Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  When Brenton’s report of the action reached the Admiralty it was accompanied by letters from Admiral Duckworth and the Governor of Gibraltar which paid such fulsome tribute to Brenton’s skill and gallantry that Lord St Vincent (who had recently returned to London on sick leave) called on Lord Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and insisted that Brenton be promoted to post-captain. Spencer was happy to oblige and agreed that he should be put into the first post vacancy which came available in the Mediterranean. The vacancy did not occur until the following year when, as we have seen, the capture of the Généreux by Nelson’s squadron opened up the field for a series of promotions. Brenton had initially been given command of the Guerrier but by the time he had completed the various missions required of him in the Speedy, the Guerrier had gone to another captain and he was ordered to take command of the Généreux at Port Mahon. So it was there that he handed over the Speedy to Cochrane, and it was there on the afternoon of 20 April 1800 that Cochrane climbed aboard the battle-scarred vessel, assembled the men on deck and read his commission which was signed by Lord Keith on behalf of the Lords of the Admiralty:

  ‘By virtue of the power and authority to us given, we do hereby constitute and appoint you Commander of His Majesty’s sloop the Speedy, willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the charge and command of Commander in her accordingly; strictly charging and commanding all the officers and company of the said sloop to behave themselves jointly and severally in their respective employments with all due respect and obedience….’7

  As Lieutenant Parker, Mr Marshal, the master, and the rest of the ship’s company listened to the familiar phrases they must have regarded Cochrane with some reservations. His character, his leadership and his mode of command would affect all their lives for better or for worse. Brenton had been in the navy for twenty years and had proved himself a courageous and highly competent officer. Cochrane was a twenty-four-year-old Scottish aristocrat with barely seven years seafaring experience. He brought with him his youngest brother, the Hon. Archibald Cochrane, who was signed on the books as master’s mate. This was a reminder that family connections were so often the key to advancement. Was Cochrane appointed as their new commander because of his ability or because he had friends in high places? His height and his powerful build were no doubt impressive but how would he perform when they went into action or were struck by a Mediterranean squall off a lee shore?

  Cochrane had everything to prove. The Speedy gave him the opportunity to make his name and secure promotion to post-captain, the most crucial of all ranks for an ambitious young officer. Once he was on the list of captains his advancement would be by seniority and, provided he survived injury, disease, shipwreck and the other hazards of life at sea, he would rise inexorably to the rank of admiral. This and the opportunities for prize money were to be powerful incentives for his actions in the coming months.

  Within two days of Cochrane’s arrival the Speedy was ready for sea. At 2.00 p.m. on 22 April 1800 they weighed anchor. With a south-westerly wind against them they had to warp the ship the length of the harbour and it was six o’clock before they cleared the entrance and were able to make sail. They headed east for the island of Malta where they had orders to rendezvous with a convoy of merchantmen. The weather was fine with light to moderate breezes which gave Cochrane an ideal opportunity to observe the vessel’s performance.8 On the fourth day out from Port Mahon he decided the brig was under-canvassed and he ordered the sailmaker to enlarge the mainsail and the main topsail, though whether this made any difference to her speed is not recorded. We do know what he thought of his new command. ‘Despite her unformidable character, and the personal discomfort to which all on board were subjected, I was very proud of my little vessel, caring nothing for her want of accommodation.’9

  For a man of his height the cramped conditions below deck must have been a constant annoyance. The living space in the captain’s cabin was extremely limited. The floor area was no more than six foot by four and was almost entirely occupied by a table. The remaining space was taken up by lockers which also served as seats. There was no room for a chair and with such limited headroom Cochrane found considerable difficulty in sitting with his feet under the table. Shaving was even more of a problem but he solved this by putting his head through the companion (the skylight, clearly visible on the deck plans of the Speedy) and laying out his shaving things on the deck.

  It took them no more than a week to reach Malta and on 29 April they dropped anchor in St Paul’s Bay on the north coast of the island, a few miles from the strongly fortified harbour of Valletta. From their anchorage along the coast the crew of the Speedy could see several British warships cruising off the harbour entrance of Valletta, maintaining the blockade which would soon force the French garrison to surrender.

  They spent a day replenishing their supplies of fresh water before setting sail and joining the convoy and her other escort, the brig sloop Minorca. The weather continued fine as they headed north-west and once they were safely through the Straits of Messina they parted company with the convoy and sailed north until they sighted the mountains of Sardinia. In the early hours of the morning of 7 May they dropped anchor in the great bay of Cagliari on the southern coast of Sardinia. Scattered around the sparkling waters of the bay were fourteen merchant ships waiting to be escorted to the Italian port of Leghorn. At noon on 10 May Cochrane made the signal for the convoy to get under way and with a light breeze filling their sails they crept around the headland at the eastern end of the bay and headed north.

  The lines of the brig sloop Speedy, drawn by Norman Swales from

  the original plans in the National Maritime Museum, London.

  At dawn the next day a strange ship was sighted and, before the Speedy could intercept, she had picked off one of the outlying vessels in the convoy and captured her. There was so little wind that Cochrane ordered his crew to get out the sweeps, the long oars used to propel the vessel in calms, and under oar and sail they bore down on the intruder. It only needed a few shots from the Speedy to persuade the enemy ship to surrender. She proved to be a French lateen-rigged vessel mounting 6 guns and she became the first of Cochrane’s prizes.

  On the afternoon of 14 May they sighted Montecristo, the small island off the coast of Corsica which would soon be made famous by Alexandre Dumas. In The Count of Monte Cristo, his epic story of wrongful imprisonment and retribution, he described the island as ‘a rock of almost conical shape, which appears to have been thrown up by some volcanic cataclysm from the depths to the surface of the sea’.10 According to Dumas the island was and always had been utterly deserted but, as the Speedy sailed past, five rowing boats emerged from one of its rocky inlets and began pulling towards them. The boats converged on the sternmost vessels in the convoy, boarded and took possession of two of them. Cochrane gave orders for the remaining ships in the convoy to make for the shelter of the Bay of Longona while he chased after the gunboats in the gathering dusk. They pursued them during the night and, thanks to clear skies and light winds, they were able to keep them in sight. At one in the morning they recaptured the two merchantmen and took them in tow. On 21 May the Speedy and her convoy arrived safely at Leghorn. In his first cruise as a commander Cochrane had successfully defended the ships in his charge and captured one vessel. It was a modestly successful beginning.

  After taking in water and provisions the Speedy left Leghorn and made for Genoa where Lord Keith, with a squadron of warships, was blockading the port. On 29 May Cochrane went aboard the flagship and received orders from Keith to cruise independently and to harass enemy shipping. For the next four months the Speedy sailed to and fro in the seas of the western Mediterranean, intercepting merchantmen and chasing French privateers. By 6 October, when she returned to Port Mahon for repairs, she had engaged in several minor actions and captured three more vessels.

  A survey carried out by the dockyard showed that the Speedy needed a major refit. She was hauled alongs
ide the sheer hulk (the floating crane used for handling masts) so that her bowsprit could be taken out and repaired. Much of her running rigging was replaced and caulkers came on board to caulk the seams of her internal and external planking. She put to sea again on 21 October but ran into a gale and lost her main boom and one of the boats when a heavy sea broke across her stern. She returned to Port Mahon for further repairs and it was while she lay at anchor near the dockyard that a new surgeon came on board to join the ship’s company.

  The present surgeon of the Speedy, Louis Rimonier, had been appointed surgeon of the 36-gun frigate Caroline. His replacement was a Scot by the name of James Guthrie. Many years later Guthrie wrote, ‘I joined the Speedy as acting surgeon on the 30th November 1800 and continued in her until she was captured on the 3rd July following.’11 In fact his warrant, signed by Lord Keith, makes no mention of his being merely acting surgeon and orders him ‘to repair on board the Speedy and take upon you the employment of Surgeon.… with such allowance for wages and victuals for yourself as is usual for the Surgeon of the said Sloop’.12 Guthrie had formerly been surgeon’s first mate on the 74-gun ship Foudroyant and he proved an excellent appointment. He became a lifelong friend of Cochrane and was the surgeon of all the ships he commanded as a captain in the Royal Navy.13

  The next cruise of the Speedy shows Cochrane beginning to get into his stride. They left Port Mahon on 12 December and headed west for Majorca. Sailing off the mountainous north coast of the island they sighted a number of strange craft, one of which proved to be a French bomb vessel. The Speedy was cleared for action and they chased her along the western shores of Majorca and drove her ashore near Dragon Island (Isla Dragonera). They then attacked a French vessel mounting 6 guns, captured her and transferred her crew to the Speedy. They replaced the French prisoners with a prize crew which sailed the vessel back to Port Mahon.

  A few days later, during the afternoon of 21 December, they were cruising along the coast of Spain near Alicante when they saw a large ship which appeared to be a heavily-laden merchantman. Cochrane decided to investigate but as they approached the vessel she suddenly raised her gunports and they found themselves facing the broadside of a powerful Spanish frigate. Escape was impossible because the frigate could easily outsail them: the only solution was to deceive the Spanish captain into thinking the Speedy was a ship of a neutral nation. In his autobiography Cochrane tells how he had been warned at Port Mahon that the Spanish were on the lookout for the Speedy and that he had prepared for just such an emergency. He had had the Speedy painted in imitation of a Danish brig and had taken on board a Danish quartermaster complete with the uniform of a Danish officer. Confronted with the guns of the Spanish frigate, Cochrane hoisted a Danish flag and instructed his quartermaster to tell the Spanish that the Speedy was two days out from Algiers where the plague was raging. Recalling the incident many years later Guthrie the surgeon corrected Cochrane’s account:

  The Speedy was from Mahon and had not been at Algiers during the time I belonged to her – I was on deck and heard Lord Cochrane dictate to the quarter master what to say and as no one in the brig for the time being could speak or understand any language except Danish and the Spaniard had only a seaman who had been several voyages to the Baltic who understood a few words of Danish, but the word quarantine being nearly the same in different languages, on its being mentioned the Spanish officer exclaimed, oh! oh! quarantina, quarantina, and desired his boat to keep off – it was dark by this time, so we escaped.14

  While the frigate disappeared into the night the Speedy headed south-west, sailing close inshore along the Spanish coast. In the Bay of Cartagena they had a minor skirmish with two Spanish privateers and succeeded in capturing one of the vessels they were escorting which was laden with wine. Further forays along the coast yielded no more prizes and by 11 January 1801 they were back in Port Mahon to take in fresh supplies of water and provisions.

  For the next four months the cruises followed much the same pattern except that the number of prizes taken increased steadily. Cochrane was perfecting the skills which he would later use to such devastating effect as a frigate captain. His cruises in the Speedy took him all round the western Mediterranean so that he built up a firsthand knowledge of the bays, anchorages, harbours and fortifications from Malta and Tunis to Gibraltar, Genoa and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. He became a master of hit-and-run raids; he learnt the value of moving at night and attacking in the early hours of the morning; and he became adept at ruses de guerre, in particular the use of false flags and misleading signals – a long-standing seafaring tradition much used by pirates but also by naval warships as an acceptable device for catching the enemy off guard.

  A notable example of the successful use of false flags took place on 22 January 1801. Cochrane’s description of the incident is brief and again his surgeon provides more detail. According to Guthrie, ‘five Danish merchantmen came out of Barcelona, one of whom his Lordship boarded to obtain news and get water from them as they were all in ballast’.15 At dawn the next morning they were still sailing in company with the Danish vessels when two enemy ships were seen approaching from the west. One was a Spanish brig of 8 guns and the other a French ship of 10 guns. Cochrane hoisted a Danish flag and pretended to act as escort to the Danish convoy.

  ‘The Spanish brig and French ship came right down upon us suspecting nothing and as we were edging towards the latter he hailed wishing to know what we wanted with him to which his Lordship replied it was just him we wanted.’16 The Speedy hauled down the Danish flag, hoisted British colours and opened fire. Within half an hour it was all over. Both enemy ships were captured and fifty men were taken prisoner.

  But it was an action on 6 May which made Cochrane’s name and was directly responsible for his promotion to the coveted rank of post-captain. The fight between the Speedy and El Gamo has acquired a legendary reputation. It was regarded at the time as a ‘very spirited and brilliant action’, and is still generally regarded among naval historians as one of the most remarkable single-ship actions in the navy’s history. By the beginning of May 1801 the Speedy had captured or destroyed seventeen enemy vessels and had made a number of audacious raids on vessels sheltering under the guns of Spanish forts. The Spanish were evidently on the lookout for this menace to their shipping and had a warship cruising off Barcelona. At dawn on 6 May the Speedy sighted a strange ship and went to investigate. There was a light breeze and it was some two hours before they were close enough to identify her. She proved to be a Spanish xebec frigate of 32 guns, a formidable adversary capable of reducing the Speedy to a wreck with two or three broadsides.

  Instead of retreating, Cochrane continued to sail towards the enemy and gave the order to clear for action. At 9.30 a.m. the Gamo fired a gun and hoisted Spanish colours. Her decks were crowded with seamen and soldiers who no doubt imagined that the lightly armed brig with the conspicuously tall officer standing by the tiller would surrender to them without a fight. If there should be a fight the odds were overwhelmingly in favour of the Spanish. They had more than twice the number of guns, and they were able to fire a broadside nearly seven times the weight of the broadside of the Speedy’s 4-pounders.17 The Gamo had 319 men on board, five times as many as the Speedy, which could only muster fifty-four including officers and boys because many of her crew had been despatched with prizes to Port Mahon. Apart from the disparity in size of crew and weight of broadside, Cochrane also had the problem that his guns had a much more limited range than those of the Spanish ship. His only hope of overcoming his adversary was to fight her at close quarters.

  As soon as the Gamo hoisted the Spanish colours Cochrane acknowledged by running up an American flag. This produced enough uncertainty in the mind of the Spanish captain to delay the firing of his broadside and enabled the Speedy to tack, hoist the British ensign and position herself so that when the Spaniard’s first broadside was delivered it caused no damage. Telling his men not to fire until they were close alongside,
Cochrane sailed the Speedy under the lee of the frigate and locked his yards with her rigging. He had calculated that in this position the guns of the Gamo would fire harmlessly over the heads of his men because of the height of her main gun deck above the water. However, by elevating the Speedy’s guns and having them treble-shotted he could inflict carnage upon the Spaniards’ deck – indeed, the first broadside killed the Spanish captain and his boatswain.

  Unable to cause any serious damage with their carriage guns, and finding that the musket fire they directed at the British crew had little effect, the Spanish prepared to board. Given their superior numbers this had to be avoided at all costs. Cochrane managed to extricate the Speedy’s yards and sheered away from the frigate, firing a broadside as he went. Twice more the Speedy ranged alongside the frigate, fired her guns and then bore away. However, Cochrane was aware that this unequal contest could not last. ‘Our rigging being cut up and the Speedy’s sails riddled with shot, I told the men that they must either take the frigate or be themselves taken.’ In an all-or-nothing bid for victory he decided to lead a boarding party of his entire crew. Only one man would stay behind to take the helm, assisted by two boys. Surgeon Guthrie volunteered for this job and ‘placed the Speedy alongside with admirable skill’.

  Cochrane had divided his men into two groups, one to board at the head of the frigate and the other to board amidships. The men at the head were ordered to blacken their faces in order to appear more terrifying as they suddenly emerged from the swirling smoke of the bow guns. The Spaniards were taken by surprise, as Cochrane had intended they should be, and, before they could recover, the second group of boarders attacked them from behind. For several minutes there was a mêlée as men and boys engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with cutlasses, pistols and boarding axes. Cochrane, who had that essential gift in a military leader of being able to think clearly in the heat of the action, observed the big Spanish flag billowing above the yelling, screaming figures on the deck and directed one of his men to haul it down. The effect was extraordinary. The hard-pressed Spaniards, who had already lost fifteen men killed and forty-one wounded, assumed that one of their officers had surrendered the ship and laid down their weapons.