only fourteen, was gazetted to a lieutenant's commission in the marines. In 1775 he was present at Bunker's Hill; two years later he was acting as adjutant of the Chatham division; and in 1782, as captain of marines on board the Courageux, he took part in the action for the relief of Gibraltar. On the proclamation of peace in the last-mentioned year, he returned home on half-pay and settled at Rochester; but in May 1787, after five years' retirement, he sailed with Governor Arthur Phillip, as secretary and judge-advocate, on the expedition to establish a convict settlement at Botany Bay, New South Wales, lately discovered by Captain Cook. A more suitable locality, Port Jackson, was eventually selected, and there Sydney was founded. Collins stayed in Australia for nine years, and on his return wrote 'An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales. … To which are added some particulars of New Zealand, compiled … from the MSS. of Governor King' (with many engravings), 2 vols. 4to, London, 1798-1802, 2nd edition (abridged and edited by Maria Collins), 4to, London, 1804). The work, apart from its singular, almost painful interest as a narrative, is of especial value as the first official account of the infant colony. It includes an account of the discovery of Bass's Strait from Bass's 'Journal.' Collins, however, found that his appointment abroad had cost him the loss of many years' rank at home; he died a captain instead of a colonel-commandant, his rank in the army being merely brevet. His remarks on what he termed 'the peculiar hardship of my case,' at the close of the second volume of his book, appear to have awakened the sympathy of those in power; and almost immediately after its publication he was offered and accepted the governorship of another projected settlement in Australia. An attempt to found one on the south-eastern coast of Port Phillip proving a failure, he crossed to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), and there, on 19 Feb. 1804, he laid the first stone of the present city of Hobart Town. Collins continued governor until his death, which occurred almost suddenly on 24 March 1810, at the age of fifty-four. By his wife, an American lady who survived him, he left no issue. In person he was remarkably handsome, his manners were delightful, while in a post of difficulty and danger he showed himself a wise and enlightened administrator. A portrait of Collins is prefixed to the second edition of his book.
[Gent. Mag. lxix. i. 282-3, lxxx. ii. 489-90; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography, pp. 552-583; Allibone's Dictionary; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th edit.]
COLLINS, GREENVILE (fl. 1679–1693), captain in the royal navy and hydrographer, was in 1679 appointed commander of the Lark, a small frigate, apparently in some connection with the duties of the Trinity House, of which Collins was a younger brother. In 1681 he was ordered to survey and chart the coasts of the kingdom, for which purpose he was appointed to command the Merlin yacht. This survey occupied the next seven years, the charts being published from time to time as ready, and it was not till 1693 that he was able to issue them collectively in a large folio, together with sailing directions, under the title of 'Great Britain's Coasting Pilot.' The scope of the work, embracing, as it does, the complete circuit of Great Britain, is very great, and for one man in seven, or even in twelve, years excessive. The charts have not, of course, the rigid accuracy of those of our own time, and some of them are possibly edited from Dutch originals; but with all their shortcomings they are an enormous advance on anything before them, and entitle Collins to rank not only with the earliest, but with the best of English hydrographers. The 'Coasting Pilot ' was printed by a namesake, Freeman Collins, who may have been a brother, but of his further life or family nothing is known.
[Preface and Dedication to the Coasting Pilot; Charnock's Biog. Navalis, ii. 60.]
COLLINS, HERCULES (d. 1702), baptist minister, had not the advantage of a learned education. 'He began to be religious at an early age, and continued faithful to the last, and was not shock'd by the fury of the persecutors' (Crosby, Hist, of the English Baptists, iii. 129). He appears to have officiated to a congregation at Wapping, and at one period he was imprisoned in Newgate (Wilson, Dissenting Churches, ii. 178). He died on 4 Oct. 1702, and his funeral sermon, by the Rev. John Piggott, was printed in the following year; but it contains no biographical particulars.
Besides some single sermons, he wrote the following works, some of which occasioned a good deal of controversy:
- 'An Orthodox Catechism, being the sum of Christian Religion contained in the Law and Gospel,' London, 1680, 12mo.
- 'A Voice from the Prison, or Meditations on Revelations,' London, 1684, 4to.
- 'Believers' Baptism from Heaven, and of Divine Institution Infants' Baptism from Earth, and Human Invention,' London, 1691, 8vo., revised and republished by John Bailey, London, 1803, 8vo.
- 'The Antidote proved a Counterfeit, or Errorde-
