Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  The return of Cochrane to England at this time was providential. He was well acquainted with the waters of Basque Roads, he had an impressive record of daring attacks on coastal targets and it had not been forgotten that he had recommended a fireship attack on the anchorage at Aix Roads in a letter to the Admiralty in 1806.3 William Johnstone Hope, the Second Lord of the Admiralty, was instructed to write to Cochrane at Plymouth and sound him out on the matter. Johnstone Hope was a fellow Scot and his letter was couched in the most friendly terms. He began by congratulating Cochrane on his safe return after the rigours he had undergone in the defence of Fort Trinidad. He assured him that his exertions were highly applauded by the Board of Admiralty and that Lord Collingwood’s despatches had done full justice to them. He went on to say, ‘There is an undertaking of great moment in agitation against Rochefort, and the Board thinks that your local knowledge and services on the occasion might be of the utmost consequence, and, I believe, it is intended to send you there with all expedition; I have ventured to say, that if you are in health, you will readily give your aid on this business.’4

  The letter was followed almost immediately by a telegraphic message from the Admiralty which summoned Cochrane to Whitehall. On his arrival in London he was invited to a private meeting with Lord Mulgrave, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Lord Mulgrave was not a naval man. He had been educated at Eton, had spent time in the army and had been a Member of Parliament since 1784. He had been a staunch supporter of Pitt and for a few months had been Foreign Secretary in his last administration. He had resigned after the death of Pitt in January 1806 but had returned to power as First Sea Lord in Portland’s administration in 1807. He was undistinguished as a politician but was a notable patron of the arts: his private collection included works by Rembrandt, Titian and Sir Thomas Lawrence.

  Cochrane found him affable and persuasive and was flattered to be taken into his confidence. Mulgrave showed him Lord Gambier’s letter and pointed out that, although Gambier and other senior officers had doubts about the effectiveness of a fireship attack, the Admiralty Board was determined to strike a decisive blow before the French fleet had an opportunity to elude the blockade and attack British commerce in the West Indies. He asked Cochrane for his assessment of the situation at Basque Roads. Cochrane agreed with the opinion of other naval officers that sending in fireships on their own against an enemy that was prepared for them was unlikely to be successful. The enemy would have rowing boats standing by to tow the fireships clear of the fleet. However, if the fireships were accompanied by explosion vessels, bomb vessels and rockets, and the attack was made with a fair wind and a flowing tide, there would be no risk of failure. The gun batteries on the Ile d’Aix were in a dilapidated condition and offered no threat to the attacking force and, since the French ships could not escape up the River Charente, their destruction was certain.5

  Mulgrave was impressed by Cochrane’s confidence and expertise and asked him to put his proposals in writing so that he could show them to the Board of Admiralty which was then sitting. The members of the Board were persuaded by the proposals and the minutes of their meeting on 25 March noted ‘Orders to Lord Cochrane to proceed with the Imperieuse off Rochefort, and put himself under the command of Lord Gambier – Lord Gambier to take the Imperieuse under his command.’6 Mulgrave informed Cochrane of their decision and asked him whether he would undertake to put the plans into execution. It must have been a surprise to him when Cochrane, who had a reputation as a bold and ambitious frigate captain, made it plain that he had no wish to take part in the attack himself. Mulgrave’s frank talking had alerted him to the political implications of the planned attack and he sensed that he was likely to be the scapegoat if things went wrong. He explained that he was a junior captain and if he was given command it would excite a great deal of jealousy towards him from the senior officers already with the fleet at Basque Roads. He added that his health had been shattered by his recent exertions and he much needed some rest. We have seen before that he sometimes suffered a relapse on returning home after an arduous and dangerous tour of duty so this may well have been a major factor in his reluctance to take on another hazardous enterprise.

  The next day Mulgrave sent for Cochrane again and told him that the Board would not entertain any refusal or delay. He must rejoin his frigate and he, Lord Mulgrave, would square things with Lord Gambier and the senior officers of the fleet. A brief letter from Mulgrave followed which made it clear that he expected Cochrane to undertake ‘this important service’ if his health would allow it, and included a postscript which allowed no further argument: ‘I think the sooner you go to Plymouth the better. You will there receive an order to join Lord Gambier, to whom a secret letter will be written, directing him to employ your Lordship on the service which we have settled against the Rochefort fleet.’7 The letter was dated 25 March and the same day a telegraphic message was sent, via the signal posts on the hilltops, from the Admiralty building in Whitehall to the royal dockyard at Plymouth with instructions to the officers of the Imperieuse to hold the ship in readiness for sea. On 29 March, only ten days after their arrival in Plymouth Sound, Cochrane and his crew were on their way. The pilot came on board to see them out of the Hamoaze and through the Narrows and left them when they were in the open water of the Sound. The sails were set and they headed out into the English Channel under a grey sky and a cold grey sea.

  Fresh easterly breezes helped them on their way and at six o’clock on the morning of 3 April they sighted the masts of the British fleet in the outer reaches of Basque Roads between the low rocky shores of the Ile de Ré and the Ile d’Oléron. As they drew nearer the full extent of Lord Gambier’s fleet became apparent. There were eleven ships of the line, six frigates and half a dozen smaller warships lying at anchor in the morning sunlight: a forest of wooden masts and black rigging, with long pennants streaming from the mastheads and brightly coloured flags and ensigns flying at the bow and stern of every ship. The Imperieuse dropped anchor in seven fathoms, a boat was smartly lowered and within minutes of their arrival Cochrane was being rowed across to Lord Gambier’s flagship, the Caledonia, a massive three-decker of 120 guns.

  The Rt Hon. James, Lord Gambier, Admiral of the Blue and commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet, was a pious man of fifty-three with a high domed forehead and a severe and somewhat humourless expression. He was much derided throughout the fleet for his particular brand of evangelical Christianity which accounted for his nickname ‘Dismal Jimmy’. He abhorred alcohol and bad language, subjected his crews to frequent and lengthy church services and annoyed his fellow officers by issuing them with religious tracts which they were expected to read and distribute to their men. Like so many naval officers, including Nelson, and of course Cochrane himself, Gambier’s career had been much assisted by family connections. One of his uncles was a naval officer and another was Charles Middleton (later Lord Barham), a formidable comptroller of the Navy for many years and then First Lord of the Admiralty at the time of Trafalgar. Gambier was a post-captain at twenty-two and had made his name at the Battle of the Glorious First of June when he had shown cool leadership as commander of the 74-gun ship Defence, which was dismasted in the heat of the action. He subsequently had three spells in Whitehall as a Lord of the Admiralty, at one stage serving under Middleton. In 1807 he led a massive British fleet in an attack on Copenhagen, bombarded the city into submission and returned to Britain with fifteen Danish warships as prizes. He was created Baron Gambier but the unprovoked attack on a neutral country was much criticised in some quarters: it ensured that the Baltic remained open to British ships but lost Britain another ally.

  Gambier’s correspondence in the days preceding the attack on Basque Roads clearly reveals his own reluctance to undertake the mission. He had already made it clear that he regarded fireships with distaste. He also exaggerated the dangers of an attack on the French position. On 19 March the Admiralty had written to him telling him that it was their Lordships’ determinati
on ‘to leave no means untried to destroy the enemy’s squadron’. They had ordered twelve transport ships to be fitted out as fireships, five bomb vessels were preparing to put to sea and Mr Congreve was under orders to proceed to Basque Roads with a transport containing a large assortment of rockets and a detachment of marine artillery. On receipt of this letter, Gambier had replied with his view of the current situation:

  The enemy’s ships are anchored in two lines, very near each other, in a direction due south from the Isle d’Aix, and the ships in each line not farther apart than their own length; by which it appears, as I imagined, that the space for their anchorage is so confined by the shoaliness of the water, as not to admit of ships to run in and anchor clear of each other. The most distant ships of their line are within point-blank shot of the works on the Isle d’Aix; such ships, therefore, as might attack the enemy would be exposed to be raked by red-hot shot, etc, from the island, and should the ships be disabled in their masts, they must remain within range of the enemy’s fire until they are destroyed – there not being sufficient depth of water to allow them to move to the southward out of distance.8

  He pointed out that the enemy were not only protected by the guns on the Ile d’Aix but in the event of being attacked by fireships could easily take refuge up the Charente because the same wind and tide that would be favourable for a fireship attack would also carry them up the river. As Cochrane would later prove, Gambier’s information was faulty in a number of important respects, mainly because he had failed to carry out a close reconnaissance of the area in question.

  Gambier did not pass on his concerns to Cochrane when they met on board the Caledonia. According to Cochrane he was received with the greatest courtesy by Gambier himself as well as by his second in command, Rear-Admiral Stopford, and by his flag captain, Sir Harry Neale. However, other officers were to prove less welcoming. Cochrane brought with him a letter from the Admiralty to Gambier which contained their Lordships’ latest orders. This began, ‘My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having thought fit to select Captain Lord Cochrane for the purpose of conducting, under your Lordship’s direction, the fireships to be employed in the projected attack on the enemy’s squadron off Isle d’Aix, I have their Lordship’s commands to signify their direction to you to employ Lord Cochrane in the abovementioned service accordingly, whenever the attack shall take place…’9 The letter went on to inform Gambier that the twelve fireships were ready, but were currently detained by contrary winds in the anchorage at the Downs, as were Mr Congreve and his rockets.

  When news of these orders reached the other officers of the fleet they provoked fury in some quarters. Rear-Admiral Eliab Harvey, who had commanded the Temeraire with distinction at the Battle of Trafalgar, came storming on board the Caledonia and told Gambier that if he were passed over and Lord Cochrane, or any other junior officer, were appointed to command the fireship attack, he would immediately strike his flag and resign his commission. When Gambier explained that he had direct orders from the Admiralty to employ Lord Cochrane and could not deviate from them, Harvey let loose a tirade of personal abuse. Speaking ‘in a high tone and disrespectful manner’ he accused Gambier, while a member of the Admiralty Board, of having failed to recognise or reward the eminent services he had performed at Trafalgar; and he was sure that Gambier had written to the Admiralty to recommend a junior officer to supersede him in the execution of the proposed attack on the French fleet.10 Having vented his anger on Gambier in the great cabin he went below to the flag captain’s cabin where he found Sir Harry Neale in conversation with Cochrane. Captain Neale recalled what happened next: ‘When he came into my cabin he went up and shook hands with Lord Cochrane saying he should have been very happy to have seen him upon any other occasion than the present, that his being ordered to execute the service in question was an insult to the service and he would strike his flag so soon as the service was executed.’11

  Cochrane explained the circumstances which had led to his appointment and made it clear that he had never sought any part in the forthcoming operation. Harvey declared that Lord Gambier was unfit to command a fleet. That instead of sending boats to sound the channel and find out whether the enemy had placed a boom in front of their line of ships, he had amused himself mustering the ships’ companies. Gambier’s piety seems to have particularly irritated Harvey. Cochrane recalled him saying, ‘I am no hypocrite, no canting Methodist. I am no psalm singer, I do not cheat old women out of their estates by hypocrisy and ranting.’12 Unable to contain his anger Harvey then stumped up to the quarterdeck and within earshot of every officer present he continued his rant about Gambier’s vindictiveness towards him and his unfitness to be in command of the fleet. It was one thing to express his anger in private to Gambier but by his public denunciation of his commander-in-chief he sealed his fate. Gambier had no option but to send him home to face a court martial for ‘treating him in a manner so contemptuous and insulting as to amount even to mutiny’.13

  Cochrane did not allow the attitude of Harvey or other officers of the fleet to deflect him from the matter in hand. At first light the next day the Imperieuse weighed anchor and made sail. With the wind from the east-north-east they worked their way towards the anchored enemy fleet, tacking occasionally. They got close enough to the Ile d’Aix to note that the gun batteries, which Gambier so feared, appeared to be in ruins. The next morning, 5 April, Cochrane made a second reconnaissance trip to the island and at 7.30 he deliberately fired a shot at the enemy batteries in order to gauge the response. When nothing happened he tacked the Imperieuse and fired an exploratory shot at the enemy fleet. This provoked some of the anchored ships to fire their broadsides but their shot fell harmlessly short. Belatedly, at 8.10 a.m., one of the batteries on the Ile d’Aix opened fire with round shot and shells but failed to reach its target. On returning to the British fleet Cochrane reported what he had seen to Lord Gambier.

  ‘I reported to the commander in chief the ruinous state of the Isle d’Aix, it having the inner fortifications completely blown up and destroyed, which I not only ascertained from the deck with perfect precision as to the side towards us, but also as to the opposite side from one of the tops of the ship.’14 From his aerial position in the fighting tops of his frigate Cochrane had counted thirteen mounted guns and some mortars. This was later confirmed by Captain Rodd of the Indefatigable. John Spurling, the master of the Imperieuse, reckoned there were at the most twenty to twenty-four cannon on the entire island. Gambier replied that his pilots had observed three tiers of mounted guns directed at the shipping and he insisted that the batteries were exceedingly strong. However, he was happy to go along with Cochrane’s suggestion that, instead of waiting for the arrival of the fireships from England, they should convert into fireships seven of the transports currently with the fleet.

  During the next few days the first constructive preparations for the fireship attack were put in hand. Men from the Imperieuse were despatched in boats to help convert two of the transports into fireships and there was much rowing back and forth as they loaded barrels of gunpowder and shells on to the selected vessels to create a ‘fire room’ amidships. William Richardson, the gunner of the Caesar, supervised the fitting out of the Thomas, a 350-ton victualling brig from North Shields. He recalled how they created a series of wooden troughs on the lower deck and ‘in the square openings of these troughs we put barrels full of combustible matter, tarred canvas hung over them fastened to the beams, and tarred shavings made out of brooms, and we cut four port-holes on each side for fire to blaze out and a rope of twisted oakum well tarred led up from each of these ports to the standing rigging and up to the mastheads; nothing could be more complete for the purpose’.15 Later, when Congreve arrived with his rockets, many of the fireships were fitted with rocket-carrying frames on their yardarms. Richardson was rightly sceptical about these. He suspected that the rockets would be as likely to fly into the boats used by the fireship crews for their escape as they were to hit any of the en
emy ships.

  While this work was in progress Cochrane concentrated on his particular project, which was the fitting out of four explosion vessels. These would lead the fireship attack and so terrify the enemy when they exploded that they would abandon any attempt to tow the fireships out of harm’s way. Working under Cochrane’s supervision the vessels were packed with large casks filled with gunpowder. ‘These casks were set on end, and the whole bound round with hempen cables, so as to resemble a gigantic mortar, thus causing the explosion to take an upward course.’16 The floor of each vessel was reinforced with logs packed together, and around the casks were packed several hundred shells and some 3,000 hand grenades. Richardson was given the job of fitting up a captured chasse-marée as an explosion vessel. Having stowed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in the hold, he constructed a fuse consisting of a canvas hose filled with prime powder which led from the barrels through a small hole cut in the vessel’s quarter. It was calculated that this would burn for twelve to fifteen minutes ‘so as to give the people alongside in the boat who set it on fire sufficient time to escape before she exploded’.17

  Meanwhile, the additional ships promised by the Admiralty but delayed by contrary winds arrived from England. On 6 April the bomb vessel Aetna, commanded by Captain Godfrey, and with William Congreve on board, joined the fleet. And during the afternoon of 10 April a convoy hove in sight which proved to be the fireships escorted by the brig sloops Beagle and Redpole.18 In addition to the explosion vessels Cochrane now had at his disposal a total of twenty fireships. Nineteen had been converted from transports and other relatively small vessels; one of them was larger, a 44-gun two-decker called the Mediator.19 Cochrane had asked for two heavy vessels to be fitted as fireships to break through any boom the French might have rigged up to protect their anchored ships. In the event he only got the Mediator but this ship would play a crucial role in the coming action. Two brig sloops, the Redpole and the Lyra, were designated as light ships and they were to proceed in advance of the night attack and to anchor on either side of the channel between the Boyart Shoal and the Ile d’Aix. They would show lights which would guide the invading flotilla towards Aix Roads and the anchored French fleet. All now depended on a wind from the northwest quarter coinciding with the incoming flood tide and, preferably, a moonless dark night.