The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope Part 9

And meanwhile the ardent patriotism of Collingwood was deeply wounded by the att.i.tude of the politicians of his native land.

OCEAN, OFF TOULON, _May 16th, 1808._

The contentions in Parliament are disgraceful to our country and have more to do with its reduction than Bonaparte has. They grieve my heart; when all the energy and wisdom of the Nation is required to defend us against such a Power as never appeared in Europe before--the contest seems to be who shall hold the most lucrative office. I abhor that kind of determined opposition; if the Ministers have not that experience it were to be wished they had, they the more need support and a.s.sistance. We have resources to stand our ground firmly, until this storm is over--but it depends on the use we make of our means, whether we shall or not.

It would appear to me good policy to make and preserve peace with all the nations who have the smallest pretention to independence--we should shut our eyes to many things which during the regular Governments in Europe would deserve to be scrutinised--the laws and rules of former times are not suited to the present--a man cannot build a Palace during the convulsions of an earthquake, and I sincerely hope our differences with America will be accommodated--if favourable terms we can grant them. Are not _we_ constantly in storms obliged to take in our topsail?--and even sometimes limit ourselves to no sail at all? But our s.h.i.+p is saved by it and when the storm is over we out with them again, and so should the State do.

The truth was that, in much, Collingwood was a more able diplomatist than the men by whose authority he was circ.u.mscribed. His letters to Stanhope prove that he was a more apt tactician and had a profounder grasp of the political situation of his day than he has been credited with by posterity. Again and again, does he foretell that a particular line of action will be fraught with a particular result, or show how his representations had been ignored until, too late, events had proved their accuracy. Again and again, in some apparently trivial situation which he had the insight to recognise was big with import, did his tactfulness avert catastrophe which a lesser man would have hastened. "I have always found that kind language and strong s.h.i.+ps have a very powerful effect in conciliating the people," he says in one letter to Stanhope, with dry humour. And meanwhile the incompetency of many of those with whom he had to work in alliance was a further source of trial to him. Only too shrewdly did he recognise wherein lay the efficiency of Napoleon and the incapacity of his opponents.

_October 7th, 1809._

Should the Austrians make their peace, which I am convinced they must, the next object of Bonaparte will be Turkey, and probably the Austrians be engaged to a.s.sist him in the reduction of it. All the south part of Europe seems as if within his grasp the moment peace is signed with Austria; he has long been intriguing with those countries, sometimes with the Government, in other places with the people against their Government; the arts, the dissimulations with which those intrigues are conducted, avail him more than even the rapidity of his armies--all the people he employs are equal to the task a.s.signed them; while in Austria and Spain, the operations are often directed by men who, from Court favour, have got situations they are totally unfit for. Catalonia has suffered much from this cause and everything has gone wrong in Istria and Dalmatia, because there there was wanted a man capable of conducting the war. It is true they have been removed, but not until everything was lost by their want of skill.

And yet pitted against "such a Power as never appeared in Europe before,"

with the need of every faculty upon the alert, Collingwood was haunted ever more and more by the dread that his increasing bodily weakness must engender mental incapacity. A sinister note crept into his correspondence and so early as August 26th, 1808, he wrote:--

_August 26th, 1808._

I have been lately unwell. I grow weak, and the fatigue and anxiety of mind I suffer has worn me down to a shadow. I do not think I can go on much longer, and intend, whenever I feel my strength less, to request that I may be allowed to come to England. I have mentioned this to Lord Mulgrave, but have not to the Admiralty Board.

Yet, determined not to abandon his duty, over a year later he was still at his post.

"_Ville de Paris,_" PORT MAHON, _December 18th, 1809._

The truth is that I am so unremittingly occupied, that my life is rather a drudgery than a service. I have an anxious mind from nature and cannot leave to any what is possible for me to do myself. Now my health is suffering very much, which is attributed to the sedentary life I lead, and it may well be to the vexation my mind suffers when anything goes counter. But when I _do_ come home, I hope I shall not be thought to flinch, for I have worn out all the officers and all the s.h.i.+ps, two or three times over, since I left England.

Within a fortnight he wrote again:--

_December 29th._

I have no desire to shrink from a duty which I owe to my country, but my declining health--the constant anxiety of my mind and fatigue of my body--made me desire to have a little respite, and I asked to be relieved from my command--a request which the Ministers seem to have no disposition to grant to me, but if his lords.h.i.+p knew me personally and was sufficiently acquainted with my sentiments he would know that my request was not made without good reason. The service here requires the most energetic mind and robust body--they cannot be hoped for in an invalid, whose infirmities proceed from too long and unremitted exertion of powers, but feeble at first.

Meanwhile, in Grosvenor Square, every item of news respecting the intentions of Lord Collingwood was eagerly looked for, since on these were dependent the movements of little William Stanhope. In the autumn of 1809 Mrs Stanhope wrote:--

William writes word that his height is 5 ft. 4 in., very fair for a Stanhope of his age. What an affectionate creature he is, and how I should delight in seeing him. I do not like the account he gives of Lord Collingwood's health. If the French fleet would but come out and he beat them, I doubt not he would then return immediately.

And on the 6th December she mentions an event which served to accentuate the sadness of that protracted absence:--

Lord Collingwood has actually a daughter grown up. She has made her appearance in Newcastle, very shy and distressed.

_February 27th, 1810._

We came to Town, Sunday Se'nnight. Since then Captain Waldegrave, who was eleven months in the s.h.i.+p with William, and Dr Gray who was his s.h.i.+pmate two years and like a Father to him, have both dined with us and agree in their favourable accounts. He is quite well and breakfasts every day with Lord Collingwood, with whom he also dines three times a week, and he teaches William himself. Your father said-- "I fear he is a Pet!" To which Waldegrave answered--"It can never do anyone harm to be Pet to Lord Collingwood!" As soon as the weather is warm I suppose Lord C. will come back, in his last letter he said he should leave William in a Frigate, but Dr Gray is inclined to think he would bring him home. All the reports respecting the Toulon Fleet being out, will, I hear, prove false.

On March 20th Mrs Stanhope wrote--"It is said that Sir C. Cotton is going out immediately to take Lord Collingwood's command, for that he wrote word if they did not supersede him quickly he should supersede himself. I fear his health is very bad." Not till April, however, did this intelligence receive confirmation--"At last Sir C. Cotton has sailed, so that, by the end of June, Lord Collingwood may be back, having given up the command to Sir C. Cotton. He was better the last account. Captain Waldegrave dines here to-day, you would be exceedingly pleased with him, for his manners are agreeable and his intelligence great."

Little did Mrs Stanhope, as she penned the reference to her dinner-party, foresee the conditions under which this was destined to take place. Still less did the authorities who were sending out that belated relief to the wearied Admiral, or the family who now so joyously pictured his return, dream how that service had been already superseded or in what guise that return would take place. Weeks before, at Cadiz, the last act of a prolonged tragedy had been performed. Still firmly refusing to forsake his post till a competent successor had been appointed, Collingwood did not surrender his command to Rear Admiral Martin till March 3rd, when a complete collapse of strength made this imperative. Two days subsequently were lost in the vain endeavour to leave port in the teeth of a contrary wind, but on March 6th, the _Ville de Paris_ succeeded in setting sail for England.

The day of days in Collingwood's life had at last arrived--that day to which he had looked forward throughout the weary years, when, his task honourably concluded, he could know that every beat of the waves was bearing him towards home and his loved ones. Yet as, prostrated with weakness, he lay in his cabin, listening to the familiar fret of the waters, he understood that the burden had been borne too long, the promised relief had come too late.

With the same dauntless courage with which he had faced existence he now accepted the knowledge that this day--the thought of which had sustained him through loneliness and battle and tempest--was to prove the day of his death. History indeed presents few events of an irony more profound. At sunset on March 6th, Collingwood set sail for England; at sunset on the 7th, he lay dead, and that fort.i.tude with which he met a fate, the harshness of which must have cruelly enhanced his bodily anguish, presents to all time a sublime ending to a sublime career.

Meanwhile in England those whom he had loved continued to count the lessening days to his return and to plan with tender solicitude every means for cheris.h.i.+ng and restoring the enfeebled frame which they fondly believed needed but care and happiness to endow it with renewed health.

Little as they recked of the burden which the waves were, in truth, bringing them, the knowledge, when it arrived, came with a blow which stunned. In the first announcement of the news, the very terseness of the communication seems to recreate more vividly the intense feeling which the writer knew required no insistence.

On April 17th, 1810, Stanhope wrote briefly to the Vicar of Newcastle:--

GROSVENOR SQUARE.

DEAR SMITH,

You are the fittest person I know at Newcastle to execute with propriety a most painful & most melancholy office. I have only this moment been apprised of the loss both the public and the Collingwood family have sustained, and am so shocked with the intelligence that I can hardly write legibly. I enclose the letter. I am sure you will communicate it with all delicacy & due Preparation to Lady Collingwood & Mr and the Miss Collingwoods. Mrs Stanhope will endeavour to see Miss Collingwood to-morrow. Pray a.s.sure them of my readiness to be of every a.s.sistance to them in my power.

Of the manner in which the news arrived, Mrs Stanhope furnishes more details.

GROSVENOR SQUARE, _April 23rd, 1810._

MY DEAR JOHN,

"I little thought when I wrote to you on Tuesday last that I should, before that post went out, hear the afflicting intelligence of the death of our great and valuable Friend, Lord Collingwood, whose loss is a publick calamity. But I will enter into particulars.

"Just after I went out at three, a second post arrived from Captain Thomas, desiring your father to communicate the dreadful tidings to poor Lady Collingwood. It was five when we received the letter; your father immediately enclosed the letter to the Vicar, to desire he would break it to the family, and I wrote to the Mistress of the School to acquaint the second girl. She wished to see no one or I should have called the next day. Mr Reay heard of the event before we did and recollecting that the Papers at Newcastle were delivered an hour before the letters, wisely sent off an Express; therefore I trust there was time for her to be somewhat prepared for the worst.

"With respect to ourselves, I need not tell you how shocked we were, and unfortunately, we had not only a large party to dinner that night, but some people in the evening. Amongst those who dined with us was Captain Waldegrave, who had not heard of it till he came here, and I never saw anyone so distressed, for Lord Collingwood had been a Father to him as well as to William; and he is one of the most pleasing young men I ever met with. Two days afterwards he brought here Mr Brown, the flag-lieutenant of the _Ville de Paris_, who gave me many interesting particulars, and spoke highly of William.

Your father has seen Lord Mulgrave twice, and it is settled that a monument at the Publick expence shall be executed for Lord Collingwood. He cannot have a publick funeral, but they wish the family to bury him at St Paul's near Lord Nelson, which your father is this day to write to propose, and I think it impossible Lady Collingwood can have any objection, in which case it will be attended by the Lords of the Admiralty & his own private friends. The Body is now at Greenwich, for it arrived at Portsmouth as soon as the letters announcing his death. He died like a hero, and when that character is added, as it was in him, to the Christian, it is great indeed.

On the same date Mr Stanhope wrote to his son--"I saw Lord Mulgrave the night before last, who desired I would inform Lady Collingwood and the family that it was meant to move in the House for a monument for Lord Collingwood in St Paul's, next to Nelson's. Of course the Body, which has arrived in the Thames, will be deposited in that Church, and the funeral must be splendid without ostentation--at the expense of the executors, or rather of the family." It was not, however, till May 8th that Mrs Stanhope was enabled to furnish her son with full details of the manner in which the intended ceremony was to be performed.