SHORT MEMOIRS OF EMINENT MEN. PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTON OF THE LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE; SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORY, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, AND 4, ROYAL EXCHANGE; AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 1847. SHORT MEMOIRS OF EMINENT MEN. ADMIRAL LORD COLLINGWOOD. AMONG the many distinguished characters whose actions are chronicled in the Annals of our Naval History, there are none more eminent, none whose virtues and talents have shed a more brilliant lustre on their country, than Admiral Lord Collingwood. His ancestors are said to have been celebrated for the active part they took in the border wars; and to have suffered greatly, at different times, from the indulgence of their martial spirit. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, one of them was, with other knights and nobles, taken prisoner by the Scotch, and his great-grandfather and namesake, Cuthbert Collingwood, took up arms in the cause of Charles the First, which was the means of his losing large estates in the county of Durham; and, in later times, George Collingwood, at that period the head of the family, actuated by the same devotion to the house of Stuart, engaged in the Rebellion of 1715, and being taken prisoner, was put to death, and his lands forfeited to the crown. From these and other circumstances, by which the remaining possessions of the family had passed to a younger branch, the father of the subject of this memoir inherited but a very moderate fortune. Cuthbert Collingwood, the eldest son, was born on the 26th of September, 1750, at Newcastleupon-Tyne; and was sent to a school in that town, under the superintendence of the Rev. Hugh Moises. Here he met, among other boys, natives of the same place, Lord Stowell and the Earl of Eldon, who afterwards spoke of remembering Collingwood as a pretty and gentle boy. When only eleven years old he entered the royal navy, under the care of his cousin, Captain (afterwards Admiral) Brathwaite. He used to relate that when he first went to sea, he was overcome with grief at the separation from his home and friends; and that as he was sitting weeping and unnoticed, the first-lieutenant observed him, pitied his sorrow, and, interested by his extreme youth, spoke to him in terms of great kindness and encouragement. "This so won my heart," says our midshipman, "that, taking the goodnatured officer to my box, I offered him a large piece of plumcake which my mother had given me, as a token of my gratitude." He continued, for many years, with Captain |