Cochrane the Dauntless Read online

  In some ways the two men were alike. They were both energetic, impetuous and independently minded, some would say bloody-minded. They were both tall and powerfully built and weather-beaten but there the resemblance ended. Cochrane, now thirty, had an aristocratic air with a prominent, aquiline nose and that reddish or sandy coloured hair characteristic of some Scotsmen. He could appear arrogant, and was considered so by many of his superior officers, but to those who knew him well he was quiet and unassuming, with a common touch and a natural sympathy for the ordinary seamen. Cobbett, aged forty-four, had the appearance of an amiable English yokel with bluff, rounded features and a deceptively mild expression. Mary Russell Mitford described him as ‘a tall, stout man, fair, and sunburnt, with a bright smile, and an air compounded of the soldier and the farmer, to which his habit of wearing an eternal red waistcoat contributed not a little. He was, I think, the most athletic and vigorous person that I have ever known. Nothing would tire him.’4 Born at the Jolly Farmer pub in Farnham where his father was the tavern keeper, Cobbett had joined the army and spent seven years serving as a British soldier in New Brunswick on the American–Canadian border. He had become a sergeant-major but left the army under a cloud after an abortive attempt to expose corruption. He had remained in America for another eight years, living in Philadelphia where he had developed his skill as a journalist and pamphleteer. He had returned to England in 1800, established Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register in 1802 and had rapidly established himself as a formidable commentator on political affairs.

  On Monday 9 June an open meeting was held in Honiton to enable the two principal candidates to address the voters. (A third candidate, Mr Courtney, seems to have played no active part in the election and only received two votes when the poll closed.) Political meetings at this period could be rowdy affairs but the weather during June was hot and sunny with prospects of the best harvest for years and this may have helped to put the householders of Honiton in a friendly and receptive mood. They listened in silence to Mr Bradshaw who pointed out the inexperience of his opponent and assured the voters, ‘I shall always support every measure that I think conducive to the good of my country and shall always oppose every measure of a contrary description.’

  Cochrane was not a natural orator and had a tendency to be rambling and repetitive but he did his best. He began his speech by explaining that he had had no time to meet the individual electors but had been flattered by the reception given him on his arrival. He went on to say, ‘The greater part of my life has been spent in the toils of the sea; but those toils have become pleasures when I reflected that they might tend to the security and the honour of this happy land, and to the preservation of those inestimable liberties, to exercise the most important of which, you, gentlemen, are this day assembled. To preserve these liberties unimpaired shall be the business and the pride of my life.’ He assured the crowd that he would never accept any sinecure or pension or any grant of public money and that his constant endeavour would be ‘to be useful to my country in general, and to this borough in particular’.5

  The meeting was brought to life by Cobbett who attacked Bradshaw with what the local paper described as ‘thundering eloquence’. He called Cochrane’s opponent a cynical, place-seeking liar whose sole purpose in Parliament was to retain office, and he denounced him for bribing the corrupt rascals he expected to elect him. The poll opened the next day and the householders were given a week in which to cast their votes. When the poll closed on 18 June and the votes were counted it was found that Cochrane had collected 124 votes but Mr Cavendish Bradshaw had 259 votes and he was duly elected to Parliament. Cobbett was furious but Cochrane, with an eye to the future, made generous use of his prize money and treated the inhabitants of Honiton to a dinner. According to the Western Flying Post, ‘Lord Cochrane gave an ox roasted whole to the populace, and great hilarity prevailed’.6

  For the next four months Cochrane divided his time between Plymouth and London where he had lodgings at 67 Harley Street.7 We know very little about his domestic arrangements during these early years as a frigate captain. Like most naval officers on active service his ship was his main base. The address he gave on his occasional letters to the Admiralty was usually ‘Pallas, Plymouth Sound’ or ‘Pallas, off Hythe’ or some other port or harbour. What we do know is that he kept in close touch with his family, particularly his brothers and his uncles, and later he would take rooms in the house of his uncle Basil Cochrane who had an imposing residence in Portman Square.

  Towards the end of August 1806 Cochrane was appointed to command a larger frigate, the Imperieuse, which was currently undergoing an overhaul in one of the docks at Plymouth.8 She had no masts and no crew and when Cochrane arrived on 2 September to commission the ship the only people present to witness the brief ceremony were a few shipwrights and caulkers from the dockyard. Even without her masts and rigging the Imperieuse was an impressive vessel and was ideal for the sort of actions at which Cochrane excelled. She was listed as an 18-pounder frigate of 38 guns. She was bigger and faster than the Pallas and considerably more powerful in terms of her armament: in addition to her long guns she had two nine-pounder and twelve 32-pounder carronades which could be used to devastating effect in close action. Originally named the Medea she was a fine example of Spanish ship building. She had been the flagship of the squadron of Spanish treasure ships commanded by Rear-Admiral Bustamente which had been intercepted by the British in the Gulf of Cadiz in October 1804. Her capture, and the capture of two other Spanish ships laden with gold and silver, had precipitated war between Spain and Britain.9

  Having inspected the ship and spoken to the dockyard workers, Cochrane realised that she would not be out of the dock for another two weeks. He applied for a further leave of absence and returned to London. He was back in Plymouth on 30 September. The ship was still in dry dock and still without a crew. When he had first received the news that he had been nominated to a larger frigate Cochrane had written to the Admiralty requesting that the entire ship’s company of the Pallas be transferred to his new command and he had evidently been given some assurance that this would be possible. Ignoring the usual protocol, he now went behind the back of the port admiral and wrote once again to William Marsden, the Secretary to the Board of Admiralty: ‘Admiral Young informs me that he has not yet received the order for the discharge of the crew of the Pallas into L’Imperieuse which circumstance I beg you will make known to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty…’10 On receipt of this letter the Admiralty directed Admiral Young to carry out their earlier orders but reminded Cochrane that he ought to correspond through the admiral in future. Four days later the log of the Imperieuse noted that the ship’s company of the Pallas had arrived on board, so Cochrane evidently got his way. During the course of the next week the ship took on water, wine and large quantities of fresh beef, as well as the stores of the warrant officers.

  In October Cochrane learnt that the Cabinet had met in a late-night session and had determined on the immediate dissolution of parliament. A general election gave Cochrane the opportunity to have a second attempt at contesting Honiton before his ship was ordered to sea. The colourful account of the two Honiton elections which appears in his autobiography is not only inaccurate in the chronology of events but gives a misleading version of Cochrane’s treatment of the voters. In his account he maintains that although he rewarded the voters after his defeat in the first election, he did not bribe them before they cast their votes in either election. In view of his later stand as a radical candidate committed to parliamentary reform he obviously wished the record to show that he had been consistent in his opposition to bribery and corruption. In fact he did bribe the voters the second time he contested the seat, and he later admitted as much in a parliamentary debate.

  Cochrane arrived in Honiton on 18 October. As on the previous occasion his entrance was dramatic. He had persuaded some of the officers and crew of the Pallas to accompany him and they treated the occasion with the j
ollity and noisy exuberance characteristic of sailors ashore. The sleepy town was woken to the sound of two horse-drawn carriages rumbling down the main street to the accompaniment of much cheering from their occupants. Cochrane emerged from the first carriage accompanied by two of his lieutenants and a midshipman wearing their naval uniforms. The second carriage was filled to overflowing with the boat’s crew of the Pallas prepared for action: the helmsman was seated on the box and the boatswain ‘perched on the roof of the carriage with his whistle in his mouth, kept the whole in order, and enabled all to cheer in due time, every blast being accompanied by a long huzza’.11 During the course of the day Cochrane and his supporters went from house to house, energetically canvassing the voters. Cochrane also arranged for the town crier to announce that any voter who applied to Mr Townshend would receive the sum of ten guineas. This no doubt convinced any wavering voters that there was only one man to vote for and it was soon reckoned that Cochrane had an unassailable lead over his opponent. Ironically there was no need to bribe the voters on this occasion. Richard Robson had decided to stand for neighbouring Okehampton, leaving two vacant seats at Honiton. As Cochrane and Bradshaw were the only two candidates they were both elected unopposed. The townspeople showed their delight at Cochrane’s election by ‘conveying him all over the town in an arm chair on their shoulders with his long legs hanging over’.12

  ‘The Jolly Tars of Old England on a Land Cruise’. A print after J. C. Ibbetson showing exuberant sailors driving a stagecoach which they have commandeered.

  Ten years later Cochrane stood up in the House of Commons during the course of a debate on reform and explained his conduct. According to the official record of the debate, ‘He remembered very well the time he was first returned as a member to the House, which was for the borough of Honiton, and on which occasion the town bellman was sent through the town to order the voters to come to Mr Townshend’s, the headman in that place, and a banker, to receive the sum of £10 10s.’ He said that he had kept the bills and vouchers for the money. ‘His motive, he was now fully convinced, was wrong, decidedly wrong, but as he came home pretty well flushed with Spanish money, he had found the borough open, and he had bargained for it; and he was sure he should have been returned had he been lord Camelford’s black servant or his great dog.’13

  It is not difficult to see why Cochrane acted as he did at Honiton. His purpose in becoming a Member of Parliament was not to advance his own career; in future years he would frequently attack senior figures in the naval and civilian establishments in the House of Commons and seemed to go out of his way to alienate those who might otherwise have helped his advancement. His primary aim was to expose naval abuses and corruption and to fight the causes of those naval officers and men who lacked influence. His first attempt to win the Honiton seat had failed because his opponent had bribed the voters and he had not. On his second attempt he decided to follow the custom of the day and use his prize money to ensure that he got into Parliament. The end justified the means. His actions did not go unnoticed, however. A year later, when he contested the parliamentary seat of Westminster and stood as a radical candidate opposed to bribery, he was repeatedly accused by a hostile member of the crowd of corrupting the voters of Honiton. Cochrane refused to answer the charge and left the hustings.

  Back in Plymouth the Imperieuse was slowly being prepared for sea. Iron and shingle ballast had been stowed below and on 20 October the frigate was warped alongside the sheer hulk so that her masts could be lifted aboard. The standing rigging was set up, the topmasts and yards were hoisted aboard and heaved into place, and provisions and stores were brought across from the dockyard. By 13 November she was ready to slip her moorings and run down to Stonehouse Pool where she dropped anchor. The muster book for this period indicates that the official complement of the Imperieuse was 284 men. No fewer than 191 were former members of the crew of the Pallas and included James Guthrie, the surgeon, and Robert Hillier, the gunner.14

  The new members of the crew included three of the lieutenants assigned to the ship: the first lieutenant Sam Browne, the second lieutenant David Mapleton, and the third lieutenant Richard Harrison, all of whom would distinguish themselves in coastal raids and cutting-out expeditions during the course of the next three years. A number of boys also joined the ship including William Cobbett’s son Henry, and the fourteen-year-old Frederick Marryat whose writings, based on his recollections of his service on board the Imperieuse, would play a major part in establishing Cochrane’s reputation as a heroic frigate captain. Marryat had been a rebellious and unruly schoolboy and had persuaded his father to send him to sea. His father, Joseph Marryat, was a wealthy London merchant and Lloyd’s underwriter who had trading links with the West Indies. It seems likely that Cochrane’s naval uncle Alexander, now commander-in-chief of the West Indies station, made the initial introductions.

  On 22 September 1806 the young Marryat joined the Imperieuse as a ‘boy, volunteer of the 1st class’.15 After serving under Cochrane for three years he went on to become a distinguished naval officer: he received the gold medal of the Royal Humane Society for his bravery in saving lives at sea; he devised and published a code of signals for the merchant service; and he was appointed a Companion of the Bath and a Member of the Légion d’Honneur. But it was as a novelist that he made his name and became a man of wealth and influence. Writing as Captain Marryat, he published a succession of novels between 1829 and 1849, including Mr Midshipman Easy, Masterman Ready and The Children of the New Forest, which established him as one of the most successful writers of his day. Handsome, charming and jovial, he was a valued and welcome member of the circle of Charles Dickens. The essayist and writer Leigh Hunt said that Marryat’s face in a drawing room had the life and soul of fifty human beings and Anthony Trollope recalled his hearty laugh and wrote that ‘he warmed the social atmosphere wherever he appeared with that summer glow which seemed to attend him’.16

  The majority of Marryat’s novels were about ships and the sea. He drew on his shipboard experiences in war and peace and he peopled his books with the seafaring characters he had admired, hated, endured and fought alongside. His first novel, Frank Mildmay, or the Naval Officer, was a thinly disguised autobiography of his early years in the navy and included detailed descriptions of several of Cochrane’s most daring exploits. Marryat was at an impressionable age when he joined the Imperieuse and he idolised Cochrane, as did many of his crew. They saw him at his best and in his element. In his memoirs Marryat recalled, ‘the coolness and courage of our captain, inoculating the whole of the ship’s company; the suddenness of our attacks, the gathering after the combat, the killed lamented, the wounded almost envied; the powder so burnt into our faces that years could not remove it; the proved character of every man and officer on board, the implicit trust and the adoration we felt for our commander’.17

  Marryat may have hero-worshipped Cochrane but his writings also provide a remarkable insight into daily life on board the Imperieuse. His viewpoint from the midshipmen’s quarters is a useful corrective to Cochrane’s own reminiscences. Here is Marryat’s description of the chaotic scene which greeted him on his arrival at Plymouth dockyard:

  The ship was at this time refitting, and was what is usually called in the hands of the dockyard, and a sweet mess she was in. The quarter-deck carronades were run fore and aft; the slides unbolted from the side, the decks were covered with pitch fresh poured into the seams, and the caulkers were sitting on their boxes, ready to renew their noisy labours as soon as the dinner-hour had expired. [Under the half-deck] sat a woman, selling bread and butter and red herrings to the sailors; she had also cherries and clotted cream, and a cask of strong beer, which seemed to be in great demand… the ’tween decks was crammed with casks, and cases, and chests, and bags and hammocks; the noise of the caulkers was resumed over my head and all around me; the stench of bilge-water, combining with the smoke of tobacco, the effluvia of gin and beer, the frying of beef-steaks and onions, and red he
rrings – the pressure of a dark atmosphere and a heavy shower of rain, all conspired to oppress my spirits, and render me the most miserable dog that ever lived.18

  Within three weeks of Marryat’s arrival the Imperieuse was abruptly ordered to sea by Admiral Young, the port admiral who Cochrane believed had a grudge against him. Young may have resented Cochrane’s going behind his back to secure his crew and was unlikely to have approved of his recent efforts to get into Parliament, but it is more likely that he wanted to impress his superiors by getting all available warships at Plymouth to sea as rapidly as possible. He ignored Cochrane’s protests that the ship was far from ready and enforced the order for sailing by the repeated firing of a gun. Cochrane was compelled to weigh anchor with the decks in confusion, guns unmounted and three barges still alongside in the process of loading provisions and gunpowder on board.

  As they sailed out into the Channel on Sunday 16 November the crew had to clear the decks, stow the holds and secure the guns while the ship heeled before a rising southwesterly wind. Three days later they were approaching the island of Ushant off the north-west coast of France. Overcast skies had prevented them from taking noonday sights to check their position and the weather was foul with driving rain and squalls. In the early hours of 19 November, as they were scudding before the wind at eight knots, the ship struck a submerged rocky shelf with great violence. Her speed carried her onward, the waves lifted and thumped her massive wooden hull three or four times on the rocks and then carried her forward into deep water. Marryat recalled how a cry of terror ran through the lower decks and men hurried on deck without their clothes. ‘Our escape was miraculous: with the exception of her false keel having been torn off the ship had suffered little injury.’ According to the ship’s log they clewed up the sails, let go two anchors and brought to in thirteen fathoms. As the bleak November dawn lightened the sky they saw that they were anchored between Ushant and the mainland when they should have been outside and to seaward of the island. In the hurry and confusion of leaving Plymouth some iron left too near the compasses in the binnacle had affected the compass needles. The compass error had caused them to steer too far to the east. It was a potentially catastrophic error and the Imperieuse could easily have been lost with all hands among the notorious shoals off north Brittany.