Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  A portrait of Admiral Lord Gambier by Joseph Slater. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

  A cartoon which expresses the popular view of the Basque Roads action and Lord Gambier’s court martial. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  Lord Ellenborough, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The principal entrance of the King’s Bench Prison in Southwark, by Thomas H. Shepherd. (By permission of The British Library)

  General José de San Martin, who led the armies that liberated Chile and Peru from the colonial rule of Spain. (Private collection)

  A portrait of the young Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil. Engraving after the picture by Jean Baptiste Reville. (Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, Paris/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The two principal ships of the Greek Navy under Cochrane’s command: the Hellas and the Karteria. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The lines of the Arab, 22 guns, formerly the French privateer La Brave. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The line of the two 32-gun frigates Pallas and the Circe. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The lines of the frigate Imperieuse, of 38 guns. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  Second colour plates

  British sailors boarding a man-of-war, by John Atkinson. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The rock of Lisbon, by J. C. Schetky. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  Crowds gathered around the hustings at Covent Garden, from Akermann’s Micorcosm of London. (By permission of The British Library)

  Lord Cochrane, the naval hero, by Stroehling. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  Lord Cochrane, the Radical politician, by Adam Buck. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A watercolour by Lieutenant William Innes Pocock identifying seven types of Mediterranean vessel. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  Sir Francis Burdett, watercolour by Adam Buck. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

  William Cobbett, writer and journalist. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

  The House of Commons as it would have looked in Cochrane’s day, from Ackermann’s Microcosm of London. (By permission of the British Library)

  Cochrane’s wife Kate with their daughter Elisabeth, by Sir George Hayter. (Courtesy of the Earl of Dundonald)

  Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence of Maria Graham. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

  General Bernardo O’Higgins, Supreme Director of Chile. (Courtesy of Earl of Dundonald)

  A view of the Bay of Guanabara, Brazil, by George L. Hall. (Private collection)

  A portrait of Cochrane in his fifties by Sir George Hayter. (Courtesy of Earl of Dundonald)

  Images in the text

  Lord Cochrane as a civilian in his early forties, by W. Walton. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Culross in the late seventeenth century, viewed across the Firth of Forth. (By permission of the British Library)

  The south front of Culross Abbey House as it looked in the 1780s. (By permission of the British Library)

  Shipping off Leith Roads with the city of Edinburgh in the distance, by J. C. Schetky. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A plan and elevation of His Majesty’s dockyard at Sheerness. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A watercolour by George Tobin depicting the Thetis aground on the coast of North Carolina. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A warship entering the harbour of Port Mahon, Minorca. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The wreckage of the Queen Charlotte at Leghorn in March 1800. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A detail from a watercolour by Nicholas Pocock showing the brig sloop Childers. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The Speedy, under the command of Captain Jahleel Brenton, attacked by enemy gunboats off Gibraltar. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The lines of the brig sloop Speedy, drawn from the original plans in the National Maritime Museum, London. (Norman Swales)

  The University of Edinburgh. Engraving after the drawing by Thomas H. Shepherd. (By permission of the British Library)

  George Street, Edinburgh, looking west towards St George’s Church. Engraving after the drawing by Thomas H. Shepherd. (By permission of the British Library)

  Designs and description of a 24-pounder carronade on a carriage designed by Captain Schank. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  The recruiting poster issued by Cochrane at Plymouth in January 1805. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A watercolour by Nicholas Pocock showing a frigate assembling a convoy in St Helens Roads off the Isle of Wight. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  ‘The Jolly Tars of Old England on a Land Cruise’, J. C. Ibbetson. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A caricature by James Gillray of the Westminster Election of 1807. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

  ‘What a feat! With dead men!’ (‘Grand hazaña. Con muertos.’) Etching by Francisco Goya. (© Copyright The British Museum)

  ‘Rightly or wrongly’ (‘Con razon ó sin ella’). Etching by Goya. c. 1810. (© Copyright The British Museum)

  A detail of a page copied from a capture French signal book which Cochrane sent back to the Admiralty. (The National Archives, UK)

  Congreve rockets being launched from boats. (By permission of The British Library)

  A chart of Rosas Bay by Joseph Roux, 1764. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  British fireships, with Congreve rockets, bearing down on the anchored French fleet at Basque Roads. (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A cartoon depicting ‘Things as they have been. Things as they now are.’ (© National Maritime Museum, London)

  A chart of the harbour of Valparaiso in 1826. (By permission of The British Library)

  A chart of the harbour of Valdivia in 1826 showing the numerous forts. (By permission of The British Library)

  Hanover Lodge, the home of Cochrane and his family in the 1830s. (By permission of The British Library)

  The Rocket, designed by George and Robert Stephenson. (By permission of The British Library)

  A diagram showing Cochrane’s rotary steam engines driving two paddle wheels. (By permission of The British Library)

  Cutaway drawing of Cochrane’s frigate Imperieuse of 38 guns, showing internal fittings and stores. (John Batchelor)

  Notes

  List of Abbreviations

  BL British Library

  Oxford DNB The new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

  NA National Archives

  NAS National Archives of Scotland

  NLS National Library of Scotland

  NMM National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

  PRO Public Record Office, Kew, London

  Prologue

  1. The Times, Friday 2 November 1860.

  2. Quoted by Ian Grimble, The Sea Wolf: The Life of Admiral Cochrane (first published 1978; cited paperback edition, Edinburgh, 2000), p. 193.

  3. Georgiana, Lady Chatterton, Memorials, Personal and Historical of Admiral Lord Gambier (London, 1861).

  4. J. B. Atlay, The Trial of Lord Cochrane before Lord Ellenborough (London, 1897), p. 327.

  5. Lord Ellenborough, The Guilt of Lord Cochrane in 1814 (London, 1914), p. ix.

  6. Mary Russell Mitford, Recollections of a Literary Life, or Books, Places, and People (London, 1852), vol. 2, p. 24.

  7. Cyrus Redding, Fifty Years Recollections, Literary and Personal with observations on persons and things (London, 1858), vol. 1, p. 148.

  8. Maria Graham, Lady Callcott, Journal of a Residence in Chile during the year 1822, and a Voyage from Chile to Brazil in 1823 (London, 1824), p. 188.

  9. Samuel Bamford, The Autobiography of Samuel Bamford: Passages in the Life of a Radical, edited by W.H. Chaloner (London 1841, cited 1967 edition), vol. 2, p. 20.

  10. Quoted by E. G. Twitchett in
Life of a Seaman: Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald (London, 1931), p. 279.

  Chapter 1

  1. The details about Culross, the abbey and Culross Abbey House are taken from: Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (London, MDCCCXLVI), vol. 1, p. 246; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, ed. Francis Groome (Edinburgh, 1884), vol. 1, p. 323; the entry for Culross in Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland; and Culross: A Short History of the Royal Burgh, National Trust for Scotland (Edinburgh 2003).

  2. Oxford DNB; G. E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, vol. IV, p. 526 (cited London, 1916, edition); Alexander Cochrane, The Fighting Cochranes: A Scottish Clan Over Six Hundred years of Naval and Military History (London, 1983), pp. 58–71.

  3. For the life of Archibald, ninth Earl of Dundonald, see Oxford DNB; Thomas Cochrane, The Autobiography of a Seaman (hereafter abbreviated to Autobiography); John Sugden, Lord Cochrane, Naval Commander, Radical, Inventor: A Study of his Early Life (University of Sheffield, Ph.D. thesis, 1981) (hereafter cited as Lord Cochrane); Cockayne, Complete Peerage, vol. IV, pp. 528–9; Donald Thomas, Cochrane: Britannia’s Sea Wolf (London, 1978); Christopher Lloyd, Lord Cochrane: Seaman, Radical, Liberator (London, 1947).

  4. My thanks to J. J. Heath-Caldwell for this information from the Heath-Caldwell Family Archive.

  5. J. Cochrane to Rev. Robert Rolland, 16 November 1784, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/105/A7.

  6. Some of these letters are reproduced in Alexander Cochrane, The Fighting Cochranes, pp. 229–33.

  7. Autobiography, p. 6.

  8. Dundonald to Mrs Gilchrist, 22 November 1784, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/105/A8.

  9. Minutes of Evidence: The petition of the Earl of Dundonald; evidence given before the House of Lords Committee of Privileges in 1861, 1862, 1863, BL: BS.96/51, p. 65.

  10. Autobiography, p. 5.

  11. The Culross Abbey estate was sold in July 1798 for £17,000. Initially purchased by Mr Glenny, it then passed to Sir Robert Preston, who owned the adjoining estate of Valleyfield. See William Hamilton to Lord Dundonald, 5 July 1798, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/105/B21; and Dundonald to Lord Dundas, 12 July 1798, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/105/B22.

  12. Dundonald, Description of the Estate and Abbey of Culross (Edinburgh, 1793), p. 23.

  13. Quoted by Thomas, Cochrane: Britannia’s Sea Wolf, p. 24.

  14. NLS, Edinburgh: MS.5379 (British Tar Company), pp. 3–7.

  15. Autobiography, p. 7.

  16. NLS, Edinburgh: MS.5379 (British Tar Company), pp. 16–18.

  17. Quoted by Twitchett, Life of a Seaman, p. 10.

  18. Quoted by Sugden, Lord Cochrane, p. 33.

  19. Autobiography, p. 10.

  20. Ibid., p. 10.

  21. Dundonald, Description of the Estate and Abbey of Culross, p. 7.

  22. Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane was born on 22 April 1758. He was made lieutenant in 1778, post-captain in 1782. In 1809 he captured Guadeloupe and was subsequently made governor of the island. He was in command of the North American station during the War of 1812. His final rank was Admiral of the White, and his last appointment was as commander-in-chief at Plymouth in 1821. He died in Paris on 26 January 1832. See Oxford DNB; Alexander Cochrane, The Fighting Cochranes.

  23. Log of Hind, PRO: ADM.51/452.

  Chapter 2

  1. According to Cochrane’s Autobiography he joined the ship at Sheerness on 27 June 1793. His memory was at fault because the log of the Hind shows that she was sailing off Ushant at that time. Cochrane later describes a cruise to Norway in the Hind but he never put to sea in the Hind and the Norway cruise was made in the Thetis. See the log of the Hind, PRO: ADM.51/452. The log of the Thetis is with the Dundonald Papers at NAS, Edinburgh, GD233/81/81C.

  2. Autobiography, p. 11.

  3. Log of Thetis, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/81/81C.

  4. Autobiography, p. 17.

  5. Ibid., p. 13.

  6. In 1794 the system was changed by an Order in Council and a new class of ‘Volunteers Class 1’ was created for boys intending to be officers. For a detailed description of the ways in which boys entered the navy see Brian Lavery, Nelson’s Navy (London 1990), p. 88; and N.A.M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean (London, 2004), pp. 507–8.

  7. I am greatly indebted to John Sugden’s Ph.D. thesis on the early life of Cochrane for much of the correspondence quoted in this chapter.

  8. Muster book of the Hind, PRO: ADM.36/11153.

  9. Muster books of Caroline and Hind, PRO: ADM.36/9762 and ADM.36/9869. See also certificates of service in NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/78/16.

  10. Spencer to Coutts, March 1795, NLS, Edinburgh: 2264, f. 11.

  11. Coutts to Captain Cochrane, 16 November 1793, NLS, Edinburgh: 2264, f. 4.

  12. The muster book of the Africa shows that Cochrane joined the ship by order of Admiral Murray and then transferred to the Lynx on 18 May 1795. See PRO: ADM.36/11423 and log of Africa, PRO: ADM.51/1134.

  13. Spencer to Coutts, 30 July 1795, NLS, Edinburgh: 2264, ff. 17–19.

  14. Jane Dundonald to Captain Cochrane, 12 July 1795, NLS, Edinburgh: 2264, f. 15.

  15. Lieutenant’s commission, 27 May 1766, in Minutes of Evidence, p. 11.

  16. Coutts to Captain Cochrane, 5 April 1797, NLS, Edinburgh: 2254, ff. 30–31.

  17. Autobiography, p. 24.

  18. Cochrane to Dundonald, January 1798, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/105/A22

  19. Ibid.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Brian Lavery, ‘George Keith Elphinstone, Lord Keith’ in Precursors of Nelson: British Admirals of the Eighteenth Century, eds P. le Fevre and R. Harding (London, 2000); Oxford DNB; The Keith Papers (3 vols, Navy Records Society, 1927, 1950, 1955).

  22. Cochrane to Dundonald, November 1798, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/105/A22.

  23. W. H. Smyth, The Life and Services of Captain Philip Beaver, (London 1829), p. 124

  24. Court martial held on Barfleur in Tetouan Bay on 18 February 1799. PRO: ADM.1/5348.

  25. Minutes of the court martial, PRO: ADM.1/5348.

  26. Keith to Captain Cochrane, 29 August 1801, NLS, Edinburgh: 2569, ff. 197–8.

  27. Autobiography, p. 32.

  28. Ibid., p. 36.

  29. Spencer to Cochrane, 22 August 1799, NLS, Edinburgh: 2568, f. 76.

  30. Quoted by Roger Knight, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievements of Horatio Nelson (London, 2005), p. 335. Knight provides an authoritative account of Nelson’s controversial actions at Naples in June 1799 and the subsequent months he spent at Palermo, pp. 321–7, 330–39.

  31. Autobiography, p. 37.

  32. For an account of the capture of the Généreux by Nelson’s squadron see Knight, The Pursuit of Victory, pp. 335–6.

  33. Keith to Cochrane, 20 February 1800; and T. Maude to Nepean, 27 March 1800. PRO: ADM.1/1629.

  34. Keith to Cochrane, 21 February 1800. PRO: ADM.1/1629.

  35. Muster book of the Généreux, PRO: ADM.36/14328.

  36. Log of the Généreux, PRO: ADM.51/2067.

  37. In his Autobiography, p. 40, Cochrane suggests that he received his promotion and appointment to the Speedy because Lord Keith ‘was so well satisfied with my conduct of the Genereux’ but Keith had appointed him commander of the Speedy before he set sail in the Généreux. See Keith to Cochrane, 20 February 1800, PRO: ADM.1/1629.

  38. Lavery in Precursors of Nelson, p. 389.

  39. Log of the Speedy, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/80/78.

  Chapter 3

  1. Strictly speaking Cochrane was ‘commander’ of the Speedy and not ‘master and commander’ because the word ‘master’ had been dropped from the name of the rank in 1794. From the late seventeenth century onwards the term ‘master and commander’ had been applied to captains of vessels which were thought too small to require a master as well as a captain. One man therefore carried out the duties of both captain and master. The term
‘master and commander’ has a fine ring about it which was no doubt why it was used by Patrick O’Brian as the title of his first book in the Aubrey/Maturin novels. It was subsequently used as the title of the film based on his books.

  2. The Speedy was one of two brig sloops built by King of Dover; the other was the Flirt. In addition to her fourteen 4-pounder guns she had twelve swivel guns. For further details see David Lyon, The Sailing Navy List (London, 1993), p. 98, and the plans in the NMM.

  3. The brig sloop Childers, 14 guns, was one of six vessels of the Childers class designed by Williams. She was built at the private yard of Menetone and Son on the Thames, and was launched in 1778. She measured seventy-eight feet seven inches on her upper deck and her breadth was twenty-five feet. Lyon, The Sailing Navy List, p. 98, and plans in the NMM.

  4. Henry Raikes, Memoir of Vice Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton (London, 1855), p. 28.

  5. Brenton’s despatch, 21 August 1799, quoted in Raikes, Memoir, p. 40.

  6. Brenton’s despatch to Admiral Duckworth, 21 November 1799, quoted in Raikes, Memoir, pp. 46–7.

  7. Cochrane’s commission is quoted in full in Minutes of Evidence, BL: BS.96/51.

  8. The details of the Speedy’s cruises in this chapter are based primarily on the Speedy’s log, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/80/78, augmented by Guthrie’s letter to Earp, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/83/95; the court martial on the loss of the Speedy, PRO: ADM.1/5357; accounts in the Naval Chronicle, vol. VI, (1801) pp. 151, and 320–21; William James, Naval History, vol. III, pp. 132–5; and Cochrane’s Autobiography.

  9. Autobiography, p. 41.

  10. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo (first published 1844–5, cited Penguin Classics edition, 2006), p. 187. It is tempting to see some parallels with Cochrane’s life in Dumas’ tale of a sailor who was wrongfully imprisoned, and on his release sought to clear his name and revenge himself on his enemies, but Dumas based his novel on the true story of a young Frenchman, François Picaud, who suffered that fate in 1807.

  11. NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/83/95.

  12. NMM: JOD/55, 56.

  13. There is an obvious parallel here with the friendship of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in Patrick O’Brian’s novels but although O’Brian would have noted the part played by the ship’s doctor in the Gamo incident as recounted in Cochrane’s Autobiography, it is unlikely that he was aware of how closely fact followed fiction in this case.