The War of Wars (80 page)

The young captain left Plymouth on 21 January, 1805, and after a month’s training at sea made his way to the Azores, where he could intercept ships making the Atlantic crossing. On February 6th he reported:

We fell in with and captured a large ship, the Caroline, bound from the Havannah to Cadiz, and laden with a valuable cargo. After taking out the crew, we despatched her to Plymouth. Having learned from the prisoners that the captured ship was part of a convoy bound from the Havannah to Spain, we proceeded on our course and on the 13th captured a second vessel which was still more valuable, containing in addition to the usual cargo some diamonds
and ingots of gold and silver. This vessel was sent to Plymouth as before. On the 15th we fell in with another, La Fortuna, which proved the richest of all.

When
La Fortuna
was taken, its cargo proved to be worth £132,000. Cochrane generously allowed the Spanish captain and cargo-manager, much of whose fortune this was, to retain 5,000 dubloons each. His crew was consulted and shouted ‘Aye aye my lord, with all our hearts.’ As well they might because they stood to gain so much. By the end of March, four major prizes had been sent home.

Then disaster struck in an uncanny repetition of the events that had led to the capture of the
Speedy
. As one morning the
Pallas
’s masts poked above a heavy sea mist the lookout called that he could see three masts approaching. Cochrane himself scrambled up the rigging and immediately recognized them as French ships of the line. He had no choice but to run. Even as the chase began, the wind blew up, the sea grew choppier, and the mist dissipated. The water deepened into the troughs of an approaching gale. The three ships had much more sail than the
Pallas
, and were soon gaining upon him. But the gale was an advantage to him too: As Cochrane remembered:

The Pallas was crank to such a degree, that the lee main-deck guns, though housed, were under water, and even the lee quarter-deck carronades were at times submerged.

As the strange ships were coming up with us hand over hand, the necessity of carrying more sail became indispensible, notwithstanding the immersion of the hull.

To do this with safety was the question. However, I ordered all the hawsers in the ship to be got up to the mast-heads and hove taut. The masts being thus secured, every possible stitch of sail was set, the frigate plunging forecastle under, as was also the case with our pursuers, which could not fire a gun – though as the haze cleared away we saw them repeatedly flashing the priming. After some time the line-of-battle ships came up with us, one keeping on our lee-beam, another to windward, each within half a mile, whilst the third was a little more distant.

This was extremely dangerous in a gale, risking the masts snapping or the ship foundering under its own speed in heavy seas. The ship plunged furiously forward, its bows swamped under water with each breaking wave. Even so the battleships gained upon him, two approaching at half a mile’s distance on each side, with one coming up behind. But Cochrane had trained his men perfectly, and he had a plan. Ordering his topmen up into the rigging, as the boat thundered through the spray he gave them the signal to furl every sail at once. The French ships ploughing through the waters alongside could not fire because of the violence of the seas and because they were not yet within range. At exactly the moment the sails of the
Pallas
disappeared from view, Cochrane’s helmsman turned hard over.

For the ship it was a moment of supreme danger. Still moving fast, but now broadside to the waves in these ferocious seas, the
Pallas
could easily have capsized – except that with no sails, as Cochrane had calculated, the wind would be unable to assist the sea in turning the ship over. Even so, she ‘shook from stern to stern in crossing the trough of the sea’. In effect, she had stopped dead in her tracks, and the French ships of the line, their sails billowing, shot past for several miles downwind, while the
Pallas
tacked off slowly in the opposite direction, against the wind.

There was no time for consideration on our part, so having rapidly sheeted home, we spread all sail on the opposite tack. The hawsers being still fast to the masts, we went away from our pursuers at the rate of thirteen knots and upwards; so that a considerable distance was soon interposed between us and them; and this was greatly increased ’ere they were in a condition to follow. Before they had fairly renewed the chase night was rapidly setting in, and when quite dark, we lowered a ballasted cask overboard with a lantern, to induce them to believe that we had altered our course, though we held on in the same direction during the whole night. The trick was successful, for, as had been calculated, the next morning, to our great satisfaction, we saw nothing of them, and were all much relieved on finding our dollars and his Majesty’s ship once more in safety.

Cochrane’s new orders were to join up with the fleet under Admiral Thornburgh to harass enemy shipping off the French coast. By May Cochrane had arrived off the island of Aix again. He embarked on a new kind of warfare – commando raids to destroy French signal positions:

The French trade having been kept in port of late, in a great measure by their knowledge of the exact position of his Majesty’s cruisers, constantly announced at the signal-posts; it appeared to me to be some object, as there was nothing better to do, to endeavour to stop this practice.

Accordingly, the two posts at Point Delaroche were demolished, next that of Caliola. Then two in L’Anse de Repos, one of which Lieutenant Haswell and Mr Hillier, the gunner, took in a neat style from upwards of 100 militia. The marines and boats’ crews behaved exceedingly well. All the flags have been brought off, and the houses built by government burnt to the ground.

He spotted a large French frigate, the
Minerve
, with 40 guns, which was twice the size of the
Pallas
, nestling under the battery of Aix. This ‘large black frigate’ had been plaguing the British for some time. Cochrane nevertheless ordered the
Pallas
to sail straight down the Aix Channel towards it. The French, astounded by this medium-sized ship taking on such odds, in their best protected and most formidable anchorage, their equivalent of Plymouth, ‘scrambled’. Tacking backwards and forwards, Cochrane managed to avoid the notoriously dangerous shoals of the Aix Channel and destroyed another brig, while also doing damage to the rigging of the
Minerve
. The French were unnerved by the rashness of this crazy ship in their midst.

Cochrane sailed the
Pallas
between the
Minerve
and the shore battery, both of which were pounding away ineffectually. He ordered his ship to close with the
Minerve
, in preparation for battle but this was done too sharply. The two ships collided, their masts locking with one another, the guns of the
Pallas
, which had just loosed off a broadside, being knocked back momentarily. Under Cochrane’s frantic direction, the British crew recovered far more quickly from the impact of the collision than the French, and let off another devastating broadside at
point blank range. No more than three solitary pistol shots came back in retaliation. The
Minerve
’s captain, Joseph Collet, had been the only man not to flee below under the onslaught of fire, and he coolly raised his hat in salute through the smoke. Cochrane, only a few feet away, was deeply impressed by his gallantry: when later he found the same officer as a captive in the stable block of Dartmoor prison, he had him moved to better quarters.

Meanwhile Cochrane was in greater danger than ever. His own ship was almost as crippled as two French frigates which were now bearing down to the
Minerve
’s help. Fortunately a British ship, the
Kingfisher
, under Captain George Seymour, was a little way off. Seymour had orders from Thornburgh not to proceed beyond a lighthouse above Aix. Seeing Cochrane’s predicament, however, he decided to ignore these. He sailed south to escort Cochrane out. The two frigates had seen enough of the danger posed by the British and sheered off to go to the rescue of the crippled
Minerve
.

Cochrane returned to Plymouth a week later. His tour in the Bay of Biscay had been a dazzling display of aggression, fearlessness and skill: no other British commander since Nelson had achieved what Cochrane had, with his flying galley he had initiated the first commando raids; he had penetrated the very centre of French naval power at Rochefort, destroying its signals system; and he had crippled a major French ship twice his size and destroyed two brigs. The effect upon French morale was overpowering: nowhere along the coast seemed safe from this marauder. The effect on the British war effort, at a time of despondency, was equally electric. In the highest personal compliment of his career following this attack, Cochrane was dubbed by Napoleon ‘le loup de mer’ – the sea wolf (actually a sea bass, which is a fast-moving and fast-feeding inshore fish).

Cochrane’s performance in the Bay of Biscay, coming after his exploits in the Mediterranean and off the Azores, clearly demonstrated he was the outstanding sea-captain of the time. But he had one colossal defect in the eyes of the Admiralty: he cared not a fig what they thought. So confident was he of his own abilities that he saw no need to ingratiate himself with his superiors or toe the line.

His new ship was the
Imperieuse
, a 1,064-ton frigate, about twice the size of the
Pallas
, and even faster, with 38 guns and 300 men, many of whom Cochrane had arranged to be transferred from the
Pallas
. Among the new recruits was a 14-year-old boy, Frederick Marryat, the son of a rich MP and West Indies merchant. Marryat was later to become the first great novelist of the navy in Napoleonic times, as Captain Marryat. He was vividly to describe his experiences under Cochrane.

When Cochrane arrived at Plymouth to take up his command in November 1806 Admiral Sir William Young ordered the
Imperieuse
to sea before she had been properly prepared. Cochrane was furious:

She was ordered to put to sea, the moment the rudder – which was being hung – would steer the ship. The order was of necessity obeyed. We were therefore compelled to leave port with a lighter full of provisions on one side, a second with ordnance stores on the other, and a third filled with gunpowder towing astern. We had not even opportunity to secure the guns; the quarter-deck carronades were not shipped on their slides; and all was in the utmost confusion.

Cochrane took to raiding the French coast once again, capturing ship after ship with languid professionalism. Cochrane embarked on another raid inshore, against a French convoy guarded by small warships south of the Gironde. The convoy was protected by the formidable guns and defences of Fort Roquette. The French, hearing of his approach, had ordered the soldiers from the fort down to the beach. As they waited for the expected attack, Cochrane landed a raiding party further up which attacked the almost undefended fort, destroying its guns and blowing up the arsenal. On hearing the explosion the French soldiers on the beach ran in the direction of the attack, abandoning the ships while Cochrane’s boats silently pounced, setting fire to seven merchant ships and gunboats. In the space of only 12 weeks, he destroyed or captured 15 ships.

Cochrane was ordered to the Mediterranean to serve under Admiral Lord Collingwood, who sensibly respected his independence and sent him to command the Corfu squadron, patrolling the Ionian Islands.
Collingwood, an exceptional and enlightened commander who had banned the use of flogging aboard his ships, then appointed him to harass the enemy of France and Spain. The vigorous young captain-MP resumed his old activities along the Spanish coast with gusto. He found it almost too easy – and he was now commanding a much bigger and better ship.

On 17 February, the
Imperieuse
spotted a convoy some eight miles west of Cartagena and pursued the ships along the shore. It veered away when it spotted four gunboats, anchoring out of sight of land, and waiting for these to leave their anchorage just after sunset. The predatory
Imperieuse
then moved in among them, firing broadside after broadside, sinking two with all hands and boarding a fourth gun vessel. The fourth escaped to Cartagena, where the Spanish fleet was at anchor.

From the captured prisoners, he learnt that a large French ship filled with munitions was at anchor in the Bay of Almeria, and he decided to ‘cut her out’ – take her at anchor. The
Imperieuse
hoisted American colours, sailed in close to the French ship and sent out two boats with boarding parties. The French opened fire, but were successfully boarded although the leader of the boarding party, Lieutenant Caulfield, was killed as he jumped aboard. However, the wind suddenly died away, leaving the
Imperieuse
and its prize becalmed under a heavy fire from shore batteries just half a mile away. The battery damaged the hull of the prize, which Cochrane had skilfully placed between the
Imperieuse
and the enemy guns, and at 11a.m. a light breeze took them out of range – not a moment too soon, as a Spanish ship of the line had arrived to help. The
Imperieuse
was, however, the faster ship, and got away.

After securing a number of prizes laden with wine, the
Imperieuse
ran into a gale and was compelled to seek the nearest safe anchorage – under a cliff dominated by an enemy barracks. The troops there opened fire, but broadsides from the
Imperieuse
demolished the barracks. Near Majorca, Cochrane landed a party to blow up the battery of Jacemal. But he was running short of food and water. He landed a force nearby which captured some sheep, bullocks and pigs. He landed a boat to forage water near Blanes. A large body of troops appeared, but
as they fired their muskets, the
Imperieuse
’s cannon, a quarter of a mile off, responded, and they fled back into the woods.

On 20 May a convoy of eight boats was spotted, escorted by four gunboats. These ran close inshore, firing briskly, and three of them grounded. Keeping up a hail of musket fire, Cochrane’s men soon compelled the crews of two of them to abandon their vessels, and captured the third whose wounded captain had refused to strike his colours. As the wind got up suddenly, Cochrane decided to set the two grounded ones on fire, while managing to get one off as a prize.