Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  ‘If, when it is written,’ Cochrane said, ‘it shall appear not an answer to the question, then I humbly submit it may be struck out.’

  ‘Yes,’ Admiral Young pointed out, ‘but if the court is of the opinion their time is taken up with any thing which is not relevant, they may I apprehend stop it, when they see that which you are saying has no sort of connection; they may I conceive determine whether it shall be taken.’

  ‘I apprehend that cannot be seen till the court see what it is I am about to say,’ Cochrane said and he explained that although he regretted the fleet’s delay in attacking, ‘yet I consoled myself by the supposition that his Lordship intended a grand blow on the island and the ships at once, although I thought this neither necessary in order to effect their destruction or prudent with the whole fleet; I could not in any other way account for a proceeding that thus enabled the helpless French ships to endeavour their escape undisturbed to the River Charente: twelve o’clock arrived, no signal was made to weigh anchor; half past twelve, still no signal…’ He was interrupted by Admiral Young.

  ‘This is really very improper; this has no sort of connection whatever with the question which is asked, and is only a series of observations to the disadvantage of the prisoner.’

  ‘I wish to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  ‘This really has nothing at all to do with the question which is asked of you, which arises merely out of the statement which you have made.’9

  The cross-examination continued in this manner and concluded with questions about the charts consulted during the action. These were to prove a crucial element in Gambier’s defence. Cochrane and Captain Broughton of the Illustrious had both used copies of the Neptune François, the French chart of the anchorage. This showed the width of the approach channel between the Ile d’Aix and the Boyart Shoal to be more than two miles across, with a depth of water of thirty-five feet at low water off the Boyart. It also showed an area to the south of the approach channel (the Maumusson Passage) where at least six ships of the line could anchor out of range of the guns on the Ile d’Aix. Cochrane was told, ‘This chart is not evidence before the court because his Lordship cannot prove it is accurate’, and it was therefore ruled to be inadmissible. In its place the court relied on charts drawn up by Mr Stokes, the master of the Caledonia, and by Edmund Fairfax, the master of the fleet. These showed the approach channel to be barely a mile wide and the depth to be considerably less than that shown on the Neptune François. Cochrane would later come to the conclusion that Stokes and Fairfax had fabricated the details on their charts to support Gambier’s defence. This may have been the case but the naval historian John Sugden has suggested another explanation. Fairfax based the outlines of his chart on a French chart taken from the Armide and he may have used the wrong scale to convert the French measurements into British nautical miles.10 But based on the evidence of the Stokes and Fairfax charts Gambier had every reason to be reluctant to send in his line-of-battle ships along a narrow channel with the almost certain risk that they would run aground and be at the mercy of the guns of the Ile d’Aix.

  The majority of the captains supported Gambier. Since advancement in the navy depended to a large extent on the recommendation of senior officers it would have been foolhardy to criticise a commander-in-chief in front of his fellow admirals. Only four captains – Broughton, Seymour, Malcolm and Newcombe – were prepared to question the actions of Gambier. Captain Broughton had been within gunshot of the fortifications on the Ile d’Aix and reckoned there were only between fourteen and twenty guns commanding the roadstead and no furnaces for heating shot. ‘I think it would have been more advantageous if the line-of-battle ships, frigates and small vessels had gone in at half flood, which I take to be about 11 o’clock.’ He added that his French chart showed a safe anchorage with thirty to forty feet of water out of range of shot and shells in any direction. And he thought that two sail of the line would be quite sufficient to silence the batteries of the Ile d’Aix.11

  Captain Seymour likewise thought that ships of the line should have been sent in sooner and confirmed that there was ample anchorage out of range of the enemy guns. For four days the court closely questioned the naval officers present about the depth of water in the anchorage, the direction of the tide at critical moments in the action and the range of the guns on the Ile d’Aix. After a break on Sunday 30 July, the court reassembled and Gambier’s defence was read for him by the Judge Advocate. His carefully argued case takes up thirty-four pages of the printed minutes of the court martial. He concluded his evidence by stating that, if he had acted on Cochrane’s signals, ‘I am firmly persuaded that the success attending this achievement would have proved more dearly bought than any yet recorded in our naval annals; and far from accomplishing the hopes of my country, or the expectations of the Admiralty, must have disappointed both.’12

  After sitting for nine days the court retired to consider its verdict and on 4 August came to the conclusion that the conduct of Lord Gambier ‘was marked by zeal, judgment, and ability, and an anxious attention to the welfare of His Majesty’s service’.13 He was honourably acquitted and Sir Roger Curtis handed him back his sword which had lain on the table throughout the trial. There is a brief and embittered account of the proceedings in Cochrane’s autobiography. In his view the object of the court martial was ‘the suppression and invalidation of my evidence by any means that could be brought to bear, rather than an inquiry into the conduct of the commander-in-chief on the merits of the case’.14 A careful reading of the minutes of the court martial confirms that this was indeed the case. In the circumstances this was not surprising. Cochrane was regarded as a loose cannon by many senior admirals. He had upset several of them by his attacks in Parliament on naval corruption, and he had alienated others by his support of the radicals who were regarded as unpatriotic and a danger to the established order. He had a glittering record as a frigate captain but that did not give him the right to question the actions of his commander-in-chief. Inevitably the naval establishment closed ranks and sided with the admiral against the junior captain.

  Every detail of Lord Gambier’s court martial had been reported in the newspapers and The Times had even included a map of Basque Roads showing the position of the ships. The news of Gambier’s acquittal was received with considerable satisfaction by his fellow admirals. ‘It will be a lesson to restless and inexperienced young officers not to hazard a mischievous opinion tending to weaken the respect and confidence due to able and tried officers – particularly to commanders-in-chief,’ wrote Admiral Bowen,15 and even Collingwood, who had been unstinting in his praise of Cochrane’s exploits in the Mediterranean, prayed for release from such ‘wrongheaded people’. Gambier’s friends were equally delighted. William Wilberforce, founder of the Church Missionary Society and a leading campaigner against the slave trade, heard the news as he was returning from church in Eastbourne and sent his congratulations, ‘animated with a grateful sense of the Goodness of Him who has established your righteous cause’.16 The most damning comment on Cochrane and his radical friends came from Hannah More, a prominent member of the Blue Stocking Society, and a prolific author of religious tracts. In a letter to Gambier’s uncle, Lord Barham, she wrote, ‘What a tempestuous world do we live in! Yet terrible as Buonaparte is in every point of view, I do not fear him so much as those domestic mischiefs – Burdett, Cochrane, Wardle, and Cobbett. I hope, however, that the mortification Cochrane, &c., have lately experienced in their base and impotent endeavours to pull down reputations which they found unassailable, will keep them down a little.’17

  It was around this time that Cochrane acquired a property in Hampshire – a small house called Holly Hill which he had bought from his uncle Basil Cochrane.18 It was situated in the village of Titchfield near Fareham and was conveniently close to Portsmouth and the fleet anchorage at Spithead. It was also close to the home of his friend William Cobbett. In July 1805 Cobbett had bought a tall, red
-brick house at Botley with three acres of land and lawns which swept down to the River Hamble. Cobbett and his wife Nancy were sociable and welcoming, and the house was always full of children, guests and visiting friends. There is a vivid and much-quoted passage in the recollections of the novelist Mary Russell Mitford which describes a visit she made to Botley with her father Dr George Mitford, a man about town who shared Cobbett’s love of country pursuits.

  ‘I never saw hospitality more genuine, more simple or more thoroughly successful in the great end of hospitality, the putting of everybody at ease,’ she wrote. ‘There was not the slightest attempt at finery or display or gentility. They called it a farm-house and everything was in accordance with the largest idea of the great English yeomen of the old time. Everything was excellent, everything abundant, all served with the greatest nicety by trim waiting damsels.’ Guests came and went and included an earl and his countess, a clergyman with his wife and daughter, and two literary gentlemen from London.

  ‘Lord Cochrane was there, then in the very height of his warlike fame, and as unlike the common notion of a warrior as could be. A gentle, mild young man was this burner of the French fleets and cutter-out of Spanish vessels, as one should see in a summer-day. He lay about under the trees reading Selden on the Dominion of the Seas, and letting the children (and children always know with whom they may take liberties) play all sorts of tricks with him at their pleasure.’ We then learn that James Guthrie was present. ‘His ship’s surgeon was also a visitor, and a young midshipman, and sometimes an elderly lieutenant, and a Newfoundland dog; fine sailor-like creatures all.’19

  For Cobbett this idyllic, pastoral existence came to an abrupt halt during the summer of 1810. For several months he had known that his enemies were determined to prosecute him for his outspoken attacks on the royal family, the church and the government, and for revealing numerous cases of injustice and corruption. When he learnt that five soldiers in Ely had been flogged with five hundred lashes each for mutiny he took up their cause and wrote a damning piece about the floggings in his Weekly Political Register.20 This proved the last straw for the government and he was brought to trial before Lord Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice. He was accused of inciting the troops to further mutiny and holding the government and constitution up to contempt. On 9 July he was sentenced to imprisonment and a fine of £1,000 and spent the next two years in Newgate Prison.

  While Cochrane was being put in his place by the admirals at Portsmouth, his ship was taking part in a venture which would prove to be one of the most humiliating fiascos of the war. On 30 July the Imperieuse, with Thomas Garth as her acting captain, set sail from the anchorage at the Downs with a vast fleet of warships and transports. The aim was to occupy the island of Walcheren at the mouth of the River Scheldt and destroy the dockyards at Flushing and Antwerp which were building warships for the French navy. The Walcheren expedition was a joint services operation, the army providing 29,715 infantry soldiers and 8,219 cavalry, and the navy supplying 37 ships of the line, 24 frigates, 70 smaller warships and 400 transports.21 Such a force should have been overwhelming and indeed Flushing surrendered on 15 August after being subjected to more than two days of heavy bombardment by the fleet. According to Marryat, ‘a tremendous roar was kept up with shell, shot, rockets and musketry, enough to tear the place to pieces’.22 But then other forces came into play. The strong tides and numerous mud banks of the Scheldt caused frequent groundings and delays, and while the army commander Lord Chatham dithered, hundreds of soldiers and sailors succumbed to mosquito-borne malaria, or ‘Walcheren fever’, which was endemic in some of the canals and waterways. The Imperieuse had a brief moment of glory when she attacked a gun battery at Terneuze. She used the carronades on her foredeck to fire shrapnel shells. These were a recent invention by Lieutenant-General Shrapnel and consisted of cases filled with bullets and an explosive charge fired by a time fuse. By a lucky chance one of the shells exploded in the enemy’s magazine causing 3,000 barrels of gunpowder to blow up. But Antwerp proved to be too strongly defended and by the end of August a decision was made to abandon the expedition. Troops and ships were belatedly evacuated during October and November and the remnants of the fleet finally put to sea on 23 December, by which time around 4,000 men had died and more than 10,000 were ill with fever.

  Cochrane had offered the Admiralty the benefit of his advice on the Walcheren expedition (he had, among other things, suggested sending in ten explosion vessels) but his advice was not taken. He devoted much of the autumn of 1809 to preparing a detailed examination of the evidence which had led to Gambier’s acquittal. His bitterness and determination to revenge himself is revealed in a letter he wrote to James Guthrie. Writing from London on 15 December he promised to come and see Guthrie and the crew of the Imperieuse when they returned from Walcheren. His opening remarks about a boat he was having built at Deal make it clear that he still intended to resume command of the Imperieuse in due course and continue his raids on the French coast:

  You will see at Harrisons the Builder who made my former Gig a noble boat on the Stocks 50 feet keel and 6½ broad – she will pull like the Devil and if I get to the Rochefort station in the spring the wine vessels will suffer severely – she will answer excellently to go up the Garonne to Verdun Roads at night.

  I have got the review of Gambiers Court Martial quite finished but ruin, inevitable damnation hangs over both the Court and the Witnesses – all of whom fall under the penalty attendant on perjury, except Broughton, Malcolm, Newcombe, and Seymour. I have a great mind to prosecute them all as soon as my pamphlet is out. It will kick up a noble row. What a base pack of rascals they are! I have got their bollocks in a cloven stick and I will squeeze them.

  I send this letter to Deal where I suppose the Conquerors of Walcheren will first anchor. I long to hear the story from you.’23

  His efforts to reverse the decision of the court martial only stirred up more opposition against him. When Parliament assembled in January 1810 a motion to propose the long-delayed vote of thanks to Lord Gambier was introduced in the House of Lords. Cochrane attempted to block the vote by introducing a motion of his own in the House of Commons. On 29 January he asked for the minutes of Gambier’s court martial to be presented to Parliament. He wanted to initiate a debate on the conduct of the proceedings and hoped to put his point of view more forcibly than he had been able to do at Portsmouth. His motion was supported by Joseph Marryat, the father of Cochrane’s midshipman, and by his political allies, including Sir Francis Burdett and Samuel Whitbread.

  ‘Lord Gambier’s plan,’ Burdett was reported as saying, ‘seemed a desire to preserve the fleet – Cochrane’s plan, to destroy the enemy’s fleet. He had never heard that the Articles of War held out an instruction to preserve the fleet. What if Nelson, at the Nile or Trafalgar, had acted on this principle?’

  As a judgement on the Basque Roads action this reflects the views of most naval historians24 but in the Parliament of 1810 Cochrane and his friends were in a minority. William Wilberforce spoke for many when he pointed out that to ask for the minutes would be to throw a stigma on all the members of the court martial. Cochrane’s motion was amended so that only the sentence of the court was laid before the House. This was agreed and passed. Since the sentence honourably acquitted Gambier and praised his zeal and judgement, this was a total vindication of the commander-in-chief at the expense of his accuser. During the debate on the vote of thanks Cochrane was subjected to considerable personal abuse and the result was a foregone conclusion. The vote of thanks to Gambier was passed by 161 votes to 39 in January 1810.

  Cochrane had been soundly defeated by the naval high command and by the political establishment but he had considerable support outside Parliament. Jane Austen’s naval brother, Captain Francis Austen, writing to Cochrane many years later, expressed the view of many seamen: ‘I must in conscience declare that I do not think you were properly supported, and that had you been the result would have been very diff
erent. Much of what occurred I attribute to Lord Gambier’s being influenced by persons about him who would have been ready to sacrifice the honour of their country to the gratification of personal dislike of yourself, and the annoyance they felt at a junior officer being employed in their service.’25

  The popular view of the Basque Roads affair was summarised in a satirical cartoon typical of the age of Cruikshank and Gillray. Published in August 1809 it showed Gambier sitting in his cabin reading a passage from Sternhold and Hopkins’ edition of the psalms. A sailor warns Gambier that they had better throw some shells at the French fleet and Cochrane, with his sword drawn, says, ‘Why Admiral, Damn their eyes they’ll escape if we don’t make haste.’ Gambier’s chaplain raises his hands in horror: ‘Oh the wicked dog he has put us quite out, he is insensible of the beauties of Divine Poetry.’

  Cochrane now turned his energies to a variety of other causes: to supporting his radical friends in and out of Parliament; to attacking naval abuses and revealing corruption in the Vice-Admiralty Courts; and to courting and marrying a woman young enough to be his daughter.

  14

  Riots and Romance

  1809–1814

  The dismal failure of the Walcheren expedition had a number of dramatic consequences. The first was that George Canning, the Foreign Secretary, fought a duel with Lord Castlereagh, Secretary for War and the Colonies. There had been fierce disagreements between the two men over foreign policy, and the recriminations over Walcheren led Castlereagh to throw down a challenge to his bitter rival. The duel was fought with pistols at ten paces on Putney Heath early on the morning of 21 September 1809. Their first shots missed but when they fired a second time Canning was hit in the thigh. His nankeen trousers were soaked with blood and he was hurried away in a coach. Castlereagh suffered no more than the loss of a button which was shot off the right lapel of his coat. Canning soon recovered but both men resigned from the government. With his administration in disarray and deeply unpopular, the strain proved too much for the Prime Minister, the elderly Duke of Portland, who suffered a seizure while travelling to his country residence in Buckinghamshire. He resigned his office and died on 30 October. His place was taken by Spencer Perceval, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Portland administration.