The new command was the frigate Imperieuse, whose captain he was to be for three years. Carrying thirty-eight guns, she had been the Spanish warship Medea until captured by the Royal Navy in 1804. Larger and faster than the Pallas, she was 1046 tons, carrying three hundred men who included thirty-five Royal Marines. Most of the Pallas's crew transferred to her, with one new arrival whose popular fame was to eclipse even that of Cochrane. He was a young midshipman, Frederick Marryat, who was to be the celebrated novelist Captain Marryat.
Marryat kept a private journal of life on the Imperieuse, confirming much that Cochrane independently recorded, and also assessing his commander's character. Cochrane ruled by the degree of discipline needed for the safety of his ship in war. He was not morally opposed to hanging or flogging. The log of the Imperieuse shows, for example, one sentence of thirty-six lashes for drunkenness carried out on 7 January 1809, and three of twelve lashes each for "negligence". However, these are to be compared with the homicidal military discipline of a thousand lashes against which Cobbett and others were campaigning. To his contemporaries, Cochrane's true humanity was in never sacrificing his men to his own glory. "I never knew any one so careful of the lives of his ship's company as Lord Cochrane," Marryat wrote, "or any one who calculated so closely the risks attending any expedition. Many of the most brilliant achievements were performed without the loss of a single life, so well did he calculate the chances; and one half the merit which he deserves for what he did accomplish has never been awarded him, merely because, in the official despatches there has not been a long list of killed and wounded to please the appetite of the English public."48
On occasion, Cochrane subordinated sentiment to seamanship to a degree which surprised the young Marryat. During a gale, one of the marines on the deck of the Imperieuse was swept overboard and carried out of reach of any rope which might be thrown. But the men on the deck of the frigate could see him, his head rising with each wave and they began instinctively to lower a boat. Before they could complete the lowering, Cochrane saw them and shouted from the quarterdeck, "Hold fast!" The men stopped and watched the marine being carried further and deeper into the storm. Cochrane walked forward from the quarterdeck, obviously distressed and muttering to himself, "Poor fellow!" The drowning man at last raised his hands and then disappeared under the waves. Marryat and some of the others were dismayed that Cochrane had called back the willing rescuers. It was the master's mate, the Hon. William Napier, cousin to the assorted and illustrious Napiers of Victoria's reign, who took Marryat aside and explained what had happened. Napier had considerable experience of ships' boats in various weather conditions. He knew, and Cochrane knew better, that to have lowered the boat in such a sea would have meant the loss of a score of lives instead of one. What they witnessed was one of the infinite human tragedies at sea, in the face of which men were almost powerless to aid one another.49
In the case of the Imperieuse, the Admiralty and its flag officers seemed determined to augment these tragedies as soon as possible. On 17 November 1806, the frigate was lying half-laden at Plymouth. Indeed, her rudder was being adjusted and was still not hung in position properly. However, Cochrane received an order via Admiral Young, the port commander, that he was to put to sea at once.
Protests against such impossibilities were unavailing. Work on the rudder was quickly completed and the Imperieuse sailed with a lighter carrying provisions lashed to one side, a second lighter carrying ordnance stores lashed to the other, and a third lighter, filled with the ship's gunpowder, being towed astern. Worst of all, no delay had been permitted in order that the guns should be made fast and the quarterdeck carronades mounted on their slides. In the event of a storm, the savage weight of the bronze cannon might have been sent crashing from one side of the ship to the other.
Cochrane's attempt to delay the sailing of his ship in this condition had been answered, in Marryat's account, by the admiral enforcing the order by firing "gun after gun" as the signal that he must put to sea at once. There was no reason for this, no emergency which required the Imperieuse to guard the Western Approaches within the next few hours, the enforcement was merely a matter of satisfying the Admiralty.
As soon as the frigate was out of sight of land, Cochrane gave the order to heave to while the loading was completed and the guns secured. The gunpowder was the last thing to be brought on board and, as Cochrane remarked, if a French warship had approached at this point, she could have taken the Imperieuse with little difficulty. "We could not have fired a shot in return," he noted bitterly.50
Though the rigging was not properly set, the frigate was otherwise now in a state to proceed. The weather closed in and the sea began to rise under a freshening breeze. Then, with the rigging set and sails shortened, the Imperieuse struggled towards the mouth of the Channel on her way to the Biscay hunting grounds. The cloud was thick and it was impossible to judge her exact position from observation. Of course, she must have drifted some distance while hove to, but the compass was enough to take her clear of any danger.
The night of 19 November was "so dark that you could not distinguish any object, however close," Marryat recorded. Worse still, the storm had risen to a full gale, the wind squealing and snapping at rigging and canvas. Just before dawn, the ship's company were still asleep on the lower deck when they were almost hurled from their hammocks by a series of violent shocks and there was a loud grating and rending sound. Courageous though they might be, there was a cry of terror from the men, in the certain knowledge that the frigate had struck rocks, far from help and in a murderous sea.
Midshipman Marryat was in his berth, deep in the ship's hull where he and his companions shared the orlop deck with the closelypacked hammocks of the crew. In his journal he noted down the sights and sounds as the frigate hit the rocks.
The cry of terror which ran through the lower decks; the grating of the keel as she was forced in; the violence of the shocks which convulsed the frame of the vessel; the hurrying up of the ship's company without their clothes; and then the enormous waves which again bore her up. . . . will never be effaced from my memory.51
As the half-dressed or naked men scrambled out on to the deck in the light of the winter dawn, the largest wave of all drove into the stern of the frigate and, as Marryat and the others felt, "carried her clean over the reef". The grating of the timbers on rocks as she was driven forward rang hideously above the storm, but at least she was in deeper water and Cochrane at once ordered the lowering of the anchors. The Imperieuse was now "surrounded by rocks, some of them as high out of the water as her lower yards and close to her". She was miles off course, trapped by the notorious rocks off Ushant.52
There was no leisure to investigate the error in navigation until later. Cochrane ordered the ship's carpenter to survey the hull and see what damage had been done. It soon appeared that the vessel and her crew had been luckier than anyone dared to hope. The impact of the rock had been taken by the false keel, which had been torn off in the collision, but the hull itself was sound. The company of the Imperieuse escaped death by the very narrowest of margins.
The immediate danger was past, since the frigate was now held in deeper water by three anchors, but the only way out was through the rocks by which she was surrounded. It was a painstaking business as Cochrane took the frigate forward, yard by yard, the leadsman in the bows singing out the depth by his line. Not until 3 p.m. that afternoon was the Imperieuse clear of the reefs.
Even though it had been impossible to determine the distance which the frigate might have drifted while hove to, or to check her position by observation, no captain would have risked steering a course likely to bring him within the rocks of Ushant, the most notorious and carefully-avoided hazard of its sort. How had it happened? A careful examination revealed the answer. Iron round the compass binnacle, which had taken the Pallas off course during convoy duty, had nearly destroyed the Imperieuse. The compass had not been accurate within 30 degrees and Cochrane was completely decei
ved as to his position.53
He signalled the Admiralty, asking that he should be court-martialled for hazarding his ship. He did not, of course, believe that he had done any such thing but he longed for some court of inquiry at which the conduct of the Admiralty itself, and Sir William Young as their representative at Plymouth, could be brought under public scrutiny. Young Frederick Marryat had already given his opinion on the escape of the frigate. "How nearly were the lives of a fine ship's company, and of Lord Cochrane and his officers, sacrificed in this instance to the despotism." The Admiralty knew full well that it could expect three hundred eager witnesses for the defence and decided, on this occasion, to avoid all inquiry into Cochrane's conduct.54
During the rest of the winter, the Imperieuse was assigned to the blockading squadron in the Bay of Biscay, though once again being allowed considerable independence of action. On 19 December, Cochrane arrived off Les Sables d'Olonne and took two prizes in the same day. He sailed south to the Gironde, and there took another vessel in the river estuary on 31 December. During this cruise off the western coast of France, Midshipman Marryat noted his impressions of the ship's routine. There was no leisure for men whose eyes were fixed upon the prizes and spoils of war. Raiding parties and crews to "cut out" or board French ships were organised so frequently that "the boats were hardly secured on the booms than they were cast loose and out again". Cochrane moved his frigate rapidly from one point to another, day or night, and his men learnt to make the best of "the hasty sleep, snatched at all hours". Cochrane's "coolness and courage" was an example to all on board, fortified by their sense of superior fighting ability in consequence of the regular gunnery practice, which gave a "beautiful precision" to the frigate's firepower. Marryat recalled frequent experiences of falling asleep exhausted in his cot after one encounter, only to wake with the guns above him roaring out a broadside as Cochrane opened fire on yet another French vessel or coastal fort. After so much cannonading, the gun-deck of the Imperieuse seemed to reek perpetually with smoke. Officers and men found "the powder so burnt into our faces that years could not remove it". And, most vividly of all, Marryat remembered the courage of Cochrane "inoculating the whole of the ship's company". Writing long after, the great novelist confessed, "when memory sweeps along' those years of excitement even now, my pulse beats more quickly with the reminiscence."55
Cochrane was already meditating plans which, he believed, might alter the entire course of the long war against Buonaparte, bringing victory to England with dramatic suddenness. But first the naval war must be carried ashore. In the new year of 1807, the Imperieuse was south of the Gironde, just off the Bassin d'Arcachon. This flat, wooded coast, with its long sandy beaches and dunes, concealed the narrow entrance to the almost landlocked anchorage of Arcachon. In that entrance, a convoy of French merchant vessels and a few escorting gun-boats had taken refuge from Cochrane's activities. Their position was well chosen. The shoals prevented the Imperieuse from coming in close, while the convoy itself rested securely under the guns of Fort Roquette, guarding the entrance to the Bassin d'Arcachon. Knowing that Cochrane might attack the convoy with his ship's boats, the French beached their vessels and moved the troops from Fort Roquette to stand guard over them at night.
Cochrane ordered his attack before daylight on 7 January, using cover of darkness to approach, since Foit Roquette was formidably armed on all sides, not merely on its seaward walls. The frigate's boats pulled slowly towards the low coastline of south-west France, where the convoy lay. The French troops on the beach were watching, well-prepared for an assault. But as they scanned the dark, calm sea, they saw nothing. Cochrane guessed that they would expect him to attack the convoy and had allowed them to post the infantry on the beach. Most of the garrison was there when he entirely outmanoeuvred them by launching his marines against the feebly-held battery of Fort Roquette itself. Such an attack would have been unthinkable if it had been fully garrisoned, but the troops guarding the convoy knew nothing until the pre-dawn sky behind them was suddenly rent with the flashes and explosions of Cochrane's attack. There was little the convoy party could do to reach their base, while the men of the Imperieuse systematically destroyed the four 36-pounders of Fort Roquette, as well as two field-guns and a 13-pound mortar. Then came a roaring explosion, flames streaking like rockets into the sky, as Cochrane's men blew up the powder magazine, sending up with it the gun platforms and carriages, the military stores, and reducing Fort Roquette to a ruin.
Worse still, the French troops on the exposed shore now had to retreat to a defensive position elsewhere. Cochrane's landing party fell upon the undefended French convoy, setting ablaze the seven merchant vessels and gun-boats. Only then did he give orders to withdraw, remarking that it was "prudent" to leave since, no doubt, "a general alarm had been excited along the coast". He regretted not having the leisure to warp the French vessels off the sand and take them as prizes. But the risk to his men would have been too great, and so the coasters had to be destroyed.56
With three French naval vessels and twelve merchant ships destroyed or captured, he returned to the main squadron, now cruising off Rochefort. Captain Keats, squadron commander, ordered him to provision and water two ships for a further six weeks, one of them, the Atalante, having already been on blockade for eight months without a break. As the Atalante was hauled alongside, Cochrane was appalled at her condition. The refusal of squadron commanders and the Admiralty to allow such ships to return to port had reduced her to a useless hulk. Eight months, he remarked, was enough "to ruin the health, break the energy, and weary the spirit of all employed in such a vessel".
There was worse yet. The commander of the Atalante and some of his officers came on board the Imperieuse to tell Cochrane of the desperate plight of their sloop. The foremast, the bowsprit, and the foreyard were all sprung. The Atalante was leaking so badly that she shipped twenty inches of water an hour and the pumps could hardly keep pace with it. In short, she was "wholly unfit to keep the sea". The next gale, said her commander, would see the end of her.
Cochrane confirmed these fears, all too easily, by his own inspection of the vessel. He reported the state of the Atalante at once to the squadron commander. But Captain Keats was unimpressed. From time to time, he had sent some of the junior officers from the flagship to inspect such hulks. These young lieutenants invariably reported back that the wallowing blockaders were fit for weeks or months of further duty before it was necessary to allow them to put into a port. Cochrane was invited to mind his own business and Keats sent the Imperieuse back to Plymouth to ensure that he did so. The frigate herself had not been in dock since the previous November, the mere loss of a false keel on the Ushant rocks being considered too trivial to take a ship out of service for proper inspection and repair.
At Plymouth, Cochrane went at once to the official dockyard builder and to Admiral Sutton, the officer commanding. They listened unmoved as he protested at the plight of the Atalante and her crew. When it was evident that he had made no impact upon them, Cochrane drew himself up and launched one of those melodramatic thunderbolts, which he was apt to resort to in such difficulties. "The first news we shall have from Rochefort, if there should happen to be a gale of wind, will be the loss of the Atalante" he announced.
Admiral Sutton was not won over by such stage rhetoric as this. The weather grew worse and then the storms passed. There was quiet satisfaction among Admiral Sutton and his entourage at being able to quote the words of the troublesome young Scot against him. And then came the signal, which the gales had delayed. H.M.S. Atalante had foundered in the heavy seas off the Biscay coast.57
It was the end of the Atalante but the beginning of a new crusade. The schooner Felix, also in Keats's squadron had gone down, taking her crew with her. There soon came into Cochrane's hands copies of letters written by the commander of the Felix to Keats, imploring him to take account of the state of the ship and the number of men sick, and to allow him to sail for England at once. The request was d
ismissed. The ship's surgeon wrote confidentially on 14 November 1806, "She sails worse and worse, and I think the chances are against our ever bringing her into an English port." On 14 January 1807, he added that "every endeavour" had been made by himself and the commander, Lieutenant Cameron, to get the Felix sent home, "but without success". Eight days later, the schooner and her exhausted crew went down in a Biscay squall.58
The financial arithmetic of ministerial dishonesty had been an uncertain political platform for Cochrane, in terms of general electoral appeal. But no man of sense would fail to respond to the dark, simple drama of the lost ships, the criminal indifference of a squadron commander, the callousness of Lord St Vincent commanding the Channel Fleet, and the open cynicism of the comfortable Admiralty placemen. While the Imperieuse was docked for repairs, he was given leave of absence to stand for parliament in the general election of May 1807, which followed the dismissal of the Whig government by the King and their replacement by the Tories under the Duke of Portland. "Naval reform" had given him a banner under which to fight. All he needed was a battleground.
There was no question of standing for Honiton again. Those voters who had been done out of a bribe on the last occasion were prepared to take an easy revenge upon him. The strategy which had served him in 1806 was now so well-known as to be a national joke, and there was not even the hope of repeating his Honiton success elsewhere. A young man with political ambitions would normally have surrendered his independence and gone to a political patron who, in effect, owned seats in parliament, constituencies where there were few electors, all of whom voted under their master's scrutiny. He might promise to act in the House of Commons as his patron dictated, or he might buy the seat. The patrician Radical, Sir Francis Burdett, had bought Boroughbridge in Yorkshire for six years for £4000 from the Duke of Newcastle's trustees in 1796. But since Cochrane had sworn to destroy such political corruption, he could hardly afford to enter the Commons by means of it.
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