United States or Zambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
One bold stand had begun to be made, in which, throughout nearly a whole year, the Greeks fought with unsurpassed heroism, and then the whole struggle for liberty fell into the lawless and disordered condition which already had prevailed in many districts, and which was then to become universal and to offer obstacles too great even for Lord Cochrane's genius to overcome in his efforts to revive genuine patriotism and to render thoroughly successful the cause that he had espoused.
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.
It was small enough, but do what we would we could not get its weight down under about forty pounds a man. This is what it consisted of: The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition. Five Cochrane's water-bottles, each holding four pints. Five blankets. Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong i.e. sun-dried game flesh. Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
My mother was beguiled, entranced, even bewitched at first, I doubt not, for she translated all that Cochrane said into her own speech, and regarded him as the prophet of a new era. But Cochrane's last 'revelations' differed from the first, and were of the earth, earthy. My mother's pure soul must have revolted, but she was not strong enough to drag father from his allegiance.
Some of the other craft had, however, come off still worse than the Blanco Encalada's launch; for the casualties were even heavier in the Almirante Cochrane's boats, while a shot had pierced the boiler of the launch belonging to the O'Higgins, which immediately blew up with disastrous results, killing and wounding nearly the whole of her crew.
He gave a curious reason for this, namely, that I took part at the Westminster meeting against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act!" At the next session it was again postponed, all the time available for its consideration being taken up with a frivolous discussion as to Lord Cochrane's right to give evidence. "They have gone the length," wrote his secretary, Mr.
Then you consider yourself the lawful Captain of that ship? I do. Upon this Gameiro remarked, "You are not an officer of Lord Cochrane's, but of the Imperial Government. It is impossible for Lord Cochrane to return to the Brazils as the Admiralty Court there has sentenced him to pay £.60,000 sterling, and his command will cease as soon as peace is made between Brazil and Portugal!
Immediately on his arrival at Plymouth, on leave of absence in consequence of ill health from his extraordinary exertions, Lord Cochrane was immediately summoned by the Admiralty to Whitehall, and asked for a plan whereby the French fleet in Basque Roads, then threatening our West India possessions, might be destroyed at one blow; this extraordinary request from a junior captain, after the most experienced officers in the navy had pronounced its impracticability, forcibly proving the very high opinion entertained by the Admiralty of Lord Cochrane's skill and resources.
Cochrane's Autobiography contains a history of the Impérieuse; it is from Peter Simple and his companions that we must learn what Marryat thought and suffered while on board. Under Cochrane he cruised along the coast of France from Ushant to the mouth of the Gironde, saw some active service in the Mediterranean, and, after a return to the ocean, was finally engaged in the Basque Roads.
Word Of The Day