CHAPTER I.. Introduction.—Lord Cochrane's Ancestry.—His First Occupations in

INTRODUCTION.—LORD COCHRANE'S ANCESTRY.—HIS FIRST OCCUPATIONS IN THE NAVY.—HIS CRUISE IN THE "SPEEDY" AND CAPTURE OF THE "GAMO."—HIS EXPLOITS IN THE "PALLAS."—THE BEGINNING OF HIS PARLIAMENTARY LIFE.—HIS TWO ELECTIONS AS MEMBER FOR HONITON.—HIS ELECTION FOR WESTMINSTER.—FURTHER SEAMANSHIP.—THE BASQUE ROADS AFFAIR.—THE COURT-MARTIAL ON LORD GAMBIER, AND ITS INJURIOUS EFFECTS ON LORD COCHRANE'S NAVAL CAREER.—HIS PARLIAMENTARY OCCUPATIONS.—HIS VISIT TO MALTA AND ITS ISSUES.—THE ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE TRIAL.

Thomas, Loud Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dundonald, was born at Annsfield, in Lanark, on the 14th of December, 1775, and died in London on the 31st of October, 1860. Shortly before his death he wrote two volumes, styled "The Autobiography of a Seaman," which set forth his history down to 1814, the fortieth year of his age. To those volumes the present work, recounting his career during the ensuing six-and-forty years, is intended to serve as a sequel. Before entering upon the later narrative, however, it will be necessary briefly to recapitulate the incidents that have been already detailed.

The Earl of Dundonald was descended from a long line of knights and barons, chiefly resident in Renfrew and Ayr, many of whom were men of mark in Scottish history during the thirteenth and following centuries. Robert Cochran was the especial favourite and foremost counsellor of James III., who made him Earl of Mar; but the favours heaped upon him, and perhaps a certain arrogance in the use of those favours, led to so much opposition from his peers and rivals that he was assassinated by them in 1480.

Lord Cochrane—as the subject of these memoirs was styled in courtesy until his accession to the peerage in 1831—was intended by his father for the army, in which he received a captain's commission. But his own predilections were in favour of a seaman's life, and accordingly, after brief schooling, he joined the Hind, as a midshipman, in June, 1793, when he was nearly eighteen years of age.

During the next seven years he learnt his craft in various ships and seas, being helped in many ways by his uncle, the Hon. Alexander Cochrane, but profiting most by his own ready wit and hearty love of his profession. Having been promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1794, he was made commander of the Speedy early in 1800. This little sloop, not larger than a coasting brig, but crowded with eighty-four men and six officers, seemed to be intended only for playing at war. Her whole armament consisted of fourteen 4-pounders. When her new commander tried to add to these a couple of 12-pounders, the deck proved too small and the timbers too weak for them, and they had to be returned. So Lilliputian was his cabin, that, to shave himself, Lord Cochrane was obliged to thrust his head out of the skylight and make a dressing-table of the quarter-deck.

Yet the Speedy, ably commanded, was quite large enough to be of good service. Cruising in her along the Spanish coast, Lord Cochrane succeeded in capturing many gunboats and merchantmen, and the enemy soon learnt to regard her with especial dread. On one memorable occasion, the 6th of May, 1801, he fell in with the Gamo, a Spanish frigate furnished with six times as many men as were in the Speedy and with seven times her weight of shot. Lord Cochrane, boldly advancing, locked his little craft in the enemy's rigging. It was, in miniature, a contest as unequal as that by which Sir Francis Drake and his fellows overcame the Great Armada of Spain in 1588, and with like result. The heavy shot of the Gamo riddled the Speedy's sails, but, passing overhead, did no mischief to her hulk or her men. During an hour there was desperate fighting with small arms, and twice the Spaniards tried in vain to board their sturdy little foe. Lord Cochrane then determined to meet them on their own deck, and the daring project was facilitated by one of the smart expedients in which he was never wanting. Before going into action, "knowing," as he said, "that the final struggle would be a desperate one, and calculating on the superstitious wonder which forms an element in the Spanish character," he had ordered his crew to blacken their faces; and, "what with this and the excitement of combat, more ferocious-looking objects could scarcely be imagined." With these men following him he promptly gained the frigate's deck, and then their strong arms and hideous faces soon frightened the Spaniards into submission.

The senior officer of the Gamo asked for a certificate of his bravery, and received one testifying that he had conducted himself "like a true Spaniard." To Spain, of course, this was no sarcasm, and on the strength of the document its holder soon obtained further promotion.

That achievement, which cost only three men's lives, led to consequences greater than could have been expected. Lord Cochrane, after three months' waiting, received the rank of post captain. But his desire that the services of Lieutenant Parker, his second in command, should also be recompensed led to a correspondence with Earl St. Vincent which turned him from a jealous superior into a bitter enemy. In reply to Lord Cochrane's recommendation, Earl St. Vincent alleged that "it was unusual to promote two officers for such a service,—besides which the small number of men killed on board the Speedy did not warrant the application." Lord Cochrane answered, with incautious honesty, that "his lordship's reasons for not promoting Lieutenant Parker, because there were only three men killed on board the Speedy, were in opposition to his lordship's own promotion to an earldom, as well as that of his flag-captain to knighthood, and his other officers to increased rank and honours; for that, in the battle from which his lordship derived his title there was only one man killed on board his own flagship." That was language too plain to be forgiven.

In July, 1801, the Speedy was captured by three French line-of-battle ships, whose senior in command, Captain Pallière, declined to accept the sword of an officer "who had," as he said, "for so many hours struggled against impossibility," and asked Lord Cochrane, though a prisoner, still to wear it. He, however, was refused employment as commander of another ship. Thereupon, with characteristic energy, he devoted his forced leisure from professional pursuits to a year of student life at Edinburgh, where, in 1802, Lord Palmerston was his class-fellow under Professor Dugald Stewart.

This occupation, however, was disturbed by the renewal of war with France in 1803. Lord Cochrane, though with difficulty, then obtained permission to return to active service, the Arab, one of the craziest little ships in the navy, being assigned to him. On his representing that she was too rotten for use off the French coast, he was ordered to employ her in cruising in the North Sea and protecting the fisheries north-east of the Orkneys, "where," as he said, "no vessel fished, and consequently there were no fisheries to protect." This ignominious work lasted for a year. It was brought to a close in December, 1804, soon after the appointment of Lord Melville, in succession to Earl St. Vincent, as First Lord of the Admiralty.

By him Lord Cochrane was transferred from the Arab to the Pallas, a new and smart frigate of thirty-two guns, and allowed to use her in a famous cruise of prize-taking among the Azores and off the coast of Portugal. This was followed in 1806 by farther work in the same frigate, the closing portion of which was especially memorable. Being off the Basque Roads at the end of April he fixed his attention upon a frigate, the Minerve, and three brigs, forming an important part of the French squadron in the Mediterranean. After three weeks' waiting, on the 14th of May, he saw the frigate and the brigs approaching him, and promptly prepared to attack them. He was not deterred by knowing that the Minerve alone, carrying forty guns, was far stronger than the Pallas, which had also to withstand the force of the three brigs, each with sixteen guns, and to be prepared for the fire of the batteries on the Isle d'Aix. "This morning, when close to Isle d'Aix, reconnoitring the French squadron," he wrote concisely to his admiral, "it gave me great joy to find our late opponent, the black frigate, and her companions, the three brigs, getting under sail. We formed high expectations that the long wished-for opportunity was at last arrived. The Pallas remained under topsails by the wind to await them. At half-past eleven a smart point-blank firing commenced on both sides, which was severely felt by the enemy. The main topsail-yard of one of the brigs was cut through, and the frigate lost her after-sails. The batteries on I'lsle d'Aix opened on the Pallas, and a cannonade continued, interrupted on our part only by the necessity we were under to make various tacks to avoid the shoals, till one o'clock, when our endeavour to gain the wind of the enemy and get between him and the batteries proved successful. An effectual distance was now chosen. A few broadsides were poured in. The enemy's fire slackened. I ordered ours to cease, and directed Mr. Sutherland, the master, to run the frigate on board, with intention effectually to prevent her retreat. The enemy's side thrust our guns back into the ports. The whole were then discharged. The effect and crash were dreadful. Their decks were deserted. Three pistol-shots were the unequal return. With confidence I say that the frigate would have been lost to France, had not the unequal collision torn away our fore-topmast, jib-boom, fore and maintop-sails, spritsail-yards, bumpkin, cathead, chainplates, fore-rigging, foresail, and bower anchor, with which last I intended to hook on; but all proved insufficient. She would yet have been lost to France, had not the French admiral, seeing his frigate's foreyard gone, her rigging ruined, and the danger she was in, sent two others to her assistance. The Pallas being a wreck, we came out with what sail could be set, and his Majesty's sloop the Kingfisher afterwards took us in tow." The exploit was none the less valiant in that it was partly a failure.

The waiting-times before and after that cruise were occupied by Lord Cochrane with brief commencement of parliamentary life. Long before this time Lord Cochrane had resolved on entering the House of Commons, in order to expose the naval abuses which were then rife, and which he had never been deterred, by consideration of his own interests, from boldly denouncing. He stood for Honiton in 1805, and was defeated through his refusal to vie with his opponent in the art of bribery. He contrived, however, to profit by corruption while he punished it. As soon as the election was over, he gave ten guineas to each of the constituents who had freely voted for him. The consequence of this was his triumphant return at the new election, which took place in July, 1806. When his supporters asked for like payment to that made in the previous instance, it was bluntly refused. "The former gift," said Lord Cochrane, "was for your disinterested conduct in not taking the bribe of five pounds from the agents of my opponent. For me now to pay you would be a violation of my principles."

A short cruise in the Basque Roads prevented Lord Cochrane from occupying in the House of Commons the seat thus won, and in April, 1807, very soon after his return, Parliament was again dissolved. He then resolved to stand for Westminster, with Sir Francis Burdett for his associate. Both were returned, and Lord Cochrane held his seat for eleven years. In 1807, however, he had only time to bring forward two motions respecting sinecures and naval abuses, which issued in violent but unproductive discussion, when he received orders to join the fleet in the Mediterranean as captain of the Imperiéuse. Naval employment was grudgingly accorded to him; but it was thought wiser to give him work abroad than to suffer under his free speech at home.

This employment was marked by many brilliant deeds, which procured for him, on his surrendering his command of the Imperiéuse after eighteen months' duration, the reproach of having spent more sails, stores, gunpowder, and shot than had been used by any other captain in the service.

The most brilliant deed of all, one of the most brilliant deeds in the whole naval history of England, was his well-known exploit in the Basque Roads on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of April, 1809. Much against his will, he was persuaded by Lord Mulgrave, at that time First Lord of the Admiralty, to bear the responsibility of attacking and attempting to destroy the French squadron by means of fireships and explosion-vessels. The project was opposed by Lord Gambier, the Admiral of the Fleet, as being at once "hazardous, if not desperate," and "a horrible and anti-Christian mode of warfare;" and consequently he gave no hearty co-operation. On Lord Cochrane devolved the whole duty of preparing for and executing the project. His own words will best tell the story.

"On the 11th of April," he said, "it blew hard, with a high sea. As all preparations were complete, I did not consider the state of the weather a justifiable impediment to the attack; so that, after nightfall, the officers who volunteered to command the fireships were assembled on board the Caledonia, and supplied with instructions according to the plan previously laid down by myself. The Impérieuse had proceeded to the edge of the Boyart Shoal, close to which she anchored with an explosion-vessel made fast to her stern, it being my intention, after firing the one of which I was about to take charge, to return to her for the other, to be employed as circumstances might require. At a short distance from the Impérieuse were anchored the frigates Aigle, Unicorn, and Pallas, for the purpose of receiving the crews of the fireships on their return, as well as to support the boats of the fleet assembled alongside the Cæsar, to assist the fireships. The boats of the fleet were not, however, for some reason or other made use of at all.

"Having myself embarked on board the largest explosion-vessel, accompanied by Lieut. Bissel and a volunteer crew of four men only, we led the way to the attack. The night was dark, and, as the wind was fair, though blowing hard, we soon neared the estimated position of the advanced French ships, for it was too dark to discern them. Judging our distance, therefore, as well as we could, with regard to the time the fuse was calculated to burn, the crew of four men entered the gig, under the direction of Lieut. Bissel, whilst I kindled the portfires, and then, descending into the boat, urged the men to pull for their lives, which they did with a will, though, as wind and sea were strong against us, without making the expected progress.

"To our consternation, the fuses, which had been constructed to burn fifteen minutes, lasted little more than half that time, when the vessel blew up, filling the air with shells, grenades, and rockets; whilst the downward and lateral force of the explosion raised a solitary mountain of water, from the breaking of which in all directions our little boat narrowly escaped being swamped. The explosion-vessel did her work well, the effect constituting one of the grandest artificial spectacles imaginable. For a moment, the sky was red with the lurid glare arising from the simultaneous ignition of fifteen hundred barrels of powder. On this gigantic flash subsiding, the air seemed alive with shells, grenades, rockets, and masses of timber, the wreck of the shattered vessel. The sea was convulsed as by an earthquake, rising, as has been said, in a huge wave, on whose crest our boat was lifted like a cork, and as suddenly dropped into a vast trough, out of which as it closed upon us with the rush of a whirlpool, none expected to emerge. In a few minutes nothing but a heavy rolling sea had to be encountered, all having again become silence and darkness."

In spite of its bursting too soon, the explosion-vessel did excellent work. The strong boom, composed of large spars bound by heavy chains, and firmly anchored at various points in its length of more than a mile, which was supposed to constitute an impassable barrier between the English ships that were outside and the French ships locked behind it, was broken in several parts. The enemy's ships were thoroughly disorganised by the sudden and appalling occurrence of the explosion. In their alarm and confusion, many of them fired into one another, and all might have been easily destroyed had the first success of the explosion-vessel been properly followed up. Unfortunately, however, on returning to the Impérieuse, Lord Cochrane found that there had been gross mismanagement of the fireships, which, according to his plans, were to have been despatched against various sections of the French fleet while it was too confused to protect itself. One of them, fired at the wrong time and sent in a wrong direction, nearly destroyed the Impérieuse and caused the wasting of a second explosion-vessel, which was meant to be held in reserve. The others, if not as mischievous in their effects, were almost as useless. "Of all the fire-ships, upwards of twenty in number," said Lord Cochrane, "only four reached the enemy's position, and not one did any damage. The Impérieuse lay three miles from the enemy, so that the one which was near setting fire to her became useless at the outset; whilst several others were kindled a mile and a half to the windward of this, or four miles and a half from the enemy. Of the remainder, many were at once rendered harmless from being brought to on the wrong tack. Six passed a mile to windward of the French fleet, and one grounded on Oleron."

Though the full success of Lord Cochrane's scheme was thus prevented, however, the work done by it was considerable. "As the fireships began to light up the roads," he said, "we could observe the enemy's fleet in great confusion. Without doubt, taking every fireship for an explosion-vessel, and being deceived as to their distance, not only did the French make no effort to divert them from their course, but some of their ships cut their cables and were seen drifting away broadside on to the wind and tide, whilst others made sail, as the only alternative to escape from what they evidently considered certain destruction. At daylight on the morning of the 12th, not a spar of the boom was anywhere visible, and, with the exception of the Foudroyant and Cassard, the whole of the enemy's vessels were helplessly aground. The flag-ship, L'Océan, a three-decker, drawing the most water, lay outermost on the north-west edge of the Palles Shoal, nearest the deep water, where she was most exposed to attack; whilst all, by the fall of the tide, were lying on their bilge, with their bottoms completely exposed to shot, and therefore beyond the possibility of resistance."

The French fleet had not been destroyed; yet it was so paralysed by the shock that its utter defeat seemed easy to Lord Cochrane. To the mast of the Impérieuse, between six o'clock in the morning of the 12th and one in the afternoon, he hoisted signal after signal, urging Lord Gambier, who was with the main body of the fleet about fourteen miles off, to make an attack. Failing in all these, and growing desperate in his zeal, especially as every hour of delay was enabling the French to recover themselves and rendering success less sure, he suffered his single frigate to drift towards the enemy. "I did not venture to make sail," wrote Lord Cochrane, in his very modest account of this daring exploit, "lest the movement might be seen from the flag-ship, and a signal of recall should defeat my purpose of making an attack with the Impérieuse ; my object being to compel the Commander-in-Chief to send vessels to our assistance. We drifted by the wind and tide slowly past the fortifications on Isle d'Aix; but, though they fired at us with every gun that could be brought to bear, the distance was too great to inflict damage. Proceeding thus till 1.30 p.m., we then suddenly made sail after the nearest of the enemy's vessels escaping. In order to divert our attention from the vessels we were pursuing, these having thrown their guns overboard, the Calcutta, a store-ship carrying fifty-six guns, which was still aground, broadside on, began firing at us. Before proceeding further, it became therefore necessary to attack her, and at 1.50 we shortened sail and returned the fire. At 2.0 the Impérieuse came to an anchor in five fathoms, and, veering to half a cable, kept fast the spring, firing upon the Calcutta with our broadside, and at the same time upon the Aquillon and Ville de Varsovie, two line-of-battle ships, each of seventy-four guns, with our forecastle and bow guns, both these ships being aground stern on, in an opposite direction. After some time we had the satisfaction of observing several ships sent to our assistance, namely, the Emerald, the Unicorn, the Indefatigable, the Valiant, the Revenge, the Pallas, and the Aigle. On seeing this, the captain and the crew of the Calcutta abandoned their vessel, of which the boats of the Impérieuse took possession before the vessels sent to our assistance came down." Soon after the arrival of the new ships, the two other vessels were also forced to surrender.

Most of the ships sent to his assistance returned to Lord Grambier on the 13th. Lord Cochrane, seeing that it would be easy for him to do much further mischief, made ready for the work on the morrow. But from this he was prevented by the inexcusable conduct of Lord Gambier, who, having discountenanced the attempt with the fireships, now not only refused to take part in the victory which his comrade had made possible, but also hindered its achievement by him.

Lord Cochrane had already overstepped the strict duty of a subordinate, though acting only as became an English sailor. The fireships with which he had been ordered to ruin the enemy's fleet had partly failed through the error of others. "It was then," he said, "a question with me whether I should disappoint the expectations of my country, be set down as a charlatan by the Admiralty, whose hopes had been raised by my plan, and have my future prospects destroyed, or force on an action which some had induced an easy Commander-in-Chief to believe impracticable." He did force on some fighting, which was altogether disastrous to the enemy, and rich in tokens of his unflinching heroism; but it was in violation of repeated orders, dubiously worded, from Lord Grambier, and, when at last an order was issued in terms too distinct to allow of any further evasion, he had no alternative but to abandon the enterprise. He was at once sent back to England, to be rewarded with much popular favour, and with a knighthood of the Order of the Bath, conferred by George III., but to become the victim of an official persecution, which, embittering his whole life, lasted almost to its close.

It must be admitted that this persecution was in great measure provoked by Lord Cochrane's own fearless conduct. He was reasonably aggrieved at the effort made by the Admiralty authorities to attribute to Lord Gambier, who had taken no part at all in the achievements in Basque Roads, all the merit of their success. To use his own caustic but accurate words, "The only victory gained by Lord Gambier in Basque Roads was that of bringing his ships to anchor there, whilst the enemy's ships were quietly heaving off from the banks on which they had been driven nine miles distant from the fleet." When for this proceeding it was determined to honour Lord Gambier with the thanks of Parliament, Lord Cochrane, as member for Westminster, announced his intention of opposing the motion. As a bribe to silence he was offered an important command by Lord Mulgrave, and it was proposed that his name should be included in the vote of thanks. The bribe being refused and the opposition persisted in, Lord Gambier demanded a court-martial, in which, as he alleged, to controvert the insinuations thrown out against him by Lord Cochrane.

The history of this court-martial, its antecedents and its consequences, furnishes an episode almost unique in the annals of official injustice. As a preparation for it, Lord Gambier, in obedience to orders from the Admiralty, supplemented his first account of the victory by another of entirely different tenour. In the first, written on the spot, he had avowed that he could not speak highly enough of Lord Cochrane's vigour and gallantry in approaching the enemy,—conduct, he said, "which could not be exceeded by any feat of valour hitherto achieved by the British Navy." In the record, written four weeks later and in London, he altogether ignored Lord Cochrane's services, and transferred the entire merit to himself.

The whole conduct of the court-martial was in keeping with that prelude. No effort was spared in stifling all the evidence on Lord Cochrane's side, and in adducing false testimony against him. Logbooks and witnesses alike were tampered with. In support of his scheme for annihilating the whole French fleet, Lord Cochrane produced in court a chart showing the relative position of the various points in Aix Roads, and of the overhanging fort which was to protect the French ships. This chart, left lying upon the table, was tacitly accepted by the authorities of the Admiralty as a trustworthy document, and duly preserved among the official records. But at the time the court refused to receive it in evidence, and adopted instead two falsified charts, in which, by the introduction of imaginary shoals and the narrowing of the channel to Aix Roads from two miles to one, the success of the scheme appeared impossible. Although this gross deception was more than suspected, both then and afterwards, by Lord Cochrane, his repeated applications to the Admiralty for permission to inspect the documents were steadily refused. It was not till more than fifty years after the period of the court-martial that he was able to prove the scandalous fraud.

The result of the court-martial was, of course, such as from the first had been intended. Lord Grambier was acquitted, and unlimited blame was, by inference, thrown upon Lord Cochrane. The coveted vote of thanks was promptly obtained from the House of Commons; Lord Cochrane's proposal that the minutes of the court-martial be first investigated being, through ministerial influence, summarily rejected.

These proceedings determined the course which men in power were to adopt, and fixed Lord Cochrane's future. It was a future to be made up of cruel disregard and of revengeful persecution.

Soon after the close of the trial, the brave seaman applied to the Admiralty for permission to rejoin his old frigate, the Impérieuse, and accompanied his application with a bold plan for attacking the French fleet in the Scheldt. He received an insulting answer to the effect that, if he would be ready to quit the country in a week, and then to occupy a position subordinate to that which he had formerly held, his services would be accepted. On his replying that his great desire to be employed in his profession made him willing to do anything, and that all he wished for was a little longer time for preparation, no further communication was vouchsafed to him. He was quietly superseded in the command of the Impérieuse, and received no other ship.

Out of this ill-treatment, however, resulted some benefit to the nation. Lord Cochrane employed much of his forced leisure, during the next few years, in exposing abuses that were then over-abundant, and in strenuously advocating reform. In Parliament, voting always with his friend Sir Francis Burdett and the Radical party, he limited his exertions to naval matters, and such as were within his own experience. Herein there was plenty to occupy him, and much that it is now amusing to look back upon.

One scandalous grievance led to a memorable episode in his life. The many prizes taken by him in the Mediterranean, which, according to rule, had been sent to the Maltese Admiralty Court for condemnation, had been encumbered with such preposterous charges that, instead of realizing anything by his captures, he was made out to be largely in debt to the Court. The principal agent of this Court was a Mr. Jackson, who illegally held office as at the same time marshal and proctor. "The consequence was," said Lord Cochrane, "that every prize placed in his hands as proctor had to pass through his hands as marshal; whilst as proctor it was further in his power to consult himself as marshal as often as he pleased, and to any extent he pleased. The amount of self-consultation may be imagined." As proctor he charged for visiting himself, and as marshal he charged for receiving visits from himself. As marshal he was paid for instructing himself, and as proctor he was paid for listening to his own instructions. Ten shillings and twopence three farthings was the customary charge for an oath to the effect that he had served a monition on himself. Of the sheets composing the bill for services of these sorts presented to him, Lord Cochrane formed a roll which, when unfolded and exhibited in Parliament, stretched from the Speaker's table to the bar of the House.

Not content, however, with laughing at the official robberies committed upon him, he determined, early in 1811, to proceed to Malta and personally investigate the matter. Reaching Valetta long before he was expected, he immediately presented himself at the court-house, and asked for a copy of the table of fees authorized by the Crown, and which, according to directions, ought to have been placed conspicuously in the public room. The existence of such a document being denied, he proceeded to hunt for it himself, and, after long and careful search, found it concealed in an out-of-the-way corner of the building. Having taken possession of it, he was carrying off the prize, which he intended to exhibit in the House of Commons, in token of the extent to which he and others had been defrauded, when he was arrested for contempt of court. He protested that the arrest was illegal, seeing that, as the court had not been sitting, no insult could have been offered to it. The plea was not accepted, and he was sent to gaol. No ground for punishment, however, could be found against him; and, after refusing to help the authorities out of their embarrassment by going at large on bail, and insisting on a proper exculpation or nothing at all, he let himself out of window by means of a rope. A gig was waiting for him, by which he was enabled to overtake the packet-boat that had quitted Malta shortly before, to return to London, and to present the document seized by him to Parliament a month before the official report of his escapade reached home.

" The Right Honourable Lord Cochrane."]

An imprisonment of very different character occurred after an interval of nearly three years. This was in consequence of the famous Stock Exchange trial, the episode last treated of by the Earl of Dundonald in his Autobiography, and not quite recounted to the end before death stayed his hand.

From 1809 to 1813, Lord Cochrane was allowed to take no active part in the work of his profession. But at the close of the latter year, his uncle, Sir Alexander Cochrane, having been selected for the command of the fleet on the North American station, appointed him his flag-captain—an appointment resting only with the Commander-in-Chief, and one with which the Government could not interfere. It was always Lord Cochrane's belief that the implacable enmity of his foes in the Admiralty Office—determined to prevent by irregular means, since no regular course was open to them, his return to naval work—helped to bring about the cruel persecution by which his whole life was embittered. But it must be admitted that the dishonesty of one of his own kinsmen—about which a chivalrous sense of honour caused him to be reticent during nearly fifty years—conduced to this result.

The chief agent of the fraud practised upon him was a foreigner, named De Berenger. This man, clever and unscrupulous, had been associated with Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, an uncle of Lord Cochrane's, in certain stock-jobbing transactions. In that or in some other way he became known to Lord Cochrane and to his other uncle, Sir Alexander Cochrane; and, being a smart chemist and pyrotechnist, it was proposed that he should accompany Lord Cochrane to North America, and assist him in the trial of his recently-discovered method of attacking forts and fleets in a secret and irresistible manner. With that object—of course clandestine—Sir Alexander Cochrane sought the permission of the Admiralty to employ De Berenger as a teacher of sharp-shooting, in which he was a well-known adept. This was not granted, and near the end of 1813, Sir Alexander set sail for Halifax, leaving Lord Cochrane to follow in the Tonnant, in charge of a convoy, and in getting the Tonnant ready for sea his lordship was busy during January and February, 1814. In the former month De Berenger sought him out and earnestly requested that, his official appointment being refused, he might be taken on board in a private capacity and allowed to rely upon the success of his work for recompense. Lord Cochrane declined to employ him without some sort of sanction from the Admiralty, and De Berenger left him with the avowed intention of doing his utmost to procure this sanction.

He was otherwise occupied. Being in urgent need of money, with which to evade the grasp of his numerous creditors, he returned to his stock-jobbing pursuits—if indeed he had not been engaging in them all along; using his proposal for employment under Lord Cochrane as a blind or as a secondary resource. Instead of furthering his efforts to obtain this employment, he contrived a plan for causing a sudden rise in the funds, and thereby securing a large profit to himself and his accomplices. On the 20th of February he presented himself at the Ship Hotel at Dover, disguised as a foreigner and calling himself Colonel De Bourg, professing that he brought intelligence from France to the effect that Buonaparte had been killed by the Cossacks, that the allied armies were in full march towards Paris, and that a speedy cessation of the war was certain. Thence he hurried up to London and was traced to have gone, on the following morning, to Lord Cochrane's house. The ostensible object of that visit was to renew his application for employment on board the Tonnant. The real object was, by means of a trick, to get possession of a hat and cloak, with which to disguise himself afresh, and thus try to elude the pursuit of agents of the Stock Exchange, who would soon seek to punish him for his fraud. The disguise was given to him in all innocence, and might have been successful, had not Lord Cochrane, on finding how grossly he had been deceived, volunteered to assist in punishing the culprit. Leaving the Tonnant, in which he was about to start from Chatham, he returned to London, and gave full information as to his share in the transaction, with the view of furthering the cause of justice and clearing himself from all blame.

That was prevented by as wanton a prosecution and as malicious a perverting of the forms of justice and the principles of equity as the annals of English law, not often abused even in a much less degree, can show. The straightforward evidence furnished by him was made the handle to an elaborate machinery of falsehood and perjury for effecting his own ruin. The solicitor who had managed the cause of the Admiralty at the court-martial on Lord Gambier, and therein proved his skill, was entrusted with the ugly work. By him an elaborate case for prosecution was trumped up, and Lord Cochrane, hindered from sailing to North America in the Tonnant, and hindered from obtaining any other employment in his country's service during four-and-thirty years, was, on the 8th of June, placed in the prisoner's dock at the Court of King's Bench on a charge of conspiring with his uncle, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, with De Berenger, and with some other persons, to defraud the Stock Exchange. Lord Ellenborough, who presided at the trial, delivered a charge which was even more virulent and more marked by political spite than was his wont, and the too compliant jury brought in a verdict of "guilty." Lord Cochrane vainly sought for a new trial, and vainly adduced abundant proof of his innocence. The chance of justice that is every Englishman's right was denied to him. He was sentenced to an hour's detention in the pillory at the entrance of the Royal Exchange, to a year's imprisonment in the King's Bench Prison, and to a fine of a thousand pounds.

The first part of the sentence was not insisted upon, as Sir Francis Burdett, Lord Cochrane's noble-hearted colleague as member for Westminster, avowed his intention of standing also in the pillory, if his friend was subjected to that indignity, and of thus encouraging the storm of popular indignation, that, without any such encouragement, would probably have led to consequences which the Government, already hated by all Englishmen who loved their birthright, dared not brook. But the unworthy vengeance of his persecutors was amply satisfied in other ways. He had already suffered more than most men. "Neglect," he said, "I was accustomed to. But when an alleged offence was laid to my charge, in which, on the honour of a man now on the brink of the grave, I had not the slightest participation, and from which I never benefited, nor thought to benefit one farthing, and when this allegation was, by political rancour and legal chicanery, consummated in an unmerited conviction and an outrageous sentence, my heart for the first time sank within me, as conscious of a blow, the effect of which it has required all my energies to sustain."

It is needless now to say anything in proof of Lord Cochrane's innocence of the charge brought against him. The world has long since reversed the verdict passed at Lord Ellenborough's dictation. That an officer and a gentleman of Lord Cochrane's reputation should have demeaned himself by becoming a party to the fraud of which he was accused, is, to say the least, improbable. That, if he had been guilty of that fraud, he should not have availed himself of the only benefit that could be derived from it by investing in the stocks when they were low and selling out during the brief time of their artificial value, is far more improbable. That, when the fraud was perpetrated, and its chief instrument was undiscovered, he should have left the Tonnant in order to expose him, instead of taking him away from England, and so almost ensuring the preservation of the secret, is utterly impossible.

His only faults were too great faith in his own innocence and a too chivalrous desire to protect, or rather to abstain from injuring, his unworthy kinsman. "I must be here distinctly understood," it was said by Lord Brougham, in his "Historic Sketches of British Statesmen," "to deny the accuracy of the opinion which Lord Ellenborough appears to have formed in this case, and deeply to lament the verdict of 'guilty' which the jury returned after three hours' consultation and hesitation. If Lord Cochrane was at all aware of his uncle Mr. Cochrane Johnstone's proceedings, it was the whole extent of his privity to the fact. Having been one of the counsel engaged in the cause, I can speak with some confidence respecting it, and I take upon me to assert that Lord Cochrane's conviction was mainly owing to the extreme repugnance which he felt to giving up his uncle, or taking those precautions for his own safety which would have operated against that near relation. Even when he, the real criminal, had confessed his guilt by taking to flight, and the other defendants were brought up for judgment, we, the counsel, could not persuade Lord Cochrane to shake himself loose from the contamination by abandoning him."

Part of a letter addressed to the Earl of Dundonald in 1859, on the anniversary of his eighty-fourth birthday, and shortly after the publication of the first volume of his "Autobiography of a Seaman," by the daughter of the man whose wrong-doing had conduced so terribly to his misfortunes, may here be fitly quoted:—"You are still active, still in health," says the writer, "and you have just given to the world a striking proof of the vigour of your mind and intellect. Many years I cannot wish for you; but may you live to finish your book, and, if it please God, may you and I have a peaceful death-bed. We have both suffered much mental anguish, though in various degrees; for yours was indeed the hardest lot that an honourable man can be called on to bear. Oh, my dear cousin, let me say once more, whilst we are still here, how, ever since that miserable time, I have felt that you suffered for my poor father's fault—how agonizing that conviction was—how thankful I am that tardy justice was done you. May God return you fourfold for your generous though misplaced confidence in him, and for all your subsequent forbearance!"

Another extract from a letter, from one out of a multitude of tributes to the Earl of Dundonald's honourable bearing, which were tendered after his death, shall close this introductory chapter. "Five years after the trial of Lord Cochrane," wrote Sir Fitzroy Kelly, now Lord Chief Baron, on the 17th of December, 1860, "I began to study for the bar, and very soon became acquainted with and interested in his case, and I have thought of it much and long during more than forty years; and I am profoundly convinced that, had he been defended singly and separately from the others accused, or had he at the last moment, before judgment was pronounced, applied, with competent legal advice and assistance, for a new trial, he would have been unhesitatingly and honourably acquitted. We cannot blot out this dark page from our legal and judicial history."