The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane - Earl of Dundonald Thomas Barnes Cochrane (guided reading books TXT) 📗

immediately summoned by the Admiralty to Whitehall, and asked for a plan whereby the French fleet in Basque Roads, then threatening our West India possessions, might be destroyed at one blow; this extraordinary request from a junior captain, after the most experienced officers in the navy had pronounced its impracticability, forcibly proving the very high opinion entertained by the Admiralty of Lord Cochrane's skill and resources. He gave in a plan, and was ordered to execute it, which order he reluctantly obeyed, having done all in his power to decline an invidious command, for fear of arousing the jealousy of officers to whom he was junior in the service. What followed is matter of history, and needs not to be recapitulated. Yet for the destruction of that powerful armament he neither received reward nor thanks from the Admiralty, though rewarded by his sovereign with the highest order of the Bath, a distinction which marked his Majesty's sense of the important service rendered.

Nine years afterwards head money was awarded to the whole fleet, of which only the vessels directed by Lord Cochrane and a few sent afterwards, when too late for effective measures, took part in the action. The alleged reason of this award was that the Calcutta, one of the ships driven ashore by Lord Cochrane, did not surrender to him, but to ships sent to his assistance. This was not true, though after protracted deliberation so ruled by the Admiralty Court, and officers now living and present in the action have recently come forward to testify to the ship being in Lord Cochrane's possession before the arrival of the ships which subsequently came to his assistance. A small sum was therefore only awarded to him as a junior captain, in common with those who had been spectators only, and this he declined to receive. Such was his recompense for a service to the high merit of which Napoleon himself afterwards testified in the warmest manner; and it may be mentioned as a further testimony that a French Court Martial shot Captain Lafont, the commander of the Calcutta, because he surrendered to a vessel of inferior power, viz., Lord Cochrane's frigate, the Impérieuse of forty-four guns, the Calcutta carrying sixty guns.[A]

[Footnote A: Captain Lafont was shot on board the Ocean, on September 9, 1809, for surrendering the Calcutta to a ship of inferior force, thus proving that she surrendered to Lord Cochrane alone, though Sir William Scott ruled in opposition to the facts adopted by the French Court Martial, which condemned Captain Lafont to death for the act. The surrender to Lord Cochrane alone is further proved by the additional fact, that the captains of the Ville de Varsovie and Aquilon, which did surrender to the other ships in conjunction with Lord Cochrane's frigate, were not even accused, much less punished for so doing.]

The exploits of Lord Cochrane in the Speedy and Pallas are too well known in naval history to require recapitulation, and of these it may be said that the numerous prizes captured by these vessels constituted their own reward. It may here be mentioned in confirmation of what has previously been said, that the Gamo, a magnificent xebeque frigate of thirty-two guns, was not allowed to be bought into the navy, but was sold for a small sum to one of the piratical Barbary States, notwithstanding that Lord Cochrane had said that if he were allowed to have her in place of the Speedy, then in a very dilapidated condition, he would sweep the Mediterranean of the enemy's cruisers and privateers. His capacity so to do may be judged from what he effected with the Speedy, mounting only fourteen 4-pounders.

With regard to the services previously enumerated, the case is different, notwithstanding their national importance in comparison with his minor acts, which may be classed as brilliant exploits only. But that no reward should have been conferred for doing effectively the work of an army, and that without the cost of a shilling to the nation beyond the ordinary expenditure of a small frigate, necessary to be disbursed whether she performed any effective service or not, is a neglect which, unless repaired in the persons of his successors, will for ever remain a blot on the British Government. Still more so will the worse neglect of not having in any way rewarded him for the destruction of the French fleet in Basque Roads, for though only four ships were destroyed at the moment, the whole fleet of the enemy was so damaged by having been driven on shore from terror of the explosive vessel, fired with Lord Cochrane's own hand, that it eventually became a wreck; and thus our West India commerce, then the most important branch of national export and import, was in a month after Lord Cochrane's arrival from the Mediterranean relieved from the panic which paralysed it, and restored to its wonted security;—a service which can only be estimated by the gloom and panic which had previously pervaded the whole country.

Were reference made to the pension list, and note taken of the pensions granted to other officers and their successors for services which in point of national importance do not admit of comparison with those of Lord Cochrane, the present generation would be surprised at the national ingratitude manifested towards one, who, in his great exploits, had so patriotically sacrificed every consideration of private interest to his country's service. His cruise in the Impérieuse, which has no parallel in naval history, procured for Lord Cochrane nothing whatever but shattered health from the incessant anxiety and exertion he had undergone in the profitless but high-minded course he adopted to thwart the French in their attempts to establish a permanent footing in Eastern Spain. His exploits in Basque Roads procured him nothing but absolute ruin; for, from his refusal as a Member of Parliament to acquiesce in a vote of thanks to Lord Gambier, even though the same thanks were promised to himself, may be dated that active political persecution which commenced by depriving him of further naval employment and did not cease till it had accomplished his utter ruin, even to striking his name out of the Navy List.

The animosity of this political partisanship towards one who had effected so much for his country is an anomaly even in political history. That amended representation of the people in Parliament, for which he strove up to 1818, had only fourteen years afterwards become the law of the land, and the boast of some who had persecuted Lord Cochrane for no offence beyond having been amongst the first to give expression to the popular will subsequently adopted by themselves.

The efforts of Lord Cochrane in favour of reforming the abuses of the Navy and of Greenwich Hospital, which at that time brought upon him the wrath of the Administration, are at this moment seriously engaging the attention of parliament, as being of paramount national necessity. The doctrine then openly laid down, that no naval officer in parliament had a right to interfere with naval administration, has long been abrogated, and many of the brightest ornaments of the navy are now amongst the foremost to denounce naval abuses in the House of Commons. It is, in fact, to them that the country now looks for that vigilance which shall preserve the navy in a proper state of efficiency. Yet for these very things was Lord Cochrane persecuted, though modern Governments, which have been liberal enough to acquiesce in popular reforms, of which he was the early advocate, have not been liberal enough to make him amends for the wrongs he suffered as one of the indefatigable originators of their now-cherished measures. Still less have they deemed it inconsistent with the honour of this great country to refrain from rewarding him in the ordinary manner for his most important services, rendered when others shrank from them, as was the case at Basque Roads, where his plans, declined by his seniors in the service, were successfully executed by himself under the greatest possible discouragement and disadvantage.

But the injustice manifested towards the late Earl of Dundonald did not end here. Driven from the service of his own country, and without fortune, he was compelled by his necessities to embark in the service of foreign states. With his own hand, directed by his own genius, which had to supply the place of adequate naval force, he liberated Chili, Peru, and Brazil from thraldom, consolidating the rebellious provinces of the latter empire on so permanent a basis, that its internal peace has never again been disturbed. Yet not one of these states has to this day satisfied the stipulated and indisputable arrangements by which he was induced to espouse their cause; the reason of their breach of contract being distinctly traceable to the course pursued towards Lord Dundonald in England. Seeing that the British Government paid no attention to the yet more important claims he had upon its gratitude, the South American States believed that they might with impunity disregard their own stipulations, and the dictates of national honour; the chief of one of them having had the audacity to tell Lord Cochrane that he would find no sympathy in the British Government.

Three of the most distinguished officers in the British service, Sir Thomas Hastings, Sir John Burgoyne, and Colonel Colquhoun, have felt it their duty, when officially reporting on the efficacy of Lord Dundonald's war plans, to give him the highest credit for having kept his secret "under peculiarly trying circumstances," and from pure love of his native country. The "trying circumstances" were these,—that he had been driven from the service of that country by the machinations of a political faction, which, in the conscientious performance of his parliamentary duties, he had offended. Even this injury, which blasted his whole life and prospects, did not detract one iota from the love of country, which to the day of his death was with him a passion; his acute mind well knowing how to draw the distinction between his country and those who were sacrificing its best interests to their love of power, if not to less worthy purposes. Never was praise more honourably given, than in the Ordnance Report of the above-named distinguished officers, and never was it more nobly deserved.

Another "peculiarly trying circumstance" alluded to by those officers, was that, when compelled by actual pecuniary necessity, in consequence of the deprivation of his rank and pay, and the demands of increasing family, to accept service under a foreign state as his only means of subsistence, he lay before the castles of Callao, into which had been removed for security the whole wealth of the rich capital of Peru, including bullion and plate, estimated at upwards of a million sterling, he preserved his war secret, though strongly urged to put it in execution. Had he listened to the temptation, in six hours the whole of that wealth must have been in his possession. For not listening to it, he incurred the enmity of his employers, who urged that they were entitled to all his professional skill and knowledge, as a part of his bargain with them; and his non-compliance with their wishes is doubtless amongst the chief reasons why they have not, to this day, satisfied their own offered stipulations for his services. Yet, at the very moment when he was displaying this self-sacrificing patriotism, lest his country might suffer from his secret being divulged, the Government of Great Britain had, at the suggestion of the Spanish Government, passed a "Foreign Enlistment Act," with the express intention of enveloping him in its meshes.[A]

[Footnote A: On Lord Cochrane's return from Brazil, having occasion to go before the Attorney-General, on the subject of a patent, that learned functionary rudely asked him, "Whether he was not afraid to appear in his presence?" Lord Cochrane's reply was, "No, nor in the presence of any man living." Evidence exists that the Attorney-General asked the Ministry if he should prosecute Lord Cochrane under the Foreign Enlistment Act, the reply being in the negative.]

II.

(Page 23.)

As a striking instance of Lord Cochrane's method of exposing naval abuses, part of a speech delivered by him in the House of Commons, on the 11th of May, 1809, is here copied from his "Autobiography," vol. ii. pp. 142-144.

An admiral, worn out in the service, is superannuated at 410_l._. a year, a captain at 210_l._., a clerk of the ticket office retires on 700_l._. a year! The widow of Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell has one third of the allowance given to the widow of a Commissioner of the Navy.

I will give the House another instance. Four daughters of the gallant Captain Courtenay have 12l. 10s. each, the daughter of Admiral