Cochrane (15 page)

The hustings seemed more like a fair or market while the ministerial candidate, Cavendish Bradshaw, addressed the crowd. Under flat, farmers' hats, the rubicund faces of the electors shone with well-fed enthusiasm. Among these voters and their wives in summer dresses and bonnets, moved the boat's crew of the
Pallas
and a horde of unenfranchised rustics eager for the fun. Bradshaw spoke briefly and was heard with the respect due to a candidate who paid his way. The crowd cheered dutifully as he sat down.

When Cochrane rose, tall and impressive in his captain's royal blue and gold, the voters waited to see what he could offer them. They heard a cool, restrained speech against naval corruption. Some began to shift impatiently. Voices urged him to "spend his money sailor-fashion". He replied that he would stand "on patriotic principles", and there was shocked silence. Patriotism was appealed to like this by men who were not prepared to pay their way. The hecklers reminded him that he could not take a man's vote for nothing, any more than he would expect to take his cattle or barley.
³²

There was a welcome diversion when Cochrane sat down, and Bradshaw and Cobbett got up, shouting abuse at one another. Whether it was the boat's crew of the
Pallas
or Bradshaw's men who struck the first blow, the excitement spread, the crowd erupting as a struggling, brawling mob. In this Hogarthian melee, men who were first aboard enemy ships gave a good account of themselves in the streets of Honiton. While Bradshaw and Cobbett bawled their insults, the words "windbag" and "libeller" clear above the tumult, Cochrane rose and roared at his men for order. But when peace was restored, the hustings were deserted, the bunting trampled, the political debate over. Cochrane was urged to canvass "independent voters", but it was a discouraging process. One such independent soul grinned up eagerly at him, when approached, and whispered, "You need not ask me, my lord, who I votes for. I always votes for Mister Most." When reproached for such cynicism, the Honitonians replied that Members of Parliament "took care to get
well-paid",
and the voters "had a right to do the same if they could". But while they reprimanded Cochrane, the electors jeered Cobbett, adapting the cry, "Bread and cheese, and no empty cupboard", so that the streets of Honiton echoed to, "Bread and cheese, and
no empty Cobbett!"

It is a tribute to Cochrane's personal appeal that, though he lost, some people actually voted for him. The rest took their five guineas from Bradshaw and elected him. But after this, a crier appeared in the streets, ringing his handbell and chanting, "All those who voted for Lord Cochrane may repair to his agent, J. Townshend, Esquire, and receive ten pounds ten." The ballot was not secret and the names of these voters were known. Bradshaw's supporters were dumbfounded. To bribe one's men beforehand was common enough: to reward men afterwards, without warning, was another matter. Worse still, Bradshaw's voters had actually lost money by electing him.
³⁴

The young man whom the electors had dismissed as a political simpleton drove out of Honiton on the Plymouth road. He left behind him a constituency in which even the most corrupt men now felt that they had, somehow, had the worst of the encounter.

Some, of course, comforted themselves by regarding his Quixotic gesture as a mere spiting of enemies. They were wrong. It was part of a calculated strategy to set him at the centre of British politics. As the
Pallas
put to sea again, and he reflected on the lessons of the campaign, his reforming zeal in respect of the Royal Navy grew to embrace the entire political and electoral system of Great Britain. He decided to stand for parliament again at the next opportunity, as an "independent" candidate and a sympathiser with parliamentary reform.

During the rest of
1805,
the
Pallas
was assigned to convoy duty between Portsmouth and Quebec. On the first crossing, it was discovered that during the Honiton election someone in the dockyard had removed the valuable copper bolts securing the ship's compass and had replaced them with iron. In consequence, the compass would never work accurately and the
Pallas
owed her escape from disaster to a sudden clearing of fog on the Canadian coast. On the long weeks of the crossing Cochrane also had ample experience of the difficulties of keeping a convoy together. The frigate displayed a lamp at night for the other ships to follow but merchant captains preferred to rely on the blaze of light in the stern windows of other vessels ahead of them. This led to confusion from time to time as some of the slower, laden merchantmen got the wrong course and were separated from the convoy.
³⁵

Cochrane had devised a powerful and distinctive convoy lamp which would shine like a beacon from the frigate and guide the convoy by its unambiguous glare. He offered the idea to the Admiralty who rejected it. Soon afterwards, however, their Lordships announced a competition with a prize of fifty pounds for the best design for such a convoy lamp. Knowing that it would be useless to enter the idea under his own name, Cochrane persuaded his agent, Brooks, to put it forward as his own entry. It won the competition. With some satisfaction, its inventor then revealed his true identity. In consequ
ence, he wrote, "not a lamp was
ever ordered, and the merchantmen were left to the mercy of the privateers as before". Lord St Vincent might have gone, but Cochrane recognised that his true enemies were the "administrative powers of the Admiralty". These were the secretaries and the civil servants, the placemen and their hirelings, who survived wars and treaties, ministers and changes of government, alike. They had recognised their adversary from the start and were assiduously plotting his downfall.
³⁶

By the time that Cochrane returned from convoy duty at the end of the year, Trafalgar was over and the great pageant of Nelson's burial was in preparation. Napoleon, having failed to gain command of the Dover straits for the necessary six hours had turned to the conquest of Austria. His success at Ulm, despite the British victory at Trafalgar, had proved a final insupportable blow to Pitt. His face a sickly yellow and haggard by mortal illness, the great Prime Minister had entered the last weeks of his life.

In the new year of
1806,
the
Pallas
under Cochrane's command was sent with Admiral Thornborough's squadron to patrol the Bay of Biscay. This assignment was intended to keep him as much under the control of his superiors as possible. Happily, the Admiralty's intentions were frustrated by Thornborough who, knowing that he would have a half-share in all Cochrane's prizes, gave the
Pallas
considerable freedom. The
frigate now boasted a special
weapon, devised by her captain. This was an
18
-oar galley, designed by Cochrane and built for him by the Deal boatbuilders at his own expense. When lowered for action, this craft had a formidable turn of speed and was, of course, not dependent on favourable winds.

The first nuisance-raids of the
Pallas
were among the islands of the Biscay coast between Les Sables d'Olonne and La Rochelle. The French fishing fleets were rounded up and boarded. Since the fishermen were poor and he had no quarrel with them, Cochrane allowed them to keep their boats but insisted on taking their catch so that it should not reach the hands, and stomachs, of England's enemies. However, he paid them the cost of the fish out of his own pocket.

Moving inshore, towards the port of Les Sables, he ordered out the galley and took a French merchantman loaded with casks of wine, which were gratefully received aboard the
Pallas.
By this time, the rumours of his activities had spread along the coast of the Vendue, so that at the first sight of the frigate and her galley, French merchant captains ran their ships on to the sandy beaches and abandoned them, to avoid being captured. Cochrane sent his men after them, carrying the war literally on to enemy soil. With two prize vessels already accompanying him, he noticed a brig anchored just off the harbour mouth of Les Sables. The boats of the
Pallas
were lowered and made towards the prize under the very eyes of the local inhabitants on the harbour mole. It was growing dark but the Sablais and their local militia ran for their muskets and opened fire on the boats of the
Pallas.
Cochrane gave an order from the quarterdeck and there was a long flicker of flame, as the first broadside thundered from the open ports. The shells burst widely in the town and the local musketeers, accepting the inevitable, ceased fire. Cochrane remained off the town all night, bringing the
Pallas
inshore the next morning to collect another brig which had been run on the sands near the mole. There was nothing for it but to send the boat crew ashore to bring her off. Once again the Sablais assembled but a single shot from the
Pallas,
booming across the surf, was enough to dissuade them from action. The men of the frigate landed and brought off their new prize while the citizens, whose armed republic was supposed to be the terror of Europe, watched with sheepish self-consciousness.
³⁷

The prizes of March
1806
were not in themselves of much consequence, but Cochrane's value in terms of propaganda was incalculable. News of his raids was briefly and rarely reported in England but the effect of them in France was significant. Paris might echo to the triumphs of Ulm and Austerlitz, the battle honours of Wagram and Jena might embellish the standards of Napoleon's legions, but on the Biscay coast men wondered why it was, if France was the conqueror of Europe, that their coastal trade was mercilessly harried and that along the sandy beaches of the Vendee merchant captains ran their vessels ashore indiscriminately at the sight of a solitary frigate and her fast-moving galley.

Sooner or later the French Navy must intervene to protect commerce. Cochrane had no intention of avoiding such an encounter. Indeed, it seemed to him entirely appropriate to crown months of prize-taking by victory in a sea fight. On
29
March
1806,
he delivered to Admiral Thornborough some of the captured wine "of fine quality, on its way to Havre for the Parisian market". Thornborough then despatched the
Pallas
in pursuit of another French convoy. Having captured one of its ships, Cochrane sailed into the mouth of the Gironde, the long river estuary of Bordeaux. It was reported that several French corvettes were stationed near the mouth of the Gironde as a first line of defence for the great city against an attack from the sea. The corvettes were smaller than the
Pallas
but three or four of them ought to have been more than a match for her.

On the night of
5
April
1806,
Cochrane dropped anchor off the Cordouan lighthouse, several miles out to sea from the fortress of Royan and Fort du Verdon, on either side of the river's mouth. He was aided by a thick fog which helped to conceal the
Pallas,
while the light of Cordouan acted as his guide. The frigate's boats, including Cochrane's patent galley, were lowered, requiring so many sailors to man them that only forty out of the crew of
220
were left on board. Cochrane was obliged to remain with the
Pallas
but the boats, under the command of First Lieutenant John Haswell, dipped their oars and cut the cold Biscay swell. Presently, they faded into the darkness and the fog which shrouded the estuary several miles away.

At
3
a.m. on an uneventful night, anchored almost within the river system of France, the men of the watch on the corvette
Tapa
geuse,
duty guard-ship in the mouth of the Gironde, were puzzled by a gentle bumping alongside, a sudden scrambling of men, and the appearance of armed British sailors and a detachment of marines in scarlet and white. The
Tapageuse
was roused in an instant, men clambering up from the lower deck to join the confused fight. Resistance was fierce but brief and those who were not quick enough to jump and swim for the shore soon found themselves prisoners of Lieutenant Haswell and his men. Two French corvettes, realising at last what had happened, put out to rescue the
Tapageuse.
But the prize crew had too great a start and, adding injury to insult, the men of the
Pallas
were already working the guns of the corvette, the broadsides flaring through the fog. The pursuers fell back and the
Tapageuse
sailed in darkness and stealth under the guns of Royan and gained the open sea.

By this time, a general alarm had been raised. It was to be some time before the captured corvette could rendezvous with the
Pallas,
and Cochrane's ship was, in all theory, defenceless so long as he had no more than forty men on board. Indeed, as the sea began to lighten in the early dawn it seemed that the one disaster which had always threatened his plan was about to occur. Three sails appeared to windward, bearing down on his undermanned ship. He signalled them in the current Admiralty code, hoping that they might be from Admiral Thornborough's squadron. The signals were unanswered and the ships, being to windward, closed rapidly on the frigate. They were French corvettes, none of them as large as the
Pallas
but carrying forty or fifty guns between them, against her thirty-two, and over three hundred men against Cochrane's forty. The situation was actually worse than this, since though the
Pallas
had thirty-two guns, there were no crews to man thirty of them at all.