MEMOIR OF VICE-ADMIRAL CUTHBERT, LORD COLLINGWOOD

Summary

It is not the character of the British nation, to withhold from its brave defenders the fair fame to which their heroic deeds have led: and, if the day of enrolling the name of Collingwood among those of great admirals was postponed until it became painful to the individual, it is to be placed to an account highly honourable to our country, and to the service in which his bright talents were employed. His life, to adopt his own modest language, so much in character with all his other sentiments, “had been a continual service at sea; but unmarked by any of those extraordinary events or brilliant scenes which hold men up to particular attention, and distinguish them from those officers who are zealous and anxious for the public service.” For many years Collingwood was one among the number of those meritorious officers who were both able and zealous for the public service, but whose good fortune it had not been to have been early brought forward into the more conspicuous sphere of public notice, or to have had the opportunity for which such men pant, to display their talent and their bravery in their country's service, and swell the pages of our naval annals, with triumphs and achievements of their own.