Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  27. Ibid., p. 563.

  28. From the diary of Henry Crabb Robinson, a young barrister who attended the trial. Quoted by Cecil, A Matter of Speculation, p. 169.

  29. Cochrane to Elizabeth Cochrane-Johnstone, 25 June 1814, NAS, Edinburgh: GD 233/177/103.

  30. Letters and Papers of Sir Thomas Byam Martin, edited by R. V.Hamilton (Navy Records Society, 1903) vol. III, pp. 198–9.

  31. Hansard, Commons Journals, 5 July 1814, vol. LXIX, pp. 427–33.

  32. A. G. l’Estrange, The Life of Mary Russell Mitford (1870), vol. I, p. 271.

  33. The Times, 12 August 1814. The expulsion from the Order of the Bath followed a resolution of a meeting of the Order and was carried out with a warrant from Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary in Lord Liverpool’s administration.

  34. Autobiography, p. 338.

  35. Sugden, Lord Cochrane, pp. 222–46.

  36. I am grateful to the Rt Hon. Sir Anthony Evans, PC, former Judge of the High Court of Justice and a former Lord Justice of Appeal, for examining all the relevant books and papers of the Stock Exchange trial of 1814 and giving me his opinions on the conduct of the case and the verdict.

  37. Quoted by Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 166.

  38. Ibid., pp. 164–5.

  39. Ibid.

  40. Elizabeth Cochrane-Johnstone (Lady Napier) to Dundonald (Cochrane), Christmas 1859, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/177/103.

  41. Vincent Cronin, Napoleon, London 1971, edition cited 1994 p. 365.

  Chapter 16

  1. Sugden, Lord Cochrane, p. 245.

  2. Autobiography, p. 319.

  3. Cochrane to Kate, 14 October 1814. Quoted by Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 171.

  4. The Trial of Lord Cochrane at Guildford, August 17, 1816, for an escape from the Kings bench Prison (London, 1816), p. 10.

  5. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 1, pp. 55, 56.

  6. Report of William Jones to the Committee of Privileges, 23 March 1815. Minutes of Evidence, p. 19.

  7. Report by Mr Bennet, MP, quoted by Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 174.

  8. Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, vol. 31, nos VIII and IX, Saturday 31 August 1816, p. 180.

  9. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 1, pp. 72–3.

  10. Cochrane to Guthrie, 12 October 1815. Guthrie Papers, NMM, JOD/55, 56 (AGC/38).

  11. Cochrane to Guthrie, 19 January 1816. NMM: JOD/55, 56

  12. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 1, p. 86.

  13. Cochrane to Guthrie, 28 November 1816. NMM: JOD/55, 56

  14. Quoted by Richard Ingrams, The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett, p. 125.

  15. Samuel Bamford, Passages in the Life of a Radical, vol. 2, p. 7.

  16. Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 180.

  17. Bamford, Passages in the Life of a Radical, vol. 1, p. 20.

  18. Ibid.

  19. In her evidence to the House of Lords Committee of Privileges, Kate said that Holly Hill ‘was sold after the terrible conspiracy of that time’, and of the two houses in Hampshire (at Warsash and Holly Hill), ‘They were sold to pay lawyers’ debts, and all sorts of bothers and miseries.’ Minutes of Evidence, p. 65.

  20. Quoted by Ingrams, The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett, p. 133.

  21. Alvarez to Zenteno, 12 January 1818. Luiz Uribe Orrego, Nuestra Marina Milita (Valparaíso, 1910), p. 174.

  22. Andrew Lambert, Steam, Steel and Shellfire (London 2001), p. 19. There is an engraved illustration of the Rising Star in the National Maritime Museum which is reproduced by Ian Grimble in The Sea Wolf.

  23. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 1, pp. 133–5.

  Chapter 17

  1. Quoted from information in the Museo Naval y Maritimo, Valparaiso, Chile.

  2. Memoirs of General Miller, ed. John Miller (London, 1829), vol. 1, p. 425.

  3. 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. 43.

  4. W.G.D. Worthington to John Quincy Adams, 26 January 1819. William R. Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States concerning the independence of the Latin-American nations. (New York 1925), vol. II, p. 1027.

  5. Ibid, p. 1028.

  6. Thomas, Earl of Dundonald, Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil (London, 1859), vol. 1, p. 3.

  7. Zenteno to Cochrane, 7 January 1819, NAS, Edinburgh: Dundonald Papers, GD233/39/261.

  8. Bowles to Croker 28 November 1817, quoted in Graham and Humphreys, eds, The Navy and South America (Navy Records Society), vol. 104.

  9. See Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 1, pp. 152–3; Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 196; Thomas, Cochrane, p. 249.

  10. The frigates were the O’Higgins, 50 guns, the San Martin, 56 guns, and the Lautaro, 44 guns; the brigs were the Chacabuco, 20 guns, the Galvarino, 18 guns, and the Araucano, 16 guns; and the sloop was the 14-gun Puyrredon. For further detail on the ships, and the composition of the crews (and invaluable information on all Cochrane’s operations in Chile) see David Cubitt, Lord Cochrane and the Chilean Navy, 1818–1823 (Edinburgh University Ph.D. thesis, 1974).

  11. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 4.

  12. Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 93. I am indebted to Brian Vale for his pioneering research into Cochrane’s life in South America and am grateful to him for helpful discussions and for generously making available to me some of his unpublished material.

  13. William Miller (1795–1861) became a general in the army of Peru after the country had been liberated, and in 1843 became the British consul-general in the Pacific. He died at Callao.

  14. Diary entry for 20 July 1835, quoted in Charles Darwin’s Diary of the Voyage of HMS Beagle, ed. Nora Barlow (Cambridge, 1933), p. 330.

  15. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 10.

  16. Miller, ed., Memoirs of General Miller (London, 1829), vol. 1, p. 215.

  17. Quoted by Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 198.

  18. See Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 99, and note 12 on p. 222. In fact the net annual pay (excluding table money) of a British vice-admiral in 1815 was £1,186 11s 4d, and his annual table money was £364 0s 0d.

  19. The armed vessels captured were the Aguila and Begona. Miller, ed., Memoirs of General Miller, vol. 1, p. 239, and Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 1, p. 165.

  20. Cubitt, Lord Cochrane and the Chilean Navy, pp. 143–4.

  21. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 36.

  22. John Miers, Travels in Chile and La Plata (London, 1826), vol. 1, p.. 489.

  23. Miller, ed., Memoirs of General Miller, vol. 1, p. 243

  24. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 38.

  25. Cochrane to Zenteno, 6 February 1820. Quoted by Grimble, p. 208.

  26. Quoted by Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 209.

  27. Maria Graham, Lady Callcott, Journal of a Residence in Chile during the year 1822, and a Voyage from Chile to Brazil in 1823, p. 43.

  28. W. B. Stevenson, A Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years Residence in South America (London 1825) vol. III, pp. 247–8.

  29. Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 211.

  30. Ibid. p. 219.

  31. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 83.

  32. Cubitt, Lord Cochrane and the Chilean Navy, p. 120.

  33. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 85.

  34. Ibid., p. 86.

  35. Searle to Sir Thomas Hardy, 8 November 1820. Quoted by Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 116, from Graham and Humphreys, eds, The Navy and South America (Navy Records Society), vol. 104.

  36. Basil Hall, Extracts from a Journal written on the Coasts of Chile, Peru, and Mexico in the Years 1820, 1821 and 1822 (Edinburgh, 1824), vol. 2, p. 77.

  37. San Martin to Cochrane, 10 November 1820. Quoted in Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 92.

  38. San M
artin to O’Higgins, 1 December 1820. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 93.

  39. Lady Cochrane to Cochrane, 6 November 1820, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/13.

  40. See The Times, 5, 6, 7 and 11 September and 23 October 1821 for reports complaining about Cochrane’s actions. Sir Thomas Hardy, who was in command of the British squadron in the area, made it clear that he considered Cochrane’s blockade to be illegal.

  41. Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 233,

  42. General José de San Martin (1778–1850) was Protector of Peru for no more than fourteen months. He resigned in September 1822. He told O’Higgins that he decided to abdicate because of bad health and because he was tired of being called a tyrant. He returned to Chile, travelled on to his native Argentina but finding the country in political turmoil he decided to emigrate to France, where he spent the rest of his life. See Michael J. Jost, The Cochrane–San Martin Conflict (1818–1823), Ph.D.thesis, Texas, 1973.

  43. This sum was made up of $150,000 in arrears of pay; $110,000 in prize money for the Esmeralda; a gratuity of $50,000 for capturing the frigate; and $110,000 which had been promised on the fall of Lima. See Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 122.

  44. He sent $40,000 back to Valparaiso, distributed $111,382 for future expenses, and distributed $131,618 as pay and prize money. On 14 September he shipped home $13,507 (£2,700) in coin and bullion in HMS Superb. See Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 124.

  45. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, p. 188.

  Chapter 18

  1. Maria Graham, Journal of a Residence in Chile, p. 146.

  2. Zenteno to Cochrane, 22 February 1820. NAS. Edinburgh: GD233/39/262.

  3. Maria Graham (1785–1842) was born near Cockermouth, Cumbria, the daughter of George Dundas, a naval officer. She spent her early years in Oxford, London and Edinburgh, and travelled to India in 1808 when her father was posted to Bombay. She met Lieutenant Thomas Graham on the voyage out and married him in Bombay in 1809. Following her adventures in South America she returned to England and married Sir Augustus Wall Callcott in 1827. They lived at The Mall, Kensington Gravel Pits, and their house was a notable gathering place for writers and artists.

  4. Graham, Journal of a Residence in Chile, p. 146.

  5. Ibid., p. 150.

  6. Brian Vale has shown that after the capture of the schooner Sacramento in September 1821 Cochrane shipped home $13,507 (£2,700) in HMS Superb. On his return to Valparaiso in June 1822 he shipped home $16,997 (£3,360) in the British warships Alacrity and Doris; and when he left Chile for Brazil in the Colonel Allen he took with him boxes of gold bullion worth £10,400. See Brian Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, pp. 123–4, 129 and 134; and NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/39/261, GD233/20/450.

  7. Graham, entry for July 7, 1822, Journal of a Residence in Chile, p. 173.

  8. Ibid., p. 188.

  9. Ibid., p. 335.

  10. Maria Graham, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil (London, 1824), p. 218.

  11. Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, pp. 139–40.

  12. Graham, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, p. 222.

  13. For a detailed description of the ships, the battle and Cochrane’s subsequent exploits while in command of the Brazilian navy, see Brian Vale, ‘Lord Cochrane in Brazil: the Naval War of Independence, 1823’, in Mariners Mirror, vol. LVII (1971), no. 4, pp. 415–42.

  14. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 2, p. 31.

  15. According to Cochrane’s account in the Narrative of Services, the Pedro Primiero entered the bay alone, but Brazilian sources make it clear that the flagship was accompanied by the Maria da Gloria and the Real Carolina. See Brian Vale ‘Lord Cochrane in Brazil’, Mariners Mirror, vol. LVII (1971), no. 4, p. 427.

  16. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 2, p. 56.

  17. In his Narrative of Services, vol. 2, p. 60, Cochrane describes sailing towards São Luis flying Portuguese colours but all contemporary observers agree that the ship flew the British flag. See Vale, p. 147, and Note 6 on p. 225.

  18. Narrative of Services, vol. 2, p. 61–2.

  19. Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 265.

  20. Graham, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, p. 321.

  21. Cochrane to Major William Cochrane, April 1824, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/26/186.

  22. Quoted by Vale, p. 226, from ‘Kotzebue e o Rio de Janeiro em 1824’, Revista fo Instituto Historico Brasileiro, 80 (1918), p. 517.

  23. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 2, p. 162.

  24. This was a part payment. Cochrane reckoned the full amount owed in prize money was £85,000 (424 contos). See Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 163, and Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 1, pp. 219–23.

  25. Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 164. Information from William Jackson’s diary, NAS, Edinburgh: GD233/31/237.

  26. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 2, p. 247.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Ibid., p. 248.

  29. A report from Portsmouth, 27 June, headed ‘Arrival of Lord Cochrane at Portsmouth’, published in The Times, 29 June 1825.

  30. Lord Melville to Sir George Martin, 28 June 1825, NLS, Edinburgh: 2618, f. 223.

  31. Ibid.

  32. The Times, 29 June 1825.

  33. Report from ‘A private correspondent’, Portsmouth, 27 June, also published in The Times, 29 June 1825.

  34. Robert Dundas, second Viscount Melville (1771–1851), held the office of First Lord of the Admiralty from 1812 to 1827.

  Chapter 19

  1. Minutes of Evidence, p. 65.

  2. Ibid., p. 68.

  3. Ibid., p. 78.

  4. Minutes of Evidence, p. 79.

  5. In Minutes of Evidence, p. 78, Kate says that Cochrane used to stay at Douglas’s Hotel in St Andrews Square, Edinburgh. His last letter to Guthrie is from the George Hotel.

  6. Scott’s poem was published in the Morning Post on 19 October 1825. The full six verses are reproduced in Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 1, p. 326.

  7. Dundonald, Narrative of Services, vol. 2, p. 8.

  8. George Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution (London, 1861), vol. 1, p. 320.

  9. Cochrane received a formal letter of invitation by Alexander Mavrocordatos, Secretary of the Greek National Assembly, in September 1825. See Vale, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane, p. 170.

  10. Quoted by Lloyd, Lord Cochrane, p. 175.

  11. The original order was for three large and three small steamships. The large steamships (length 150 feet, breadth 25 feet) were the Perseverance (renamed Karteria), Enterprise (renamed Epicheiresis) and Irresistible (renamed Hermes). The small steamships (length 100 feet, breadth 16 feet) were the Alert, Lasher and Mercury. The Mercury arrived in Greece in December 1828. The Alert and Lasher were never completed. See Douglas Dakin, ‘Lord Cochrane’s Greek steam fleet’ in Mariners Mirror, vol. 39, (1953), pp. 211–19.

  12. The two sailing warships built in America were heavy 60-gun frigates. The Hellas played a part in the Greek war but the second frigate, which was sold to the American navy, became the USS Hudson. See Howard I. Chapelle, The American Sailing Navy (New York, 1949), pp. 351–2, 362.

  13. Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 294.

  14. Auckland Papers, BL: Add. MSS. 34,459, ff. 397, 399, 401.

  15. Ibid., f. 430.

  16. Ibid., f. 439.

  17. Cochrane to Auckland, 22 April 1826. Ibid., f. 441.

  18. Katherine Cochrane to Auckland, 8 May 1826. Ibid., f. 443.

  19. The fourth surviving child of Katherine and Cochrane, christened Arthur Auckland Leopold Pedro, was born in September 1824 before Katherine’s friendship with Lord Auckland had developed into a love affair. The fifth child of Katherine and Cochrane died in childbirth in 1829. Their sixth child, Ernest Gray Lambton, was born in 1834.

  20. George Eden, Earl of Auckland (1784–1849), was born in Beckenham, Kent, the son of William Eden, first Baron Auckland. He was President of the Board of Trade 1830–34; First Lord o
f the Admiralty 1835; Governor-General of India 1835–41; First Lord of the Admiralty 1846 until his death in 1849. See Oxford DNB.

  21. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, p. 356.

  22. Quoted by Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2, p. 19.

  23. Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2, p. 138.

  24. Admiral Miaoulis had written to Cochrane from Poros on 23 February 1827 expressing his pleasure ‘at the honour you do me in associating me with your important operations. I shall be happy, my admiral, if in serving you I can do my duty’. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, p. 386.

  25. Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution, vol. 2, p. 144.

  26. General Gordon, disillusioned by the behaviour of the Greeks, had left for England a few weeks before, and when he came to write his History of the Greek Revolution he called Cochrane’s strategy for 6 May ‘an insane scheme’ and other historians, including Finlay, were equally critical.

  27. Quoted by Lloyd, Lord Cochrane, p. 184,

  28. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, p. 93.

  29. For further details of the battle see: C. M. Woodhouse, The Battle of Navarino (London, 1965) and Michael Sanderson, Sea Battles: A Reference Guide (Newton Abbot, 1975), pp. 126–8.

  30. Quoted by Lloyd, Lord Cochrane, p. 188.

  31. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, pp. 136, 156.

  32. Ibid., p. 156.

  33. Cochrane to Monsieur Eynard, quoted by Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, p. 169.

  34. See his letter of 26 November to Capodistrias, quoted by Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, pp. 177–8.

  35. Capodistrias to Cochrane, 4 December 1828. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, p. 179.

  36. Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 316.

  Chapter 20

  1. Quoted by Grimble, The Sea Wolf, p. 316.

  2. Memorial of 4 June 1818 to Duke of Clarence, Lord High Admiral. Quoted in full in Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, pp. 202–6.

  3. The Greville Memoirs (1938), vol. 1, eds Lytton Strachey and Roger Fulford, pp. 398–9. The attack on Algiers was led by Count de Ghaisnes de Beaumont, Marshal of France, and was a pretext to begin the conquest of Algeria.

  4. Dundonald and Bourne, Life of Lord Cochrane, vol. 2, p. 209.