COLLINGWOOD, CUTHBERT, ADMIRAL LORD, was born on the 26th of September 1750, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. At the age of eleven he was sent to sea as a midshipman, under the care of Captain (afterwards Admiral) Brathwaite, who was the aon of his mother's sister, and who seems to have taken extraordinary pains in giving him nautical knowledge. After serving some yeara with this relation, he sailed with Admiral Roddam. In 1774, during the American war, he went to Boston with Admiral Graves, and in 1775 was made a lieu tenant by him, on the day of the battle of Bunker's Hill, when Collingwood, with a party of seamen, supplied the British army with what it required. In 1776 he took the command of the ' Hornet' sloop, and moon after met, at Jamaica, with his favourite companion Horatio Nelson, who was then lieutenant of the ‘Loweatoffe.' Coiling wood says, in one of his interesting letters, " We had been long before in habits of great friendship ; and it happened here, that as Admiral Sir P. Parker, the commanderdn-chief, was the friend of both, when ever Nelson got a step in rank I succeeded him : first in the 'Lowes t:die: then in the *Belzer: into which ship I was made commander in 1779, and afterwards in the 'Ilinchinbroke,' a 28-gun frigate, which made us both ret-eaptains." Although Nelson, who was a younger man, always kept a remove ahead of him, and came in for a much larger share of fame or popu larity, Colliogwood never had • feeling of jealousy towards his friend, whose merits he was always the first to extol, and whom ho loved to the last hour of his life. Nelson, on his part, seems to have had a greater affection for Collingwood than for any other officer in the service.
In 1780 Nelson was sent, in the 'Hinchinbroke' to the Spanish Main, with orders to pass into the South Sea by a navigation of boats along the river San Juan and the lakes Nicaragua and Leon—a physi cal Impossibility, which no skill or perseverance could surmount. Nelson caught the disease of the climate, and his life was with diffi culty saved by sending him home to England. Collingwood, who succeeded him at the San Juan River, had many attacks; his hardy constitution resisted them all, and he survived the mass of his ship's company, having buried in four months 180 of the 200 men who composed it Other ships suffered in the same proportion. In August 17S1, Collingwood was wrecked in the middle of a dreadful night in the ' a small frigate which he then commanded, on the rocks of the Morantkeys in the West ladies, and saved his own and his crew's lives with great difficulty. His next appointment was to the 'Sampson,' 64. In 17S3 he went to the West Indies in the 'Mediator,' and remained with his friend Nelson on that station till the end of 1786. lie then returned, after twenty-five years' uninterrupted service, to Northumberland, "making," as he nye, "my acquaintance with my own family, to whom I had hitherto been, as it were, a stranger." In 1790 he again went to the West Indies, but a quarrel with Spain being amicably arranged he soon returned, and seeing, as he says, no further hope of employment at sea, he "went into the north and was married."
In 1793 the war with the French republic called him away from his wife and two infant daughters, whom he most tenderly loved, though he was never after permitted to have much of their society. Aa captain of the 'Barfieur,' he bore a conspicuous part in Lord Howe'a victory of the 1st of June 1794. In 1797 he commanded, with his usual bravery and almost unrivalled nautical skill, the 'Excellent,' 74, in Jarvia's victory of the 14th of February, off Cape St. Vincent. In 1799 he was raised to the rank of rear-admiraL The peace of Arniena, for which he had lung prayed, restored him to his wife and children for • few months in 1802; but the renewed war called him to sea in the spring of 1803, and he never more returned to his happy home.
This constant service made him frequently lament that he was hardly known to his own children, and the anxieties and wear and tear of it shortened his valuable life. Passing over many leas brilliant but still very important services, Collingwood was second in command in the battle of Trafalgar, fought on the 21st of October 1805. His ship, the •Royal Sovereign,' was the first to attack and break the enemy's line; and, upon Nelson's death, Collingwood finished the victory and con tinued in command of the fleet, lie was now raised to the peerage.
After • long and moat wearying blockade of Cadiz, the Straits of Gibraltar, and adjacent coasts, during which, for nearly three years, he hardly ever set foot on shore, and showed a degree of patience and conduct never surpassed, he sailed up the Mediterranean, where his position involved him in difficult political transactions, which he Eenerally managed with ability. The letters to foreign princes and miniaten, the despatches of this sailor who had been at sea from his childhood, are admirable even in point of style. Completely worn out in body, but with a spirit intent on his duties to the last, Coiling wood died at sea on board the ' Ville de Perin,' near Port Mahon, on the evening of the 7th of March 1810. In command he was firm but mild—most considerate of the comfort and health of his men—averse to flogging and all violent and brutal exercises of authority ; the sailors called him their father. As a scientific seamen and naval tactician he had few if any equals, and in action his judgment was as cool as his courage was ardent. His mind was enlightened to an astonishing degree, considering the circumstances of his life; fie was liberal and kind-hearted, and all his private virtue. were of the most amiable sort. Ilia letters to his wife on the education of his daughters are full of good sense and feeling.
(A Selection from the Public and l'rirate Correspondence qf Vice. Admiral Lord Oallingamod ; interspersed with Memoirs of his Life. By G. is Newnharn Collingwood, Esq., F.1LS., 2 vols. 8vo, second edit, Loud., 1828.)