Of Collingwood in lighter vein we also get a glimpse. How, a short time after Trafalgar, he got one of his officers to write up his biography for a pertinacious newspaper editor is a story that the Admiral himself tells in a letter to his wife. “The editors of the _Naval Chronicle_ have written to me for the history of my life and progress, for which they are pleased to say the world is very impatient. Now this rather embarrasses me, for I never could bear the trumpeter of his own praise. So, to get rid of it as well as I can, I have employed ⸺ to write a history for me. For my birth and parentage he has selected two or three chapters of Bamfylde Moore Carew; for my service in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main he has had good assistance in the _History of the Buccaneers_; and for my shipwreck he has copied a great deal out of _Robinson Crusoe_; all which, with a few anecdotes from the _Lives of the Admirals_, a little distorted, will make, I am inclined to think, a very respectable piece of biography.” Collingwood’s dog, Bounce, was on board the _Royal Sovereign_ at Trafalgar, tied up out of the way below, in comparative safety, on the orlop deck. According to Collingwood himself, Bounce did not like cannon firing. Wrote Collingwood about him, before the battle: “Bounce is my only pet now, and he is indeed a good fellow; he sleeps by the side of my cot, whenever I lie in one, until near the time of tacking, and then marches off, to be out of the hearing of the guns, for he is not reconciled to them yet.” After the battle, on his master being raised to the peerage, Bounce—as Collingwood whimsically describes in one of his home-letters—seemed to grasp the new situation and took to giving himself airs. “I am out of all patience with Bounce. The consequential airs he gives himself since he became a right honourable dog are insufferable. He considers it beneath his dignity to play with commoners’ dogs, and truly thinks that he does them grace when he condescends to lift up his leg against them. This, I think, is carrying the insolence of rank to the extreme, but he is a dog that does it!”[19] * * * * * As all the world knows, Collingwood never set foot in England after Trafalgar, doomed, poor homesick fellow, never more to see— The pleasant strand of Northumberland And the lordly towers thereby. He wore out his life on duty, waiting and watching at sea for nearly five long and weary years, for an enemy who did not dare to face him. The Admiralty could not spare him to come home.