His wife, Margaret, was daughter of Nicholas Johnson, by a sister of Sir Stephen Fox. Fox was an executor of Johnson's will and guardian of his children. In that capacity he was accused by Collier of not properly accounting for the Johnsons' estate. A dignified letter from Collier to Fox (10 Oct. 1710) is printed by Benson. A chancery suit followed, the issue of which does not appear. Mrs. Collier is said to have been extravagant. Collier got into difficulties; he obtained leave in 1716 to take lodgings in Salisbury, his parsonage being too handsome for his means; he applied vainly to his wife's aunt, Lady Fox, probably alienated by the previous quarrel, for tier interest to obtain a prebend; and at last he sold the advowson of Langford to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for sixteen hundred guineas. He died in 1732, and was buried at Langford 9 Sept. His brother William became rector of Baverstock in 1713, took an interest in metaphysics and horseracing, and also died in 1732. Arthur Collier's wife and four children survived him. One son, Arthur, became a civilian, and died in 1777; Charles entered the army; Jane wrote 'The Art of Tormenting,' 1753, republished in 1804 as 'The Art of ingeniously Tormenting;' the other daughter, Mary or Margaret, appears to have accompanied Fielding on his voyage to Lisbon (Benson, p. 162). Letters from the two sisters are in Richardson's 'Correspondence.' Collier's papers were discovered at a house in Salisbury, and a memoir founded upon them was published soon afterwards by Robert Benson (1797–1844) [q. v.] in 1837.
[Benson's Memoirs of the Life and Writings of A. Collier; Fraser's Berkeley, iv. 62, 63.]
COLLIER, Sir FRANCIS AUGUSTUS (1783?–1849), rear-admiral, second son of Vice-admiral Sir George Collier [q. v.], entered the navy in 1794, and after a few years' service in the Channel was, early in 1798, at the desire of Sir Horatio Nelson, appointed to the Vanguard, the ship which bore Sir Horatio's flag in the Mediterranean and at the battle of the Nile. He was afterwards moved into the Foudroyant, with Nelson and Sir Edward Berry [q. v.], and continued serving in the Mediterranean till the peace. He was promoted to be lieutenant on 11 April 1803; commander, 25 Jan. 1805; and captain, 13 Dec. 1808; during which years he was actively employed in the West Indies, though without any opportunity of special distinction. On 8 Dec. 1815 he was made a C.B., and in February 1818 was appointed to the Liverpool of 50 guns, going out to the East Indies. In December 1819 he was sent to the Gulf of Persia, in naval command of a joint expedition against the Joasmi pirates. Their chief fortress, Ras-el-Khyma, was captured, the fortifications all round the coast were blown up, their shipping was destroyed, and on 8 Jan. 1820 a formal treaty of peace was signed, and piracy, on the part of the Arabs, declared to be at an end for ever. Not the least remarkable part of the business is that the treaty was fairly well kept. It did really put an end to the national and patriotic piracy which had been the scourge of Eastern seas; although, of course, piracy in its more vulgar form continued, and, in fact, still continues. Collier returned to England in October 1822. From 1826 to 1830 he was commodore on the west coast of Africa, from 1841 to 1846 was superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard, and in 1846 commanded a squadron in the Channel. On 9 Nov. 1846 he became a rear-admiral, and in April 1848 was appointed to the command of the China station, where he died suddenly of apoplexy on 28 Oct. 1849.
His services in the Persian Gulf had been rewarded by the order of the Lion and Sun; he was knighted 28 July 1830, and made K.C.H. 1 Jan. 1833. He was twice married and left issue.
[O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Low's Hist, of the Indian Navy, i. 351; Annual Register (1849), xci. 279.]
COLLIER, Sir GEORGE (1738–1795), vice-admiral, was born in London in 1738, and entered the navy in 1751. After serving on the home station, and under Sir George Pocock in the East Indies, he was made commander on 6 Aug. 1761, and on 12 July 1762 was posted to the Boulogne frigate, which he commanded till the peace. He was then appointed to the Edgar, guardship at Plymouth, which he commanded for three years; and afterwards, in succession, to the Tweed, Levant, and Flora frigates. In 1775 he seems to have been sent to North America on some special service, the circumstances of which have not been chronicled, but which obtained for him the honour of knighthood. He was then appointed to the Rainbow of 44 guns, in which he sailed for America on 20 May 1776. Shortly after his arrival on the station he was charged by Lord Howe with the duties of senior officer at Halifax, and on 17 June 1777 received the thanks of the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia 'for his constant and generous attention to the safety and protection of the province.' On 8 July 1777, after a long chase, he captured the Hancock, a large frigate which the colonists had newly built and commissioned, and which was added to the English navy as the
