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

Indians to exercise the trade of fishermen on the shores of their South American colonies.]

With regard to those difficulties, delays, and other impediments of which I have complained as existing in the arsenal and other offices, and which your excellency supposes me to have represented as being caused, or at least tolerated, by the minister, and which you are pleased to characterise as "tout a fait imaginaires, et n'ayant d'outré source que l'ambition sordide de quelque intrigant," I shall not now enter into them again at any length, as much that I have already written tends to refute your excellency's notions on the subject. That such abuses do really exist I have proved beyond the power of contradiction; and that they are at least tolerated by those—whoever they may be—who possess without exercising the means of preventing, does not require the ingenuity of an "intrigant" to discover, as the fact is self-evident. I cannot, therefore, admit that either my complaints or suspicions are "tout a fait imaginaires," or that they are "des petitesses," as your excellency is pleased contemptuously to term them; but whatever they are, they originate in my own observation, without any assistance from the spectacles of an "intrigant," with which I am so gratuitously accommodated by your excellency.

In still further proof, however, of the real existence of the evils in question, I may just observe that since the return of the Pedro Primiero, that ship has been kept in constant disorder by the delay in commencing and the idle and negligent mode of executing even the trifling alterations in the channels, which were necessary to enable the rigging to be set up, and which, after the lapse of upwards of five months, is now scarcely finished, though it might have been accomplished in forty-eight hours. Even the time of caulking was spun out to a period nearly as long as was occupied last year in the accomplishment of that thorough repair which the ship then underwent; and the painting is far from being completed after sixteen or eighteen days' labour, though a British ship of war is usually painted in a day. Even my own cabin is in such a state that when I am on board I have no place to sit down in. All these things may appear to your excellency as "des petitesses," or even "tout a fait imaginaires," but to me they appear matters of a serious nature, injurious and disgraceful to the service.

I may not, perhaps, succeed in convincing your excellency, but I have the satisfaction of being inwardly conscious that, independent of my natural desire to obtain justice for myself and for all the officers and men of the squadron, no small part of my anxiety for the fulfilment of the engagements of the Government proceeds from a desire to see the navy of his Imperial Majesty rendered efficient; which it can never be unless the same good faith is observed with the officers and men as is kept between the Government and navy of England, and unless indeed many other important considerations are attended to, which appear to have hitherto escaped the regard of the Imperial Government. Why, for instance, is there that indifference in regard to the clothing of the men? What but discontent, debasement, and enervation, can be the effects of that ragged and almost naked condition in which they have so long been suffered to remain, notwithstanding the numerous applications that have been made for the necessary clothing? I would also inquire the reason that officers and men, strangers to each other, and destitute of attachment and mutual confidence, are hastily shipped together in vessels of war going on active service, when better arrangements might easily be made. What can be expected from the vessels of war just gone out, in case they should meet with any serious opposition, but disgrace to those by whom they were so imperfectly and improperly equipped?

If this communication were not already too long, or if, after the letter I have received from your excellency, it were possible for me to continue my representations in the hope of redress, I could add to the list of those causes of complaint which I have already pointed out many particulars which none but those who are blindly attached to that wretched system which has been so injurious to the marine and kingdom of Portugal could consider either trifling or imaginary. But as my present object has been chiefly to repel those imputations in which your excellency has so freely indulged, and believing that I have fully succeeded in that object, and have shown clearly that your excellency has unjustly and untruly accused me of encouraging talebearers, making unfounded complaints, and of being of a nature so avaricious as never to be satisfied—which latter, by-the-by, is an extraordinary accusation to prefer against me—a man whom your excellency must know has not hitherto been benefited, after being more than a year in the service, to the amount of one shilling for the important services he has rendered, but who, on the contrary, as he can show by his accounts, has necessarily expended more in his official situation than he has received in the service; so that the "remercimens" and the "satisfaction," which your excellency accuses him of being deficient in, can scarcely yet be due, unless it is proper to be satisfied and grateful too for less than nothing—having, I say, fully repelled and refuted these unjust accusations, I shall avoid troubling your excellency with any further detail. But I repeat that your excellency has my free consent to cause the whole of my official correspondence to be published; for in all that I have advanced with respect to the violations of contracts, and on the subject of the unsatisfied claims of the squadron, and relative to the ill-usage of officers under arrest, and to the misconduct of the judges of prizes, and of those who have the management of the civil department of the marine,[A] and in all matters whatever in question between the Government of Brazil and myself, I am confident I may safely rely on the decision of the public. And if, at the same time, your excellency can give a satisfactory explanation of the motives of that line of conduct on the part of the ministers and council, which, without such explanation, would have the appearance of originating in bad faith, the publication would be doubly beneficial by placing the conduct and character of all parties in a proper point of view.

[Footnote A: Also Portuguese.]

    I have the honour to be, Most excellent sir, Your respectful
    and most obedient Servant, COCHRANE AND MARANHAM.

    His Excellency, João Sereriano Maciele da Costa, Secretary of
    State for the Home Department, &c., &c., &c.

END OF VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

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