en of Naples expected to be put on the throne of
Naples again and had intimated the desire of showing her gratitude to
himself by creating him a Sicilian Duke and giving him an estate. "If
a Dukedom is offered to me," he tells her, "I shall return my thanks
for the honour they wish to confer upon me, and show my estimate of it
by telling them that I am the servant of my sovereign alone, and can
receive no rewards from a foreign prince." Napoleon denounced Marie
Caroline, Queen of Naples, as "a wicked shameless woman, who had
violated all that men held most sacred." She had ceased to reign, and
by her crimes she had fulfilled her destiny. Collingwood, who knew her
public and private character to be notoriously untrustworthy and
loose, looked upon the proposed honour from such a person as an
affront, and refused to accept it if offered. Nelson, on the other
hand, who had a passion for window-dressing and flattery, accepted
with a flowing heart both a Dukedom and an estate from their Sicilian
Majesties. His close intimacy with the Royal Family, and especially
with the Queen, was a perpetual anxiety to his loyal and devoted
friends.

There were no two men in the Service who had such an affectionate
regard for each other as Nelson and the amiable Northumbrian Admiral,
and certainly none equalled them in their profession or in their
devotion to their King and country. Each was different from the other
in temperament and character, but both were alike in superb
heroism--the one, egotistically untamed, revelling at intervals in
lightning flashes of eternal vengeance on the French fleet when the
good fortune of meeting them should come; and the other, with calm
reticence elaborating his plans and waiting patiently for his chance
to take part in the challenge that was to decide the dominion of the
sea. Each, in fact, rivalled in being a spirit to the other. Nelson
believed, and frequently said, that he "wished to appear as a
godsend"; while Collingwood, in more humble and piercing phrase,
remarked that "while it is England, let me keep my place in the
forefront of the battle." The sound of the names of these two
remarkable men is like an echo from other far-off days. Both believed
that God was on their side.

Neither of them knew the character or purpose of the exalted man on
whom their Government was making war. Like simple-minded, brave
sailors as they were, knowing nothing of the mysteries of political
jealousies and intrig