It was on December 23rd, that Nelson's body preserved in spirits arrived at Greenwich, and forthwith the favourite toast in Yorkshire was one perhaps peculiarly characteristic of the county, "Here's to the Hero who died for his country and came home in spirits!" On January 9th, his funeral took place at St Paul's Cathedral, and Stanhope, who attended it, must have felt a tightening of the throat as he realised how soon his small son was to face dangers such as had occasioned the death of the gallant man whom all England mourned. Moreover, Lord Collingwood had encouraged few delusions with regard to his own capability of aiding the career of the future midshipman. "If Parents were to see how many of their chicks go to ruin from being sent too early abroad they would not be so anxious about it," he wrote on one occasion, while on another he pointed out--"I need not say how glad I shall be to take all the care of William I can, and do him all the service in my power, but it is rather late in my day to be very useful to him as I shall be seeking to retire about the time he is launching into the world." Still more did he emphasise his inability to obtain promotion for those for whom he might have most desired it. On one occasion when Stanhope enclosed a letter from his friend Sir James Graham begging for the advancement of a young lieutenant, Collingwood replied, "I would gladly show every attention in my power to any friend of yours, but I have _no opportunity of advancing any officer beyond a midshipman sometimes_"; and four years after the Battle of Trafalgar he explained that he had still "some of the Lieutenants who were with me in action a few years since and no prospect of providing for them --I have little here but constant labour." But what he could do in the way of protecting and befriending his little kinsman he was eager to accomplish, and his letters show how much anxious thought he devoted to the subject. _Admiral Lord Collingwood to Walter Spencer-Stanhope._ _January 20th, 1806._ I shall be very glad to see your son William, and will take good care of him, and give him the best introduction to this service that I can. I hope he has got on a little in mathematicks, because I have not a school master now in my ship--I had, but he got hurt in the _Sovereign_ and went home. Lord Barham tells me a ship is to be sent out to me soon--William might come out conveniently in her....