"Just after I went out at three, a second post arrived from Captain Thomas, desiring your father to communicate the dreadful tidings to poor Lady Collingwood. It was five when we received the letter; your father immediately enclosed the letter to the Vicar, to desire he would break it to the family, and I wrote to the Mistress of the School to acquaint the second girl. She wished to see no one or I should have called the next day. Mr Reay heard of the event before we did and recollecting that the Papers at Newcastle were delivered an hour before the letters, wisely sent off an Express; therefore I trust there was time for her to be somewhat prepared for the worst. "With respect to ourselves, I need not tell you how shocked we were, and unfortunately, we had not only a large party to dinner that night, but some people in the evening. Amongst those who dined with us was Captain Waldegrave, who had not heard of it till he came here, and I never saw anyone so distressed, for Lord Collingwood had been a Father to him as well as to William; and he is one of the most pleasing young men I ever met with. Two days afterwards he brought here Mr Brown, the flag-lieutenant of the _Ville de Paris_, who gave me many interesting particulars, and spoke highly of William. Your father has seen Lord Mulgrave twice, and it is settled that a monument at the Publick expence shall be executed for Lord Collingwood. He cannot have a publick funeral, but they wish the family to bury him at St Paul's near Lord Nelson, which your father is this day to write to propose, and I think it impossible Lady Collingwood can have any objection, in which case it will be attended by the Lords of the Admiralty & his own private friends. The Body is now at Greenwich, for it arrived at Portsmouth as soon as the letters announcing his death. He died like a hero, and when that character is added, as it was in him, to the Christian, it is great indeed. On the same date Mr Stanhope wrote to his son--"I saw Lord Mulgrave the night before last, who desired I would inform Lady Collingwood and the family that it was meant to move in the House for a monument for Lord Collingwood in St Paul's, next to Nelson's. Of course the Body, which has arrived in the Thames, will be deposited in that Church, and the funeral must be splendid without ostentation--at the expense of the executors, or rather of the family." It was not, however, till May 8th that Mrs Stanhope was enabled to furnish her son with full details of the manner in which the intended ceremony was to be performed. GROSVENOR SQUARE, _May 8th., 1810._