In 1857 Cochrane began work on the first of his autobiographies. This was devoted to his exploits in South America and seems to have been prompted by a request from official sources in Chile for ‘a biographical sketch’ of his eventful life.13 He used the opportunity to set down and justify the demands for prize money and back pay which he believed he was still owed by the governments of Chile and Brazil. The book was published in 1859 in two volumes under the title Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil from Spanish and Portuguese Domination. Although it was written in the first person – and the accounts of most of the actions and many minor incidents are clearly based on his reminiscences – Cochrane entrusted the writing of the book to George Butler Earp, a professional author who had recently published A History of the Crimean War. As Cochrane’s memory of events which had taken place more than thirty years before was far from perfect, Earp took much of the material from those documents and copies of letters which Cochrane’s secretary, William Jackson, had saved and brought back from South America. He was also able to draw on the published memoirs and biographies of Cochrane’s associates in South America, notably John Miers, Captain Hall, Maria Graham, Major Miller and William Bennet Stevenson who had spent twenty years in South America and had acted as Cochrane’s Spanish language secretary. Narrative of Services contains some graphic accounts of the most spectacular of the naval actions, but a disproportionate amount of space is devoted to arguments about pay and prize money and the book is heavily biased in Cochrane’s favour at the expense of men like San Martin, Zenteno, Villela Barbosa and Captain Guise who had incurred his displeasure.
By the time the book was published many of Cochrane’s financial demands had been settled. The Chileans had rejected his more outrageous claims but did agree to pay him £6,000. And during the course of 1857 the Brazilian government remitted bills of exchange worth £34,000 to cover his claims for back pay and half-pay.14 Cochrane used some of the money to pay off the debts of his son Horace, and some of it he put towards the purchase of a London house for his eldest son, Tom. Writing to Arthur from a villa in Nice where she had been staying, Kate recorded that Tom ‘has bought a house in Albert Road… Your father has given him four thousand five hundred pounds out of his Brazilian money.’15 The actual address of the house was 12 Prince Albert Road but a few years later the road was renamed Queens Gate (it lies parallel with Exhibition Road and runs from the Natural History Museum towards the Royal Albert Hall). Around 1858 Cochrane moved into the house and most of his later letters are addressed from 12 Queens Gate, South Kensington.
In the summer of 1859 he paid a visit to his wife in Boulogne and then spent six weeks on the south coast at Deal working on The Autobiography of a Seaman, the book which would reinforce his reputation as the most brilliant naval officer of his generation. On 20 July he wrote to Tom from the Royal Hotel, Deal, ‘I am here with Mr Earp getting on with the book, notwithstanding the cruel heat that even here at the sea side, and within ten yards of the beach, pervades the atmosphere…’16 A few days later he moved into lodgings at 89 Beach Street, Deal, where he stayed until the first week of September. The Autobiography of a Seaman was published in two volumes: the first covered his career in the Royal Navy up to the fireship attack at Basque Roads; the second volume began with Lord Gambier’s court martial and concluded with a description of the Stock Exchange trial. Again the book was written by George Earp with material supplied by William Jackson, but they had at their disposal far more material than had been available for Narrative of Services. Cochrane had kept copies of most of his letters and there were his logbooks and occasional journals as well as parliamentary reports, newspaper cuttings, naval histories and recent biographies such as Raikes’ life of Jahleel Brenton. According to George Earp, ‘My general practice in writing that book was to write it from his documents, not from his words, because I frequently found his memory fail of late years.’ As with the South American volumes there was a hidden agenda and in this case it was to exonerate Cochrane from complicity in the Stock Exchange fraud and to show that at several key moments of his life he had been the victim of enemies in the Admiralty or in the political establishment. As Earp made clear in a letter to Jackson, ‘My object is to clear Lord Dundonald’s character.’17
Considering that Cochrane was an ailing eighty-four, and that Jackson and Earp were not in good health, it is surprising that between them they were able to produce a book that would become a classic of naval literature. Of course the dramatic nature of so much of Cochrane’s life provided the basis for an extraordinary adventure story while his personal grievances and vendettas only added to the image of a great man surrounded by jealous and scheming enemies. The book was received with widespread acclaim but even Cochrane was aware of its shortcomings. ‘The book now requires another edition,’ he told Jackson in January 1860. ‘I wish the text was correct for even with your improvements I have found a dozen blunders. If you have any more errors pray send them to me.’18
The compiling of the biography inevitably revived many unhappy memories and Cochrane became particularly depressed by his recollections of Lord Gambier’s court martial. He was more than ever convinced that Gambier’s followers had fabricated the charts on which so much of the court’s judgement hinged and he devoted considerable space in the second volume to the action and the aftermath. However, he was now suffering increasing pain from an illness which was diagnosed as stones in his kidneys. On 19 March 1860 he wrote to Jackson, ‘my hand shakes so much I can hardly write legibly – but I daresay you will make it out. I am a little better than I have been and the Doctor says I will get over it.’19 But a few days later he was writing, ‘I am far from being well, and fear that this is the beginning of the end.’ On 4 April he had an operation which was carried out while he was anaesthetised with chloral, ‘which takes off all sense of pain both at the time and – in my case – after, has relieved me, so that I have hope of getting better’.20 After the operation he was still obsessed by the forged charts and falsehoods surrounding the court martial but was cheered by the news that his youngest son, Ernest, was returning from his most recent tour of duty.
On 12 April Arthur wrote to Kate in Boulogne, ‘I think my Father’s state of health precarious to the last degree. He underwent another operation yesterday under Bruce Jones, Lee and others and a large quantity of stone was brought away. He may or may not have the power to rally…’21 Cochrane did rally and from his bedroom in Queens Gate he continued to work with Earp and Jackson on the second volume of his book, correcting proofs and suggesting improvements. He lived on through the summer but towards the end of October he had to undergo an emergency operation from which he failed to recover. He died on 31 October 1860, a few weeks short of his eighty-fifth birthday.
The funeral was held a fortnight later on 14 November and was, in the words of one observer, ‘most solemn and impressive’. There were no military bands, or battalions of infantry or mounted Horse Guards and Life Guards as there had been for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in 1852, and no representatives of the government or royal family attended the service, but Cochrane’s family and friends ensured that his passing was marked with a ceremony worthy of the old hero. It took an hour and a half for the long line of horses and carriages to travel from the house in Kensington, along Piccadilly, St James’s Street, Pall Mall and Parliament Street to Westminster Abbey. The funeral procession was led by a hearse drawn by six black horses and arrived at the doors of the abbey at exactly one o’clock. A large crowd had gathered outside but ‘everything connected with the external and internal arrangements was so complete that no unseemly pressure or confusion took place’.22 Slabs of stone had been removed in the centre of the nave so that the grave could be dug, and the nave itself was filled with those mourners who had tickets for the funeral service. The coffin was met at the cloister entrance by the Dean of Westminster accompanied by the High Constable of Westminster, a reminder of Cochrane’s past service as Westmin
ster’s Member of Parliament. The pallbearers accompanying the coffin were Admiral Sir George Seymour, Admiral Pascoe Grenfell, who had played a key role in the Brazilian campaign, Admiral Collier, Captain Goldsmith (Cochrane’s flag captain on the Wellesley), Captain Hay, Captain Nolloth, Captain Schomberg, and his Excellency the Brazilian Ambassador. The choir, wearing black scarves over their surplices, joined the procession as it moved up the south aisle towards the west end of the nave while the organ played William Croft’s funeral anthem ‘I am the resurrection and the life…’. The psalms were sung to the music of Henry Purcell and were followed by an anthem celebrating Cochrane’s life which had been specially composed for the occasion by John Goss, composer to the queen and organist of St Paul’s Cathedral. After the coffin had been lowered into the grave and prayers had been read by the Dean, the service was concluded with Handel’s moving anthem ‘His body is buried in peace, but his memory shall live for ever’.
Most of the men and women who had featured in Cochrane’s early life in the navy and Parliament had died many years before. William Cobbett had died on his farm in Surrey in 1835, and the 1840s had seen the deaths of Maria Graham, Sir Francis Burdett, Captain Marryat and Jahleel Brenton, the latter ending his days with a knighthood and the rank of vice-admiral. But Lord Brougham travelled from Cannes to attend the funeral. When the service was concluded he went across to shake hands with Cochrane’s eldest son, Tom, now the Earl of Dundonald, and it was observed that he was evidently labouring under deep emotion. Shortly before his death Cochrane had sent a copy of the second volume of The Autobiography of a Seaman to Brougham with an accompanying letter. Brougham had replied from Paris reminding Cochrane of the impression he had made when they had paid a visit to the palace of the Tuileries. When Cochrane’s name was mentioned there had been ‘a general start and shudder’ among the assembled company. ‘I remember saying, as we drove away, that it ought to satisfy you as to your disappointment at Basque Roads; and you answered that you would rather have had the ships.’23
One of Cochrane’s long-standing grievances was that the banner and regalia of the Order of the Bath, which he had been awarded for his role in leading the fireship attack at Basque Roads, was still missing from Westminster Abbey. On 26 May 1856 he had written to the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, asking for the banner to be replaced in King Henry VII’s Chapel. He had also asked for the repayment of the fine that had been imposed on him, and the restoration of his half-pay during the period he had been suspended from the navy. ‘Unless these be done,’ he wrote, ‘I shall descend to my grave with the consciousness, not only that justice has not fully been done to me, but under the painful conviction that its omission will be construed to the injury of my character in the estimation of posterity.’24 Palmerston was not prepared to accede to any of these demands but on the day before the funeral, the banner and regalia (which had apparently been found in a junk shop) were restored to their former place in the abbey by command of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Cochrane’s wife had not attended the funeral.25 Kate had suffered from poor health for many years and most people would have accepted this as the reason why she was not able to be present. However, she had no difficulty in crossing the Channel a year later to appear before a committee of the House of Lords and it seems more likely that there were other other reasons for her failure to appear at Westminster. We know that she had had ambivalent feelings about Cochrane for many years. The letters she wrote to her favourite son, Arthur, during Cochrane’s declining years frequently describe her husband in contemptous terms. In her view he was a deaf, miserable and senile old man and she continued to blame him for squandering the family fortune on his ruinous inventions.26 On learning of his habit of taking evening strolls in Regents Park with his housekeeper she had even accused him of having an affair with the woman – which is possible but seems unlikely in view of his age and infirmities and his lifelong devotion to his wife. Kate had also fallen out with her son Tom and she may have been reluctant to face him, as well as all Cochrane’s friends and admirers, at the public ceremony in London.27
Like Cochrane’s father, Kate spent the last years of her life in France. Unlike the ninth Earl of Dundonald who had ended his days in humiliating poverty, Kate was well provided for and was visited at regular intervals by her children. She outlived Cochrane by less than five years and died at Boulogne on 25 January 1865 at the age of sixty-nine. Thanks to the efforts of two cousins of the present Lord Dundonald, Kate’s remains were located and, with the permission of the French authorities, were brought back to England. On 22 June 1989 she was reburied between her sons William and Arthur in the churchyard of Speldhurst near Tunbridge Wells. It was in the church at Speldhurst that Kate and Cochrane had been persuaded to have a ‘proper legal English marriage’ a few weeks before they had set sail for South America.
Epilogue
The obituaries of Cochrane were unusual. They listed his exploits at considerable length and drew attention to his audacity and bravery but they were also surprisingly emotional. There was a deep-felt sympathy for a man who, it was widely believed, had been wronged by his country and had suffered considerably as a consequence. There was also a sense of loss and regret at what he might have achieved for his country if he had not been dismissed from the Royal Navy and forced to seek employment overseas. The Times described him as one of the great characters of the past generation and a man of outstanding achievements but pointed out, ‘Nothing can exceed the audacity of his designs or the singularity of his successes although, owing to the jealousy or spite of his superiors, his exploits were usually confined to spheres comparatively unimportant or remote.’1 The Illustrated London News described him as a very remarkable man, ‘for so many years known as the daring, the indefatigable, the persecuted Lord Cochrane’.2 Tom Taylor, the writer and journalist and later the editor of Punch, published a lengthy eulogy in the form of a poem which began:
Ashes to Ashes! Lay the hero down
Within the grey old Abbey’s glorious shade.
In our Valhalla ne’er was worthier laid
Since martyr first won palm, or victor crown.
The poem depicted Cochrane as a caged lion, a ‘heroic soul, branded with a felon’s doom’ and denounced his enemies as ‘crawling worms that in corruption breed’. It described how he sought service in other seas and returned to England to eat out his heart in ‘weary, wishful days’ until he was eventually restored to honour.3
This image of a man unjustly accused and deeply wronged owed much to the recently published Autobiography of a Seaman but it was given added weight by the staunch support Cochrane had always received from his friends such as Cobbett, Burdett, Lord Auckland and Lord Brougham, and by a number of publications by his admirers during his lifetime and in the years following his death – in particular the novels and memoirs of Captain Marryat, the memoirs of Jahleel Brenton and General Miller, the travel books of Maria Graham, and the accounts of his exploits in the Naval Chronicle. None of his supporters seem to have doubted his innocence of the Stock Exchange fraud. Were they all mistaken? Did his gallant record as a seaman, his mild and unassuming manner and his steadfast protestations of his innocence blind them to his participation in the scandal which turned his life upside down? William Napier, who had been one of Cochrane’s bravest officers, wrote to James Guthrie when he heard the result of the trial, ‘I can hardly bring myself to believe that he could have been concerned in so foul a transaction.’4 And this was the opinion of all who knew him well. His wife never doubted his innocence and launched a passionate defence of his character when she was cross-examined by the House of Lords Committee which was set up in 1861 to examine the claims of Cochrane’s younger son Arthur to inherit the earldom on the grounds that the earlier marriage was illegal. Interrogated by an august group of lawyers including the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General, she became exasperated by their polite but persistent insinuations:
‘I cannot bear to be sitting he
re to vindicate the honour of such a man. It is too much not to speak and tell my feelings, it would be impossible. He was a glorious man. He was incapable of deception such as is imputed to him by the world, I know… Such a God of a man! A man who could have ruled the world upon the sea!’5
Cochrane’s attacks on Lord Ellenborough in his autobiography, and a number subsequent publications which proclaimed his innocence of the Stock Exchange fraud, provoked the Ellenborough family to come to the defence of their ancestor. The Trial of Lord Cochrane before Lord Ellenborough by J.B. Atlay not only examined the evidence presented at the trial but also included a sober account of Cochrane’s naval and parliamentary career. The book was intended to clear Lord Ellenborough’s name but left the reader in little doubt that the author believed Cochrane guilty of participating in the Stock Exchange fraud. This was followed by a book written by Ellenborough’s grandson entitled The Guilt of Lord Cochrane in 1814 which underlined Atlay’s conclusions and accused Cochrane of having ‘an utter disregard for truth and… an unwholesome greed for gold’.6
Two more recent publications have also found Cochrane guilty of the Stock Exchange fraud. In 1965 Henry Cecil, a judge and the author of a string of novels with a legal theme, published A Matter of Speculation: The Case of Lord Cochrane which examined the evidence presented at the trial, challenged the findings of Lord Campbell and other lawyers who had come out in Cochrane’s favour, and set out his reasons for believing the guilty verdict to have been correct.7 A biography by Brian Vale, published in 2004, has a particularly damning account of Cochrane’s financial dealings in South America and is based on extensive research in the archives in Chile, Peru and Brazil. Vale has no doubt that Cochrane was an active participant in the Stock Exchange fraud. John Sugden, whose critical study of Cochrane’s life up to and including the Stock Exchange trial is a model of historical research, concluded, ‘Although much has been written to vindicate or accuse the captain, the question of his guilt cannot satisfactorily be resolved.’8 The naval historian Christopher Lloyd, who had reservations about aspects of Cochrane’s character (his personal prejudices, his obsession with money) thought that his innocence or guilt of the fraud could never be determined for certain owing to the conflicting and incomplete nature of the evidence, but concluded, ‘Personally, I believe that he was innocent, but for reasons which are not the sort acceptable in a court of law.’9
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