Part 11
The French ships having lost no time in communicating with the Spanish admiral at Cadiz, he promptly appeared off Algesiras with a reinforcement of six ships of the line, several frigates, and gunboats. The enemy having by this time warped off their grounded ships, as well as the _Hannibal_, and having by the 12th got them in sea-going order, the whole sailed from Algesiras, followed by the British squadron, which, by great exertions, had been got in readiness for pursuit.
Of the action which subsequently took place I have no personal knowledge, other than that of a scene witnessed by myself from the garden of the commissioner’s house, in which I was staying.
The enemy were overtaken at dusk, soon after leaving the bay, and when it had become dark, Captain Keats, in the _Superb_, gallantly dashed in between the two sternmost ships, firing right and left, and passed on. Of course I do not assert myself to have been personally cognisant of the way in which the attack was made, the firing only being visible from the Rock, but that this is the correct version of the affair rests upon indisputable authority. The movement was so rapidly executed, that the _Superb_ shot ahead before the smoke cleared away, and the Spanish ships, the _Real Carlos_, 112, and the _San Hermenegildo_, 112, mistaking each other for the aggressor, began a mutual attack, resulting in the _Real Carlos_ losing her foretop-mast, the sails of which—falling over her own guns—caught fire. While in this condition the _Hermenegildo_—still engaging the _Real Carlos_ as an enemy—in the confusion fell on board her and caught fire also. Both ships burned till they blew up, and nearly all on board perished; a few survivors only escaping on board the _Superb_ as Captain Keats was taking possession of a _third_ Spanish line-of-battle ship, the _San Antonio_—for whose second captain, as has been said, I was exchanged.
The remainder of the combined squadron got safely back to Cadiz after an encounter between the _Formidable_ and _Venerable_. I am aware that the preceding account of the action with the French ships at Algesiras differs in some respects from that compiled by naval historians from the despatches; but this circumstance will not prevent me from giving my own version of a conflict in which it was my misfortune to be a reluctant spectator. The _Real Carlos_, one of the ships blown up, bore the flag of the Spanish Admiral, Moreno, who with Admiral Linois was said to be at the time on board a Spanish frigate.
CHAP. VII.
ADMIRALTY RELUCTANCE TO PROMOTE ME.
LETTER FROM SIR ALEXANDER COCHRANE.—SECOND LETTER FROM SIR ALEXANDER.—BOTH WRITTEN UNKNOWN TO ME.—RELUCTANCE OF LORD ST. VINCENT TO PROMOTE ME.—LETTER FROM MY FATHER TO LORD ST. VINCENT, URGING MY RIGHT TO PROMOTION.—LORD ST. VINCENT’S REPLY.—ITS FALLACY.—HIS LORDSHIP’S REASONING A SUBTERFUGE.—PROMOTION OF MY FIRST LIEUTENANT REFUSED. MY IMPRUDENT REMARK TO LORD ST. VINCENT, WHO BECOMES MY ENEMY.—FURTHER EFFORT TO PROMOTE LIEUTENANT PARKER.—ADMIRALTY REFUSAL ALSO.—LIEUTENANT PARKER’S EVENTUAL PROMOTION, AND SUBSEQUENT SHAMEFUL TREATMENT.
It has been already stated that not only was the action with the _Gamo_ for some time unnoticed in the customary manner, but the post rank to which the rule of the service entitled me from the result of the action, was withheld. My friends, being naturally surprised at the retention of what was no favour on the part of Lord St. Vincent, but my unquestionable right, respectfully pointed out to his lordship the nature of the services rendered.
The subjoined letter addressed to Lord St. Vincent by my kind uncle Sir Alexander Cochrane, in reference to the _Speedy’s_ escape from a Spanish frigate (see page 100), was written previous to that relating to the capture of the _Gamo_, but is worthy of record on grounds generally connected with the naval service.
“MY LORD,—Yesterday we received accounts of your Lordship’s being placed at the head of the Admiralty, on which occasion I beg to offer my congratulations. I never subscribed to the opinion that a naval officer ought not to be First Lord of the Admiralty, and from your Lordship’s thorough knowledge of the service, we may now hope for that support on many occasions which we could not look for from those who—not having borne the brunt of the day, or being bred to the Navy—could be but bad judges either of officers’ characters, or the motives which on many occasions actuate them.
“Doubtless your Lordship has already received numerous weighty applications for the promotion of young men in the service, nor would I presume to add to their number but from the obliging expressions your Lordship once made me in favour of Lord Cochrane, had you remained longer on this station. I have the less reserve on this occasion, as I think his Lordship has a claim to be made post, from the presence of mind by which he lately saved H.M.’s sloop _Speedy_, which he at present commands. This I beg leave to recount.
“He had taken several prizes off Carthagena, when, one morning, he found himself close under the guns of a Spanish frigate.
“His only chance of escape was, either to board the frigate, in the hope of finding her unprepared, or to pass off the _Speedy_ as a Danish sloop of war.
“With one of these objects he stood towards her under Danish colours, but, on a near approach, found her too formidable to be carried by the few hands he had on board. On being hailed to know what brig it was, he gave, through the medium of a Danish quartermaster, the name of a Danish brig lately arrived on the station. On being ordered to come on board the frigate with his commission, he informed the Spaniards that his orders from the court of Denmark were not to send a boat on board any foreign man of war, but that if they had any doubts of his not being a Danish sloop of war, they were at liberty to board him.
“On this a boat left the frigate, but just as they were almost alongside the _Speedy_, they were informed that she was in quarantine, being only a few days from Algiers, where the plague at that time existed. On this the Spanish officers in the boat refused to touch a rope, and returned to the frigate, when her captain told Lord Cochrane that he knew his brig, and wished him a pleasant voyage.[26]
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Footnote 26:
As the reader is aware, we had previously painted the _Speedy_ in imitation of the Danish brig.
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“I have ever been of opinion that rewards for bold services cannot be too great, and I must confess, that where one of his Majesty’s ships is saved by presence of mind similar to what I have related, great praise is due to her commander.
“Your Lordship will, I hope, excuse me for trespassing a little longer in favour of my nephew, who is now twenty-five years old, a time of life that promotion can only be of use. His father has expended his whole fortune in discoveries which will be of great use to the public—but the real sufferer is Lord Cochrane. The liberality of your Lordship’s mind will see this in its true light, and also plead my excuse for the liberty I have taken.
“Hoping that your Lordship’s health is reinstated, &c. &c.
“I am, your Lordship’s, &c. &c. “ALEXANDER COCHRANE.
“The Right Hon. Lord St. Vincent.”
I was not aware till recently that Sir Alexander had kindly made this application on my behalf. At the time the preceding letter was written he did not know of the capture of the _Gamo_; the _Ajax_, which he commanded, being then before Alexandria. On learning our success, he again wrote to Lord St. Vincent as follows:—
“_Ajax_, off Alexandria, June 10th, 1801.
“MY LORD,—I some time ago wrote your Lordship in favour of my nephew Lord Cochrane, recommending his being made post.
“I hope your Lordship received my letter, and that you viewed Lord Cochrane’s conduct in the light I did. But if my persuasions were not then judged of sufficient weight, I may now with much confidence come forward and claim for my nephew the palm of victory in both ways, by an act hardly equalled in this war of naval miracles, considering the great inequality of force between the _Speedy_ with fifty-four men, and a xebec frigate of thirty-two guns and 319 men.
“Well knowing that nothing gives your Lordship more pleasure than having an opportunity of rewarding merit, let the rank of the person be what it may, I am confident your Lordship will, on the present occasion, do every justice to Lord Cochrane, though should his promotion have arisen from his former exploits it would be more grateful to my feelings, more especially as his subsequent conduct will do honour to your Lordship’s appointment.
“I believe I told your Lordship, in my former letter, that Lord Cochrane has the world before him. He has three younger brothers to take care of, one of whom boarded at his side[27] when the Spaniard was carried. Unfortunately he has not served his time; if he had I dare say your Lordship would think him worthy of promotion for his conduct on that occasion.
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Footnote 27:
Archibald.
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“It will give me much pleasure to hear that your Lordship’s health is quite re-established, and that you may long live to enjoy it, is the sincere wish of
“Your Lordship’s “Most obedient and humble servant, “A. COCHRANE.
“P.S. I wish I could give your Lordship any pleasing intelligence from this quarter; but ever since the death of Sir R. Abercromby, procrastination has been the order of the day. Never was a gallant army so lost as the present. God grant some man of sense may come out to command them, and save the remnant from destruction. Delay in this climate is worse than death; five men fall a sacrifice to disease for one in the field, and yet I don’t think it unhealthy; our troops suffer from being encamped on burning sands.”
Even this request from a distinguished officer—preferred unknown to me—failed to obtain what was no favour, but my right according to the invariable rule of the service. There was even then clearly some sinister influence at work, of the real cause for which I am to this day ignorant, and can only surmise that it might have arisen from my, no doubt, freely expressed opinions on being appointed to convoy the wretched packet which led to my capture; or perhaps from the still more indiscreet plainness with which I had spoken of the manner in which the French fleet had been unfortunately permitted to escape Lord Keith.
Brenton, in his Life of Lord St. Vincent, thus alludes to the delay in my promotion: “Lord St. Vincent _was so much pressed_ on the subject of Lord Cochrane’s promotion for taking the _Gamo_, that it became almost a point of etiquette with the earl _not to make him a captain_! An illustrious person is reported to have said, ‘My Lord, we must make Lord Cochrane “post;”’ to which Lord St. Vincent replied, ‘The First Lord of the Admiralty knows _no must_.’”
There is no doubt that Captain Brenton received this account from Lord St. Vincent himself, and as the object of his book was to shield his lordship in questionable matters, we may receive this version as it was given to his biographer.
The only direct application that I was at the time aware of having been made was a letter from my father to Lord St. Vincent, _after_ the post rank had been reluctantly conceded by placing me _at the bottom of the list_, below others previously my juniors in the service! My father’s letter and Lord St. Vincent’s reply are subjoined.
“No. 14, Mortimer Street, Sept. 23, 1801.
“MY LORD,—I beg leave, in behalf of my son, Lord Cochrane, who is now in Scotland, to bring under your Lordship’s view, for your consideration, some facts and circumstances which may not hitherto _officially_ have come to your Lordship’s knowledge, from the perusal of which I flatter myself it will appear to your Lordship that there are few instances of as much being performed by one individual in the like space of time, and with a force so inferior.
“When I first heard of Lord Cochrane’s engagement with the _Gamo_, I reckoned it as a matter not admitting of a doubt that your Lordship would reward him by immediately appointing him to a post ship, and I was the more confirmed in this belief from the circumstance that the _Gamo was not taken by surprise_, but at noonday, after an action of an hour and ten minutes; during all of which time the _Gamo’s_ yards were locked with the _Speedy’s_ rigging. The determination of the two vessels to engage was mutual; Lord Cochrane turned up his ship’s company at five in the morning, and informed them of his intention to engage the Spanish frigate.
“The anxiety I must naturally feel for whatever concerns the honour and rank of my son, led me, on Wednesday last, to inquire at the Admiralty how his name stood on the post captains’ list. And I must be allowed to state the surprise and disappointment I felt on finding several masters and commanders on the Mediterranean station—his juniors long before, and for several months after, the taking of the _Gamo_—now placed before him on that list.
“I beg leave to call your Lordship’s attention to what Lord Cochrane’s feelings must be, and what the situation he will be placed in on service from this supersession; and whether his being thus postponed in rank will not have a tendency to detract from the merit of one of the most gallant actions during this or any other war? And whether it may not induce the public at large, or the Navy in particular, to believe that your Lordships have had cause to disapprove of some part of Lord Cochrane’s conduct?
“If all the circumstances of the engagement had come to your Lordship’s knowledge in due time, I am persuaded you would have shown an additional mark of your approbation of Lord Cochrane by making him post from the date of the capture of the _Gamo_, or, at least, that you would not have put over him a number of masters and commanders on the Mediterranean station, who, perhaps equally capable as he of distinguishing themselves, have not been equally fortunate in similar opportunities. I am likewise convinced, my Lord, that those individual officers, who have thus been preferred to him, would not think it any matter of injustice that Lord Cochrane should retain, as post captain, the same seniority he held over them, both before and after his engagement, as master and commander.
“Allow me therefore to request that your Lordship will be pleased to give Lord Cochrane that rank in the navy which it is presumed he would have held if the circumstantial accounts of his engagements had reached your Lordship at an earlier date, or that he had not been so unfortunate as to have been taken by three French line-of-battle ships. I cannot suppose any censure is intended to attach to his conduct on that point; for, in the narrative of his capture, your Lordship will see that during a chase of several hours upon a wind, he received the broadside and bow-chasers of a seventy-four gun ship, and did not strike until, at the distance of musket shot, he received a full broadside of round and grape from the _Dessaix_.
“I do not, however, my Lord, rest my son’s claim for seniority in promotion solely upon the capture of the _Gamo_.[28] Although these particulars, from their being stated in Lord Cochrane’s letters to Captain Dixon of the _Généreux_, are known to your Lordship, yet I cannot help here repeating them, as _from their not being published in the Gazette_ a very erroneous opinion generally prevails that the _Gamo was taken_ by surprise, and not after so long and close an engagement as was really the case.
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Footnote 28:
“He has,” &c. &c. [Here follows a recapitulation of particulars, with which the reader is already acquainted.]
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“But perhaps, my Lord, I may in the whole of this letter have been impelled, by the ardour and anxiety of my own feelings, to urge that which your Lordship’s good intentions may have wholly anticipated towards Lord Cochrane. If so, my Lord, I have only to entreat your excuse for a zeal on my part for the honour and character of my son, for which I hope parental sensations will plead a forcible apology.
“I have the honour, &c. &c. “DUNDONALD.
“The Right Hon. Lord St. Vincent.”
To this letter Lord St, Vincent next day replied as follows:—
“Admiralty, Sept. 24, 1801.
“MY LORD,—I can have no difficulty in acknowledging that the capture of the _Gamo_ reflects the highest degree of credit on Lord Cochrane and the officers and crew of the _Speedy_.
“The first account of that brilliant action reached the Admiralty _very early in the month of August_ (it was fought on the 6th of May), previously to which intelligence had been received of the capture of the _Speedy_, by which Lord Cochrane was made prisoner.
“Until his exchange could be effected, and the necessary inquiry into the cause and circumstances of the loss of that sloop had taken place, it was impossible for the Board, consistently with its usual forms, to mark its approbation of his Lordship’s conduct. Lord Cochrane was promoted to the rank of post captain on the 8th of August, the day on which the sentence of acquittal for the loss of the _Speedy was received_—which was all that could under existing circumstances be done.
“Having entered into this explanation with your Lordship, it remains for me only to add that, however disposed the Board might be to pay attention to the merits of his Lordship, it could not, consistent with its public duty, give him rank from the time of the capture of the _Gamo_—a measure quite unprecedented—without doing an act of injustice to other deserving officers.
“I have the honour, &c. &c. “ST. VINCENT.
“The Earl of Dundonald.”
I shall not shrink from canvassing this matter, the less because Lord St. Vincent has been represented as considering himself bored on the subject. An account of the capture of the _Gamo_ did reach the Admiralty, though later than it ought to have done, and was unjustifiably laid aside. Little that I effected was allowed to find its way into the _Gazette_! Even the log extracts given in the two last chapters, though relating to matters which occurred sixty years ago, are, for the most part, news to the public of the present generation.
But supposing that information relative to the capture of the _Gamo_ had not reached the Admiralty before the news of my being made prisoner, even then it clearly entitled me to post rank from _the date of my acquittal_. Lord St. Vincent asserted that it entitled me to promotion only from the date on which news of my acquittal _was received_! Reference to the Navy List at the time will show that the postponement of my rank was rather owing to the bane of the Admiralty—family influence, and that some of my former juniors were put over my head because it was politically imperative on the Board to promote others before me.
That my promotion to post rank for a previous action was impossible, because I had some time afterwards the misfortune, whilst in a trumpery sloop, to be captured by three French ships of the line; and therefore could not be promoted “_until my exchange could be effected_,” was a subterfuge unworthy of Lord St. Vincent. Had this been the rule of the Admiralty, officers taken prisoners by the French could neither have been tried nor promoted, for _there was no system of exchange_, so that the reward of their services would not depend upon the discretion of the Admiralty or the generosity of their country, but on the will of the enemy’s Minister of Marine, who might detain them prisoners till the close of the war.
By Lord St. Vincent’s interpretation of the Admiralty rule, I should not have been promoted _at all_, or even tried for the loss of the _Speedy_, if, as Lord St. Vincent asserted, no promotion could be given till “my exchange was effected.” The fact is, that I never was exchanged, in the Admiralty sense of the term; for at that period, as has been said, there was no exchange of prisoners with France, nor had any previously taken place for many years. The _Hannibal_ and _Speedy’s_ prisoners owed their liberation to the fact that the French did not know what to do with them; and I owed mine to the fact of Captain Keats having, a few days after I had been liberated on parole, taken a ship of the line, the _San Antonio_; for whose second captain, by courtesy of Admiral Linois towards that officer, my liberation was effected.
Still it was not so much the neglect to promote me, of which proper complaint was made, as the injustice of placing over my head especially, a younger man and a junior officer, gazetted on the same day for a subsequent service, to the success of which he in no degree contributed.[29] Further discussion is unnecessary, my object being to show the principle, or rather want of it, which prevailed at the Admiralty where influence was concerned.
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Footnote 29:
The action in the Straits of Gibraltar, alluded to at page 128, when Captain Keats destroyed two line-of-battle ships, and captured a third, the remainder of the squadron being witnesses only.
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It must, however, be explained, that these remarks in no way apply to the officer promoted, but to the act of promotion. That officer was my former messmate Lieutenant—afterwards Admiral—Dundas, a truly honourable man, whom, in later years, I was proud to call my friend. Strangely enough, the Admiralty which had placed him before me on the list, killed him in the end through grief at his inability to reform abuses; he having been called to the Board, where he worked so assiduously in the vain endeavour to purge the corruption around him, that his health became undermined, and he was one day found dead in a retiring room of the Augean establishment at Whitehall.
Before quitting the Mediterranean, a letter was addressed by me to Lord St. Vincent, requesting him to promote my gallant First Lieutenant Parker, who, as stated in my despatch, was severely wounded in boarding the _Gamo_. No answer being returned to this application, up to the period of my arrival in England, another letter was forwarded to his lordship, which met with the same reception, and afterwards a third, which produced from Lord St. Vincent the reply that my application could not be entertained, for that “it was unusual to promote two officers for such a service,—besides which the small number of men killed on board the _Speedy_ did not warrant the application.”
It was impossible not to feel nettled at a reply so unexpected: that because few men had been killed on board the _Speedy_, her first lieutenant was considered unworthy of promotion, though terribly cut up. To argue with a First Lord is no doubt an imprudent thing for a naval officer to attempt, and my remonstrance in this instance had such an effect as to get my name placed on the black list of the Admiralty, never again to be erased.