Admiral Collingwood

by Max Adams

  On 9 October Nelson sent Collingwood his plan of attack: the so-called Nelson touch. ‘When I explained to them the Nelson touch,’ he wrote to Emma Hamilton, ‘it was like an electric shock; some shed tears, all approved, it was new, it was singular …’42 This is perhaps the ultimate example of Nelson creating his own myth. The plan was hardly new. It involved forming two lines of ships at right angles to the enemy fleet, with the aim of splitting their line into three equal parts. In this way, the enemy’s van would be cut off and by the time they rejoined the main body of the fleet Nelson’s ships would have defeated them in detail in a grand mêlée. Cutting the line was no novel tactic: Howe had tried it at the Glorious First of June, as had Jervis at Cape St Vincent. Cutting the line with two columns was no innovation either: it was precisely the tactic that Duncan had employed with such devastating effect at Camperdown. The unique character of Nelson’s battle plan was that it was Nelsonian. He was able to instil in his commanders a total belief in their invincibility which transmitted itself right down to the humblest loblolly boy in the sick bay of the smallest frigate. The Nelson touch was not so much tactical as personal.

  When he sent his plan of attack to Collingwood, he accompanied it with what was probably the most significant letter he ever sent to his friend. It cannot have failed to achieve its desired effect:

  They surely cannot escape us. I wish we could get a fine day. I send you my plan of attack, as far as a man dare venture to guess at the very uncertain position the enemy may be found in: but, my dear friend, it is to place you perfectly at ease respecting my intentions, and to give full scope to your judgement for carrying them into effect. We can, my dear Coll, have no little jealousies: we have only one great object in view, – that of annihilating our enemies, and getting a glorious peace for our countries. No man has more confidence in another than I have in you; and no man will render your services more justice than your very old friend,

  NELSON AND BRONTE43

  Quite why Nelson felt he had to refer to ‘little jealousies’ is difficult to judge. Nothing in Collingwood’s correspondence suggests that he ever allowed himself to display jealousy, if indeed he ever felt it. Collingwood was just as proud a man as Nelson, and quite as sensitive of his reputation among his peers. But he was not jealous of Nelson’s public fame, nor of his foreign honours – both of these he found intensely embarrassing. Was this an instance of Nelson’s over-sensitivity? Or had there been gossiping tongues in the fleet? Collingwood had his admirers: Duff of the Mars, who was to die at Trafalgar, thought him the pleasantest admiral he had met with.44 But Thomas Fremantle, in Neptune, could not abide his apparent severity and reserve, and Edward Codrington, captain of the Orion, considered that his attention to detail demeaned him and compromised his dignity. Such prejudices may have found their way to Nelson’s ears. But Nelson, who surely knew Collingwood better than anyone, must have known that rank snobbery lay behind those opinions. Collingwood’s reply to Nelson on the 9th showed no sign of any tension between the two men:

  My Dear Lord,

  I have a just sense of your Lordship’s kindness to me, and the full confidence you have reposed in me inspires me with the most lively gratitude. I hope it will not be long before there is an opportunity of showing your Lordship that it has not been misplaced.45

  During the twelve days left to them before the battle Nelson and Collingwood saw each other as often as the weather would allow; their correspondence mostly confined to the business of victualling and preparing the fleet for battle. One of the more difficult items Nelson had to deal with was sending Sir Robert Calder home to face an inquiry into his conduct. Calder’s squadron had encountered Villeneuve and the Combined Fleet in July, shortly before Collingwood’s brilliant defensive action. Calder had taken two Spanish prizes, but failed to press his advantage: he would go home in disgrace and miss Trafalgar. Few of his fellow commanders felt sorry for him – his aristocratic hauteur had won him few friends. Now, in a typical gesture, Nelson allowed Calder the dignity of returning in his own flagship, Prince of Wales, even though he could ill-afford the loss of a ship of the line.46

  On 19 October, with signs that the Combined Fleet were close to sailing, Nelson wrote to Collingwood, ‘What a beautiful day! Will you be tempted out of your ship? If you will, hoist the Assent and Victory’s pendants.’47 On the original of this letter, the last to pass between the two, Collingwood added a note which said, ‘Before the answer to this letter had got to the Victory, the signal was made that the enemy’s fleet was coming out of Cadiz, and we chased immediately.’48

  On the morning of 20 October 1805 the Franco-Spanish fleet sailed from Cadiz with thirty-three sail to meet the English fleet of twenty-seven. It took a whole day, in light winds, for all Villeneuve and Gravina’s ships to leave the port. On the afternoon of the 20th, the wind shifted into the west and the Combined Fleet headed south-east, hoping to get to the Strait of Gibraltar before the English could come up with them. Neither fleet could see the other (Nelson was fifty miles west of Cadiz, hoping Villeneuve would make a run for it) but English frigates reported every enemy move, night and day. The English fleet headed south-east too, aiming to cut them off. But it became clear that Villeneuve would not make the Strait that night. He decided to head back to Cadiz, but Nelson anticipated him, and at dawn on the 21st the two fleets sighted each other a few miles off Cape Trafalgar, on parallel courses heading north-west.

  As the sun rose, Midshipman Hercules Robinson, aboard Captain Henry Blackwood’s crack frigate Euryalus, looked out on a sea …

  like a millpond, but with an ominous swell rolling in from the Atlantic. The delight of us all at the idea of a wearisome blockade, about to terminate with a fair stand up fight, of which we well knew the result …49

  On board Royal Sovereign Collingwood’s new servant, Smith, entered the admiral’s cabin at daybreak:

  and found him already up and dressing. He asked if I had seen the French fleet; and on my replying that I had not, he told me to look out at them, adding that, in a very short time, we should see a great deal more of them. I then observed a great cloud of ships to leeward; but I could not help looking with still greater interest at the Admiral, who, during all this time, was shaving himself with a composure that quite astonished me.50

  This was the man who had seen action at Bunker’s Hill, on the Glorious First of June, and at Cape St Vincent. If Nelson inspired his men with passion, Collingwood inspired his with a coolness that was deeply impressive. Still early in the morning, the English fleet began to form into two columns: Nelson in Victory taking the weather station with twelve sail of the line astern and a small cloud of frigates about him, Collingwood heading the leeward column of fifteen ships, mostly the smaller and faster two-decker 74s.

  On board Euryalus Hercules Robinson watched with amusement the crew of Lapenotiere’s Pickle remove the tompions from her four guns: ‘about as large and formidable as two pairs of Wellington boots’. Since Nelson had joined the fleet, almost all the captains had had their ships repainted in the Nelson chequer: a band of yellow paint along the lines of the gun decks, so that when the gun ports were open it gave a chequered effect. Nelson had also ordered the lower masts of the ships to be painted yellow as a form of recognition. Now, as the tension and excitement grew, Robinson took in the whole scene: ‘Bands playing, officers in full dress, and the ships covered with ensigns, hanging in various places where they never could be struck.’51 Many of the fleet’s lieutenants begged their captains and admirals to dress less conspicuously – in such an action they were very exposed and made irresistible targets for enemy sharpshooters. Not one took the advice. The symbolic nailing of colours to the masts was a universal indication of disdain for any thought of shyness or surrender. Losing was inconceivable.

  On Royal Sovereign Collingwood went to talk to the men on the gun decks. His Newcastle volunteers had been sent over with him from Dreadnought, and he stopped to give his ‘Tars of the Tyne’ a word of encouragement.
He addressed his officers, too. Clavell he sent below, advising him to change into silk stockings, as these were much easier for the surgeons to handle when operating on wounds (silk was easier to remove, and thought to be less likely to infect an open wound). To all of them he said, ‘Now gentlemen, let us do something today which the world will talk of hereafter.’52 Down below, a young midshipman by the name of Aikenhead was writing his last letter home. In four hours he would be dead.

  We have just piped to breakfast. Thirty-five sail, besides smaller vessels, are now on our beam about three miles off. Should I, my dear parents, fall in defence of my king, let that thought console you. I feel not the least dread on my spirits. Oh my parents, sisters, brothers, dear grandfather, grandmother, and aunt, believe me ever yours. Accept perhaps for the last time your brothers’ love, be assured I feel for my friends should I die in this glorious action – glorious, no doubt, it will be. Every British heart pants for glory. Our old Admiral is quite young with the thoughts of it. If I survive, nothing will give me greater pleasure than embracing my dear relations. Do not, in case I fall, grieve – it will be to no purpose. Many brave fellows will no doubt fall with me, on both sides.53

  The Combined Fleet lay in a great arc to the east, heading north-west across the swell, all sails set, with just enough breeze to give steerage way. Resigned to a battle none of them believed they could win despite their numerical advantage, and seeing from the navy’s disposition that Nelson intended to cut their line, they were given orders to close up. Now they formed almost a double line, like a trail of tottering footsteps in sand.

  At 11 a.m. Nelson hoisted a signal ordering all the ships in his fleet to anchor after the action. It was premature, perhaps unnecessary, and significant only in the context of the opprobrium heaped on Collingwood by some commentators after the battle. Much more famous was Nelson’s signal some forty minutes later. He asked his signal lieutenant to hoist the telegraph ‘Nelson confides that every man will do his duty’. The words ‘Nelson’, ‘confides’ and ‘duty’ would all have to be spelt, having no prearranged combination of flags. The lieutenant asked if he might, since time was short, substitute England for Nelson, and ‘expects’ for ‘confides’. Nelson agreed, and the signal was raised. It is often thought that this had an inspirational effect on the fleet. According to Robinson no one knew of the signal’s meaning until after the battle. On board Royal Sovereign Collingwood’s response was, ‘I wish Nelson would stop signalling. We all know what we have to do.’54 By this time all her crew had been at their battle stations for an hour and more. Galley fires had been doused, cabins and their furniture removed and struck down into the hold, along with poor Bounce. The decks had been wetted and sprinkled with sand to mop up blood. Boarding and splinter netting and fearnought screens (canvas sheets covering the entrance to the magazines, kept damp to prevent sparks) had been rigged. The ship’s band played patriotic tunes, and her officers stood on the quarterdeck, waiting.

  By this time the two British columns were heading directly for the enemy’s line, pressing on sail. Royal Sovereign, with her newly coppered bottom, raced ahead, not just of Victory, a quarter of a mile to the north, but of all the other ships in the squadron. So far ahead that Collingwood forbade Clavell from setting studding-sails, for what must have seemed an age to his first lieutenant. When he finally gave the nod, the studding-sails were instantly sheeted home and Royal Sovereign sprang forward until she was several hundred yards ahead of Bellisle, her next in line. Strung out over a mile of sea astern of Bellisle came the other ships of Collingwood’s leeward division: Mars, whose Captain George Duff would die before the day was out; Tonnant, Bellerophon (Captain John Cooke: another fatality); Colossus, Achilles, Revenge, Polyphemus, Swiftsure and then Collingwood’s own Dreadnought; Defiance, Thunderer, Defence, and last in line the venerable but sluggish Prince. For the first twenty minutes, only Royal Sovereign was exposed to a deadly broadside which she could not return: it was the price to be paid for Nelson’s tactical gamble.

  At a thousand yards, six enemy ships opened fire on her. Many commanders would have had their men discharge a broadside of their own to calm their nerves. Collingwood ordered his men to lie down on the decks as the first shots whistled through the rigging and began to tear sails to shreds. The moral effect on the enemy of this slow, deliberate and apparently unconcerned advance was shattering. Collingwood aimed for the gap between Fougueux and the vast three-decker Santa Anna, the flag ship of Admiral Don Ignatius d’Alava. Seeing his intent, Fougueux closed up tight under Santa Anna’s stern. Royal Sovereign sailed on under an increasingly deadly fire, with the eyes of all the British fleet on her. ‘See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship into action. How I envy him!’ cried Nelson. And at the same time Collingwood was saying to his fat, stupid, but undeniably brave captain, Edward Rotheram, ‘What would Nelson give to be here!’55 Hercules Robinson was also watching from the deck of Euryalus as she scurried around the fleet like a sheepdog, with last minute instructions:

  How I see at this moment glorious old Collingwood, a quarter of a mile ahead of his second astern, and opening the battle with the magnificent black Santa Anna, cutting the tacks and shrouds and halyards of his studding sails as he reached her, and letting them drop in the water (grieving, I have no doubt, at the loss of so much beautiful canvas) and as his main yard caught the mizen vangs56 of his opponent, discharging his double-shotted broadside into her stern.57

  This first broadside killed and wounded more than a hundred of Santa Anna’s men and dismounted or destroyed so many of her guns that, in the first instant of the action, she was effectively finished as a battle unit. The two ships now became locked together, and although Santa Anna’s gunners fought on, Captain Rotheram offered Collingwood his congratulations, believing Royal Sovereign had made a capture of an enemy flagship before any other ship in the British fleet had engaged. Even so, d’Alava refused to strike, and soon Royal Sovereign was surrounded by enemy ships before she could be supported herself. Two Spanish ships, the San Justo and San Leandro, and the French Neptune and Fougueux joined in, firing broadside after broadside into Royal Sovereign so that within half an hour of the first engagement she was dismasted and could no longer be manoeuvred. She and the Santa Anna were now as it were locked in an embrace. It was as if two punch-drunk heavyweights were trading blows to the end, still somehow standing, but barely conscious – and with the loser’s seconds joining in. Cannon balls from the Royal Sovereign and Santa Anna were seen striking each other in mid-air and falling, deformed and flattened, into the water.58 It was as hard an action as there had ever been, and it was to the finish. Even so, Collingwood appeared unconcerned. Robinson caught sight of him again:

  Walking the break of the poop with his little triangular gold-laced cocked hat, tights, silk stockings, and buckles, musing over the progress of the fight, munching an apple.59

  Calm he may have been, but by the end of the day Collingwood was one of only three officers (Rotheram included) left alive on his own quarterdeck His Master, William Chalmers, had been blown almost in two by a cannon ball, and Collingwood caught him as he fell:

  He laid his head upon my shoulder, and told me he was slain. I supported him till two men carried him off. He could say nothing to me, but bless me; but as they carried him down, he wished he could but live to read the account of the action in a newspaper. He lay in the cockpit, among the wounded, until the Santa Anna Struck; and, joining in the cheer which they gave her, expired with it on his lips.60

  Collingwood himself had been wounded: a great splinter gashed his leg (he was the only injured officer in the fleet who failed to report to a surgeon), and he had been knocked down and winded by a cannon ball which passed by within a hair’s breadth of his old-fashioned tailcoat. Clavell was seriously injured and had been taken below to the surgeons in the cockpit below the water line. Royal Sovereign was so exposed that Collingwood ordered the marine commander, Captain Vallack, to take his men from the poop deck.
At half-past two in the afternoon, Santa Anna finally struck her colours, surrendering to a Royal Sovereign who was herself a dismasted near wreck.

  It was at this point that Collingwood was told Nelson had been wounded, shot by a marine from the fighting tops of Capitaine Lucas’ Redoutable. Victory had been under deadly fire herself as she approached the enemy line, and would suffer the heaviest casualties in the British fleet: 57 dead and 102 wounded, compared to Royal Sovereign’s 47 dead and 100 wounded. No one could have known that in ranging alongside the Redoutable, Victory had engaged a ship whose captain had trained many of his men to leave their great guns and take their muskets into the rigging, to play hell with the enemy’s quarterdeck. When Nelson fell it was immediately obvious that it was no mere wound. Collingwood later wrote to their old friend Mary Moutray:

  An officer came from the Victory, to tell me he was wounded. He sent his love to me, and desired me to conduct the fleet. I asked the officer if the wound was dangerous, and he by his look told what he could not speak, nor I reflect upon now, without suffering again the anguish of that moment.61

  This account somewhat contradicts that of Captain Hardy, Nelson’s flag captain, who recalled that Nelson refused to give up command to Collingwood until the actual moment of his death. From now on Collingwood commanded the battle and its aftermath. Victory in every sense was his as much as it was Nelson’s. But the reality of command in such a situation was that there were sixty effectively independent commanders in the battle. Each ship was involved in its own private war, and no signals would make much difference now.

  Collingwood’s leeward division formed a cluster to the south of Royal Sovereign, some still engaging the enemy, some already in possession of prizes, others coming to the help of beleaguered comrades as far as the light winds and the condition of their shattered rigging would allow. To the north-east a number of enemy ships disengaged and made for Cadiz. Now just a couple of hundred yards away to the north of Royal Sovereign, Victory lay wallowing on the swell. The ships which had done her so much damage, Redoutable, Bucentaure and Santissima Trinidad, had been surrounded by British ships and one by one surrendered, themselves mere wrecks. Further north again several British ships were in pursuit of the vanguard of the enemy fleet which had been so suspiciously slow in turning that only now, when it was too late, did they half-heartedly join the fray. Many French and Spanish ships had surrendered (the total would be nineteen, but see Chapter 11), and not a single British ship had struck, though many were mere floating hulks with no steerage or masts to rig a sail on.