attention to Nelson's blind prejudice to and
hatred of the French. Collingwood was tainted with the same one-sided
views, but tempered them with more conventional language. In his
letters to Lady Collingwood he expresses delight at receiving a letter
written to him in French by his daughter, and exhorts the mother to
see that she converses when she can in that language, and to remember
that she is never to admire anything French but the language. On
another occasion he enjoins his daughter Sarah to write every day a
translation of English into French, so that the language may soon
become familiar to her; and then, as though he regarded these
instructions as unpatriotic, he qualifies them by reminding her "that
it is the only thing French that she needs to acquire, because there
is little else in connection with that country which he would wish her
to love or imitate." A kinsman of his, after the battle of Trafalgar,
wrote to inform him that his family were descended from, and allied
to, many great families, Talebois amongst the rest. He brushed the
intended compliment aside, and in his quaint manner remarked that "he
had never troubled to search out his genealogy but all he could say
was, that if he got hold of the French fleet, he would either be a
Viscount or nothing." This is one of the very rare symptoms of
vaunting that he ever gave way to; and though his dislike of the
French was as inherent as Nelson's, he never allowed his chivalrous
nature to be overruled by passion. In a letter to Lord Radstock in
1806 he closes it by paying a high tribute to the unfortunate French
Admiral Villeneuve by stating "that he was a well-bred man, and a good
officer, who had nothing of the offensive vapourings and boastings in
his manner which were, perhaps, too commonly attributed to the
Frenchmen."

Collingwood was a man of high ideals with a deeply religious fervour,
never sinning and then repenting as Nelson was habitually doing.
Physical punishment of his men was abhorrent to him, and although he
enforced stern discipline on his crew, they worshipped him. "I cannot
understand," he said, "the religion of an officer who can pray all one
day and flog his men all the next." His method was to create a feeling
of honour amongst his men, and he did this with unfailing success,
without adopting the harsh law of the land made by English
aristocrats.

In a letter to his wife, dated September, 1806, Collingwood informs
her that the Que