF THE FLAG OFFICERS AND CAPTAINS.

VAN, OR WEATHER COLUMN.

s.h.i.+ps. Guns. Commanders. Killed. Wounded.

Victory 100 Vice-Ad. Visc. Nelson 51 75 Captain T. M. Hardy Temeraire 98 Eliab Harvey 47 76 Neptune 98 T.F. Freemantle 10 34 Conqueror 74 Israel Pellew 3 9 Leviathan 74 H. W. Bayntun 4 22 Ajax 74 Lieut. J. Pilfold -- 9 Orion 74 Edward Codrington 1 23 Agamemnon 64 Sir Edward Berry 2 7 Minotaur 74 C. J. M. Mansfield 3 22 Spartiate 74 Sir F. Laforey, Bart. 3 20 Britannia 100 Rear-Ad. Earl Northesk 10 42 Captain Charles Bullen Africa 64 Henry Digby 18 44 --- --- 154 383 --- ---

FRIGATES.

s.h.i.+ps. Guns. Commanders.

Euryalus 36 Hon. H. Blackwood Sirius 36 William Prowse Phoebe 36 Hon. T. B. Capel Naiad 38 T. Dundas Pickle 12 Lieut. J. R. Lapenotiere Intreprenante 12 Lieut. R. B. Young (cutter)

REAR, OR LEE COLUMN.

s.h.i.+ps. Guns. Commanders. Killed. Wounded Royal Sovereign 100 Vice-Ad. Collingwood 47 94 Captain E. Rotherham Mars 74 George Duff 29 69 Belleisle 74 William Hargood 33 93 Tonnant 80 Charles Tyler 26 50 Bellerophon 74 John Cooke 27 133 Colossus 74 J. N. Morris 40 160 Achille 74 Richard King 13 59 Polyphemus 64 Robert Redmill 2 4 Revenge 74 R. Moorsom 28 51 Swiftsure 74 W. G. Rutherford 9 7 Defence 74 George Hope 7 29 Thunderer 74 Lieut. J. Stockham 4 16 Prince 98 Richard Grindall -- -- Defiance 74 P. C. Durham 17 53 Dreadnought 98 John Conn 7 26 --- --- 263 794 --- ---

NOTE.-Lieutenants Pilfold and Stockham were acting for Captains W. Brown and Lechmere, absent on Sir R. Calder's trial; the Lieutenants, W.P. Camby, of the Bellerophon, and W. Hannah, of the Mars, having their Captains killed, the whole of these officers, with Lieutenant Quillam, first of the Victory, were made Post immediately.

(B) A LIST OF THE COMBINED FLEET OF FRANCE AND SPAIN, SHOWING HOW THEY WERE DISPOSED OF.

1. Spanish s.h.i.+p, San Ildefonso, 74 guns, Brigadier Don Joseph de Varga, sent to Gibraltar.

2. Spanish s.h.i.+p, San Juan Nepomuceno, 74 guns, Brigadier Don Cosme Cherruca, sent to Gibraltar.

3. Spanish s.h.i.+p, Bahama, 74 guns. Brigadier Don A.D. Galiano, sent to Gibraltar.

4. French s.h.i.+p, Swiftsure, 74 guns, Monsieur Villemadrin, sent to Gibraltar.

5. Spanish s.h.i.+p, Monarca, 74 guns, Don Teodoro Argumosa, wrecked off San Lucar.

6. French s.h.i.+p, Fougeux, 74 guns, Monsieur Beaudouin, wrecked off Trafalgar, all perished, and 30 of the Temeraire's men.

7. French s.h.i.+p, Indomitable, 84 guns, Monsieur Hubart, wrecked off Rota, all perished, said to have had 1,500 men on board.

8. French s.h.i.+p, Bucentaure, 80 guns, Admiral Villeneuve, Commander-in-Chief, Captains Prigny and Magendie, wrecked on the Porques, some of the crew saved.

9. Spanish s.h.i.+p, San Francisco de Asis, 74 guns, Don Luis de Flores, wrecked near Rota.

10. Spanish s.h.i.+p, El Rayo, 100 guns, Brigadier Don Henrique Macdonel, taken by Donegal, and wrecked near San Lucar.

11. Spanish s.h.i.+p, Neptuno, 84 guns, Brigadier Don Cayetano Valdes, wrecked between Rota and Catalina.

12. French s.h.i.+p, Argonaute, 74 guns, Monsieur Ep.r.o.n, on sh.o.r.e in the port of Cadiz. (By subsequent account not lost.)

13. French s.h.i.+p, Berwick, 74 guns, Monsieur Camas, wrecked to the northward of San Lucar.

14. French s.h.i.+p, Aigle, 74 guns, Monsieur Courage, wrecked near Rota.

15. French s.h.i.+p, Achille, 74 guns, Monsieur de Nieuport, burnt during the action.