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

Sir Andrew Mitchell has 25l., two daughters of Admiral Epworth have 25l. each, the daughter of Admiral Keppel 24l., the daughter of Captain Mann, who was killed in action, 25l., four children of Admiral Moriarty 25l. each. That is—thirteen daughters of admirals and captains, several of whose fathers fell in the service of their country, receive from the gratitude of the nation a sum less than Dame Mary Saxton, the widow of a commissioner.

The pension list is not formed on any comparative rank or merit, length of service, or other rational principle, but appears to me to be dependent on parliamentary influence alone. Lieutenant Ellison, who lost his arm, is allowed 91l. 5s., Captain Johnstone, who lost his arm, has only 45l. 12s. 6d., Lieutenant Arden, who lost his arm, has 9l. 5s., Lieutenant Campbell, who lost his leg, 40_l._., and poor Lieutenant Chambers, who lost both his legs, has only 80_l._., whilst Sir A.S. Hamond retires on 1500_l._. per annum. The brave Sir Samuel Hood, who lost his arm, has only 500_l._., whilst the late Secretary of the Admiralty retires, in full health, on a pension of 1500_l._. per annum.

To speak less in detail, 32 flag officers, 22 captains, 50 lieutenants, 180 masters, 36 surgeons, 23 pursers, 91 boatswains, 97 gunners, 202 carpenters, and 41 cooks, in all 774 persons, cost the country 4028l. less than the nett proceeds of the sinecures of Lords Arden (20,358_l._), Camden (20,536_l._), and Buckingham (20,693_l._).

All the superannuated admirals, captains, and lieutenants put together, have but 1012l. more than Earl Camden's sinecure alone! All that is paid to the wounded officers of the whole British navy, and to the wives and children of those dead or killed in action, do not amount by 214l. to as much as Lord Arden's sinecure alone, viz. 20,358_l._. What is paid to the mutilated officers themselves is but half as much.

Is this justice? Is this the treatment which the officers of the navy deserve at the hands of those who call themselves his Majesty's Government? Does the country know of this injustice? Will this too be defended? If I express myself with warmth I trust in the indulgence of the House. I cannot suppress my feelings. Should 31 commissioners, commissioners' wives, and clerks have 3899l. more amongst them than all the wounded officers of the navy of England?

I find upon examination that the Wellesleys receive from the public 34,729_l._, a sum equal to 426 pairs of lieutenants' legs, calculated at the rate of allowance of Lieutenant Chambers's legs. Calculating for the pension of Captain Johnstone's arm, viz. 45l., Lord Arden's sinecure is equal to the value of 1022 captains' arms. The Marquis of Buckingham's sinecure alone will maintain the whole ordinary establishment of the victualling department at Chatham, Dover, Gibraltar, Sheerness, Downs, Heligoland, Cork, Malta, Mediterranean, Cape of Good Hope, Rio de Janeiro, and leave 5460_l._ in the Treasury. Two of these comfortable sinecures would victual the officers and men serving in all the ships in ordinary in Great Britain, viz. 117 sail of the line, 105 frigates, 27 sloops, and 50 hulks. Three of them would maintain the dockyard establishments at Portsmouth and Plymouth. The addition of a few more would amount to as much as the whole ordinary establishments of the royal dockyards at Chatham, Woolwich, Deptford, and Sheerness; whilst the sinecures and offices executed wholly by deputy would more than maintain the ordinary establishment of all the royal dockyards in the kingdom.

Even Mr. Ponsonby, who lately made so pathetic an appeal to the good sense of the people of England against those whom he was pleased to term demagogues, actually receives, for having been thirteen months in office, a sum equal to nine admirals who have spent their lives in the service of their country; three times as much as all the pensions given to all the daughters and children of all the admirals, captains, lieutenants, and other officers who have died in indigent circumstances, or who have been killed in the service.

III.

(Page 258.)

The following letter, too long to be quoted in the body of the work, but too important to be omitted, was addressed by Lord Cochrane to the Brazilian Secretary of State. It gives memorable evidence of the treatment to which he was subjected by the Portuguese faction in Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro, May 3rd, 1824.

MOST EXCELLENT SIR,

I have received the honour of your excellency's reply to my letter of the 30th of March, and as I am thereby taught that the subjects on which I wrote are not now considered so intimately connected with your excellency's department as they were by your immediate predecessor, nor even so far relevant as to justify a direct communication to your excellency, I should feel it my duty to avoid troubling you farther on those subjects, were it not that you at the same time have freely expressed such opinions with respect to my conduct and motives as justice to myself requires me to controvert and refute.

With regard to your excellency's assurance that it has ever been the intention of his Imperial Majesty and Council to act favourably towards me, I can in return assure your excellency that I have never doubted the just and benign intention of his Imperial Majesty himself, neither have I doubted that a part of his Privy Council has thought well of my services; and if I have imagined that a majority has been prejudiced against me, I have formed that conclusion merely from the effects which I have seen and experienced, and not from any undue prepossession against particular individuals, whether Brazilian or Portuguese. But when your excellency adds that those transactions between the late minister and myself, which, owing to their having been conducted verbally, have been ill-understood, have invariably been decided in a manner favourable to me, I confess myself at a loss to understand your excellency's meaning, not having any recollection of such favourable decisions, and therefore not feeling myself competent either to admit or deny unless in the first place your excellency shall be pleased to descend to particulars. I do indeed recollect that the late ministers, professing to have the authority of his Imperial Majesty, and which, from the personal countenance I have experienced from that august personage, I am sure they did not clandestinely assume, proffered to me the command of the imperial squadron, with every privilege, emolument, and advantage which I possessed in the command of the navy of Chili; and this, your excellency is desired to observe, was not a verbal transaction, but a written one, and therefore not liable to any of those misunderstandings to which verbal transactions, as your excellency observes, are naturally subject. Now, in Chili my commission was that of commander-in-chief of the squadron, without limitation as to time or any other restriction. My command, of course, was only to cease by my own voluntary resignation, or by sentence of court-martial, or by death, or other uncontrollable event. And accordingly the appointment which I accepted in the service of his Imperial Majesty, and in virtue of which I sailed in command of the expedition to Bahia, was that of commander-in-chief of the whole squadron, without limitation as to time or otherwise; and this, too, your excellency will be pleased to observe, was not a verbal transaction, but a solemn engagement in writing, bearing date the 26th day of March, 1823, and now in my possession. I had also the assurance in writing of the Minister of Marine, that the formalities of engrossment and registration of such appointment were only deferred from want of time, and should be executed immediately after my return.

And now I most respectfully put it home to your excellency whether these engagements have or have not been fully confirmed and complied with under the present administration. I ask your excellency whether the patent which I received, bearing date the 25th November, 1823, did not contain a clause of limitation by which I might at any time be dismissed from the service under any pretence or without any pretence whatever—without even the form of a hearing in my own defence. Then again I ask your excellency whether my office as commander-in-chief of the squadron was not reduced for a period of three months—as appears by every official communication of the Minister of Marine to me during that period—to the command only of the vessels of war anchored in this port?[A] and further on this subject I ask your excellency whether after my repeated remonstrances against this injurious limitation of my stipulated authority, it was not pretended by the decree published in the Gazette of the 28th February, that I was then for the first time, as a mark of special favour, elevated to the rank of commander-in-chief of the squadron, and that too during the period only of the existing war: although nothing less than the chief command had been offered to me at the first, without any restriction as to time, and although it was only in that capacity I had consented to enter into the service, and under a written appointment as such I had then been in the service nearly twelve months. And then I ask your excellency whether the limitation introduced into the patent of the 25th of November last, in violation of the original agreement, and confirmed and defined by the decree published on the 28th of February following; to which may be added the communication which I received from your excellency, excluding me from taking the oath, and becoming a party to the constitution, the 149th article of which provides for the protection of officers until lawfully deprived by sentence of court-martial; I say that I respectfully ask your excellency whether these proceedings were not well adapted for the purpose of casting me off with the utmost facility at the earliest moment that convenience might dictate; either with or without the admission of those claims for the future to which past services are usually considered entitled, as might best suit the inclination of those with whom my dismissal might originate. And is it not most probable that their inclination would run counter to those claims, especially when it is considered that my letter of the 6th of March to the Minister of Marine, in which I made the inquiry whether my right to half-pay would be recognized on the termination of the war, has never been answered, although my application for a reply has been repeated?[B] If then the explicit engagements in writing between the late minister of his Imperial Majesty and myself have, as I have shown, been set aside by the present ministry and council, and other arrangements far less favourable to me, and destructive of the lawful security of my present and future rights, have without my consent been substituted in their stead, where, I entreat your excellency, am I to look for those favourable constructions of "ill-understood verbal transactions," which your excellency requires me to accept as a proof that the intentions of the present ministry and council, in respect to me, have ever been of the most favourable and obliging nature?

[Footnote A: This was resorted to, in order to prevent Lord Cochrane from stationing the cruisers to annoy the enemy, to deprive him of any interest in future captures, and prevent his opposition to the unlawful restoration of enemy's property.]

[Footnote B: An answer was at last given, a few days before Lord Cochrane's assistance was called for to put down the revolution at Pernambuco; and half of the originally-granted half-pay was decreed when he should return, after the termination of hostilities, to his native country.]

I would beg permission, too, to inquire how it happened that portarias[A] from the Minister of Marine, charging me unjustly from time to time with neglecting to obey the command of his Imperial Majesty, were constantly made public, while my answers in refutation were always suppressed. And why, when I remonstrated against this injustice, was I answered that the same course should be persisted in, and that I had no alternative but to acquiesce, or to descend to a newspaper controversy by publishing my exculpations myself? Is it possible not to perceive that the ex parte publication of these accusatory portarias was intended to lower me in the public estimation, and to prepare the way for the exercise of that power of summary dismissal which was so unfairly acquired by the means above described?

[Footnote A: Official communications.]