Admiral Collingwood

by Max Adams

  God keep me from the diplomatics! In my mind there cannot be a greater error than to introduce chicane and deceptions into politics. I am persuaded from what I have seen that honesty is the best policy, and yet the great art of diplomacy is, that nothing they do should be understood.55

  Now he took matters into his own hands, writing to the Capitan Pacha a letter of transparent directness, determined to bring matters to a head and expecting, not for the first time, to be recalled by the Admiralty as a result:

  Will the Sublime Porte accept the friendship offered by England, with a renewal of all the relations of peace and amity, the particular terms of which may be settled by the Plenipotentiaries? Or do they reject the proposal, and, influenced by malign councils, determine on a state of war?56

  The best he could hope for was that Turkey would not interfere, and to that extent the letter succeeded. It undoubtedly won the approval of the British government, as Collingwood was flattered to find out some time later:

  I have been told by a gentleman from England57 that Mr Canning said, ‘If Mr Pitt had lived to read the letter I wrote to the Capitan Pasha … he never would have lost sight of the person who wrote it.’ The measure was bold but it seems it was approved. He58 was tenacious of diplomatic forms. I overthrew them to maintain the country’s honour and determined in a day what he would have prosed over for a year.59

  By October Collingwood was stationed off Syracuse doing his best, with limited intelligence and too few frigates, to determine where the Russian fleet had got to, and what French plans were maturing for an assault. He had heard that ten thousand troops were poised to embark at Leghorn. But were they destined for Africa, Gibraltar, Malta or Sicily? A squadron was preparing at Toulon, but where were they bound – were they designed to draw Collingwood’s attention from the Strait of Messina?

  Collingwood sailed to Toulon, but receiving no new intelligence from that quarter, and facing the onset of severe winter gales, retired to Syracuse to refit. Here he again received letters of supplication from Queen Maria Carolina, wanting the British to invade Calabria; from the King of Sardinia, nervous at the possibility of a French invasion, and from Ali Pacha of Joannina, ruler of part of Albania, who was nervous about the proximity of the French and Russians in the Ionian Islands. He confessed to his sister:

  I think very much of getting home if I know well how to manage it. I grow very weak with the continuing harassing of my mind. All our affairs are grey here; no bright spots in them.60

  If Collingwood ended the year hoping he might soon be able to return to England and his family, he was very much mistaken. The year 1808 would be one of ‘great and complicated objects’,61 and once again he would find himself at the centre of them.

  10

  Viva Collingwood

  1808–1810

  I am going on here wearing myself out very fast and do not care [about] it, for really the situation of our country, and the condition of the times, is such that people should not be coy whether they live or not, but as they can contribute to mend them. I have at this moment more depending than perhaps ever any person in my situation had – an artful enemy to oppose, a sluggish country to preserve from being his prey, and not the smallest information from any quarter.1

  In the first week of January 1808 Collingwood was enjoying a rare and welcome break, ashore in Syracuse, when word came from Palermo that the French fleet was out, having evaded the watching frigates at Toulon. Believing their destination to be the Adriatic, Collingwood sailed immediately to intercept them, stationing his squadron off Cape Sapienza, south of the Ionian Islands.2 The rumours turned out to be false, so he returned to Syracuse in the hope of receiving better intelligence there from cruisers stationed at key points in the Mediterranean and Adriatic. Collingwood wrote to Sal and Mary Patience that he had been splendidly received in Syracuse, and had just had time to visit a few of its ancient wonders before the news arrived. The nobility there were uncorrupted by the vices of the court, he told them, and truly polite. He had himself been attended by a levee of priests, ‘all fat, portly-looking gentlemen’.3 He had been shown around the classical ruins and, keen geographer that he was, he took a close interest in them:

  Where the palace of Dionysius was, there are now a little mill and a pig-sty. The foundations remain of the amphitheatre, where formerly 100,000 people assembled to view the public spectacles. The cavern called Dionysius’s ear is perfect and curious. Sound is so reverberated and increased from its sides, that the least whisper is made as loud as a trumpet; and a little pistol with a thimbleful of gunpowder roars like thunder. In this cavern Dionysius is said to have kept his state prisoners, and by means of a hole in the side near the top to have discovered all their secrets and plans. Within the ancient wall there are farms, and vineyards, and pastures, as in the course of time, there may be corn-fields and hop-grounds in St James’s Street or the Royal Exchange.4

  More importantly for a naval commander, Syracuse had a large landlocked harbour, which Collingwood thought the British government ought to invest in as a long-term security measure. Its peninsula, the Ortygia, was well defended against attack by sea and even offered abundant fresh spring water which gushed, and still gushes, into the Fontana Arethusa next to the harbour wall. This was where the mythical Arethusa arose, having been turned into a spring by Artemis to avoid the unwanted attentions of the river god Alpheus.5 It was at this spring that Nelson watered his fleet before departing for Aboukir Bay in 1799.

  On 7 February 1808 Collingwood finally received news of the French, and it was bad news. The Rochefort squadron under Admiral Allemand had escaped Admiral Strachan’s watch while his ships were away provisioning, and was now heading for the Mediterranean. Napoleon, sensing that the moment must be seized, ordered the Toulon squadron under Admiral Ganteaume to put to sea and rendezvous with Allemand. The Emperor told his brother Joseph to prepare for an attack on Sicily across the Strait of Messina. But while the squadrons were at sea, Napoleon changed his mind. He would, instead, use Joseph’s army as a feint. General Reynier was therefore ordered to seize key positions in Calabria in preparation for the assault, while the French fleet, now numbering ten sail of the line, headed instead for Corfu. This strategically important base, recently abandoned by the Russians, was vulnerable to British attack; now Ganteaume was required to reinforce and reprovision its garrison.

  It was as if Collingwood was fighting grass fires, never knowing where the next one would spring up. Now the French squadrons appeared to have united, he too concentrated his resources at a rendezvous west of Sicily off Maritimo: squadrons under Admirals Purvis, Strachan (who had chased Allemand from Rochefort and lost him) and Thornbrough, and his own from Syracuse. Fifteen sail of the line, enough to defeat a French force of twenty or more. But where would they strike? Luckily the French fleet had been scattered by heavy weather. They missed their rendezvous, and were only reunited at Corfu in the middle of March. This was the sort of eventuality that infuriated Napoleon, whose tactics required the utmost precision of movement; no naval commander had been able to persuade him of the fickleness of the sea.

  Collingwood was desperate for intelligence. He had posted a 74-gun two-decker at Messina with four frigates to prevent Reynier from crossing the Strait. But should the rest of Ganteaume’s fleet arrive there while Collingwood was elsewhere, they would be driven off and Sicily would be lost. It was not until 6 March that Collingwood received word of their movements, and even then the intelligence was ambiguous. The frigate Standard had been chased by four sail of the line at the mouth of the Adriatic. They might have been the Russian Adriatic fleet, now based at Trieste, but Collingwood was convinced they were part of Ganteaume’s force. If they were, where were the other six? Hoping to draw Collingwood to the east while they made what seemed like an inevitable attempt on Messina?

  Now news came of another French squadron, this time at Elba – and preparations appeared to be under way in Naples to receive a fleet – perhaps to embark part of Jo
seph’s army. Another feint, or part of a double attack, from both east and west? Collingwood decided to reconnoitre Naples for himself. There was no French fleet there but there was news, or rather rumour, that Ganteaume’s entire force was now gathered at Taranto6 near the mouth of the Adriatic and was poised to fall on Sicily.

  This was the best news Collingwood could have had. If he found the enemy fleet at Taranto, he could bring them to battle, either there, or having forced them into the Adriatic. There would be no escape. Now he issued his battle orders – no song and dance, no charismatic Nelson touch, just a tactical memorandum which, typically in great detail, told his captains how he expected a battle to be fought and won. It was a further evolution of the tactics which the navy’s leading officers had been developing over the last fifteen years: an attack in two columns designed to break the enemy’s line into three, cut off the van, and bring on a mêlée. The only major variation was that Collingwood, in the light of Trafalgar, wanted the columns to attack at a less perpendicular angle to the enemy line, to avoid the long exposure to raking fire endured by both Victory and Royal Sovereign in October 1805.7

  Collingwood, feeling increasingly old and worn out, was suddenly revived by the prospect of beating the French one more time and ending their naval threat in the Mediterranean for good:

  Constant application has made me very weak, and the illness which always attacks my bowels has reduced my strength very much. My situation will not admit of sickness, and if I could but get hold of the Frenchmen once more, I would then come home.8

  This was not the first time Collingwood had complained of his bowels. They had been a source of pain and discomfort to him periodically over the years. He was becoming frail with lack of exercise, cooped up in his cabin for twenty or so hours every day – often he only came on deck for an hour or so at twilight. Nevertheless, his spirits were roused by the thought of battle. He wrote to Sarah:

  You know, when I am earnest on any subject, how truly I devote myself to it; and the first object of my life, and what my heart is most bent on (I hope you will excuse me) is the glory of my country. To stand a barrier between the ambition of France and the independence of England, is the first wish of my life; and in my death, I would rather that my body, if it were possible, should be added to the rampart, than trailed in useless pomp through an idle throng.9

  Sarah seemed to have resigned herself to having no husband. She spent much of her time arranging the comforts of her new house at Chirton, and enjoying society. Sarah’s uncles, the Blacketts, were even corresponding on the matter. Lady C. and the girls were at Brighton that summer, dancing very publicly at the Prince of Wales’ fancy balls: hardly the thing when her husband was laying down his life for their country. Collingwood was himself beginning to be concerned at what he heard. Sarah and her father were both spending far too much money, and conspicuously so.

  Napoleon’s plan, and Collingwood’s defence against it, had been conceived with deadly intent. It was the sea and the elements, which Collingwood knew so much more intimately than his opponent, which decided that the execution of these objects would end in a comedy of fates. And not for the first time, just as one phase of the war came to a natural conclusion, so another sprang to life.

  Even as the British fleet arrived at the mouth of the Adriatic, news came that the Spanish squadron at Cartagena was out, destined for Majorca. Suspicious that they might make for Naples and revive the invasion plan from the west, Collingwood detached a small group of ships to reinforce those already at Palermo, and sent his precious frigates out to find the French among the Ionian Islands, or at Corfu itself. They returned with the devastating news that the French were nowhere to be found. They had been and gone. Ganteaume, horrified at the prospect of Collingwood catching him in a cul de sac, had rapidly landed his cargoes at Corfu and sailed for France, even at the risk of incurring the Emperor’s wrath. The two fleets must have passed within fifty or so miles; but neither was aware of the other. Collingwood admitted himself ‘mortified’.10 But he had achieved his objective, and with Sicily once again safe for the time being, the fleet sailed to the Balearics to find the Spanish fleet secure, but unready for sea, at Mahon. The French were nowhere to be seen – they had returned to Toulon. It was the last time they would come to sea in force. Even with luck against him Collingwood, by anticipating every possible eventuality, had again thwarted Napoleon’s Mediterranean plans.

  Once more off the west of Sicily, Collingwood wrote to Rear-Admiral Purvis of his frustrations. All his frigates bar one had been dispersed in pursuit of the French, and now he was, as it were, cut off from all knowledge of the outside world. Or almost all. Rumours had reached him of great events in Spain: as so often before in the wars against France, as one fire was extinguished, another burst into flames.

  The ‘Spanish ulcer’, as it became known, was entirely of Napoleon’s own making. He had been pressurising Portugal to suspend her friendship with Britain since before Trafalgar. Relations had been tense, but British ships were still being allowed into the Tagus at Lisbon. However, in October 1807 Napoleon dispatched General Junot with thirty thousand men across the Pyrenees with orders to advance on Lisbon. Spain acquiesced in the passage of French troops: she (and specifically the so-called Prince of Peace, Manuel de Godoy – lover of the Queen, and reviled traitor) had agreed in secret to support the invasion, and to partition Portugal between herself and France. Napoleon had already interfered with Spanish politics, and succeeded in destabilising the ruling Bourbon monarchy. Charles IV had been prevailed upon to abdicate in favour of his son Ferdinand. Now Napoleon invited them to Bayonne, forced them both to abdicate, and took them prisoner. He recalled his brother Joseph from Naples and placed him on the throne of Spain.

  On 2 May 1808 Madrid rose against the French. The first rising was put down with great savagery (the Tres de Mayo of Goya’s famous painting), but there was another, and soon many Spanish cities were in a state of insurrection. In Portugal the British ambassador persuaded the royal family to embark themselves and their treasury and sail with their navy to Brazil under the protection of none other than Sir Sidney Smith. Having escorted his charges to safety, Smith returned to the Tagus to find a Russian squadron there, and blockaded them.

  The British government first got wind of the Dos de Mayo uprising on 4 June.11 A month later Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, fresh from the bombardment of Copenhagen in which he had shown something of his future promise, was sent from England to Portugal at the head of an expeditionary force comprising nine thousand men. The government realised that in the Iberian peninsula they might at last gain a foothold on the Continent, and they responded with speed. They were lucky. In Collingwood they had a Commander-in-Chief who could and did anticipate their moves; and long before Wellesley’s arrival north of Lisbon in August, Collingwood had taken it upon himself to do whatever he could to support the uprising. His means were considerable. But even more valuable was his personal stature in a country which had not forgotten his behaviour after Trafalgar.

  Collingwood was cruising off Toulon when, on 1 June, he heard of the Dos de Mayo. He left Admiral Thornbrough to watch the French fleet and headed directly for Cadiz, where he arrived eleven days later. The Spanish quickly accepted his squadron’s entry to the harbour, and then summoned the six French ships which lay there to surrender. When they refused, the Spanish batteries opened up on them:

  After two days firing, in which they do not seem to have done much harm, the French made a truce and proposed that they should be allowed to leave the port, and the English to engage not to follow them for four days. The Spaniard sent me this proposal, to which I replied the French were amusing him to gain time …12

  The French fleet duly surrendered. Collingwood now offered the Spanish whatever assistance they required, though he soon found the organisation behind the uprising to be almost non-existent. Their ideas of armed resistance were laughable in his eyes, though he thoroughly admired the patriotic spirit and
bravery of the populace. Led largely by the priesthood, and with hatred of the French and disgust at the ruling juntas fuelling them in almost equal measure, they were to evolve over the next five years the hit-and-run tactics which won them the name Guerrilleros.

  One of the first practical measures Collingwood took was to offer the garrison at Cadiz all the gunpowder he could spare from his fleet:

  The gunpowder which was first furnished by the English fleet was immediately fired away by the Spaniards in honour of a local saint whose festival they were then celebrating; and when they requested a further supply, Lord Collingwood informed them that he could spare no more, unless they would promise to reserve it for sinners, and not saints.13

  Collingwood’s view of the ultimate prospects for the uprising was pessimistic – he saw nothing in the country to remind him of the determined and efficient rebels at Bunker’s Hill. Spain, though, was in a state of exuberance:

  They say that Buonaparte has hitherto had only armies to contend with, but that now he has a nation where every man is a soldier. I sincerely hope it may give a turn to our affairs, and an example to other nations which have been oppressed, how, by a vigorous effort, they may recover their independence.14

  Collingwood did not have time to set foot in Cadiz until August, at the height of Spanish successes against the French. The result was that forty thousand Spaniards turned out to cheer him through the streets, as he told little Sal (now not so little: she was sixteen).15 There were everywhere cries of ‘Viva Collingwood’, and when he attended the opera, he received a fifteen-minute standing ovation.16 Typically, he played down this Nelsonian reception – public praise always embarrassed him. In his letter to Sal he also had news of Bounce, who he admitted was growing very old. He regretted he had never had his dog’s ‘picture taken’: ‘he had the good fortune to escape that’, declining to go ashore with his master. Collingwood himself was now weak and nearly blind. His daughters, he said, would have to look after him when he came home.