The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II

That was the view advanced under Louis Philippe's reign by the Prince de Joinville; but it was much more elaborately worked out by the advocate of naval energy in days immediately preceding Prince Louis Napoleon's accession to power. "What I propose," he said, "is a war founded on this principle of striking at English commerce. In a naval war between two nations, one of which has a very large commerce, and the other very little, military forces are of small consequence. In the end, peace must become a necessity to the power which has much to lose and little to gain. Let us see what took place in America during the disputes on the Oregon question. Despite the immense superiority of the English navy, the Americans maintained their pretensions. England found out that their well-equipped frigates and countless privateers were sufficient to carry on a war against her commerce in all parts of the globe; whilst all the damage she could do to America was the destruction of a few coast-towns, by which she could gain neither honour nor profit; and so she decided to preserve peace by yielding the question. It is this American system that we in France must adopt. Renouncing the glory of fleet victories, we must make active war on the commercial shipping of Great Britain. If America with her small means could gain such an advantage over England, what results may we not expect to obtain with a hundred and fifty ships of war and three hundred corsairs armed with long-range guns?"

The report recommended that the naval force of France should be organized in twenty "corsair-divisions." These were to have Cherbourg for their head-quarters; one to look after the merchant-shipping in the British Channel; another to watch the mouth of the Thames; and a third to cruise along the Dutch and German coasts, so as to intercept our Baltic trade; and all these were to be aided by a line of telegraphs from Brest to Dunkirk, in correspondence with a line of scouts ranged along the French coast, with orders to communicate to the central station at Cherbourg every movement of British merchantmen. Three similar divisions were to be formed at Brest, charged respectively with the oversight of the East and West Indian shipping as it passed Cape Clear, of the Azores, and of the Irish Coast. A seventh division, stationed at Rochefort, was to watch for a favourable opportunity of co-operating with the other six, if desirable, in transporting an army to Ireland. An eighth division was to watch the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, and four others were to be stationed in various parts of the Mediterranean. Three other divisions were to cruise along the North American coast, to harass our commerce with the United States, to intercept the trade of Canada and the neighbouring colonies, and, in spring time, to capture the produce of the Newfoundland fisheries. Three smaller divisions were to be charged with the annoyance of our West Indian Islands and the destruction of their commerce; and the remaining two were to scour the coasts of South America. A separate and formidable establishment of screw-frigates was to have for its head-quarters a port of refuge to be constructed in Madagascar, whence operations were to be directed in all quarters against our East Indian possessions and their extensive trade.

"In addition to these means," it was further said in the report, "the Departmental Councils should each arm one steam-frigate, commanded by an officer of the navy born in the department. The prizes captured by each should in this case be at the disposal of the Departmental Councils, a portion being devoted to defraying the expenses of the vessel, and the remainder applied to the execution of public works within the department." "As regards the defence of French ports, this may be best effected by flat-bottomed hulks, armed with long-range guns adapted to horizontal firing. The chances against invasion are greatly in favour of France, on account of the superiority of her land force, and the facility of transporting troops by railway to the locality attacked." "A great point will be the perfect training of the French squadron by annual evolutions, and with double or treble the requisite number of officers. If these suggestions are carried out, France will establish at sea what Russia has done on land, to the injury and restriction of British commerce, which must be seriously damaged, without material harm being done to ourselves. This loss of commerce will especially affect the working classes of England, and thus bring about a democratic inundation which will compel her to a speedy submission."

Those were the chief proposals of the secret memoir which, falling into the hands of the British Government, so far alarmed it as to lead it to call upon the Earl of Dundonald for his opinions as to the best way of meeting the threatened danger. "This document," he wrote in his reply to Lord Auckland, "describes a plan of maritime operations undoubtedly more injurious to the interests of England than that pursued by France in former wars. There is nothing new, however, in the opinions promulgated. They have long been familiar to British naval officers, whose wonder has been that the wide-spread colonial commerce of England has never yet been effectually assailed. It is true that the advice given in the memoir derives more importance now from the fact that the application of steam-power to a system of predatory warfare constitutes every harbour a port of naval equipment, requiring to be watched, not in the passive manner of former blockades, but effectively by steam-vessels having their fires kindled at least during the obscurity of night. The cost and number of such blockades need not be dwelt on, nor the indefinite period to which prudence on the part of the enemy, and vigilance on that of the blockading force, might prolong a war. One hundred millions sterling added to our national debt would solve a doubt whether the most successful depredation on British commerce could produce consequences more extensive and permanently injurious. The memoir obviously anticipates that 'l'usage des canons bombes, dont les atteintes ont un si prodigieux effet,' will prevent our blockading ships from approaching the shores of France, and that thus their steam-vessels might escape unobserved during night, even with sailing-vessels in tow. This is no vague conjecture, but a consequence which assuredly will follow any hesitation on our part to counteract the system extensively adopted, and now under the consideration of the National Assembly, of arming all batteries with projectiles, whereby to burn or blow up our ships of war – a fate which even the precaution of keeping out of range could not avert, by reason of the incendiary and explosive missiles whereby 'les petits bailments à vapeur pouront attaquer les plus gros vaisseaux.' It is impossible to retaliate by using similar weapons. Forts and batteries are incombustible. Recourse must therefore be had to other means, whereby to overcome fortifications protecting expeditionary forces and piratical equipments."

The means recommended by Lord Dundonald, it need hardly be said, were the secret war-plans which he had developed nearly forty years before, and the efficacy of which had recently been again admitted by the committee appointed to investigate them in 1846. It is not allowable, of course, to quote the paragraphs in which Lord Dundonald once more explained them and urged their adoption in case of need. The only objection offered to them was that they were too terrible for use by a civilized community. "These means," he replied, "all powerful, are nevertheless humane when contrasted with the use of shells and carcases by ships at sea, and most merciful, as competent to avert the bloodshed that would attend the contemplated 'descente en Angleterre ou en Ireland,' and other hostile schemes recommended in the memoir."

That letter was forwarded to Lord Auckland from Halifax, where Lord Dundonald then was, in the beginning of August. "Assuredly the reasons which you give for the use of the means suggested are such as it is difficult to controvert," wrote Lord Auckland on the 18th; "but I would at least defer my assent or dissent to the time when the question may be more pressing than it is at present." "I would postpone my own reflections on the 'secret plans,'" he wrote again on the 1st of September, "and would fain hope that events will allow the Government long to postpone all decision upon them. I agree with you, however, in much that you say upon their principle, and am well satisfied that to no hands better than yours could the execution of any vigorous plans be entrusted."

When, however, as will be seen on a latter page, an opportunity did arise for enforcing those plans against another power than France, their execution was not permitted to Lord Dundonald.

Strongly as he himself was impressed with their importance, they formed only a part of a complete system of opinions respecting the defence of England at which he arrived by close study and long experience. These have already been partially indicated. He did not wish that his plans should be lightly made use of; but, believing that they would ultimately become a recognised means of warfare, and that even without them a great revolution would soon take place in ways of fighting, he deprecated as useless and wasteful the elaborate fortifications which were in his time beginning to be extensively set up at Dover, Portsmouth, and other possible points of attack upon England, and urged, with no less energy, that vast improvements ought to be made in the construction and employment of ships of war.

Fortifications, he considered, were only desirable for the protection of the special ports and depôts around which they were set up; and even for that purpose they ought to be so compact as to need no more than a few troops and local garrisons for their occupation. To have them so complicated and numerous as to require the exclusive attention of all or nearly all the military force of England, appeared to him only a source of national weakness. His own achievements at Valdivia and elsewhere showed him that skilful seamanship on the part of an invader would render them much less sufficient for the defence of the country than was generally supposed. If all our soldiers were scattered along various parts of the coast, it would not be difficult for the enemy, by a bold and sudden onslaught, or still more by a feint of the sort in which he himself was master, to take possession of one, and then there would be no concentrated army available to prevent the onward march of the assailant. Much wiser would it be to leave the seaboard comparatively unprotected from the land, and to have a powerful army so arranged as to be ready for prompt resistance of the enemy, if, by any means, he had gained a footing on the shore.

To prevent that footing being gained, however, Lord Dundonald was quite as eager as any champion of monster fortifications could be; but this prevention, he urged, must be by means of moveable ships, and not by immoveable land-works. A strong fleet of gunboats, stationed all along the coast, and with carefully-devised arrangements for mutual communication, so that at any time their force could be speedily concentrated in one or more important positions, would be far more efficacious and far more economical than the more popular expedients for the military defence of England. He heartily believed, in fact, in the old and often-proved maxim that the sea was England's wall, and he desired to have that wall guarded by a force able to watch its whole extent and pass at ease from one point to another as occasion required.

Desiring that thus the coast should be immediately protected by efficient gunboats, he desired no less to augment the naval strength of the country by means of improved war-ships as much like gunboats as possible. To large ships, if constructed in moderation and applied to special purposes, he was not averse; but he set a far higher value upon small and well-armed vessels, able to pass rapidly from place to place and to navigate shallow seas. "Give me," he often said, "a fast small steamer, with a heavy long-range gun in the bow, and another in the hold to fall back upon, and I would not hesitate to attack the largest ship afloat." His opinion on this point also was confirmed by his own experience – most notably in the exploits of his little Speedy in the Mediterranean – and by the whole history of English naval triumphs. Since the time when the so-called Invincible Armada of Spain entered the British Channel, designed to conquer England by means of its huge armaments, and when the bulky galleons and galeasses of Philip's haughty sailors were chased and worried by the smaller barks and pinnaces of Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and the other sea-captains of Elizabeth, who sailed round and round their foe, and darted in and out of his unwieldy mass of shipping, never failing to inflict great injury, while his volleys of artillery passed harmlessly over their decks to sink into the sea, there had been abundant proof of the constant superiority of small warships over large. A "mosquito fleet," as he called it, was what Lord Dundonald wished to see developed; a swarm of active little vessels, just large enough to carry one or two powerful guns, which could go anywhere and do anything, to which the larger crafts of the enemy would afford convenient targets, but which, small and nimble, would be much less likely to be themselves attacked, and, even if attacked and sunk, would entail far less loss than would ensue from the destruction of a large war-ship. "As large a gun as possible, in a vessel as small and swift as possible, and as many of them as you can put upon the sea," was Lord Dundonald's ideal. For this he argued during half a century; for this he laboured hard and long in the exercise of his inventive powers. In 1826, the plan of the war-steamers which he was to have taken to Greece was explained to Lord Exmouth – no slight authority on naval matters. "Why, it's not only the Turkish fleet," exclaimed the veteran, "but all the navies in the world, that you will be able to conquer with such craft as these."

CHAPTER XXVI

THE EARL OF DUNDONALD'S CLAIM FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE ORDER OF THE BATH. – HIS GOOD SERVICE PENSION. – THE INVESTIGATION OF HIS SECRET WAR-PLANS. – HIS PAMPHLET ON NAVAL AFFAIRS. – HIS INSTALLATION AS A G.O.B. – HIS CANDIDATURE FOR ELECTION AS A SCOTCH REPRESENTATIVE PEER. – THE QUEEN'S PERMISSION TO HIS WEARING THE BRAZILIAN ORDER OF THE "CRUZIERO." – HIS APPOINTMENT AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE NORTH AMERICAN AND WEST INDIAN STATION.

[1839-1848.]

The restoration of his naval rank to the Earl of Dundonald in 1832, was slowly followed by other acts reversing the injustice of previous years by which a large portion of his life had been embittered.

"Your lordship and the Admiralty," he wrote to Lord Minto, then at the head of naval affairs, on the 30th of March, 1839, "may have been surprised that I have never solicited any appointment since my reinstatement in the naval service by his late Majesty, whose memory I shall ever cherish for this magnanimous act of justice. The cause, my lord, has not been from any reluctance on my part, but from a feeling which, I have no doubt, will appear satisfactory to your lordship, if you do me the favour to read the enclosed copy of a letter which I have written this day to the Marquess of Lansdowne as President of the Council." The letter to Lord Lansdowne referred in great part to Lord Dundonald's rotary-engine, and to his secret war-plan, which he expressed his willingness to put in execution if ever it was required. "Your lordship and the Privy Council, however," it was added, "will not fail to observe that, if it shall ever be the intention of the Government, under any circumstances, again to employ me in the naval service, it would be quite inconsistent with the character of that service, as well as my own reputation, for me to assume command, unless the Order of the Bath, gained on the 12th of April, 1809, now thirty years ago, shall be restored to me."

"I hope it will appear to your lordship," said Lord Dundonald, in a letter to Lord Melbourne, dated the 11th July, 1839, "that my services as a naval officer have been useful and honourable to my country; and, referring to those services and to the peculiar opportunities I have since had of acquiring further professional knowledge, I may say, without vanity, that her Majesty has no officer in her navy more experienced than myself; and yet, from the extraordinary circumstances of my case, I am the only flag-officer in her Majesty's service who, if called upon to take a command, could not do so consistently with his own honour and the respect due to those who might be appointed to serve under him. For where is the officer who could not conveniently call to mind, that I, who when only a captain was a Knight of the Bath, was deprived of that honour, and that now, though a flag-officer, I have not been deemed worthy of having it restored?" "I am sensible," wrote Lord Dundonald in another letter to the Premier, written eight days later, "that the act of justice which I experienced from the late King, under the ministry of Earl Grey, of which your lordship was a distinguished member, in restoring me to my naval rank, was a great favour, inasmuch as it evinced a considerate feeling towards me; and I was then fully satisfied with it, under the impression that it would be viewed by the public, and especially by the navy, as a testimony of the belief of the Government, at that time, that I was innocent of the offence that had been laid to my charge, and also that I should stand as good a chance as most of my brother officers (and perhaps, from my experience, a better) of being called to active service. I did not then foresee that the restoration of my naval rank alone would be viewed as a half-measure. Still less did I anticipate that, in the event of my being offered an appointment, I should be incapacitated from accepting it by reason of the feelings of other officers that I still laboured under some imputation which would render it derogatory to them to serve under me. But it is now impossible for me to conceal from myself the fact that, while the navy generally is kindly disposed towards me, and would rejoice to see me fully reinstated in all that I once enjoyed, I am considered by many to remain as completely precluded from active service as if my name had never more appeared in the Navy List, I trust, my lord, that it cannot be thought reasonable to reduce me to the inglorious condition of a retired or yellow admiral at home, and at the same time to deny me the privilege of acquiring either emolument or distinction in foreign service."

Lord Dundonald's hope was that, on the occasion of her Majesty's marriage, there would be a bestowal of honours, which would afford a convenient opportunity for the restoration of his dignity as a Knight of the Bath. But in this he was disappointed.

A minor favour was conferred upon him, however, and in a very gratifying way, eighteen months later. "You are probably aware," wrote Lord Minto to him on the 3rd of January, 1841, "that the death of Sir Henry Bayntam has vacated one of the pensions for good and meritorious service. Before I left town a few days ago I made my arrangements to enable me to confer this pension upon you, if you should think it worthy of your acceptance, either as evidence of the high estimation in which I have ever held your services, or as convenient in a pecuniary point of view. Although you are one of the few who have not applied for this, I do not fear that any one of the numerous claimants can show so good a title to it."

That compliment was accepted by Lord Dundonald in a spirit answering to that in which it was offered. Yet his reasonable anxiety for a restitution of the Order of the Bath was not abated, and thereupon he was engaged in a correspondence with the Earl of Haddington, then First Lord of the Admiralty, during the early part of 1842, which was closed by the intimation, bitterly disappointing to Lord Dundonald, that the Cabinet Council declined recommending the Queen to comply with his earnest request.

Equally disappointing was the result of another application with the same object which he made to Sir Robert Peel in the autumn of 1844. "Her Majesty's servants," wrote Sir Robert Peel on the 7th of November, "have had under consideration the letter which I received from your lordship, bearing date the 10th of September. On reference to the proceedings which were adopted in the year 1832, it appears that, previously to the restoration of your lordship to your rank in the navy, a free pardon under the Great Seal was granted to your lordship; and adverting to that circumstance, and to the fact that thirty years have now elapsed since the charges to which the free pardon had reference were the subject of investigation before the proper judicial tribunal of the country, her Majesty's servants cannot consistently with their duty advise the Queen to reopen an inquiry into these charges."

Lord Dundonald failed to see, in the partial reversal, twelve years before, of the unjust treatment to which he had been subjected eighteen years before that, a reason for refusing to inquire whether there was any injustice yet to be atoned for. He had not, however, very much longer to wait for the object which he sought.

One of his grounds for desiring a public recognition of the efficacy of his secret war-plans was a reasonable belief that, if it was seen that through half a lifetime he had steadfastly avoided using for his private advantage what might have been to him a vast source of wealth, in order that the secret might be reserved solely for the benefit of his country, it would be acknowledged to be incredible that, for insignificant ends, he could have resorted to the gross and clumsy fraud attributed to him at the Stock Exchange trial. And in this expectation he was right. Nearly all the reparation that was now possible quickly followed upon the investigation into the war-plans that was referred to in the last chapter.

While the investigation was pending he was pained by a letter from Sir Thomas Hastings, not unkind in itself, but showing that his real motives for courting that investigation were not understood. "I made a communication to-day," wrote Sir Thomas on the 27th of November, 1846, "that the commission had entered on its duties, and received instructions to inform you that it would be desirable, before the commission proceeded further, to ascertain your lordship's views as to the nature of the remuneration you would expect from Government in the event of your plans being reported on favourably."

Lord Dundonald's reply was characteristic. "You intimate a wish on the part of Government," he wrote on the 1st of December, "to ascertain my views in regard to the 'remuneration' I expect, in the event of my plans being favourably reported on. I reply that I devoted these plans, thirty-five years ago, to the service of my country, that I have reserved them through the most adverse and trying circumstances, satisfied that at some future time I should prove my character to be above pecuniary considerations or mercenary motives. I have looked forward to the restoration of those honours, of which I was most unjustly bereaved, and to freedom from mental anguish, endured throughout an isolation from society of one-third of a century. I cannot contrast with such sufferings, nor with my plans, any sum that Government could bestow. Nevertheless, I have implicitly relied that collateral deprivations and losses would be taken into consideration by some future, just, and impartial Administration. I do most earnestly hope that the period has now arrived."

That letter was communicated by Sir Thomas Hastings to Lord Auckland. "I return the letter," he wrote to Sir Thomas on the 16th of December, "which Lord Dundonald wrote to you upon the remuneration which he would expect in the event of a favourable report upon his plans; namely, first, his restoration to the honours of which he was deprived; and, secondly, a consideration of collateral deprivations and losses. I am sorry to acquaint you that the first condition is one to which I am not authorized to promise an acquiescence. It is not necessary that I should discuss the difficulties which occur to the restoration in question. I can only express my own deep regret that they should exist, and that the hopes which have been entertained by Lord Dundonald should be disappointed. For myself, I personally regard him. I look upon his naval career as most remarkable and most honourable; and I must lament whatever may seem to detract from the advantage and grace of his return to the navy."