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

turmoil of the re-election day, the 16th of July, was great; angry crowds assembled in the streets, and menacing words against the Government and its myrmidons were loudly uttered. The wisdom of Sir Francis Burdett and other leaders of the popular party, however, prevented anything worse than angry speech.

"Amongst all the occurrences of my life," said Lord Cochrane, writing from the King's Bench Prison to thank the electors for their confidence in him, "I can call to memory no one which has produced so great a degree of exultation in my breast as this, that, after all the machinations of corruption have been able to effect against me, the citizens of Westminster have, with unanimous voice, pronounced me worthy of continuing to be one of their representatives in Parliament. With regard to the case, the agitation of which has been the cause of this most gratifying result, I am in no apprehension as to the opinions and feelings of the world, and especially of the people of England, who, though they may be occasionally misled, are never deliberately cruel or unjust. Only let it be said of me: 'The Stock Exchange has accused; Lord Ellenborough has charged for guilty; the special jury have found that guilt; the Court have sentenced to the pillory; the House of Commons have expelled; and the Citizens of Westminster have re-elected,'—only let this be the record placed against my name, and I shall be proud to stand in the calendar of criminals all the days of my life."

The worst part of the sentence passed upon Lord Cochrane, as has been already said, was not carried out. The 10th of August had been fixed as the day on which he was to stand in the pillory for an hour in front of the Royal Exchange. But the danger of a disturbance among the people, and of fierce opposition in the House of Commons hindered the perpetration of this indignity. Some sentences of a letter addressed to Lord Ebrington, deprecating his motion in Parliament for a remission of this part of the sentence, are too characteristic, however, to be left unquoted. "I did not expect," said Lord Cochrane, "to be treated by your lordship as an object of mercy, on the grounds of past services, or severity of sentence. I cannot allow myself to be indebted to that tenderness of disposition which has led your lordship to form an erroneous estimate of the amount of punishment due to the crimes of which I have been accused; nor can I for a moment consent that any past services of mine should be prostituted to the purpose of protecting me from any part of the vengeance of the laws against which I, if at all, have grossly offended. If I am guilty, I richly merit the whole of the sentence that has been passed upon me. If innocent, one penalty cannot be inflicted with more justice than another."

If the degradation of the pillory was remitted, another degradation quite as painful to Lord Cochrane was substituted for it. His name having, on the 25th of June, been struck off the list of naval officers in the Admiralty, the Knights Companions of the Bath promptly held a chapter to consider the propriety of expelling him from their ranks. That was soon done, and no time was lost in making the insult as thorough as possible. At one o'clock in the morning of the 11th of August, the Bath King at Arms repaired to King Henry the Seventh's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, and there, under a warrant signed by Lord Sidmouth, the Secretary of State, removed the banner of Lord Cochrane, which was suspended between those of Lord Beresford and Sir Brent Spencer. His arms were next unscrewed, and his helmet, sword, and other insignia were taken down from the stall. The banner was then kicked out of the chapel and down the steps by the official, eager to omit no possible indignity. It was an indignity unparalleled since the establishment of the order in 1725.

CHAPTER III. LORD COCHRANE'S BEARING IN THE KING'S BENCH PRISON—HIS STREET LAMPS.—HIS ESCAPE, AND THE MOTIVES FOR IT.—HIS CAPTURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, AND SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT.—HIS CONFINEMENT IN THE STRONG ROOM OF THE KING'S BENCH PRISON.—HIS RELEASE.

[1814-1815.]

During the first period of his imprisonment Lord Cochrane was not treated with more than usual severity. Two rooms in the King's Bench State House were provided for him, in which, of course, all the expenses of his maintenance devolved upon himself. He was led to understand that, if he chose to ask for it, he might have the privilege of "the rules," which would have allowed him, on certain conditions, a range of about half-a-mile round the prison. But he did not choose to ask. Rather, he said, than seek any favour from the Government, he would lie in a dungeon all through the term of his unjust imprisonment. Throughout that period he resolutely avowed his perfect innocence, to friends and foes alike; and the consciousness of his innocence helped him to bear up under a degradation that, to a nature as sensitive and chivalrous as his, was doubly bitter. Good friends, like Sir Francis Burdett, came to cheer him in his solitude, and over-zealous, yet honest, friends, like William Cobbett, came to take counsel with him as to ways of keeping alive and quickening the popular indignation which, without any stimulants from headstrong demagogues, was strong enough on his behalf.

The tedium of his captivity was further relieved by his devotion to those scientific and mechanical pursuits which, all through life, yielded employment very solacing to himself, and very profitable to the world. While in the King's Bench Prison he was especially occupied in completing a plan for lighting the public streets by means of a lamp invented by him, in which the main principle was the introduction of a steady current of fresh air into the globes, whereby all the oil was fairly burnt, and a brilliant light was always maintained. In this way lamps much cheaper than those previously in use were found to have a far greater illuminating power. Early in October, 1814, the lamps in St. Ann's parish, Westminster, numbering eight hundred in all, were taken down and replaced by four hundred constructed on Lord Cochrane's plan; and even political opponents spoke in acknowledgment of the excellent result of the change. Had it not been for the introduction of gas, the superiority of these new lamps must soon have compelled their adoption all over London. It is curious that the discovery of the illuminating power of gas—undoubtedly due to his father—should have superseded one of Lord Cochrane's most promising inventions as soon as it had been brought to recognized perfection.

In such pursuits nine months of the unjust imprisonment were passed. "Lord Cochrane has hitherto borne all his hardships with great fortitude," wrote one of his most intimate friends on the 10th of November, "and, if there are any more in store for him, I hope he will continue to be cheerful and courageous." "His lordship always hopes for the best, and is never afraid of the worst," said the same authority on the 9th of December, "and therefore he is in good spirits."

This fearless disposition led, in March, 1815, to a bold step, which some of Lord Cochrane's best friends deprecated. Knowing that he was unjustly imprisoned, he conceived that, since his re-election as member for Westminster, the imprisonment was illegal as well as unjust, in that it was contrary to the privilege of Parliament. The law provides that "no Member of Parliament can be imprisoned either for non-payment of a fine to the King, or for any other cause than treason, felony, or refusing to give security for the peace." It may be questioned whether, in the presence of this law, his first imprisonment, even under the sentence of the Court of King's Bench, was legal. But having been imprisoned, and having been expelled from the House of Commons, it is clear that his subsequent re-election could not interfere with the fulfilment, of the sentence passed against him, especially as he had not been able to make good his title to membership by taking the prescribed oaths and claiming a seat in the House. He, however—acting as it would seem under the advice of William Cobbett and other unsafe counsellors—thought otherwise, and considered that he was only vindicating a high constitutional principle, against the exercise of despotic power by the Government, in making his escape from the King's Bench Prison. "I did not quit these walls," he said in a letter addressed to the electors of Westminster, on the 12th of April, "to escape from personal oppression, but, at the hazard of my life, to assert that right to liberty which, as a member of the community, I have never forfeited, and that right, which I received from you, to attack in its very den the corruption which threatens to annihilate the liberties of us all. I did not quit them to fly from the justice of my country, but to expose the wickedness, fraud, and hypocrisy of those who elude that justice by committing their enormities under the colour of its name. I did not quit them from the childish motive of impatience under suffering. I stayed long enough to evince that I could endure restraint as a pain, but not as a penalty. I stayed long enough to be certain that my persecutors were conscious of their injustice, and to feel that my submission to their unmerited inflictions was losing the dignity of resignation, and sinking into the ignominious endurance of an insult."

The escape was effected on the 6th of March, and by the same means which had proved successful in Lord Cochrane's retreat from the gaol at Malta, just four years before. His rooms in the King's Bench Prison, being on the upper storey of the building known as the State House, were nearly as high as the wall which formed the prison boundary, and the windows were only a few feet distant from it. The possibility of escape by this way, however, had never been contemplated, and therefore the windows were unprotected by bars. Accordingly Lord Cochrane, having been supplied, from time to time, by the same servant who had aided him at Malta, with a quantity of small strong rope, managed, soon after midnight, and while the watchman going his rounds was in a distant part of the prison, to get out of window and climb on to the roof of the building. Thence he threw a running noose over the iron spikes placed on the wall, and, exercising the agility that he had acquired during his seaman's occupations, easily gained the summit—to be somewhat discomfited by having to sit upon the iron spikes while he fastened his rope to one of them and prepared, with its help, to slip down to the pavement on the outer side of the wall. The rope was not strong enough, however, to bear his weight; it snapped when he was some twenty-five feet from the ground, and caused him to fall with his back upon the stone pavement. There he lay, in an almost unconscious state, for a considerable time. But no passer-by observed him; and before daylight he was able to crawl to the house of an old nurse of his eldest son's, who gladly afforded him concealment.

Long concealment was not intended by him. "If it had not been," he said, "for the commotion excited by that obnoxious, injurious, and arbitrary measure, the Corn Bill, which began to evince itself on the day of my departure from prison, I should have lost no time in proceeding to the House of Commons; but, conjecturing that the spirit of disturbance might derive some encouragement from my unexpected appearance at that time, and having no inclination to promote tumult, I resolved to defer my appearance at the House, and, if possible, to conceal my departure from the prison, until the order of the metropolis should be restored."

To the same effect was a letter addressed by Lord Cochrane to the Speaker of the House of Commons on the 9th of March. "I respectfully request," he said therein, "that you will state to the honourable the House of Commons, that I should immediately and personally have communicated to them my departure from the custody of Lord Ellenborough, by whom I have been long most unjustly detained; but I judged it better to endeavour to conceal my absence, and to defer my appearance in the House until the public agitation excited by the Corn Bill should subside. And I have further to request that you will also communicate to the House that it is my intention, on an early day, to present myself for the purpose of taking my seat and moving an inquiry into the conduct of Lord Ellenborough."

On the day of that letter's delivery, the 10th