17. Collingwood to Pole, HMS Ocean off Cadiz, 11 June 1808. PRO: ADM. 1/414, f. 127.
Chapter 9
1. Collingwood to Martin, 20 June 1808. BL: Add.MSS. 14278, f. 182.
2. Collingwood to Cochrane, given on board HMS Ocean off Cadiz, 21 June 1808. BL: Add.MSS. 14276, f. 202.
3. Much first-hand detail of the coastal raids of the Imperieuse, including the careful preparations for boat attacks, will be found in Marryat’s novels especially Frank Mildmay, Peter Simple and Mr Midshipman Easy.
4. Captain Marryat, Frank Mildmay, p. 91; Autobiography, p. 146; Imperieuse log, PRO: ADM. 51/2462, part 4.
5. Cochrane to Collingwood, 31 July 1808. BL: Add.MSS. 14279, f.117.
6. Collingwood to Pole, 27 August 1808, PRO: ADM. 1/414, f. 195.
7. Piers Mackesy, The War in the Mediterranean, 1803–1810 (London, 1957), pp. 283–4; Carola Oman, A History of the Peninsular War (1902), vol. I, pp. 314–18; Autobiography, p. 150.
8. Cochrane to Collingwood, 28 September 1808. BL: Add.MSS. 14279, f. 177.
9. The first signal had been sent at 6.00 a.m. on 30 September and gave warning of the presence of the Imperieuse: ‘The enemy is at anchor and is a frigate she is E by N 4 leagues distant the enemy hoists out his boats and debarks…’ Cochrane to Pole, 17 October 1808, PRO: ADM. 1/1651.
10. Collingwood to Thornborough, 21 June 1808. BL: Add.MSS. 14278, f. 98.
11. Thornborough to Collingwood, 9 September 1808. BL: Add.MSS. 14279, f. 69.
12. A Treatise on the general principles, powers and facility of application of the Congreve Rocket System, by Major-Gen. Sir W. Congreve, Bart (London, 1827), p. 6.
13. The Times, Saturday 18 October 1806.
14. Raikes, Memoir of Vice Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, p. 236.
15. Raikes, Memoir, p. 235.
16. Brenton to Thornborough, 16 September 1808. BL: Add.MSS. 14279, f. 132.
17. Autobiography, p. 170.
Chapter 10
1. For the background to the situation in Spain at this period see Carola Oman, A History of the Peninsular War and Piers Mackesy, The War in the Mediterranean, 1803–1810.
2. Cochrane to Collingwood, 5 December 1808. Autobiography, p. 188.
3. The events in this chapter are taken from: the log of the Imperieuse, PRO: ADM. 51/2462, part 4; Collingwood Papers, BL: Add.MSS. 14276 and 14279; Florence Marryat, The Life and Letters of Captain Marryat, vol. 1, pp. 52–8; Captain Marryat, Frank Mildmay, pp. 83–90; Sugden, Lord Cochrane, pp. 104–9; Autobiography, pp. 170–90.
4. Autobiography, p. 177.
5. PRO: ADM. 51/2462
6. Captain Marryat, Frank Mildmay, p. 85.
7. Quoted by Sugden, Lord Cochrane, p. 106, from Bennett to Collingwood, 22 November–4 December 1808, PRO: ADM. 1/414.
8. Autobiography, pp. 178–9.
9. Captain Marryat, Frank Mildmay, p. 86.
10. Florence Marryat, Life and Letters, vol. 1, p. 56.
11. Ibid., p. 57. The incident is also mentioned by Cochrane in his Autobiography, p. 184. See also Imperieuse log, PRO: ADM. 51/2462, part 4, entry for 4 December 1808.
12. PRO: ADM. 51/2462, part 4, entry for 5 December 1808.
13. Mackesy, The War in the Mediterranean, p. 296.
14. Collingwood to Pole, 7 January 1809. This letter and Cochrane’s despatch of 5 December 1808 are quoted in Autobiography, pp. 187–9.
15. Florence Marryat, Life and Letters, vol. 1, p. 63.
Chapter 11
1. Allemand had recently replaced Rear-Admiral Willaumez who had led the break-out of the French fleet from Brest but had failed to capitalise on this.
2. Gambier to Mulgrave, 11 March 1809. Autobiography, p. 205; and William James, Naval History, vol. IV, p. 396.
3. Cochrane to Thornborough, 25 April 1806, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/65/7. In a letter to the Admiralty, 23 April 1807, Captain Richard Goodwin Keats had also recommended an attack on the anchorage by the Ile d’ Aix with ‘bombs, fireships, and rockets, covered and protected by a squadron’. His letter is quoted in the minutes of the court martial of Gambier, p. 18.
4. Hope to Cochrane, 21 March 1809. NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/82/84, and Autobiography, p. 202.
5. The details for the account of the action at Basque Roads are taken from: the logs of the Imperieuse, Caledonia, Etna, Emerald, Beagle and Mediator; W. B. Gurney, Minutes of a Court Martial… on the trial of the Right Honourable James, Lord Gambier (Portsmouth, 1809); James, Naval History, vol. IV, pp. 394–431; Naval Chronicle, vol. XXI (1809), pp. 344–414; William Richardson, A Mariner of England (London, 1908), pp. 243–4; Captain Marryat, Frank Mildmay, pp. 132–7; Autobiography, pp. 202–44; various charts and documents in the Dundonald Papers NAS, Edinburgh, especially GD233/71/35, GD233/78/35, GD233/81/82, GD233/81/84, GD233/83/93 and GD233/12183–7; see also ‘Basque Roads, 1809’ in The Victory of Seapower, ed. Robert Gardiner (London, 1998), pp. 44–7; and a detailed account in John Sugden’s thesis, pp. 112–43.
6. Admiralty Board minutes, 15 March 1809, PRO: ADM. 3/167.
7. Cochrane to Mulgrave, 25 March 1809. NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/65/7; and Autobiography, p. 209.
8. Gambier to Pole, 26 March 1809. The letter is quoted in Autobiography, pp. 211–12, and James, Naval History, vol. IV, p. 398, and Minutes of court martial of Gambier.
9. Pole to Gambier, 25 March 1809. Autobiography, p. 215
10. Court martial of Admiral Harvey, 22 May 1809, PRO: ADM. 1/5396.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Gurney, Minutes of a Court Martial, p. 58.
15. Richardson, A Mariner of England, pp. 243–4.
16. Autobiography, p. 224.
17. Richardson, A Mariner of England, p. 244.
18. Log of the Beagle, PRO: ADM. 51/1932.
19. The Mediator had left Plymouth on 24 March loaded with bullocks, vegetables and other provisions for Gambier’s fleet. She arrived at Basque Roads on 3 April, PRO: ADM. 51/1864.
20. Admiral Allemand’s report of 12 April 1809 to the Minister of Marine. This was reproduced in Le Moniteur of 23 April and a translation published in the Naval Chronicle, vol. XXI (1809), p. 373.
21. Log of Aetna, PRO: ADM. 51/1887.
22. Autobiography, p. 229.
23. Captain Marryat, Frank Mildmay, p. 133.
24. Ibid., p. 134.
25. Richardson, A Mariner of England, p. 247.
26. Naval Chronicle, vol. XXI (1809), p. 403.
27. The fire signals seen by Allemand were those displayed by the Redpole and the Lyra and not by the advanced frigates. Naval Chronicle, vol. XXI (1809), p. 373.
28. Ibid.
29. James, Naval History, vol. V, p. 109.
Chapter 12
1. Log of Caledonia, PRO: ADM. 51/1981.
2. All Cochrane’s signals are recorded under the heading ‘Signals made 12th April 1809’ in the Caledonia’s log, PRO: ADM. 51/1981.
3. Gambier’s despatch to the Admiralty, The Times, 22 April 1809, and Naval Chronicle, vol. XXI (1809), p. 345.
4. Gordon to the eleventh Earl of Dundonald, 12 April 1861, NAS, Edinburgh: GD33/74/3–4.
5. Autobiography, p. 235
6. Ibid.
7. James, Naval History, vol. IV, p. 394.
8. Maitland, a Scot, had already distinguished himself as a daring frigate captain. He made his name in 1815 when he returned to Basque Roads in the 74-gun ship Bellerophon, received the surrender of Napoleon, and brought him back to England.
9. Autobiography, p. 237.
10. Captain Marryat, Frank Mildmay, p. 136. The details of the killed and wounded appear in Lord Gambier’s despatch of 14 April.
11. Log of Imperieuse, PRO: ADM. 51/2462, part 5.
12. Naval Chronicle, vol. XXI (1809), p. 405.
13. Richardson, A Mariner of England, p. 248.
14. Ibid., p. 249.
15. Autobiography, p. 239; the log of the Imperieuse records that the French captain d
ied of his wounds at 1.00 a.m. on 13 April; the incident is also noted by Richardson, A Mariner of England, p. 251; Captain Marryat, Frank Mildmay, p. 137; and a report under the heading ‘Lord Cochrane’s Victory’, The Times, 27 April 1809.
16. An officer of the Revenge wrote from Rochefort, 13 April 1809, ‘Lord Cochrane behaved most gallantly; he is now in a bomb, firing away at a three-decker that is on shore, which I hope he will be able to destroy.’ Naval Chronicle, vol. XXI (1809), p. 399.
17. Quoted by John Sugden, Lord Cochrane, p. 137.
18. Gambier to Cochrane, 13 April 1809. Gurney, Minutes of a Court Martial, p. 53.
19. Cochrane to Gambier, 13 April 1809. Gurney, Minutes of a Court Martial, p. 53.
20. Gambier to Cochrane, 13 April 1809. Gurney, Minutes of a Court Martial, p. 54.
21. Autobiography, p. 243.
22. Ibid.
23. Gurney, Minutes of a Court Martial, p. 179.
24. James, Naval History, vol. IV, p. 422.
25. Sugden, Lord Cochrane, p. 138.
26. Naval Chronicle, vol. XXI (1809), p. 407.
27. Barry O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, or a Voice from St Helena (London, 1822), vol. II, pp. 292–3.
Chapter 13
1. The Times, Saturday 22 April 1809.
2. Quoted by Christopher Lloyd in Lord Cochrane, p. 66.
3. The Times, Tuesday 2 May 1809.
4. List of promotions, PRO: ADM. 1/141.
5. Wordsworth to Thomas de Quincey, 5 May 1809, in The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: the Middle Years, edited by Ernest de Selincourt (Oxford 1937), vol. I, p. 299.
6. Court martial of Harvey, PRO: ADM. 1/5396.
7. Gurney, Minutes of a Court Martial. p. 2.
8. See James, Naval History, vol. IV, p. 425; Lloyd, Lord Cochrane, p. 68.
9. Ibid., p. 47.
10. Sugden, Lord Cochrane, note 25, p. 121.
11. Gurney, Minutes of a Court Martial, pp. 218–20.
12. Ibid., p. 138.
13. Ibid., p. 231.
14. Autobiography, p. 254.
15. Georgiana, Lady Chatterton, Memorials of Admiral Lord Gambier, vol. II, p. 334.
16. Ibid., vol. II, p. 328.
17. Ibid, p. 342.
18. Details of Holly Hill are given in the Minutes of Evidence on pp. 62, 65, 66, 75, 76. Katherine says he bought the house from his uncle, the Hon. Mr Cochrane, in 1810 or 1811, before she knew Cochrane.
19. Mitford, Recollections of a Literary Life, vol. 2, p. 24. There is no indication of the date of Mary Mitford’s visit, but the evidence indicates it must have been either the summer of 1809 or the summer of 1810.
20. See Richard Ingrams, The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett (London, 2005), p. 93.
21. See Richard Woodman, ‘Walcheren, 1809 – the lost opportunity’ in The Victory of Seapower, pp. 136–9.
22. Christopher Lloyd, Captain Marryat and the Old Navy (London, 1939), p. 118.
23. Cochrane to Guthrie, 14 December 1809. NMM: AGC/38/1.
24. William James, in his Naval History of Great Britain, published in 1822–4, was particularly damning about Gambier’s actions at Basque Roads. Lady Chatterton, in her Memorials of Admiral Lord Gambier, challenged James’s conclusions and pointed out the errors and inconsistencies in Cochrane’s account of the action in his Autobiography. The majority of Cochrane’s biographers have unsurprisingly backed his version of the proceedings.
25. Admiral Sir Francis Austen to Lord Dundonald, 1 March 1860, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/83/95.
Chapter 14
1. See M. W. Patterson, Sir Francis Burdett and his Times (London, 1931), pp. 242–69; and The Times.
2. Henry Hunt, Memoirs of Henry Hunt (London, 1820), vol. II, p. 391.
3. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 11 May 1810, vol. XVI, pp. 1006–11.
4. Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 133.
5. The correspondence between Cochrane and Yorke in June 1810 is in the Dundonald Papers, NAS, Edinburgh: GD 233/65/7.
6. Presumably this is ‘La Julie, lugger, 5 guns, 4 swivels, 44 men’ that he reported capturing in a letter sent to Collingwood from Caldagues, 2 January 1809. Autobiography, p. 196.
7. Cochrane to Stuart, 11 February 1811, NAS, Edinburgh: GD 233/82/85.
8. First-hand detail about Cochrane’s adventures in Malta, including the diary he kept at the time and several relevant letters, are among the Dundonald Papers in Edinburgh, GD. 233/65/9; see also Naval Chronicle, vol. XXV (1811), pp. 299–302; John Sugden’s thesis on Lord Cochrane, pp. 201–4; and the chapter ‘The Cochranes and the Courts’ in Hill, The Prizes of War, pp. 106–17.
9. For detail on the workings of the prize courts, see Hill, The Prizes of War.
10. The relevant act was 45th Geo. III, c 72 which Cochrane kept quoting passages from when he was arrested and taken to court.
11. G. L. Collingwood, Correspondence and Memoir of Lord Collingwood (London, 1829), p. 285.
12. There is some confusion over which room the table of fees was in, Cochrane’s account suggesting it was on the door of the judge’s privy. See Autobiography, p. 297; Lloyd, Lord Cochrane, p.102; Vale, Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 67; Hill, Prizes of War, p. 111
13. Scott to Croker, 30 May 1811, NA, Kew: ADM. 1/3900
14. See Hill, The Prizes of War; PRO: ADM. 1/3900 and ADM. 1/3901.
15. Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 143.
16. Ibid, p. 144.
17. His ‘Secret War Plans’ for chemical warfare are discussed with his other inventions in Chapter 20.
18. Quoted by Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 171, from a letter of 14 October 1814 in the Dundonald Papers, NAS. Edinburgh.
19. For Katherine’s correspondence with Lord Auckland see: Auckland Papers, BL: Add.MSS. 34,459, ff. 397, 399, 401, 430, 432, 439 and 443.
20. Minutes of Evidence. BL:, BS. 96/51, p. 58.
21. In the Minutes of Evidence Kate says her parents died in her infancy and she did not know either of them. In Cochrane’s Autobiography she is described as ‘the orphan daughter of a family of honourable standing in the Midland Counties’ who had been placed ‘under the guardianship of her first cousin, Mr John Simpson of Portland Place and also of Fairlorn House in the County of Kent, of which county he was then High Sheriff’. Her name is given as ‘Miss Katherine Corbett Barnes’ in Cochrane’s Autobiography p. 317; and as ‘Katherine Frances Corbett, daughter of Thomas Barnes’ in G.E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage, p. 530; but appears as ‘Catherine Corbett’ and ‘Catherine Corbet Barnes’ in Minutes of Evidence, pp. 56, 73, 82. See Cochrane’s entry in G. E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. IV, p. 530.
22. Searches at the Essex Record Office and elsewhere have so far failed to reveal the birth or baptism certificate of Kate.
23. Captain Nathaniel Day Cochrane was five years younger than Cochrane. He entered the navy in 1794 and became a lieutenant in 1800 and a post-captain in 1806. He finished his naval career as a Rear-Admiral of the Blue.
24. Minutes of Evidence, p. 58.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., pp. 82–3.
Chapter 15
1. Quoted by J. M. Thompson, Napoleon Bonaparte, p. 340.
2. Quoted in Blake and Lawrence, The Illustrated Companion to Nelson’s Navy, p. 191.
3. Cochrane arrived at Chatham on 9 February 1814 and took over command of the Tonnant, but on 16 March he was superseded by Captain Johnson who sailed the ship to Spithead. Captain Alexander Skene superseded Johnson on 5 April and on 7 April the Tonnant and her convoy sailed for Bermuda. Log of Tonnant, PRO. ADM. 51/2901.
4. Dundonald to Cochrane, 13 May 1814, BL: Add.MSS. 38257, ff. 249–51.
5. Oxford DNB.
6. A. Cochrane to Basil Cochrane, 18 October 1808; 2 November 1808; 26 February 1809; NLS, Edinburgh: 2572, ff. 172–3.
7. De Berenger’s full name was Baron Charles Random De Berenger. He had originally traded in engravings but claimed to have lost £7,000 in trying to establish a fund for the depen
dants of artists. He had entered the Duke of Cumberland’s Sharpshooter Volunteers in 1804. In May 1813 he met Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone who used him to prepare drawings for improvements in a property. I am grateful to John Sugden for this information and for many of the references to family papers used in this chapter.
8. Autobiography, p. 330.
9. The prime sources for the events leading up to the Stock Exchange fraud and the subsequent trial are: the transcript of the trial proceedings taken down in shorthand by W. B. Gurney and subsequently published under the title The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, commonly called Lord Cochrane, the Hon. Andrew Cochrane Johnstone… for a Conspiracy in the Court of King’s Bench, Guildhall on Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th June 1814 (London, 1814); trial documents held by Farrer & Co., Cochrane’s solicitors, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/199; Report of the subcommittee of the Stock Exchange relative to the late fraud (London 1814); and J. B. Atlay, The Trial of Lord Cochrane before Lord Ellenborough; see also Lord John Campbell, The Lives of the Chief Justices of England, 3 vols (London, 1858); Lord Ellenborough, The Guilt of Lord Cochrane in 1814: a Criticism (London, 1914); Henry Cecil, A Matter of Speculation: The Case of Lord Cochrane (London, 1965).
10. William C. Townsend, Modern State Trials (1850), vol. II, p. 29.
11. These figures are taken from Gurney, The Trial, pp. 23–4.
12. Log of the Tonnant, PRO: ADM. 51/2901.
13. Minutes of Evidence. BL: BS96/51, p. 63.
14. Ibid.
15. Gurney, The Trial, p. 8.
16. Autobiography, p. 341.
17. Campbell, The Lives of the Chief Justices of England (London, 1858), vol. III, p. 243.
18. Gurney, The Trial, p. 254.
19. This Lord Melville (the second Viscount) was Robert Dundas (1771–1851) and he was the son of Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, who was the friend of the Cochrane family. Confusingly, both held the office of First Lord of the Admiralty.
20. Gurney, The Trial, p. 255
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., p. 275.
24. Quoted in the Law Report in The Times of 10 June 1814. This neatly summarised Lord Ellenborough’s lengthy summing-up which is quoted in full by Atlay, The Trial of Lord Cochrane before Lord Ellenborough, pp. 411–72.
25. Sugden, Lord Cochrane, p. 221.
26. Gurney, The Trial, p. 555.
Cochrane the Dauntless Page 43
