David Cordingly - Cochrane the Dauntless - the Life and Adventures of Thomas Cochrane 1775 - 1860

Marine Painting in England
Nicholas Pocock
Ships and Seascapes
Life among the Pirates
Heroines and Harlots
Billy Ruffian

For Bill Swainson

He was tall and commanding in person, lively and winning in manner, prompt in counsel, and daring but cool in action. Endowed by nature both with strength of character and military genius, versed in naval science both by study and experience, and acquainted with seamen in every clime and country, nothing but an untimely restlessness of disposition, and a too strongly expressed contempt for mediocrity and conventional rules, prevented his becoming one of Britains naval heroes.

Description of Lord Cochrane in Greece
at the age of fifty-two, by George Finlay

Cool calculation would make it appear that the attempt to take Valdivia is madness. This is one reason why the Spaniards will hardly believe us in earnest, even when we commence; and you will see that a bold onset, and a little perseverance afterwards, will give a complete triumph; for operations unexpected by the enemy are, when well executed, almost certain to succeed, whatever may be the odds; and success will preserve the enterprise from the imputation of rashness.

Lord Cochrane to Major Miller before the taking
of the fortified naval base of Valdivia in Chile

A British nobleman is a free man, capable of judging between right and wrong, and at liberty to adopt a country and a cause which aim at restoring the rights of oppressed human nature.

Lord Cochrane to Don Joaquim de la Pezuela,
the Spanish Viceroy of Peru

Thomas Cochrane, the tenth Earl of Dundonald, was a man of outstanding courage and determination. He had a brilliant record as a frigate captain but he was also a fearless fighter for radical causes, a friend of the oppressed and a champion of liberty. When Lord Byron learnt of his arrival in the capital of Peru following the liberation of that country from the colonial rule of Spain he wrote, there is no man I envy so much as Lord Cochrane. His entry into Lima, which I see in todays paper, is one of the great events of the day. Sir Walter Scott was so impressed by the standing ovation which Cochrane and his wife received in an Edinburgh theatre on their return from South America that he was inspired to write a poem in their honour. William Cobbett, the outspoken campaigner against corruption in public life, and Sir Francis Burdett, the leading spokesman for parliamentary reform, were among Cochranes closest friends and supporters. When he died in 1860 The Times noted that he had outlived envy and malice, had suffered much, and triumphed at last. History can produce few examples of such a man or of such achievements. There have been greater heroes because there have been heroes with greater opportunities, but no soldier or sailor of modern times ever displayed a more extraordinary capacity than the man who now lies dead.

In an age which saw the rise and fall of Napoleon and the upsurge in poetry, literature and painting of the Romantic movement, Cochrane was the very epitome of the Romantic hero. His life has an epic quality and was marked by a dramatic succession of ups and downs. Remarkable triumphs were all too often followed by disappointment and recriminations. Like so many heroes he was a flawed character with a temperament which led him into conflict and disputes. He imagined There were good reasons for his mercenary attitude, as we shall see, but it was to cause trouble in his lifetime and in recent years has tarnished his once glittering reputation.

Cochranes autobiographies have also been responsible for the conflicting views about him. The first of these appeared in 1859 and was entitled Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil from Spanish and Portuguese Domination. The second, which was simply called The Autobiography of a Seaman, was a racy account of Cochranes career in the Royal Navy and was published shortly before his death in 1860. It was widely read at the time and has since become one of the classics of naval literature. Both biographies were compiled when Cochrane was in his eighties and were based on his memories of distant events as well as letters, logbooks, journals, newspaper cuttings and the memoirs of those who had known him. Neither book was written by Cochrane but by a professional author called George Butler Earp. Both contain vivid accounts of his naval actions but the South American volume is marred by the excessive amount of space devoted to arguments about pay and prize money, and The Autobiography of a Seaman is a platform for Cochranes embittered views of the Basque Roads action, the court martial of Admiral Lord Gambier, and the Stock Exchange trial of 1814.

Cochrane used the biographies to settle old scores and it was not long before his attacks on leading figures of his day produced a backlash from their families and supporters. The first shots came from Lady Chatterton who published a biography of Gambier, commander-in-chief

The doubts cast on Cochranes character and on the reliability of the biographies did nothing to stem the interest in his life. The heroic and dramatic nature of so many of his exploits proved irresistible for later generations of biographers and were a source of rich material for historical novelists. Indeed, Cochranes literary legacy has proved more significant than his historical legacy. He rarely receives more than a passing mention in most naval histories but his exploits live on in the works of Patrick OBrian, C.S. Forester and others. Captain Marryat, who had served as a midshipman in the frigate Imperieuse and had taken part in some of the most spectacular of Cochranes actions, used his experiences as the basis for Frank Mildmay, or the Naval Officer, the first of his many adventure stories which proved popular with Victorian readers and were enjoyed by his friend Charles Dickens. G.A. Henty, a prolific writer whose patriotic tales were avidly read by schoolboys from Edwardian times until they fell out of favour in the 1950s, produced a stirring account of the naval hero in his book With Cochrane the Dauntless; the exploits of Lord Cochrane in South American waters which was first published in 1909. C.S. Forester drew on events in Cochranes life for several of his Hornblower novels, notably The Happy Return, which is based on Cochranes exploits with the Chilean navy. Patrick OBrian freely acknowledged his debt to Cochranes autobiography. The plots of three of the books in his admired sequence of novels featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and his surgeon Stephen Maturin are taken directly from events in Cochranes career: