Admiral Collingwood by Max Adams

Author:Max Adams [Adams, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784081935
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2015-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

9

Giddy with the multiplicities

1806–1808

Collingwood’s head was spinning too, and with good reason. In October 1805 he had been second-in-command to Nelson at a victory which was (and still is) seen as delivering the coup de grâce to Napoleon’s overseas ambitions. But it did not, and five short months later everything had changed. Trafalgar may have been morally decisive, but it left Britain tactically weaker than she had been before: her Mediterranean fleet was shattered; the enemy still had squadrons at Cadiz, Cartagena, Rochefort, Brest and Toulon. And even as news of an English naval victory filtered through the courts of Europe, so did word of Napoleon’s crushing defeat of the Russian-Austrian army at Austerlitz in December. Then in January 1806 William Pitt died, leaving a vacuum at the heart of Britain’s wartime strategy that the so-called ‘Ministry of all the Talents’ (an ineffective coalition) could not fill. With Pitt and Nelson gone, and Napoleon the master of Europe, who would be England’s saviour now?

By the spring of 1806, not yet half-way through a staggering seven-year unbroken tour of duty that would kill him, Cuthbert Collingwood had become Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean fleet, and effective viceroy at sea from Cadiz to Constantinople. He had been promoted to vice-admiral of the red. He had been created Baron Collingwood of Caldburne and Hethpool.1 He had been granted a pension for life and given any number of patriotic awards by his fellow countrymen, including the freedom of many cities and towns. He had even inherited a coal mine. And, because it now adorned his arms, he was reminded of his family’s ancient motto, which might have been chosen personally, so apt was it: Ferar unus et idem … Always one and the same.2

Collingwood was delighted with the professional praise given him by service colleagues (especially his old patrons Admirals Parker and Roddam). He can only have been amazed to receive a warm, even overly warm, letter of congratulations from his former antagonist Sir Roger Curtis, who addressed him as ‘my Dear Cuddy’.3 He was delighted too that Sarah was enjoying her new-found fame and social popularity. He was gratified by the kind words of the King, and at the Admiralty’s faith in his capabilities. His title amused him:

And so I have a great Barony – it may be called a Barreny to me – value 30s. a year, or thereabouts. But if I live long enough I will make it a place of consideration.4

This apparent indifference was not universal, though, as he admitted in a letter to Sarah:

I am out of all patience with Bounce. The consequential airs he gives himself since he became a right honourable dog are insufferable. He considers it beneath his dignity to play with commoners’ dogs, and truly thinks that he does them grace when he condescends to lift up his leg against them. This, I think, is carrying the insolence of rank to the extreme, but he is a dog that does it.5

Collingwood wrote to many of his acquaintances about the battle, and in particular about his grief at the death of Nelson.

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