Gambier, however, "cut the matter short". Before he left the Caledonia, Cochrane received his written orders. He was no longer allowed the option of returning to the Aix Roads, even under the supervision of Captain Wolfe. He was to sail with the Imperieuse, carrying Sir Harry Neale and the despatches to England. Nor was there to be any delay. The frigate was to leave the Basque Roads on the next morning.40
Having sailed from the scene of the action on 15 April, the Imperieuse dropped anchor in Spithead six days later. From the evidence of her shot-torn decks and the blackening of timber by smoke, it was evident that she had as usual been in the thick of the action, which at once roused interest in her. Then Sir Harry Neale and his escort galloped into Whitehall and delivered Lord Gambier's despatch to an expectant First Lord and nation.
'The Almighty's favour to his Majesty and the nation has been strongly marked," began Gambier piously, and then briskly got down to the main business of the French anchorage having been attacked and four of the capital ships destroyed. There was praise for the way in which Cochrane had led the final attack on the afternoon of 12 April "with his accustomed gallantry and spirit". Nor was that all. "I cannot speak in sufficient terms of admiration and applause of the vigorous and gallant attack made by Lord Cochrane upon the French line-of-battle ships," Gambier conceded.41
So far, all was well. Cochrane was received at every appearance by the familiar brazen strains of, "See, the conquering hero comes, sound the trumpet, beat the drums!" His admirers in Westminster had a new verse to their street ballad in which his fame was sung.
Hark the news of Basque Roads all Europe astounds,
Where fearless of death and each danger around;
With volcanoes tremendous he routed the foe,
And dealt from the Imperieuse the conquering blow!42
On the other hand, his supporters had not forgotten their political attachments.
The laurels of Fame, that encompass his head,
Shall bloom when the triumphs of warfare are fled;
For the friend of REFORM and of FREEDOM at home,
More immortal shall make him in ages to come!43
Among the cheers, the dinners of welcome and the addresses of congratulation, Cochrane was informed on 26 April that George III had made him a Knight Commander of the Bath.
Lord Gambier's despatch was then made public. Cochrane read it with dismay. He was not even mentioned as having led the most perilous attack of all to destroy the boom with his explosion vessels.
There was no more than a reference to "some vessels filled with powder and shells, as proposed by his Lordship, with a view to explosion", and no indication of their part in destroying the boom. Indeed, while omitting Cochrane's name, Gambier described the attack on the evening of n April as having been "led on in the most undaunted and determined manner by Captain Wooldridge, in the Mediator fire-ship". From his safe anchorage, nine miles away, Gambier was convinced that it was Wooldridge and the Mediator who broke the boom, despite the fact that the French captains like Proteau had seen it blown out of the water by Cochrane an hour earlier. The whole purpose of the boom, indeed, was that no ship should be able to break through it into the anchorage, and certainly not a mere frigate like the Mediator.44
Gambier, having abolished Cochrane's heroism on the first day, then went on to consider April 12. He reported a signal that seven of the French ships were aground, which Cochrane made at five-forty-eight, and swore that he "immediately" proceeded to destroy them! How was it that, over seven hours later, he was still a few miles short of the target, despite favourable wind and tide? He had decided that Cochrane's suggestion of an attack was "too hazardous", precisely because the wind and tide would have carried the British ships into the anchorage and thus, he regretted to say, would have risked them in confronting their enemy.45
Finally, he reminded the world, that though Cochrane had actually undertaken the attack at the Admiralty's insistence, there was no lack of senior officers who would have done it just as well. He mentioned Admiral Stopford and Sir Harry Neale, remarking that they had both been ready to lead the attack and that "the result of their efforts would have been highly creditable".46
The extraordinary manner in which Gambier omitted Cochrane's leadership of the initial attack, while paying handsome tribute to the way in which it would have been led by men who in fact took no part in it, was indicative of the public row that was being prepared. The Battle of the Basque Roads had not been a victory on the scale of Trafalgar or the Nile, but in its own time it was just as famous for other reasons. The action was re-fought in parliament, the press, and the courts for the next decade. The final exchanges of debate still echoed in the 1860s, in an age of iron-clads and steam power.
Cochrane was extremely annoyed by the despatch, though hardly surprised. For the time being he was prepared to let matters rest. But when Gambier returned to England at the beginning of May, Lord
Mulgrave told Cochrane in the course of discussion that, of course, a vote of thanks would be proposed to Gambier in the Commons, as it had been to other commanders after such great victories as Copenhagen, the Nile, and the Glorious First of June. Cochrane, as he later confessed, was appalled by the announcement. Without further thought, he informed Mulgrave of his intention:
In my capacity as one of the members for Westminster, I will oppose the motion, on the ground that the commander-in-chief has not only done nothing to merit a vote of thanks, but has neglected to destroy the French fleet in Aix Roads, when it was clearly in his power to do so.47
It was now Mulgrave's turn to be appalled. For a vote of thanks to be opposed in this manner was an unheard of thing. Whatever the misgivings of parliament might be, accusations of this sort would make the Basque Roads a national scandal, undermining public confidence in the conduct of the war and giving comfort as well as amusement to the enemy. For a long while, Mulgrave solemnly warned Cochrane "not to persist in this determination". The warning was unheeded.
"Such a course," said Mulgrave pointedly, "will not only prove injurious to the Government but highly detrimental to yourself, by raising up against you a host of enemies."
Given the number of enemies already on the list, it seemed that there was little scope for adding to them. Cochrane remained unmoved. Seeing that the defiant captain would not yield to threats, Mulgrave, as the reasonable man of affairs, decided to take the only other course traditionally available. He must be bribed.
"The public is satisfied with what has been done," said the First Lord soothingly, "and they give you full credit for your share therein. You shall be included in the vote of thanks, so that the recognition of Lord Gambier's services can do you no harm!"
Mulgrave's obtuseness is evident from the manner in which, despite several interviews, he had still not appreciated the ferocious sensitivity of Cochrane's pride.
"Speaking as a member of the House of Commons," said Cochrane angrily, "I do not recognise Lord Gambier's services at all, for none have been rendered. As for any thanks to myself, I would rather be without them."
The First Lord, unable to credit this, insisted that Cochrane would be seen as attacking Gambier in his naval capacity.
"The public will not draw the distinction between your professional and parliamentary conduct," he said wearily.
"I regret the public want of discrimination," Cochrane replied acidly, "but that will not alter my determination."48
The interview ended. The Portland ministry was in an acutely embarrassing dilemma. They loathed Cochrane, personally and politically, quite as much as he detested them. But he held the initiative firmly. They had promised Gambier his vote of thanks but could not give it him in the face of the public scandal which Cochrane was prepared to raise. Men had opposed votes of thanks before, but for the leader of the attack to oppose one voted to his commanding admiral was unthinkable.
Under pressure from the government, Mulgrave tried again to make Cochrane see reason. He sent for him and "entreated" him to
"reconsider" his conduct. Then he warned Cochrane that he had reported every word of the previous conversation to the government, "which was highly dissatisfied therewith". Unless the opposition to the vote of confidence were dropped, Cochrane could count upon feeling the "high displeasure" of those in power.
"The displeasure of the government," said Cochrane calmly, "will not for a moment influence my parliamentary conduct, for which I hold myself answerable to my constituents."
As on the previous occasion, Mulgrave turned quickly from threat to bribe, eagerly offering a solution to the difficulty which by his standards ought to be acceptable to a man of honour. If there was a good and agreeable reason for Cochrane to be absent from the Commons, then the question of opposing the vote of thanks would not arise. The government would get its vote and Cochrane's principles would not be compromised.
"If you are on service, you cannot be in your place in parliament," Mulgrave suggested knowingly. "Now, my lord, I will make you a proposal. I will put under your orders three frigates, with carte blanche to do whatever you please on the enemy's coasts in the Mediterranean. I will further get you permission to go to Sicily, and embark on board your squadron my own regiment, which is stationed there. You know how to make use of such advantages."
With studied patience, Cochrane thanked the First Lord for his offer, and then went on to point out the irremovable impediment, as though it were a difficulty so subtle that Mulgrave could not have been expected to see it for himself.
"Were I to accept this offer," said Cochrane slowly, "the country would regard my acquiescence as a bribe to hold my peace, whilst I could not regard it in any other light. Self-respect must, therefore, be my excuse for declining the proposal."
So far as any argument was concerned, that was the end of the matter. Even Mulgrave now accepted that Cochrane could not be threatened and would not be bribed. The ministry might take its revenge in due course, but there was no easy way out of the present difficulty.49
Cochrane's flawless skill in battle was matched, in the view of his Victorian successors, by two fundamental errors of judgement in public affairs: the feud with St Vincent and the campaign against Gambier after the Basque Roads. His own son acknowledged that "He made enemies where a cautious man might have made friends." J. W. Fortescue described Cochrane's "unfortunate readiness to convert the championship of a cause into a personal enmity. An honourable conflict against the Admiralty's corruption becomes a duel first with St Vincent and then with Croker." St Vincent was not a figure of great humanity but he shared Cochrane's antagonism to corruption and to such ineffectual commanders as Gambier. Had Cochrane been able to subdue his own pride, he might have made one important enemy the less. As it was, the public squabbling went on even after the First Lord had left the Admiralty and become commander of the Channel Fleet. On 14 April 1806, St Vincent wrote angrily to the First Sea Lord, Admiral Markham: "Did you ever read such a madly arrogant paragraph as that in Lord Cochrane's public letter, where he lugs in Lieutenant Parker for the avowed purpose of attacking me, his commander-in-chief?"50
However, in the case of the Gambier quarrel, Cochrane seemed more demonstrably in the right than he ever had been over St Vincent. William Beckford, author of the oriental extravaganza Vathek, writing in the new Gothick splendour of Fonthill Abbey, compared the scapegrace uncle and the valiant nephew:
What the devil is C. Johnstone up to? There's another person who will not come to a good end. But the Hero! The Hero is predestined to glory according to my scriptures; discreet, modest, silent - short in speech, long in thought - there is stuff in that man to become one day a cloak of ermine and gold.51
The press began to echo such sentiments in Cochrane's case. In the Naval Chronicle, he was referred to as "Our Hero". There was praise for his "true courage and greatness of mind" in the dangers he faced so that he might rescue French officers and seamen from the burning hulk of the Ville de Varsovie. The paper at first denied that there was any quarrel between Cochrane and Gambier over what it now termed Cochrane's "late brilliant exploit". But in case Gambier's supporters were preparing to denounce Cochrane's version of events publicly, the Chronicle issued a muted threat:
It very forcibly struck us, that an extraordinary time did elapse from the appearance of Lord Cochrane's telegraphic communication "that seven of the enemy's ships were on shore, and might be destroyed", till the period when the requisite assistance was afforded.52
The same point was being made more generally in the press. On 25 April 1809, The Times expressed the obvious surprise of the public at finding that Gambier had not been prepared for the possibility of going to destroy the French ships, even before Cochrane signalled him. "Why, then, if seven might be destroyed, were there only four? Had Admiral Lord Gambier to unmoor at the time he received this intelligence? Did he not expect this might be the case? Or with what view was Lord Cochrane sent up to the Roads ?"
Gambier kept silent until 30 May, when he wrote to Wellesley Pole, "I had flattered myself that I should have received some signification of an approbation of my conduct." He was irritated to hear that there were now "some doubts" about the reward he expected to be given.
Feeling that even a doubt upon such a subject cannot be entertained consistently with my reputation as Commander in Chief, I request that you will be pleased to move the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to direct a Court Martial to be assembled as early as possible, for the purpose of enquiring into my conduct as Commander in Chief.53
With such ease was Cochrane outmanoeuvred in the quarrels of public life. A court-martial would enable Gambier and the Admiralty to fight on their own terms. If there was an acquittal, the vote of thanks would pass the Commons easily, no matter what Cochrane said or did. For the time being, Gambier also obliged the Admiralty by rewriting his Basque Roads despatch so that all reference to Cochrane's gallantry was now omitted from the official record.54
On 4 June, Wellesley Pole wrote to Gambier, informing him that the Lords of the Admiralty had acceded to his request and that a court-martial would be held upon "your conduct as Commander in Chief". The arrangements had been ordered "agreeably to your desire". The trial was eventually to open on 26 July and was to be held on the hulk H.M.S. Gladiator, moored in Portsmouth harbour.55
The court-martial of a naval commander-in-chief was bound to be a national sensation. It was said that Cochrane himself had brought it about and was the prosecutor, but it was entirely Gambier's doing. Indeed, as Cochrane later protested, he was regarded as responsible for the prosecution being brought, but was neither invited nor allowed to act as prosecutor. He was treated as any other witness might be and was not even allowed to be present in the court when testimony was being given by others.
The Admiralty chose as president of the court Sir Roger Curtis, Commander-in-Chief at Spithead and Portsmouth. It was hardly the most impartial decision. In 1790 there had been an unfortunate court-martial scandal when Curtis had taken part in a trial in an unauthorised and illegal capacity. But it was something more than unfortunate for the credibility of naval justice that one of Curtis's closest friends was Lord Gambier himself.56
On 26 July, when the court assembled, the tweeting whistles and the smart files of Royal Marines presenting arms as the members came aboard, the scene was one of official splendour. The seven admirals and four captains who made up the tribunal were rivalled in their display of royal blue and gold by the witnesses who thronged H.M.S. Gladiator. The court assembled as usual in the great stern cabin with its windows looking out across the sunlit anchorage of Spithead.
Curtis sat as president at the head of the long table, Gambier's sword lying on the green baize before him. The other members of the court filed in and took their places on either side. First was Sir William Young, Admiral of the Blue, the man who had nearly destroyed Cochrane, the Imperieuse, and her crew on the rocks of Ushant; and whom Cochrane had denounced in the House of Commons for his conduct
Young was followed by Sir John Duc
kworth, Vice-Admiral of the Red, whom Gunner Richardson and his comrades knew as "Old Tommy", with his Christmas Day hangings, his Boxing Day floggings, his tyranny to his subordinates and his sycophancy towards those from whom he had something to gain. By any normal standard of impartiality there was an even better reason for disqualifying Duckworth, since he had been - and still was - Gambier's loyal second-in-command.
Of the other four admirals, Sir John Sutton was another significant choice, having also crossed swords with Cochrane over a public and controversial matter. It was he who had refused to listen to Cochrane's plea for the crew of the Atalante and the state of their vessel, and who was in part responsible for the loss of the ship.
Moses Greetham, the judge advocate, took his place at the far end of the table from Curtis. At eleven o'clock the court was opened and Gambier was brought in under the escort of the Marshal of the Admiralty. The judge advocate then read out the charge as their Lordships had drawn it up.
It appears to us that the said Admiral Lord Gambier, on the 12th day of the said month of April, the enemy's ships being then on shore, and the signal having been made that they could be destroyed, did, for a considerable time, neglect or delay taking effectual measures for destroying them.57
The witnesses for the prosecution were then called. There was no way in which the court could convincingly avoid calling Cochrane himself, but it excluded the evidence of two men whom it knew to be ready to support him. One was Francis Austen, later and better known as Admiral Sir Francis Austen, who told Cochrane that he blamed some of Gambier's subordinates as much as the admiral himself. The other was Frederick Maitiand, who commanded the Emerald in Aix Roads and who supported Cochrane so publicly that he was sent on service to Ireland until the court-martial should be safely over.
Cochrane Page 22