Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  Within a short time of Admiral Vandeput’s arrival Cochrane was appointed a lieutenant on his flagship, the Resolution of 74 guns. From the small world of a frigate with a crew of 270 men he now joined a ship with more than 500 men. Instead of a single gun deck there were two decks lined with guns from bow to stern, the men eating in the cramped space between the guns and the fortunate sleeping in hammocks slung above them. Unlike the cramped gun room on the frigate, the lieutenants on the Resolution had a spacious wardroom: it had a long table running down the centre and there were individual cabins for the officers along the sides. Cochrane took his turn in dining with the admiral. He was dismayed at first by his brusque manner but he soon came to respect him and found him to be one of the kindest of commanders: ‘There was not a happier ship afloat, nor one in which officers lived in more perfect harmony.’17

  Unfortunately for someone as ambitious as Cochrane, life on the American station proved to be tediously uneventful. ‘My chance of promotion as a lieutenant of this ship is not worth one farthing,’ he complained in January 1798. ‘I see Lord Caulfield is made Captain. He was upwards of two hundred under me on the list of lieutenants.’18 They spent several months moored in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, its rocky, pine-fringed shores frequently obscured by sea fog. More months were spent lying at anchor in Hampton Roads at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. There were expeditions ashore and sometimes the young gentlemen of the ship went hunting with hounds in the forests of Virginia, and dined with local families. Cochrane was horrified by the treatment of the black slaves on the plantations and their sufferings during a bitterly cold winter. In a letter to his father he wrote, ‘Nine tenths of the Negroes are at this inclement season without blankets or bed and almost without clothes. I have seen enough in this country to cure any advocate of the slave trade of ever wishing to support so horrid an infringement of natural liberty.’19 Taking pity on an old black man who had worked as a miller for forty-seven years in deplorable conditions, Cochrane and his shipmates gave him some blankets and a few dollars. ‘The man was overjoyed in a manner past expressions, shedding tears…’20

  In May 1798 the Resolution sailed back to Halifax. Cochrane rejoined his uncle’s frigate and they sailed for England. The Thetis arrived in Plymouth in November 1798. Much had happened during the four years they had been away. The revolution in France, with its ideals of liberty and equality, had descended into a bloodthirsty purge of the nobility and gentry and thousands of men and women were executed by the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. More ominous for Britain was the emergence of Napoleon Bonaparte from the turmoil of the French Revolution. Trained as an artillery officer at the military academy in Paris, he had come to the fore during the siege of Toulon in December 1793. A brigadier-general by the age of twenty-four, he had been given command of the Army of Italy and had won a spectacular series of victories against Austrian armies in northern Italy during 1796. The next year he was given command of a French army assembled at Boulogne for the invasion of England. An inspection of the troops and the transport ships convinced him that invasion was out of the question until the French navy had command of the English Channel and its approaches. He persuaded the ruling Directory in Paris to mount an expedition to Egypt. In April 1798 he had set sail from Toulon with a vast armada of warships and transports. He captured Malta, landed in Egypt, defeated the local forces at the Battle of the Pyramids and established French rule across the region.

  While the Revolutionary armies of France appeared to be invincible, the territorial ambitions of France and her allies were constantly thwarted by Britain’s increasingly dominant command of the seas. Spain had declared war on Britain in October 1796 but four months later a Spanish fleet of twenty-seven sail of the line had been defeated by a British fleet of fifteen under the command of Sir John Jervis at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. The victory was largely due to the bold and unorthodox tactics of Commodore Nelson who had left his position in the line of battle, sailed into the main body of the retreating Spanish ships, engaged three ships and captured two Spanish first-rates. Following the battle, Jervis was made an earl and became Lord St Vincent; Nelson was made a Knight of the Bath. The Spanish fleet retreated to Cadiz where it remained blockaded for many years to come.

  The French occupation of the Low Countries had put the considerable Dutch fleet at the disposal of the French Republic but this too had been put out of action by the British navy. At the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797 Admiral Duncan defeated the Dutch fleet in a hard-fought action off the coast of Holland, forcing the remnants of the Dutch fleet to retreat to the Texel. The following year Lord St Vincent despatched Nelson into the Mediterranean with a hand-picked squadron to track down the French expedition led by Napoleon. Nelson eventually found the French fleet anchored in a strong defensive position in Aboukir Bay. At dusk on 1 August 1798 the British fleet attacked. During the course of a fierce action thirteen of the seventeen French warships were captured or destroyed. One of the ships to escape was the Généreux; she was captured off Malta eighteen months later and Cochrane would be given the task of sailing her to Port Mahon.

  News of the Battle of the Nile did not reach Britain until the first week of October so it would still have been a big story when Cochrane and his uncle returned to Plymouth. Celebrations had taken place all over the country: church bells were rung across the land; public buildings were illuminated, and sheep and oxen were roasted in market squares. Having missed out on all the excitement Cochrane was impatient to be sent where there was some action, and at this critical stage in his career he was fortunate to be despatched to the Mediterranean.

  Once again we see the influence of the Scottish aristocracy at work behind the scenes. This time Cochrane’s patron was Vice-Admiral Lord Keith, a fellow Scot who would play a significant role in his career during the next few years. Created Baron Keith in 1797 as a reward for his successful operations in the Indian Ocean, he was born George Keith Elphinstone and was the fifth son of the Earl of Elphinstone.21 Like Cochrane’s family, the Elphinstones had large estates in Scotland but were heavily in debt. George Elphinstone had left the family seat in Stirlingshire and had joined the navy at the comparatively late age of sixteen. His family was so impoverished that they refused to spend five guineas on a short course of navigation for him. He saw action during the war with America, became the Member of Parliament for Dumbartonshire, and married a young woman from Kinloss. On the outbreak of war with France he played a key role in the capture and defence of Toulon under the command of Lord Hood. Following a series of operations off Cape Town and in the Indian Ocean he returned to England having amassed £64,000 in prize money. Although cautious and methodical by nature Lord Keith would prove a capable commander of fleets. During the course of a long naval career he had under his command at various times four of the navy’s boldest and most unorthodox officers: Nelson, Sir Sidney Smith, Sir Home Popham and Lord Cochrane. Though sometimes exasperated by them Keith generally handled them with tact and restraint.

  In the autumn of 1798 Lord Keith was preparing to sail to the Mediterranean as second in command to Lord St Vincent. He already had his full quota of officers on his flagship, the Foudroyant, but he was prepared to take on Cochrane as a gesture of goodwill to his family. Cochrane joined the ship on 28 November 1798 as a supernumerary and reported to the admiral. He received a remarkably cool reception. ‘I fancy he expected I came to talk to him on family matters,’ Cochrane wrote to his father, ‘as when I entered the room he said he had received papers from you which he did not understand and could not possibly interfere in.’22 Although acting with the best of intentions Cochrane’s father tried the patience of several senior admirals during the course of the next few years by writing long and demanding letters on behalf of his son.

  The Foudroyant sailed from Plymouth on 5 December and fifteen days later they arrived at Gibraltar, a place which Cochrane would get to know well in the coming years. The British naval base was situated at the f
oot of the towering slopes of the Rock of Gibraltar. The anchorage was sheltered by the great curve of the Bay of Gibraltar but it was exposed to winds from the south and the dockyard facilities were limited. Its importance lay in its commanding position at the mouth of the Mediterranean and during the long war against France and her allies it would prove a vital base for British operations – along with Port Mahon in Minorca and Valetta harbour in Malta.

  Shortly after their arrival at Gibraltar Lord Keith transferred his flag and his crew to the Barfleur, a three-decker of 90 guns, and appointed Cochrane as his eighth lieutenant. For the next few months the flagship was part of the British fleet which was keeping watch on the Spanish fleet in Cadiz harbour. Lord St Vincent had imposed a strict regime on the crews of the blockading force but he was now increasingly unwell and was spending most of his time ashore at Gibraltar. Within a few weeks of his joining the crew of the Barfleur Cochrane clashed with the flagship’s first lieutenant. It was the first of his many brushes with authority and reveals the arrogant side of his nature which would make him enemies in the future. The first lieutenant was Philip Beaver. He was thirty-two years old and came from a family of Oxford academics and clergymen. He was an experienced and capable officer who would soon be promoted to captain and would distinguish himself in actions in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, but he took himself rather too seriously and, according to his biographer, ‘his rigidly exact notions did not always quadrate with those of his messmates.’23

  The cause of the incident was trivial. The Barfleur had made a number of trips across the Straits of Gibraltar to Tetouan on the coast of Morocco in order to purchase cattle for the use of the whole squadron. On one of the trips Cochrane went ashore to do some duck shooting with Captain Cuthbert of the marines. When they returned to the ship Cochrane reported his return to the captain but failed to report to Lieutenant Beaver. Since the ship had weighed anchor and the two men had apparently been left on shore Beaver informed the captain of their absence. On finding Cochrane back on board Beaver confronted him and said that he had been made to appear exceedingly ridiculous, having reported the two men missing when they had in fact returned. Lieutenant Jackson, one of the observers of the incident, would later recall what happened next.

  Cochrane said ‘that he could not help Lieutenant Beaver appearing ridiculous to the Captain’ which prompted Beaver to retort ‘that unless he was acquainted with the return to the ship, while he was 1st. Lieutenant, Lord Cochrane should not go out of the ship, to which Lord Cochrane in a manner surprised said, “Aye, Lieutenant Beaver!” ’ According to Cochrane’s version he then reminded Beaver that it was a rule of the ship that matters connected with the service were not to be discussed in the wardroom. This enraged Beaver who, according to Jackson, ‘made some reply, but what I do not recollect, and before Lieutenant Beaver had finished speaking Lord Cochrane turned his face aft and whistled’. Beaver went straight to the captain and demanded that Cochrane be court-martialled ‘for disrespect to me and unofficerlike conduct between the hours of five and six o’clock this evening’.24

  The court martial was held on board the Barfleur on 18 February 1799 and was presided over by Lord Keith. Cochrane was acquitted of insubordination but did not get away scot-free. Keith was exceedingly angry about the whole business:

  ‘Here are all the Flag Officers and Captains called together, at a time when the wind is coming fair, and the ship ought to be under way! I think I am made the most ridiculous person of the whole!’ And he concluded the case with some wise advice for his junior officer: ‘Lord Cochrane, I am directed by the Court to say that officers should not reply sharply to their superior officers, and a first lieutenant’s situation should be supported by everyone; a ship is but a small place where six or seven hundred persons are collected together, and officers should in every part of it avoid any flippancy.’25

  With so many lieutenants competing for promotion, the court martial could have seriously damaged Cochrane’s prospects. However, a letter written by Lord Keith to Captain Alexander Cochrane two and a half years later (at a time when the Cochrane family were lobbying for Cochrane’s promotion to post-captain) shows how a powerful patron was more significant than a dispute between lieutenants. Keith told Cochrane’s uncle that he had endeavoured to prevent the court martial ‘with what influence I had. The trial made nothing against his Lordship. I respect his family and will not lose any opportunity to convince his Lordship if my Lord Spencer alone had the power of confirming commissions.’26 During the next year Cochrane saw much of the western Mediterranean but very little action.

  In April 1799 Vice-Admiral Bruix eluded the British ships keeping watch on the French naval base at Brest and headed south. On 3 May he appeared off Cadiz with a fleet of nineteen ships of the line and ten smaller vessels. His first objective was to join up with the twenty-eight Spanish ships in Cadiz harbour but the British were uncertain whether his ultimate destination was Minorca, Malta, Naples or Egypt. Lord Keith was lying off Cadiz and his fleet of fifteen ships was all that prevented the two enemy fleets from combining into a formidable force. Lord Keith formed a line of battle and prepared to receive the French attack. It was the only occasion in Cochrane’s career in the British navy when he might have taken part in a major fleet action, but it was not to be. Whether it was due to a rising onshore gale or the unwillingness of the French admiral to risk damaging his ships and thus imperilling his main objective is not clear. ‘To our surprise,’ Cochrane recalled, ‘they soon afterwards wore and stood away to the south-west; though from our position between them and the Spaniards they had a fair chance of victory had the combined fleets acted in concert.’27

  On entering the Mediterranean the French fleet headed for Toulon where Bruix received orders to proceed to Genoa with supplies for the French army in Italy which was under threat from the Austrians. Keith followed the French fleet up the Spanish coast. His fleet was within striking distance of the enemy when he received peremptory orders from Lord St Vincent to head immediately for Minorca. St Vincent believed that Port Mahon and its fine harbour was the most likely objective for a French attack. Lord Keith reluctantly abandoned the chase and sailed south. At Port Mahon, on 14 June, he shifted his flag from the Barfleur to the Queen Charlotte, a first-rate ship of 100 guns and currently the second largest ship in the British navy. Cochrane was among the officers and men who joined the admiral on his new flagship.

  Having caused considerable alarm among the limited British forces operating in the Mediterranean, Bruix headed for Cartagena on the south-east coast of Spain and linked up with a Spanish squadron. From there he sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar and headed back to Brest. Keith set off in pursuit. When his fleet passed Gibraltar on 30 July they were only eight days behind the enemy. They raced up the coast of Spain and Portugal and across the Bay of Biscay. Off Cape Finisterre they spoke with a Danish brig which had passed through the combined French and Spanish fleet only two days before. ‘We then directed our course for Brest,’ Cochrane recalled, ‘hoping to be in time to intercept them, but found that on the day before our arrival they had effected their object and were then safely moored within the harbour.’28

  Bruix had demonstrated that the French navy could elude the British blockade and, in spite of the crushing defeat at the Battle of the Nile, could still pose a serious threat, especially if French ships combined with those of Spain. Lord Keith came in for much criticism in England for failing to find and engage Bruix, but those who understood the situation defended him. With many of his ships in need of repair and short of provisions Keith sailed on from Brest and back to England. He dropped anchor in Torbay towards the end of August 1799. While they lay at anchor in the bay Keith introduced Cochrane to Lord Spencer, who had now been First Lord of the Admiralty for almost five years. Cochrane received a letter from Lord Spencer around this time which makes it clear that the court martial had done him no harm as far as the Admiralty were concerned. ‘I shall have great pleasure,’ Sp
encer wrote, ‘in paying every attention in my power to forwarding your prospects in the service when opportunities offer themselves for advancing you…’29 Meanwhile, increasing illness had caused St Vincent to resign as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean and on 15 November 1799 Lord Keith was appointed in his place. He sailed from Spithead in the Queen Charlotte and by 6 December he was back in Gibraltar, with Cochrane still on board his flagship as a junior lieutenant.

  For the British the situation in the Mediterranean at the beginning of 1800 appeared more hopeful than it had been for some time. The previous year Napoleon had taken his Army of Egypt into Syria and captured Gaza and Jaffa, but his attempt to storm the medieval fortress on the coast at Acre had failed ignominiously. A small force of British seamen led by Sir Sidney Smith had beaten off the attackers, and the arrival of Turkish reinforcements had forced the French to retreat. In August 1799 Napoleon had abandoned his troops and sailed for France. He had taken advantage of unrest in the country and divisions in the Directory in Paris to engineer a coup from which he emerged as First Consul. For several months he was engaged in domestic issues and at this stage the full extent of his ambitions for himself and the French nation was not apparent. Malta was still held by the French but the Grand Harbour at Valletta had been under siege by British ships for months and there was every likelihood that the island would fall to Britain before the year was out. Port Mahon, Minorca, had been available as a British naval base since its capture in November 1798.

  In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which occupied the southern half of Italy, some semblance of order had been restored after months of bloodshed. The French had occupied Naples in December 1798 but had since been driven out and, thanks to the controversial intervention of Nelson in the summer of 1799, the corrupt but pro-British regime of King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Caroline had been restored in the capital. It was to Italy that Lord Keith now headed with his squadron. He arrived at Leghorn on 12 January 1800 and a week later Nelson, in the Foudroyant, joined him there. It was an uneasy meeting because Nelson had expected to succeed St Vincent as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. Both admirals then sailed south to Palermo where Keith was introduced to Sir William and Lady Hamilton and met the king and queen. He did not enjoy his visit and reported, ‘the whole was a scene of fulsome vanity and absurdity all the eight long days I was at Palermo’.30