Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  The next day the local junta, accompanied by the bishop, came aboard Cochrane’s flagship and swore allegiance to the Emperor Pedro. Captain John Pascoe Grenfell went ashore with a detachment of marines to take charge of the fortifications. On 28 July church bells rang out across the town as independence was formally declared and the Brazilian flag was raised on the public buildings and the warships in the harbour. A new provincial junta was sworn in, and to make sure that his hoax was not discovered until it was too late, Cochrane encouraged the commandant and his Portuguese troops to board merchant ships and sail home to Portugal. With the town at his mercy Cochrane proceeded to strip the place of its assets in a manner reminiscent of the actions of Sir Henry Morgan and his buccaneers at Panama and Portobello. He announced that the money in the provincial treasury, the arms and gunpowder in the forts and all the goods in the government storehouses were enemy property and now belonged to the captors. All the ships in the harbour were seized, including a handsome brig, a schooner, eight gunboats and sixteen merchant vessels. He also confiscated the goods and private property owned by Portuguese citizens and began shipping tons of merchandise back to Rio. His actions caused uproar. The new junta naturally regarded the town and its treasury and other assets as Brazilian and could see no justification for the seizures. Cochrane was unrelenting although he did agree to release funds to pay the Brazilian irregular troops occupying the interior when they sent representatives to the town demanding payment.

  The deception at São Luis had been so successful that Cochrane decided to use the same method to liberate the province of Para which encompassed the basin of the Amazon. Captain Grenfell was despatched in a captured brig to the town of Belem, the capital of Para. He arrived on 11 August flying the Brazilian flag and sent ashore letters from Cochrane which demanded the surrender of the Portuguese authorities in the town and warned that the First Admiral and a large fleet was at the mouth of the Amazon. Disturbed by the news that the provinces of Maranhão and Bahia had already fallen to the patriot forces, the Portuguese handed over power to a Brazilian junta and another region gained its independence. In less than four months the capital cities of three provinces and a vast territory extending along the coast for nearly 2,000 miles had been liberated from Portuguese rule.

  Unaware that Cochrane had left Valparaiso and was now First Admiral of Brazil, his wife had been planning to join him in Chile. Kate had hired spacious accommodation on the merchant ship Sesostris and set off from England with furniture for the house in Quintero. She was accompanied by a dozen servants and attendants – and the latest addition to the family, a daughter, Katherine Elizabeth, usually called Lizzie. (It will be recalled that their first daughter, Elizabeth Katherine, had died of a fever. Kate must have been pregnant with Lizzie when she left Peru and set sail for England in March 1821.) The ship called in at Rio de Janeiro on 13 June and there Lady Cochrane learnt that her husband was now commanding the Brazilian navy and was engaged in operations off the coast of Bahia. The merchant who had arranged her passage and accompanied her on the voyage wrote at once to Cochrane: ‘I hasten to announce the safe arrival here this day of your amiable Lady and Child in the Sesostris, after a passage of 50 days from England, in excellent health and spirits, so much so that I never saw her Ladyship look better during her residence in Chile. She is at present overcome with the joy of being so near to your Lordship and the fortunate escape of a prolonged absence round Cape Horn.’19 As the wife of their celebrated First Admiral, Kate was welcomed into the society of Rio and enjoyed the hospitality of the court and the aristocracy. Maria Graham’s comments about her are brief and guarded. It is evident that Maria, with her enquiring mind and keen intelligence preferred the company of Rio’s politicians and intellectuals to the unsophisticated Lady Cochrane to whom she referred in her journal as ‘my pretty countrywoman’. Three weeks before Cochrane’s return Maria embarked on a ship for England. She had been invited to become governess to the daughter of the empress but had decided to return home for a while before she took up her post. ‘I saw the Empress, who is pleased to allow me to sail for England in the packet the day after tomorrow,’ she wrote in her journal on 19 October. ‘I confess I am sorry to go before Lord Cochrane’s return. I had set my heart on seeing my best friend in this country after his exertions and triumph. But I have now put my hand to the plough, and I must not turn back.’20

  The Pedro Primiero sailed into the great bay and anchored in the shelter of Rio’s encircling mountains on 9 November 1823. The news of Cochrane’s liberation of the northern provinces had been received in the capital with an outburst of public celebrations. Buildings had been decorated and illuminated, and there had been gala performances at the theatre. The emperor now came out to greet Cochrane on his flagship and to reward him with a grand title and other honours: he was created Marquis of Maranhão, given the Grand Cross of Brazil, and made a member of the Privy Council. Reunited with his wife and family after an absence of nearly two years he must have expected and hoped for a rest from his exertions. Like Nelson at Naples after the Battle of the Nile, he was a hero in a distant land, laden with honours in a foreign court. But within days of his return he was involved in the political turmoil which engulfed the city and, as in Chile, embarked on a long-running campaign to secure the pay and the huge sums of prize money which he reckoned were owing to him and his crews for their seizures of ships, cargoes and property.

  While Cochrane had been away, the ruling Assembly had split into two factions. Both sides continued to back independence but one faction was in favour of an anti-Portuguese line while the other wanted the restoration of friendly relations with Portugal. The Chief Minister, José Bonifácio, had been forced to resign and debates on a new constitution had become increasingly acrimonious. On 12 November, three days after Cochrane’s return to Rio, Emperor Pedro surrounded the Assembly building with troops and ordered the delegates to disperse. He appointed a new government and drew up a new constitution which was in many respects more liberal and closer to Cochrane’s ideals than the previous one. But although Cochrane’s relations with the young emperor continued to be friendly, he did not get on well with the new ministers, particularly the Minister of Marine. Francisco Villela Barbosa was a university-trained mathematician who would prove an exceedingly capable administrator but his cold and calculating temperament was at odds with Cochrane’s high-handed demands on behalf of himself and his men, his passionate belief in the justice of his cause and his somewhat careless approach to facts and figures.

  During the naval campaign in the north the Brazilian squadron had taken three warships, eight gunboats, seventy-eight merchant vessels and a prodigious amount of public and private property. The total value was estimated at £252,000 (nearly £6 million in today’s terms). As commander-in-chief Cochrane expected the prize courts to award him one-eighth of the value of the captured vessels and goods. The government, however, was intent on a policy of peace and reconciliation which meant that Portuguese property was to be restored to its owners. Those merchant vessels seized in port or within two leagues of the coast were to be released; claims on public property taken in Maranhão and Para were dismissed on the grounds that these provinces were not enemy territory but were Brazilian and had only been under temporary Portuguese rule; and the captured warships were judged to be the property of the crown. Irregularities in the paperwork and the handling of some of the prizes caused further problems. The lawyers’ deliberations took many weeks but the result was that in February 1824 the Superior Prize Court dismissed almost all the squadron’s claims. Cochrane was outraged and, unable to see the reasoning behind the decision, he imagined sinister forces at work, blaming the pro-Portuguese faction for plotting to weaken the navy and undermine his authority. He wrote to the emperor to protest at his treatment and offered his resignation. To add to his troubles his wife and daughter had been laid low by the intense heat of the Brazilian summer and Kate had decided that she must return to England. ‘Lady Cochrane embarks
this day 16th February for England for the recovery of her health,’ he wrote to his brother William, ‘she having been ill ever since her arrival in this cursed hot place; and the little girl has only been saved by the utmost attention and skill of a Dr Williams who is now going home with Lady Cochrane.’ He added, ‘I am battling the watch here with the same kind of people I left on the other side – an ignorant obstinate narrow-minded gang; the Emperor however is my friend, and I shall, indeed, I have beaten all the intriguers who have attempted to annoy me.’21

  For the next two months he carried on with the usual administrative duties involved in being commander-in-chief of the navy (ship movements, victualling, promotions, transfers, punishments, pay and pensions) and he bombarded the Minister of Marine with complaints about the state of the ships and their need for repairs, the arrears of pay owed to the seamen, the looting of prizes and the withholding of the prize money due to himself and his men. During this time he became increasingly depressed and withdrawn. When Captain Kotzebue of the Russian navy met him he found him to be very different from the heroic figure he had expected. He described him as a man whose ‘appearance and manners are off-putting, and who in conversation never does more than express himself in monosyllables, so that it is difficult to detect the intelligence and experience beneath… Tall, thin and round shouldered, his eyes are always downcast; he never looks to the front or at the person to which he is speaking.’22

  The situation took a more ominous turn in May 1824 when Captain Grenfell returned to Rio after his successful liberation of the province of Para. In addition to seizing a number of vessels in the harbour of Belem he had taken possession of a new 50-gun frigate which he had renamed the Imperatriz and it was in this ship that he returned to Rio. Instead of rewarding him for his actions the authorities seized the ship and his personal possessions, confiscated the prize money which he had on board, and charged him with failing to carry out his orders correctly. He was acquitted, but a few weeks later Cochrane received a warning that the authorities were planning to remove a large sum of prize money which he had brought back from Maranhão and hidden on board the Pedro Primiero. This prompted Cochrane to ride out to the emperor’s palace, to wake him during the night and obtain his assurance that the prize money would not be touched.

  It was the news of a rebellion in the north and reports from Europe that Portugal was planning to reconquer Brazil which resolved some of the problems of pay and prize money. It was agreed that an expeditionary force must be despatched to crush the rebellion and it must be escorted by a squadron led by Cochrane. To prevent further desertions from the navy and to pacify those already in service the Minister of Marine raised the pay of officers and men and paid out £40,000 (200 contos) as an advance on the prize money due to the squadron. On 2 August 1824 the expedition set sail and headed for the rebellious province of Pernambuco. The troops went ashore at Alagoas and marched northwards while Cochrane took his squadron to Recife where he threatened to bombard the town. The leader of the rebellion, Manuel de Carvalho, offered him a massive bribe of £80,000 to change sides which Cochrane indignantly refused, pointing out that, ‘it did not follow that, because the Brazilian ministers were unjust and hostile to me, I should accept a bribe from a traitor to follow his example’.23 Leaving some of his ships to blockade the port, Cochrane sailed on to Bahia and while he was away the Brazilian army attacked Recife from the landward side while a naval force under Captain Norton captured the forts guarding the harbour and took possession of the shipping in the port. De Carvalho fled and the town was recaptured from the rebels.

  Having taken no part in the final action at Recife, Cochrane sailed on to São Luis, the capital of Maranhão, where he intended to secure payment of the prize money which he believed was owing to him following his capture of the town in 1823. He arrived to find the province gripped by civil war and the town in a state bordering on anarchy. It took him nearly two months to restore order and set up a new administration. Having done so he wrote a formal letter to the Provincial President on 11 January 1825 demanding that the sum of £21,000 (106 contos) owing in prize money be paid within thirty days.24 On 5 February a new Provincial President, who had been appointed by the authorities in Rio, arrived at São Luis, and when it became clear that he was going to oppose the payment of prize money Cochrane had him shipped along the coast to Belem. Within two days the junta had handed over £6,600 and in two months had raised the entire sum demanded. Cochrane’s secretary, William Jackson, arranged the distribution of the prize money to the crews of those ships of the squadron which were anchored at São Luis, but the crews of the ships at Rio never received their share. Cochrane received his pay and his one-eighth share of prize money which enabled him to buy £28,000-worth of cotton and ship it back to England in four merchant ships.25

  After six months of grappling with the intrigues of local politics and attempting to keep the peace by martial law, Cochrane had had enough. He had written to the emperor in January offering his resignation and informing him ‘I have now accomplished all that can be expected from me’, but his offer to resign had been rejected. Letters from Maria Graham, who had returned to Rio to take up her position as governess to the princess, warned him that his enemies were plotting against him and there was talk of dismissing the navy’s British officers. He made his preparations for leaving São Luis. He would later explain in his autobiography that the stress of dealing with internal wars, anarchy and revolution ‘began to make serious inroads on my health; whilst that of the officers and men, in consequence of the great heat and pestilential exhalations of the climate, and the double duty which they had to perform afloat and ashore, was even less satisfactory’.26 He shifted his flag into the frigate Piranga and sent the Pedro Primiero back to Rio. ‘I resolved upon a short run into a more bracing northerly atmosphere, which would answer the double purpose of restoring our health and of giving us a clear offing for our subsequent voyage to the capital.’27 He explained that his intention had been to sail towards the latitude of the Azores and then pick up the trade winds and head south-west to Rio. Instead he headed for England.

  He had collected a substantial amount of his prize money and, since he was clearly disillusioned by the events of his past year in Brazil, it is reasonable to suppose that he never had any intention of returning to Rio. However, in his autobiography he maintains that his decision to head for home was determined by problems encountered during the voyage. He had put to sea on 18 May 1825 and a succession of easterly winds swept them across the Atlantic. On 11 June they passed to the northward of the Azores island of São Miguel when, ‘strong gales coming on, we made the unpleasant discovery that the frigate’s main-topmast was sprung, and, when putting her about, the main and main-topsail yards were discovered to be unserviceable’.28 The running rigging was as rotten as the masts, and they were low on provisions. He consulted his officers and it was agreed that a direct return to Rio, which was more than 4,000 miles away, was out of the question. ‘It was therefore absolutely necessary to seek some nearer harbour.’ He would not be welcome in Portugal or Spain, and France had not yet recognised the independence of Brazil. So they sailed up the English Channel and on 26 June they dropped anchor at Spithead.

  While Cochrane had been away the British government had passed a Foreign Enlistment Act which was designed to prevent British seamen joining the navies of foreign powers. There was therefore a risk that Cochrane himself and most of his crew (all his officers and many of his men were British) might be prosecuted under the act. There was also the problem of explaining to his Brazilian masters what he was doing sailing one of their finest frigates across the Atlantic to Britain. In the circumstances it might have been tactful to slip into the anchorage quietly. The arrival of another ship among the lines of anchored warships and merchantmen in the Solent would scarcely have been noticed, and Cochrane could have gone ashore and made discreet enquiries about the legality of his position. Typically and defiantly he decided to arrive in style. With a
n immense Brazilian ensign flying at the stern, and the flag of an admiral of the Brazilian navy at the mainmast, the Piranga attracted considerable attention. One observer thought the frigate had ‘a very showy appearance’.29 Cochrane’s first act was to signal the Victory, the flagship of the port admiral, and find out whether his salute would be answered by the same number of guns. On receiving an affirmative answer the Piranga fired a fifteen-gun salute to the flag of Admiral Sir George Martin and raised the Union flag to her fore topgallant masthead. In return the guns of the Portsmouth forts thundered out an answering salute of fifteen guns. This was the first time the flag of independent Brazil had been formally saluted by a European state, and it was also an acknowledgement of Cochrane’s rank as an admiral. Two days later Sir George Martin received a letter from the First Lord of the Admiralty advising him that ‘the arrival of a Brazilian frigate with Lord Cochrane’s flag on board places the Government in rather an awkward predicament’.30 Sir George was admonished for returning Cochrane’s salute; he was reminded that Cochrane and his officers were liable to penalties under the Foreign Enlistment Act; and he was informed that the Attorney General was looking into the numerous actions being brought against Cochrane by the owners of British ships and goods ‘which were seized by him in a manner wholly unauthorised by the law of nations’.31