To Walter Stanhope he wrote:--


_Queen, March 6th., 1806._

I thank you and Mrs Stanhope most sincerely for your kind
congratulations on the success of the Fleet, and the high honour his
Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer on me in testimony of
his approbation, which I am sure will be very gratifying to all my
friends, and that you will enjoy it as much as any of them.

I have indeed had a severe loss in the death of my excellent friend
Lord Nelson. Since the year 73 we have been on terms of the greatest
intimacy--chance has thrown us very much together in service and on
many occasions we have acted in concert--there is scarce a Naval
subject that has not been the subject of our discussion, so that all
his opinions were familiar to me; and so firmly founded in principles
of honour, of justice, of attachment to his country, at the same time
so entirely divested of everything interesting to himself, that it was
impossible to consider him but with admiration. He liked fame and was
open to flattery so that people sometimes got about him who were
unworthy of him. He is a loss to his country that cannot easily be
replaced.


Thus in a few words, the very reticence of which enhances their
significance, did Collingwood sum up the greatness and the weakness of
Nelson. Gifted, brilliant, faulty by reason of his emotional temperament,
strong by reason of his enthusiasm--his all-enthralling sense of duty,