The truth was that, in much, Collingwood was a more able diplomatist than the men by whose authority he was circumscribed. His letters to Stanhope prove that he was a more apt tactician and had a profounder grasp of the political situation of his day than he has been credited with by posterity. Again and again, does he foretell that a particular line of action will be fraught with a particular result, or show how his representations had been ignored until, too late, events had proved their accuracy. Again and again, in some apparently trivial situation which he had the insight to recognise was big with import, did his tactfulness avert catastrophe which a lesser man would have hastened. "I have always found that kind language and strong ships have a very powerful effect in conciliating the people," he says in one letter to Stanhope, with dry humour. And meanwhile the incompetency of many of those with whom he had to work in alliance was a further source of trial to him. Only too shrewdly did he recognise wherein lay the efficiency of Napoleon and the incapacity of his opponents. _October 7th, 1809._ Should the Austrians make their peace, which I am convinced they must, the next object of Bonaparte will be Turkey, and probably the Austrians be engaged to assist him in the reduction of it. All the south part of Europe seems as if within his grasp the moment peace is signed with Austria; he has long been intriguing with those countries, sometimes with the Government, in other places with the people against their Government; the arts, the dissimulations with which those intrigues are conducted, avail him more than even the rapidity of his armies--all the people he employs are equal to the task assigned them; while in Austria and Spain, the operations are often directed by men who, from Court favour, have got situations they are totally unfit for. Catalonia has suffered much from this cause and everything has gone wrong in Istria and Dalmatia, because there there was wanted a man capable of conducting the war. It is true they have been removed, but not until everything was lost by their want of skill. And yet pitted against "such a Power as never appeared in Europe before," with the need of every faculty upon the alert, Collingwood was haunted ever more and more by the dread that his increasing bodily weakness must engender mental incapacity. A sinister note crept into his correspondence and so early as August 26th, 1808, he wrote:-- _August 26th, 1808._ I have been lately unwell. I grow weak, and the fatigue and anxiety of mind I suffer has worn me down to a shadow. I do not think I can go on much longer, and intend, whenever I feel my strength less, to request that I may be allowed to come to England. I have mentioned this to Lord Mulgrave, but have not to the Admiralty Board.