Even by the standard of a full-scale sea fight, the scene at Navarino was awe-inspiring. One after another, Ibrahim's battleships burnt until they blew up, sending a fountain of fire into the smoke-laden sky before the shattered hulls, according to contemporary portrayals, seemed almost to crumple into the water. As night fell, the rocks of Sphacteria reflected the fire of the ships which still burnt. On board Codrington's vessels, the crews struggled throughout the hours of darkness to keep clear of the fiery wreckage. By daybreak on 21 October, only twenty-nine of Ibrahim's eighty-two ships were still afloat, though in no condition to engage an enemy. He had lost about 6000 men who were killed in action, or burnt or drowned in its aftermath. To all intents, the fleet of Turkey and Egypt had been annihilated and the means of maintaining an army to subdue Greece was gone. Navarino was a remarkable, if lurid, example of war as the extension of diplomacy.
Cochrane's employment had virtually been taken from him. Codrington informed the Greek government that only a few corvettes and brigs had escaped the destruction. Greece might now "easily obstruct the movements of any Turkish force by sea". However, lest he should be accused of partiality, he also warned the Greeks that they were to confine their naval activities to legitimate interests within the area allotted them by the great powers. "The maritime armistice is, in fact, observed on the side of the Turks, since their fleet no longer exists. Take care of yours, for we will destroy it also, if the case requires it."51
The happy life of piracy to which some Greek captains turned, as soon as the menace of Ibrahim was removed, was partially checked by Codrington's warning and Cochrane's actions during the last weeks of 1827. Moreover, Codrington's instructions were to prevent the Greeks from pursuing their ambitions eastward into Turkish-held islands, or into Albania. He ordered an end to the attack on the island of Chios, which Cochrane's ships were supporting. This policy was not dictated by mere sympathy for the Turks. Codrington knew well that when peace came, Chios and Albania would probably remain under Turkish rule. It was only five years since the brutal retaliation on the inhabitants of Chios, which inspired Delacroix's great painting. Whatever heroics the Greeks might accomplish, these inhabitants would afterwards be left, in Codrington's words, to "the cruel reprisals of the Turks".52
Under the circumstances, Cochrane judged it best to secure the position which the Greeks already held. He left at once for London, where he arrived on 19 February 1828, hoping to persuade the government to amend the Foreign Enlistment Act so that British seamen would be permitted to man the Greek warships and ensure a sufficient protection against Turkey. He had no success in this. Worse still, many of the English Philhellenes were now disillusioned with the corruption of the factions in Greece, and the steamships were still not completed. Indeed, the money for them had run short and Cochrane now donated £2000 of his own to aid the progress of the work.
After a fortnight in London, it was evident that the public mood was set against supplying further funds for Greece. Cochrane accordingly crossed to Paris to see what could be done there. On 22 March he wrote at last to Count John Capodistrias, President of Greece, reporting that no funds were to be had in either London or Paris. Soon after, he received a demand from the Greek deputies in London that he should repay all the money he had received from them for his service as First Admiral, on the grounds that by going to England and France to raise funds for Greece he had deserted his naval post. Cochrane had received a single payment of £37,000 which he invested at once in the Greek loan and used his own money to pay for such items as the completion of steamships and the costs of his foreign service. It had been agreed that he should receive a further £20,000 at the conclusion of the war, but he returned the money and asked that it should be used to assist Greek seamen and others who had suffered during the struggle against Turkey.
In the summer, the steamship Mercury was at last ready, and Cochrane decided to return to Greece to see what use could be made of her. On his Mediterranean journeys he was not universally applauded as the hero of democracy and liberty. Crauford Tait Ramage, the young tutor to the sons of the British consul at Naples, wrote to his mother in 1826 that the authorities of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies were so alarmed at the air of subversion of established order which attended Cochrane, that they refused to let him land.53
None the less, he reached Poros at the end of September 1828, prepared to resume the fight against the Turks until they and their allies had been cleared from Greece. By now Greece was under the firm, though authoritarian, rule of Capodistrias, which was an improvement militarily. Ibrahim's troops held only a few remaining strongpoints and were soon to be driven from these by a French army under General Maison, an operation which was almost completed when Cochrane arrived.
There was, in truth, nothing left for him to do except to hand over the Mercury to the provisional government and spend tedious months in going through the naval accounts of the war to satisfy his masters that every payment could be justified. Had he failed to do so, payment to his subordinates was to be withheld. At last, on 4 December, Capodistrias accepted the gift of Cochrane's £20,000 and of all his rights in prizes taken during the war, adding that "the Provisional Government can engage in no warlike operation worthy of your talents and your station". Accordingly, his employment was at an end.54
The rule of Capodistrias degenerated into tyranny, culminating in his assassination three years later. But Cochrane was no longer in Greece to witness these events. On 20 December 1828, he left Poros for the last time. Count Heiden, commanding the Russian squadron, was anchored off the island in the Azoff. Hearing of Cochrane's departure, he wrote to Dr Gosse to inquire whether Cochrane was still First Admiral and what honours it would be appropriate to pay him on his leaving Poros. Gosse replied, listing the "coldness and indifference" shown by the Greek government on Cochrane's recent return from Paris, the failure to provide him with lodging, provisions, or employment. At every turn he had met "the insolence of servants of the Government".55
Count Heiden replied, assuring Cochrane that he might "send back to their kennels these miserable causes of his annoyance". A Russian corvette would be put at his disposal to take him to Malta, and the crews of the Russian ships would man the rigging in salute as he passed them. So it was that, in the Imperial corvette Grimachi, he embarked at last for Malta. Waiting for him on his arrival there was Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm, who as Captain Pulteney Malcolm had been one of the few witnesses to support Cochrane in their evidence to the Gambier court-martial. Malcolm put a Royal Navy ship at his disposal for the voyage to the European mainland. After a long overland journey as well, he arrived in Paris to rejoin his family at the beginning of March 1829.
His dedication to the ideal of democracy and the struggle for national liberty did not require him to suppress his feelings about the state of affairs in Greece. He wrote to the Chevalier Eynard of the Philhellenic Committee in Paris, describing the government of Greece as depending on "bands of undisciplined, ignorant, and lawless savages". Such sentiments might have horrified Shelley and the romantic Philhellenes of the early rebellion as being the rhetoric of a reactionary. Cochrane, at least, had shed the delusion that the society of Plato and Demosthenes, as enshrined in its literature, bore some resemblance to the Greek culture of the 1820s. To Eynard, he suggested that the alternative to the gloomy expedient of letting the revolution "work itself out" was to station six regiments of troops from friendly powers there, until the return of new leaders, educated elsewhere, or the growth of a new generation should make the country fertile for democracy.56
In this mood, he returned home, reaching England in September 1829. It was widely said that he had enriched himself by speculating in the Greek loan. Hobhouse even wrote that Cochrane's aim was to "establish himself in the sovereignty of Greece". He had been paid £37,000 for his four years' service, to cover his own pay and the expenses of his campaign. He invested this sum in Greek bonds at a time when the price, like the expectations of Greek victory, stood
low. If anything, it was a gesture of support quite as much as "speculation". He then used his own money for the costs of the campaign. As a partial consequence of his own exertions, the hopes for Greek freedom and the value of the bonds rose. To that extent, he made money out of them. Against this must be set the sum of £20,000, due to him at the end of the war, which he returned to the Greek government.57
As a mercenary admiral, it might seem that he expected too much of the Chileans, even more of the Brazilians, and far too much of the Greeks. The Chileans, at least, he felt had been trained to an acceptable level of righting ability, the Brazilians rather less so. But Brazilian independence was a less clear-cut matter than that of Chile. It was separate government under the same royal house as that of Portugal, with a strongly pro-Portuguese faction in the "independent" government at the time of Cochrane's employment. The Greeks, demoralised as a subject race and dependent on leaders who owed part of their loyalty to other interested powers, were no better placed. Their sailors, with no tradition of naval service, drew the line between prize-taking and piracy at a different point from Cochrane. Disorganisation, made worse by a variety of languages, was a greater problem than faintheartedness. And if they seemed more cowed by their traditional conquerors, it is only fair to remember how much more easily and effectively the Turks could hold Greece than the Spanish or the Portuguese could police the distant hinterland of South America.
The truth is that whatever Cochrane's criticisms of the Greeks, however justified they might be and however valiantly he had striven for their cause, his anger was made all the more savage by knowing that, almost for the first time in his fighting career, he had accomplished less than the world expected of him. He had, however, helped to keep the struggle alive and, as a British subject fighting the Turks, traditional allies of his own country, he had assisted in involving the great powers in the conflict to the final and decisive advantage of the Greeks.
On his return from the Greek war, at the age of fifty-four, he still had a long span of life ahead of him, almost as long as the period from his first command of the Speedy until the present date. But after all his wars in the service of other powers, there was one rather different battle whose issue had still not been decided. It was that battle to which he devoted his energy and determination for the next thirty-one years, seizing whatever weapon came most easily to hand.
9
See, the Conquering Hero Comes!
THE long remainder of Cochrane's life was devoted, in various ways, to the fight for personal justice. He had made his first moves during his temporary return from Greece in 1828 by addressing a memorial on 4 June to the one man of influence who might hear him favourably. His choice fell on the Duke of Clarence, who was then Lord High Admiral and was to succeed his brother in 1830 as "the Sailor King" or "Silly Billy", according to one's taste. At Windsor, or St James's, or Brighton, with the motherly figure of Queen Adelaide and the brood of illegitimate Fitzclarences, the court was to acquire an easy-going dowdiness which contrasted strongly with the self-conscious sophistication of George IV. As Duke and as King William, Clarence showed an amiable and simple nature, for though he could be petulant he was not vicious, and though his naval manners and country gentleman's behaviour lacked refinement, he showed a sense of justice and fair play.
To the future king, Cochrane addressed a long and impassioned protest of his innocence of the Stock Exchange fraud, referring to himself in the third person as "your memorialist". In solemn terms he insisted on this.
He asserts it now, most solemnly, as in the presence of Almighty God, and certain he is, if every doubt be not dissipated in this world, that when summoned to enter more immediately into that Awful and Infinite Presence, he shall not fail, with his last breath, most solemnly to assert his innocence.1
The Duke of Clarence forwarded the memorial to the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, and it was considered by the cabinet. Wellington returned a brisk reply, to the effect that the cabinet had considered it and "cannot comply with the prayer of the memorial".2
Cochrane left England and made no further attempt for the time being. He had never greatly admired the Wellesleys. To petition again, while Wellington was in office, would be "to debase myself in my own estimation, and, I think, in that of every man of sense and feeling". He remained abroad, in France and Italy, partly for the sake of Kitty's health. Yet there were signs that England had not forgotten him. His eldest son was introduced to the Duke of Clarence at Portsmouth, and when the Duke heard the Cochrane name, he at once offered to enter the boy at the naval academy so that the new generation might emulate its predecessor.3
Those who met Cochrane during his voluntary exile in Italy found his enthusiasm and his democratic belief unaltered by experience. Charles Greville encountered him at Florence in the spring of 1830.
23rd March. . . . To-night at a child's ball at Lady Williamson's, where I was introduced to Lord Cochrane, and had a great deal of talk with him; told him I thought things would explode at last in England, which he concurred in, and seemed to like the idea of it, in which we differ, owing probably to the difference of our positions; he has nothing, and I everything, to lose by such an event.
26th March. . .. Then rode to Lord Cochrane's villa, where we found them under a matted tent in the garden, going to dinner. He talks of going to Algiers to see the French attack it. He has made £100,000 by the Greek bonds. It is a pity he ever committed a robbery; he is such a fine fellow, and so shrewd and good humoured.4
Three months exactly after this encounter, George IV died and the Duke of Clarence became William IV. But Wellington remained Prime Minister and there was no more to be done as yet. In one of his letters, Cochrane remarked that other men who had offended the old regime were being pardoned, "But I, who protested against the forging of charts and public waste of money, have had no mercy shown!" It was on 15 November 1830 that Wellington's government resigned and a liberal Whig ministry under Lord Grey came into office. Within a few months the country was stimulated to new political enthusiasms as the Reform Bill began its first slow progress through parliament. Europe waited to see if "things would explode" or not, in Greville's terms.5
Cochrane returned to England with a "review" of his case prepared for publication. In Earl Grey's government, his old friend Henry Brougham had been raised to the peerage as Lord Chancellor. Surely there was hope of justice at last. A further reason for his return was an invitation to stand as parliamentary candidate for the borough of Southwark. As the battle for reform began, Cochrane had every intention of playing his part in it.
First of all, he addressed copies of his published case to members of the cabinet and sent a copy to the King. On 12 December, he received a personal reply from Grey.
I need not say that it would give me great satisfaction if it should be found possible to comply with the prayer of your petition. This opinion I expressed some years ago in a letter which, I believe, was communicated to you. To the sentiments expressed in that letter I refer, which, if I remember aright, acquitted you of all blame, except such as might have been incurred by inadvertence and by having suffered yourself to be led by others into measures of the consequences of which you were not sufficiently aware.6
Cochrane had handed the King's copy of his printed Review to the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, accompanied by a short informal petition. William handed the pamphlet back to Melbourne without comment. This was not the correct form in which a petitioner was required to present his case to the monarch.
Throughout 1831 the negotiations continued. On 25 April, Cochrane met his friend Brougham, the Lord Chancellor, at an evening party given by Lord Lansdowne. Brougham warned him ominously that there would be "a battle to fight" over his case. He also learnt that Brougham's brother was standing as candidate at Southwark. Cochrane decided to withdraw his candidacy. He had no wish to oppose Brougham's family and he thought it best not to be a parliamentary supporter of a government from whom he sought personal vindication
.7
It mattered very little, in fact, because on 1 July, at his Paris lodging in the Rue Vaurigard, the old Earl, who disowned his son's activities two decades before, died at the age of eighty-three. Thomas Cochrane was now 10th Earl of Dundonald in succession to his father and, of course, disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons. He held the title for almost thirty years, but it was as "Cochrane" that he remained best known. His inheritance was little more than a title, and such titles were nothing in his estimation by comparison with the claim to honour and reputation.
One of Cochrane's advantages was that he had, quite simply, outlived so many of the old naval officers and politicians who were his greatest enemies. Among the new generation, he enjoyed the friendship of such political figures as Brougham, Lord John Russell, and Lansdowne. Lord Auckland, who was twice to be First Lord of the Admiralty, was another sympathiser. The press admired him, particularly the more liberal Times, from 1841 under the famous editorship of John Thadeus Delane. His politics, which had seemed so revolutionary and dangerous thirty years earlier, now enshrined some of the most precious beliefs of government in a more democratic age. Above all, the revelations of his adventures marked him as a great naval hero and perhaps the most brilliant naval commander of a single ship.
For all that, there were rumours that his case was not universally sympathised with. Two members of the cabinet had refused to give way. Admiralty reports on Chile were being quoted against him and when Cochrane asked the First Lord, Sir James Graham, for a chance to refute these private allegations, he was told that the contents of such records were confidential.
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