even though it were Nelson’s dying injunction.  Collingwood, who had as much to do with the triumph of Trafalgar as Nelson himself, without making any ado about it, was treated pretty much like a provincial mayor.  The mayor, of course, may and often does adopt a luxurious Roman style of living in order that his local deeds may not escape observation, but such self-advertisement was entirely foreign to Collingwood’s character.  It was fitting that every reasonable honour should have been paid to the memory of a great Englishman, whose deeds, in co-operation with others, have never been surpassed.  But to make grants and give honours of so generous a character to Nelson’s relatives, and especially to his wife, who had been a torment to him, and to measure out Collingwood’s equally great accomplishments with so mean a hand, is an astonishing example of parsimony which, for the sake of our national honour, it is to be hoped rarely occurs.  Even the haughty, plethoric nobles of a fourth-rate town council (if it be not a libel to mention them in connection with so discreditable an affair) would have judged the manifest fitness of things better than to make any distinction between Admiral Collingwood and his lifelong friend Nelson.

Surely this famous and eminently worthy public servant was as deserving of an Earldom as was Nelson’s brother, and his wife and daughters of a more generous allowance than that of his dead chief’s widow and sisters!—­this distinguished man, who helped to plan the order of battle at Trafalgar and was the first to take his ship into action in a way that inflamed the pride and admiration of the Commander-in-Chief, and made him spontaneously exclaim, “See, Blackwood, how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship into battle!  How I envy him!”

No one knew as well as Nelson that his comrade, next to himself, was to play the leading part in not only assuring a victory, but in completely annihilating the French and Spanish fleets.  Yet the British Government of that day only counted the services he had rendered to the nation worthy of a peerage, plus the same pension as Nelson’s widow; i.e. he was to have a pension of L2,000 a year, and after his death Lady Collingwood was to have the munificent sum of L1,000 per annum and each of his two daughters L500 a year.  He never drew his pension, as they kept him in the service he had made so great until he was a physical wreck.  He died on his way home aboard the Ville de Paris on the 7th March, 1810, and was laid to rest in St. Paul’s Cathedral alongside of his distinguished friend Lord Nelson.