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"The first ship we engaged was the San Salvador del Mundo of 112 guns, a first-rate; we were not further from her when we began than the length of our garden. Her colours soon came down, and her fire ceased. hailed and asked if they surrendered; and when by signs made by a man who stood by the colours, I understood that they had, I left her to be taken possession of by somebody behind, and made sail for the next, but was very much surprised on looking back to find her colours up again and her battle recommenced. We very

soon came up with the next, the San Isidro, 74, and so close alongside that a man might jump from one ship to the other. Our fire carried all before it; and in ten minutes she hauled down her colours, but I had been deceived once and obliged this fellow to hoist English colours before I left him, and made a signal for somebody behind to board him, when the Admiral ordered the Lively frigate to take charge of him. Then making all sail, passing between our line and the enemy, we came up with the San Nicolas of 80 guns, which happened at the time to be abreast of the San Josef of 112 guns; we did not touch sides, but you could not put a bodkin between us, so that our shot passed through both ships, and in attempting to extricate themselves they got on board each other. My good friend the Commodore [Nelson] had been long engaged with these ships, and I came happily to his relief, for he was dreadfully mauled. Having engaged them until their fire ceased on me, though their colours were not down, I went on to the Santissima Trinidada, the Spanish Admiral's ship of 132 guns on four complete decks, such a ship as I never saw before. . . . We were engaged an hour with the ship

The story is so simply and modestly told that one hardly realises that Collingwood had engaged five different ships, four of them of superior strength to his own. But the gunnery of the British fleet was superb, and that of Collingwood's ship always, if possible, ahead of the rest. This time his service did not want for recognition. Nelson thanked him in the warmest terms, treating his rescue not less as a personal than as a public matter; while Vice-Admiral Waldegrave and his captain Dacres likewise wrote to him with commendations hardly less flattering, and quoted the praise both of Nelson and St. Vincent. The medal for the action was awarded to him, but he, "with great feeling and firmness refused it unless that for the 1st of June were granted to him also. "That is precisely the answer which I expected to have from Captain Collingwood," replied St. Vincent; and both medals were presently sent to him together.

For the next two years Collingwood remained with the fleet blockading Cadiz; but there was a more terrible enemy than French or Spaniards to be tackled at this time, for we now reach the outbreak of the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. It is difficult to appreciate in these days the full magnitude of this terrible crisis, and the superb coolness wherewith the English authorities, from Pitt downwards, confronted it. Not a man seems to have lost his head. The present writer has by chance examined the official correspondence of the PortAdmiral at Portsmouth (Sir Peter Parker) at this period; and but for occasional utterances, showing indeed deep anxiety but no sign of despair, one would hardly guess that the mutiny

was in full swing. St. Vincent likewise had to face the prevailing disaffection in his fleet, and did so with the magnificent masterfulness that has become a proverb. We need hardly We need hardly recall the story of the ship's company that gave signs of refusing to hang some condemned mutineers of its own number; how the one-armed captain reported to St. Vincent that his men would not obey the order, how St. Vincent swore that they should, and how finally the doomed men were swung up by their messmates to the yard-arm, and St. Vincent, raising his hat, uttered the grim words, "Discipline is preserved, Sir."

Such was one of the Admiral's remedies for mutineers, but the other, though less violent, was quite as effective. "Send them to Collingwood," he used to say, "and he will bring them to order." and Collingwood did bring them to order, not by the "cat," but by simple firmness and justice. The man, in fact, was stronger than any weapon of punishment. The record of one year's punishment, that of 1793, is preserved, from which it appears that he flogged but twelve men in the twelve months, never inflicting more than twelve lashes and generally no more than six or seven. Such punishment was hardly to be reckoned a flogging in those days. But Collingwood hated the "cat"; and when we reflect that even Cochrane, who loved his men and was worshipped by them, pleaded hard against the abolition of flogging, we can only marvel that a man, with no magic of personality such as Nelson's or Cochrane's, could have found his own force of character sufficient to cope with the greatest ruffians in the service. He was unquestionably the finest disciplinarian in the navy, and for all his humanity a stern man. "I know your character well," he said to a dangerous mutineer who was sent to him to be tamed. "If you behave

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well in future I will treat you like the rest, nor notice here what happened in another ship; but if you endeavour to excite mutiny, mark me well, I will instantly head you up in a cask and throw you into the sea.' There was no more trouble with that man. as a rule Collingwood, like the best officers in both services, preferred punishments which would cause a man to be laughed at by his comrades, well knowing that this is the one thing that he cannot endure. Marryat has sketched for us such an officer in

Remedy Jack," the first lieutenant of Peter Simple's first ship. And Collingwood kept officers in as good order as men. "I have given you a commission into the Excellent," said St. Vincent, to a young officer, "but remember that you are going to a man who will take it away from you to-morrow if you behave ill." He also paid particular attention to his midshipmen, considering it a point of honour with himself that not one should leave him unfit to pass for promotion. Yet it was his inflexible rule to uphold the authority of every officer, whatever his rank, with the same severity as his own. If a midshipman made complaint against a man, that man was unfailingly ordered for punishment next day; but meanwhile Collingwood took the lad aside and suggested to him the propriety of asking grace for the culprit when he should be brought out. all probability the fault was yours," he would say ; "but whether it was or not, I am sure it would go to your heart to see a man old enough to be your father disgraced and punished on your account." So the midshipman interceded, the captain, with some show of reluctance, pardoned, and discipline was upheld. On the other hand, he would not even permit his officers to address a man as "you sir," (a form of appellation which lasted in the army until the Crimean war, but now survives,

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so far as we know, only among the negroes in the West Indies,) on the ground that it was unnecessarily discourteous and contemptuous. "If you don't know a man's name," he said, rather implying that an officer ought to know his men by name, "call him sailor."

This troublesome period of mutiny passed, Collingwood, for all his good service, was destined to suffer another severe disappointment. His ship, though in every respect in perfect condition, was not one of those which sailed with Nelson to fight the battle of the Nile. His letters at this time are almost plaintive (though never unmanly) in their regret that he should not have taken part in his old friend's greatest victory. In the following year (1799) came the series of blunders whereby St. Vincent and Keith, between them, contrived to allow the French Admiral Bruix to make a raid into the Mediterranean, effect a junction with the Spanish fleet, and return in safety to Brest. This failure led to much bad blood in the fleet, and to an angry wrangle as to the man who should be held responsible. The public blamed Keith, Cochrane, who hated St. Vincent, acquits him; Collingwood, who was much saddened by the whole fiasco, shows pretty clearly that both were in fault. Seeing from the first that the whole plan of operations was mistaken, he predicted the issue some months before it was fulfilled with an accuracy that speaks volumes for his strategical insight.

Meanwhile he had in February, 1789, been promoted to be RearAdmiral of the White, and on returning from Keith's fleet in the Mediterranean, was attached to the Channel fleet under St. Vincent and employed in the blockade of Brest. Under Lord Bridport's command a good deal of slackness had crept into

the Channel squadron, and, in Nelson's words, it required a man of Collingwood's firmness to keep some of the captains up to their duty. But now the peace of Amiens gave him a little rest, and a last happy time at Morpeth with his beloved wife and his two little girls. He threw himself into the peace of domestic life with passionate enjoyment, reading extensively, superintending the education of his children, and, above all, gardening. It is curious to remark the fascination that the tilling of the soil possesses for fighting men; Marmont and Cochrane, for instance, turned to it with eagerness in their days of retirement. Then came the renewal of the war in 1803, and the close of the one year that Collingwood spent ashore in England from 1793 to his death in 1810. "Here comes Collingwood," said Admiral Cornwallis, when he assembled his fleet for the blockade of Brest, "the last to leave and the first to join me.' His industry and vigilance in the prosecution of the blockade was stupendous. He never lay down but with his clothes on, and passed whole nights pacing the quarter-deck. His lieutenant would occasionally press him to take rest as he must be exhausted by fatigue. "I fear you are," the Admiral would answer; so go to bed, Clavell, and I will watch by myself." Sometimes the pair would doze for a time on a gun, Collingwood starting up from time to time to sweep the horizon with his night-glass. Heavy gales and unseaworthy ships added to the misery of the life. His flagship on survey proved to be utterly rotten. "We have been sailing for two months with only a sheet of copper between us and eternity." Moreover there was the discomfort, to which the necessities of the blockade subjected him, of constantly shifting from ship to ship. Yet there he remained, vigilant

and careful as ever, recording with pride that even after eighteen weeks at sea he had not a sick man on board his vessel. Mr. Russell may well dwell on the wretchedness of blockading. We must, however, remark in passing that when, as occasionally happens, he calls in question the whole policy of blockade, and advocates Howe's system in preference to St. Vincent's, he raises points which are, to say the least, debateable.

About the middle of 1804 Collingwood was detached southward in pursuit of the French fleet, and in August, when cruising with but five ships under his command, was chased by the combined fleets of France and Spain, thirty-six vessels in all. Determined

not to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar unless they followed him, he turned in the Gut and (to use the phrase of a contemporary writer) "smiled at them"; and when finally they abandoned the chase and returned to Cadiz, he pursued them and blockaded them therein with his little squadron. His boldness and skill on this occasion, perhaps only to be truly appreciated by seamen, were warmly praised by his brother officers, and especially by Nelson. Shortly after he was reinforced by eighteen sail of the line under Sir Robert Calder, and then the weary work of interminable cruising began again, first before Rochefort, and then before Brest. An occasional run to Torbay gave little relief and no change, for not a man from the fleet went ashore, and visitors from the land had to take the risk of an involuntary voyage. At last on the 21st of October the French and Spanish fleets were caught at Trafalgar. Every Englishman knows how Collingwood led the way into the fight far ahead of any other ship, made first for the Santa Anna, crushed her with a broadside which killed three hundred and fifty men, and was No. 427.-VOL. LXXII.

presently engaged with no fewer than five of the enemy. And in the midst of the contest the gallant old Admiral, in his best uniform, knee-breeches, silk stockings and buckled shoes, paced watchfully to and fro munching an apple. "You had better put on silk stockings as I have," he said to his first lieutenant on the morning of the fight; "for if one should get shot in the leg they would be so much more manageable for the surgeon." As the struggle went on he went down among the men, sighted several of the guns himself and encouraged all hands. At one moment, in the hottest of the fire, he gave way to his ruling passion of economy of the King's stores, solemnly rolled up, with the assistance of his first lieutenant, a topgallant studding-sail, which was hanging loose over the hammocks, and stowed it carefully away, observing that it would be wanted some other day.

After the action came the task of facing a furious gale with a fleet of disabled ships. Nelson's last orders had been for the fleet to anchor, and Collingwood has been repeatedly blamed for neglecting them; but Mr. Clark Russell shows conclusively that it was impracticable in the circumstances to obey them. All that Collingwood could do he did, which was to destroy the captured ships; and this in itself was a task so difficult that St. Vincent declared his conduct in accomplishing it to be above all praise. But still he kept the sea, "to show the enemy that it was not a battle or a storm which could remove a British squadron from the station which they were ordered to hold." The news of the victory at home procured for him a peerage and a pension of £2,000 a year for his life; but little consideration was paid to his wishes in respect to the fleet. He pleaded hard for some special

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reward for officers and men, as the usual profits of victory had been lost through the destruction of the prizes, and he pressed for the promotion of deserving officers; but neither request was granted. Still he knew his duty and could do it, and that was enough for him. "The Admiralty have abandoned me," he wrote. "I never hear from them, but am labouring for everything that is to promote the interest of my country." He begged but one thing for himself, namely, that his title might descend to his daughter. "I believe your Lordship will allow that I have a sort of claim to be indulged," he wrote with pathetic humour, "when I tell you that but for my constant service at sea since the year 1793, I should probably ere now have had half-a-dozen sons to succeed me." It must have been a hard man that refused a plea so quaintly and yet tellingly put forward, but refused it was.

Our space is running out, and we must perforce abridge the closing years of Collingwood's life. He entered after Trafalgar upon a task of diplomacy no less than strategy that fairly wore him out. Complications in Sicily, in Calabria, in Turkey, in Portugal and in Spain (for we now approach the opening of the Peninsular war) kept him tied to his desk and worried by anxiety day and night. Bad luck also dogged his operations against the French, and it was not until late in 1809, six months after Cochrane had made his memorable attack on the fleet in Aix Roads, that he at last got among the fragments of the French navy and broke them up. His health by that time was hopelessly undermined; hard life at sea (he was actually twenty-two consecutive months afloat without dropping anchor in those last years), and still harder work as Commander-in-Chief had found out his weak point. By the opening of 1810

a stomachic complaint, which had long tortured him, became so severe that he could scarcely eat; and at last on the 3rd of March, 1810, he resigned his command and embarked on the Ville de Paris for England. To all subordinates he had willingly granted leave, but to himself never. With all his home-sickness, for never man yearned to return to his wife and daughters more earnestly than Collingwood, he stuck to his duty to the last, and died, but four days after the resignation of his command, on the 7th of March, 1810.

He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral by the side of Nelson on the 11th of May. One of the many unsightly masses of marble that cumber the eastern end of the south aisle records with no extraordinary felicity the services which he rendered; and the debt of honour thus discharged, the nation has conspired to forget him. Yet he was, as we have said, one of the noblest sailors who ever wore the King's uniform, the very finest example of an officer and a gentleman that can be held up to all ranks of the navy. In the three most dazzling naval commanders of that time, Nelson, Cochrane, and Sidney Smith, one has always a perception of some theatrical element. We feel sadly convinced that if they had lived in these days they would have suffered the reporter gladly, and submitted their early portraits to THE STRAND MAGAZINE. Brilliant as was the work that they did, they never quite forgot themselves therein. Collingwood was cast in a different mould. He always ignored himself and his own share in the work. No one could gather from his despatch a hint of his extraordinary gallantry at Trafalgar. Yet his was no cold, haughty, cynical nature, for he was as soft-hearted as a woman, and keenly sensitive to ill-treatment or neglect. His sense of duty was as high as Wellington's, yet without Welling