The life and daring exploits of Lord Dundonald

Front matter

m for tlje

Peparttnent of fntglislj

BLACKWOOD'S EIGHTEENPENNY BIOGRAPHIES

Preface

Immediately upon the death of Lord Dundonald the author of this book began to collect the materials which are condensed in the succeeding narrative. He undertook the task, believing that few illustrious English warriors of our own and our fathers' times, and few of those who have within the same period taken a foremost part in the advancement of the national liberties, present a more instructive and attractive theme for a cheap popular biography. Very soon after the work was commenced, it was discovered that much longer time must be bestowed upon its preparation than had been anticipated. There was a large number of years to traverse, most of them crowded with important incidents. This of itself was enough to prevent the possibility of hasty workmanship. And besides, each leading event of Lord Dundonald's life has been made the subject of very keen dispute ; and the conflicting materials on the comparison of which must depend the judgments of the

IV PREFACE.

biographer and of posterity, are scattered in very various, frequently in recondite, quarters. These considerations sufficiently explain and justify the interval of months which has separated the publication of the narrative from the death of its subject.

A more immature work would doubtless have gained some share of the success which is easily purchased by the early prodiiction of catch-penny compilations on the lives of illustrious men. This work appears under the disadvantage of being forestalled by preceding publications, which must be classed under this not very creditable category. There is, however, a large class — probably the majority — of readers who look for that care in research and maturity of reflection which consist only with deliberate preparation. To these we preferred to make our appeal, rather than to depend upon a quickly-obliterated curiosity, the attempt to profit by which would have sacrificed all chance of the acceptance of the book as a permanent component part of popular biographical literature.

Chapter I

ancestry and early dats.

PAGE

Descent traced to a Norwegian stock — A Cochrane made Earl of Mar — Royalist Cochranes in the Great Rebellion —The family raised to the peerage as Barons Cochrane — Services to the Duke of Monmouth — First Earl of Dundonald — Pedigree of Thomas, tenth Earl — Life and character of his father — His scientific discoveries and their cost— Imperfections of the hero's early education — A lesson in philology — The French tutor, the magpies, and the cherries — Lord Cochrane designed for the army — His curious drill and costume — Encounter with London gamins — Five years of idleness— Receives his commission as midshipman 9

Chapter II. Early Cruises — Training In Seamanship

Lord Cochrane joins the Hind — Jack Larmour — A Midshipman's Cliest — He learns practical seamanship — The Hind sent to Norway — Objects of the Cruise — Norwegian hospitality^ The Ship's Parrot — " Let go ! " — Lord Cochrane appointed to the Thetis — A Five Years' Cruise in American "Waters — Sees no fighting — Nova Scotia fogs — Strange Phenomenon in an Iceberg— Impressment — Appointed Lieutenant

VI CONTENTS.

PAGB

— Transferred to the Africa — Porpoises and a Theory of Pain — Appointed to the Resolution, Flag-Ship of the Admiral — Life Ashore — An Encounter with a Bellicose Sow — " Roasted instead of the Pig" — Shirks the Bottle — Keturns to England

CHAPTEE III.

A FRUITLESS EXPEDITION.

.Appointed to the Mediterranean Fleet — Blockade of Cadiz — "The stinking Scotch ship" — An altercation and a Court-martial — A French fleet heard of — Bungling in high places — Long odds — A brave Commander — "Between the devil and the deep sea " — A fight frustrated — A bloodless victory — A chase- Junction of the French and Spanish Fleets — They escape through the Straits of Gibraltar — Safe iu Brest Harbour — They escape again — A fight in Gibraltar B.oads — English sailors cowards for once — Acquaintance with Lord I\TeLon — His characteristic advice — Cochrane appointed Prize-master of the G&nbrcux — Providential escape from destruction— A gale — Good seamanship — Appointed to his Fir-t Command 33

Chapter IV. Cetjise Of The Speedy — A Cabeee Of Captt/kes

First command — A feeble craft — Objects of the Cruise — Captures his first prize — Blockade of Genoa — A narrow escape — A sham Dane and a sham pestilence — A masqued ball and a curious costume — Lord Cochrane fights a duel — Capture of the Gnmo — Satanic boarders — A mistake about a flag — The odds in the fight — The prize hard to keep — Lord Cochrane's younger brother — Admiralty pique — An equivocal certificate of bravery — Professional jealousy — A trip to Algiers — Hunting in couples — Becomes a letter-carrier — A bonfire of

CONTENTS. Vll

PAGE

oil — Chased by three French ships — The Speedy captured— French courtesy — Philosophy and politeness — Farewell to the Speedy— An intruder at the breakfast table — An action off Algesiras — The Union Jack upside down — Parole at Gibraltar— A singular encounter — Returns to England . . 4lt

CHAPTEE V.

ON SHOEE WITHOUT EMPLOYMENT.

A.D. 1801—1803.

Promotion comes with difficulty — Too warm friends — The penalties of imprudent outspokenness — The ethics of professional promotion — Fate of Lord Cochrane's first lieutenant — Lord Cochrane mortally offends Lord St. Vincent — Who won the battle of Cape St. Vincent ? — No use asking for employment— Cochrane studies Naval abuses — Admiralty courts — • Testimony of Captain Brenton on the state of the Navy — Boroughmongering — Worthless ships bought or tried from Partizaus— Transports in Messina harbour — Nefarious sacrifice of human life — Slop clothing and its cost— A cooper's bill — "The dockyards stink of corruption" — Robberies of sick seamen — A hospitable surgeon — Something like a bribe — Sponge or lint — A discovery in a hospital cellar — Scaling a wall for rum — "Jack's as bad as his master " — Lord Cochrane ambitious of a seat in Parliament — Enters himself as a university student — A pupil of Dugald Stewart — The war renewed — a ship promised 58

Chapter VI

AFLOAT AGAIN — A BICH HABVEST OF PEIZES. A.D. 1803—1806.

Appointed to command a Newcastle collier — Earl St. Vincent's revenge complete — "Exile in a tub" — Appointed to the Pallas— A greedy admiral— A prolific month's cruise — A noble act — "Unsaleable" goods — A narrow escape and a clever feint — Conducts a convoy to Canada — Routine de-

VUl COHTETTTS.

PAGE

feated — Towed by Kites — Joins the squadron in tbe Channel — Cheap claret — Lord Cochrane and Mr. Croker — Great exploits but few prizes —French tactics— Cochrane's galley — A consolation — Cruises in the estuary of the Garronne — Capture of the Tapageuse — One cause of Lord Cochrane's great success as a c ptain — More Admiralty neglect— A few words on Admiralty administration — Cochrane destroys three corvettes— The double risk of daring — Another clever feint — Destruction of signals — The Pallas is disabled and returns to England .......... ~0

CHAPTEE VII.

Stands for Honiton — Refuses to bribe, and is beaten — "Mr. Most" — Rewards his supporters — Again contests Honiton — Is returned — Refuses to repeat his former reward — An election supper bill — Solicits and obtains the promotion of his lieutenants, Parker and Haswell — Admiralty favouritism — Parliament again dissolved — Cochrane stands with Sir Francis Burdett for Westminster — His election speeches — Returned at the head of the poll — Speaks on the Address — Motion on placemen and pensioners — Great speech on naval abuses — Culpable loss of ships and crews — The Felix — The Atalante — Sailors kept from landing when close to the shore after long voyages— S;dt junk, scurvy, and lime-juice — Inhuman treatment of the sick — Instances — Cochrane pooh-poohed, and his motions negatived — The Admiralty, in terror, order him to his ship to join Lord Collingwood in the Mediterranean . 8,ri

CHAPTEE VIII.

CETJISE OF THE " IMPEEIETJSE." THE SPANIAEDS ASSISTED. A.D. 1806—1808.

Appointed to the Tmpirieuse — Dockyard "despatch" — Stores shipped in the Channel — The Impcrieuse in an awkward

CONTENTS. IX

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predicament — Victuals the Atalante — Joins the Mediterranean Fleet— Is permitted to cruise separately — Receives discretionary powers — Captures a privateer — Is mulcted by the Maltese Admiralty Court — Appointed to command a blockading squadron — Makes a strange discovery, and three prizes — The cup dashed from his lips — Sent once more to the coasts of France and Spain — Spain declares war against France, and becomes our ally — Cochrane's efforts to assist the Spaniards against the French— Services on shore — The Imperieuse warmly welcomed by the Spaniards — The atrocities of the French — He destroys their means of communication— The magnanimity of his present course of action — Takes Mongat — With difficulty prevents the infuriated Spaniards from murdering the captured French — Cruises on the coast of Languedoc — The Imperieuse charges cavalry — A specimen leaf from the records of his cruises — Affair of Ciotat — Numerous batteries and telegraph stations destroyed — A device borrowed from King Robert Bruce — Attack on Cette — Daring manner of obtaining water — A bullock hunt- No recognition of services by the Admiralty — Warm approval of Collingwood — Curious incident recently related by Lord Brougham — What the French thought of Cochrane . 9'J

CHAPTER IX.

COCHEANE STANDS A SIEGE.

A.D. 1808-1809.

A quick run to Gibraltar and back — The Imperieuse fires on the French in Barcelona — A strange shot — Proceeds to the relief of Rosas — State of affairs there when he arrived — Fort Trinity — Strategical points of the siege and the defence — A misunderstanding with a Guerilla Junta — Incidents of the siege — Cochrane occupies Fort Trinity — Description of the fort, and its means of defence — A man-trap — A sliding scale leading to an abyss — Fish-hooks and bomb-shells — Cochrane has his nose driven in — A reinforcement of Irishmen — The town of Rosas taken by the French — A tardy reinforcement

CONTENTS.

PAGE

—Cochrane refuses to capitulate — A strange presentiment — Escape from capture — Chivalrous refusal by Cochrane to take a man's life — The citadel capitulates— Cochrane evacuates the fort— He blows it up— Warm commendation by Lord Collingwood — Spanish testimony — An incident of the siege — ^reconnaissance inland — Forty thousand cowards — Daring exploit in Caldagues harbour— Cochrane his own prize-adjudicator— A haul of prizes — A cool request — Cochrane asks leave to return home — His real reasons for so doing — Admiralty Court abuses — Cochrane' s plans for conducting the war — The Peninsular War might have been avoided by adopting them 114

CHAPTEE X.

THE BASQUE EOADS — COCHKANe'S PIAX OP ATTACE.

The war flags — Unpopularity of the Ministry, and discontent of the people— Napoleon at the zenith of his power — The Ministry wish a bold stroke to be struck, and turn to Cochrane — Resume of Lord Gambier's position — The French break the blockade of several ports, and concentrate their fleet off the Isle of Aix — Gambier blockades them at the mouth of the Charente — Gambier and every one else consulted by the Admiralty, are against an attack by fire-ships — The arduousness of the enterprise, as thrust upon Cochrane— The risks he ran — Danger of professional jealousy — Cochrane details his plans to Lord Mulgrave — Long refuses to undertake personally their execution ; but is persuaded against his will — Distinctive nature of the plan — Attnck to be made by fire and explosive ships — That to be followed up by a regular attack by the whole fleet — His dependence upon the moral effect of panic — Psychological aspect of his usual strategy — The points on the settlement of which the whole question of the subsequent failure of the attack turns — Lord Gambier declines all responsibility — Recapitulation . 130

CONTENTS. XI

CHAPTEE XI.

THE ACTION IN THE BASQTTE ROADS.

PAGE

Arrives at the Basque Roads — His warm reception — An admiral inopportunely preaches — Defective soundings — Cochrane repairs the deficiencies — Chief particulars on which the feasibility of his enterprise depended — Points of strategical difference between Cochrane and Gamliier — The agents of attack and defence — A gigantic boom — Cochrane fires the explosive vessel — The explosion — The boom shattered — iST arrow escape of Cochrane and his volunteers — A mountain of water — Bad management of the fire-sbips — Tremendous panic among the French — Discoveries of the dawn — "Signal " correspondence of the admiral — "Very good!" — Gambier declines to support — Cochrane attacks single-handed — Losses of the French — Slender assistance at last afforded — Cochrane recalled and superseded — An angry discussion — He is, sent to England with despatches 140

CHAPTEE XII.

WHAT CAME OF THE BASQUE EOADS EXPLOIT. A.D. 1809—1810.

Cochrane receives the Order of the Bath — Refuses to join in the contemplated vote of thanks by Parliament to Lord Gambier — Gambier demands a Court-Martial — Unsuccessful attempts to divert Cochrane from his resolution — How Gambier conducted his defence — Garbled despatches and fabricated charts — "Formidab'e obstacles" on the Isle of Aix — Earl Howe in the Basque Roads in 1757 — Clarendon's character of Blake applied to Cochrane— Lady Chatterton's defence of Lord Gambier reviewed — The vote of thanks — Cochrane's name excluded — The debate — Cochrane's speech — He is refused employment— Joins in the agitation of the

Xll CONTENTS.

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Radicals — His "extreme opinions" — Offers to conduct an expedition against the French fleet in the Scheldt — Renews in Parliament his exposure of naval abuses — Pensions and sinecures — His grandmother's pension drawn by some one eight years after her death — He becomes a formidable opponent of the ministry — They endeavour to bribe him to apostacy — They now evince an anxiety to get quit of him, and offer him subordinate employment — After fruitlessly seeking a separate command, he declines the offer . . 150

CHAPTER XIII.

A SINGULAB IMPEISONMENT, AND A BT/NAWAY MAEEIAGE. A.D. 1811—1812.

A trip to Malta — Corruptions of the Admiralty Court there — Cochrane undertakes their exposure — A lengthy Proctor's Bill — The Court in a fix — A curious exploration — The rape of a document — An order of a: rest, and the difficulties of exercising it — Snug pluralities — Corfu ane lodged in prison — Chaired b}r a tipstaff — Fine living at a Marshal's expense — Cochrane's trial — His escape from prison — Proceedings in Parliament — His secret plans of warfare — "What the secret cost him — Remarks on the plans — Matrimonial projects — How they were frustrated, and at what cost — Cochrane chooses a wife for himself — His marriage in Scotland . . 16t»

CHAPTER XIV.

THE STOCK EXCHANGE TEIAL.

A.D. 1814.

Retrospect— -The causes of Cochrane's non-employment — Conjectural history — Ought Lord Cochrane to have entered Parliament—England at war with America — Cochrane unexpectedly offered employment — Captain De Ptrenger forms the acquaintance of Cochrane, who is frustrated in his attempts to engage his services — The Stock Exchange hoax —

CONTENTS. X.1U

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How Cochrane was involved in the suspicion — His affidavit of innocence — Inherent improbabilities of his criminality — The trial and the sentence — The pillory — The fine, and how it was paid — Dismissed the service and expelled the House of Commons — Unanimously re-elected by Westminster — Horrors of his imprisonment — He makes his escape, appeirs in the House, and is re-arrested — Opinions on the case of Lords Brougham, Campbell, Abinger, and Fortescue . . 177

CHAPTER XV.

FIGHTING ONCE MORE : BUT UNDER A FOREIGN FLAG.

Is invited to command the fleet of the insurgent Chilians — The English Government interpose an obstacle, which fails — Arrives at Valparaiso with his family — Enthusiastic reception—His fleet — a young recruit — Attacks Callao— His youthful son's heroism — Leaves Callao — "El Diablo" — Lady Cochrane's life in peril — Her clemency — Galling restraints by the Chilian Government — Resolves to " effect an impossibility " — A portrait drawn by Lord Cochrane — He reconnoitres the strong citadel of Valdivia — Traps a p;Iot— A rich prize — A narrow escape— Cochrane his own ship's carpenter The fortifications of Valdivia — He resolves to attack it — An unsuccessful ruse — Effects a landing — Powder and shot versus bayonet — A lucky accident — A chase and a conquest — Loses two of his vessels— The town surrenders — All Chili in native possession .......... 195

CHAPTER XVI.

final years of fighting : in south american and greek waters.

Unsuccessful attempt against the Island of Chiloe— Cochrane's thanks for the capture of Valdivia — Proposes to attack Callao — Is refused co-operation, and resolves himself to cut the

XIV CONTENTS.

PAGE

Esmeralda out of the harbour — The difficulties of the enterprise— His proclamation to his men — A redundancy of volunteers— The midnight attack — A sharp tussle — Cochrane wounded — Is fired upon from the city — A "signal" device — Cochrane and an outspoken Chilian lady — How he paid his men their arrears of pay — Courage of Lady Cochrane in action— Cochrane retires from Chili, and enters the service of Brazil — Hi-) services to that country, and his reward — The cost of what he did for Chili — Effects of his deeds in South America upon the trade of England — Cochrane is invited to command the fleet of the patriot Greeks — Divided counsels — Cochrane advises the study of Demosthenes — He infuses vigor into the national cause— Unsuccessful attempt to raise the siege of Athens — A narrow escape for life — A chase after his own ships — Minor deeds — The battle of Navarino suddenly ends his occupation — The last of Cochrane's fighting 208

CHAPTER XVII.

The plan and purpose of this work reviewed — Lord Cochrane did not -re-enter public life — Never again sat in either House of Parliament— Last years and death of his father, by which Lord Cochrane succeeds to the Earldom of Dundonald — Lord Dundonald restored to his rank — His further promotion, and employment as Admiral — His equitable claim to arrears of pay — His addiction to science — His secret plans revived during the Crimean war — Lord Dundonald as an author — His Autobiography — His death — The lessons of his life — Xo need of eulogy — His personal appearance — Dundonald and Douglas Jerrold — His interment in Westminster Abbey — Why his sons preferred that resting place to St. Paul's — The funeral and its incidents — Concluding remarks . . . 222

OF

LORD DUNDONALD.

Chapter I

Descent traced to a Norwegian stock — A Cochrane made Earl of Mar — Royalist Cochranes in the Great Rebellion — The family raised to the peerage as Barons Cochrane — Services to the Duke of Monmouth — First Earl of Dundonald — Pedigree of Thomas, tenth Earl — Life and character of his father — His scientific discoveries and their cost— Imperfections of the hero's early education— A lesson in philology — The French tutor, the magpies, and the cherries — Lord Cochrane designed for the army — His curious drill and costume — Encounter with London gamins — Five years of idleness — Receives his commission as midshipman.

England, of all nations, ancient or existing, has had most copiously written, its history in all details — its constituent races, its politics, its progress, its social life. But if there be still one department of our ethnological annals comparatively unexplored, it regards the question as to how far Scandinavian, as distinguished from Teutonic, blood was infused into

B the national veins, iu the ages that preceded and immediately succeeded the Norman Conquest. "We d< not urge with conspicuous prominency the Danisl element in the Normans themselves, whose ducai family, again, were of Norwegian stock. For, so far as the roll of "William's army remains matter of history, we know that many races fought under him at Hastings ; Burgundians, Poitevins, Brabanters, and a host of other mercenaries, as well as the Franco-Danes of Normandy proper. But before Edward the Confessor had made the unpatriotic will which ultimately cost Harold the briefly enjoyed throne that the love of the people for Earl Goodwin had won him, the greater parts of England north of the Humber, and of the Eastern Counties, were peopled by inhabitants of pure Danish origin.

If our historical ethnologists have erred by a too negligent recognition of the large infusion of Danish blood into the Angle and Saxon stock, still more have even those who have been most fully informed in this respect ignored the large influx of Norwegian, as distinguished from Danish, blood into the northern part of the kingdom. The learned professor of history at Christiania, Mr. Munch, recently astonished even the most scholarly of English antiquarians by establishing the fact that the Norwegian kings reigned over Man and the Hebrides for three centuries. That the Norwegian rule over Orkney and Shetland was prolonged till a much later date, was already matter of notoriety.

In 1263 the Danish king Haco was defeated by Alexander III., king of Scotland, at Largs. Three years after, by a formal document, still preserved by of ioed dthtdonald. 11

it8 citation in the historically reliable " Chronicle of the Isle of Man," the sovereignty of that island an " the Western Isles was ceded to the victors of Largs Four years previous to the latter date we have the first authentic record of the ancestors of Thomas Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dundonald, " the Paladin of the nineteenth century."

The careful Crawfurd, in his " Peerage of Scotland," says —

" The first of whom I have found upon record is Waldenus de Coveran, i. e., Cochran, who in 1262 is witness to the grant which Dungal, the son of Swayn,* made to Water Stewart, Earl of Monteith, of sundry lands," &c, &c.

We have the signature of another Coveran in the famous Bagman Boll, swearing fealty to Edward I. thirty-four years later, at Caerlaversck. In the great year which witnessed Cressy, we have another Coveran witnessing the election of an abbot of Paisley. The next mention of the family is as " Cochran ;" and they are specified as lords of "the house and barony of Cochran, the principal manour of the Cochrans." To a later Cochran Bobert II. granted a charter. In 1456 Robert Cochran surrendered his estate to his son Allan, that he might devote himself to the pursuit of architecture at the court of James III., a great patron of art of every description. Buchanan, in his History of Scotland, says of this Cochran, who ultimately (although to his own personal ruin) seems to have done more than all his ancestors to advance the fortunes of the family : —

* These are Norwegian names, and go far to fortify the tradition of the Dundonald family, that they are of Norwegian stock.

12 LIFE AST) DAEIXG EXPLOITS

" He came to be known to the king by a duel which he fought with another, and presently from ai architect came to be made a courtier, and was pul in a fair way of rising to some greater advancement ; for having performed some lighter matters entrusted to him with diligence, and also accommodating himself to the king's humour, he was soon admitted to advise concerning the grand affairs of the kingdom."

There are many older noble families in Scotland than the oldest of the English coroneted houses — if, that is to say, we dismiss the mythical descents of such as the Courtenays and the Caradocs. James III. proved nearly as assiduous a creator of new houses as, some years later, were the English Tudors. And there was in Scotland no such availing pretext of new noble blood being required as was furnished south of the Tweed by the extermination wrought by the feuds of the Roses. The jealousy of the nobles of ancient creation was fiercely enkindled against the recently ennobled royal favourites. Angus, Argyle, Huntley, Hume, Fleming, Druminond, and many more, met in rebellion at the Borough Muir. They were successful, " Bell- the- Cat " being leader. The king " was put in a gentle imprisonment in the Castle of Edinburgh." Cochran, who had been made Earl of Mar, was hanged, with others, on Lauder Bridge. He would not stoop to beg his life, and was refused his only wish, that " he might be hanged with one of the silken cords of his pavilion."

In the reign of James IV. we find the grandson of the murdered architect-earl possessed of lands in Perthshire, as well as his ancestral baronv. The impression on his seal, which remains attached to a

OF LORD DUITDOITALD. 13

document endowing a monastery in 1519, is " Three Boars Heads Erazed," which still remain the crest of the Dundonald family. A few generations later we find the estates alienated to a younger member of the family of Blair, who married a Cochrane, only child of her father, and took the family name.

Hastily glancing over the remainder of the family pedigree, we find a Colonel Alexander Cochrane, commanding the king's forces in Ireland in 1641 ; a Colonel Hugh, serving with many other Scottish gentlemen, under the great Grustavus Adolphus ; and Colonel Bryse Cochrane, slain fighting against the Parliamentary Army in 1650. These were three of six brothers. Sir John, the eldest of the six and head of the house, was also a warm partisan of the king. He accompanied Charles II. into foreign parts, and was sent upon the singular ambassadorial duty of soliciting aid for the Royalist cause " from the Scots merchants in Poland " ! Dying without issue, his next brother, William, succeeded to him.

The latter was created by Charles, while imprisoned at Carisbrooke, Lord Cochrane of Dundonald. To the son of the slain monarch, as his elder brother had done, he maintained his allegiance. Shortly after the Restoration he was sworn a Privy Councillor. He was made a Commissioner of the Scottish Treasury, and prospered to a degree which far more than made up the fine of £5,000 in which the Commonwealth had amerced him. On the 12th of May, 1669, Lord Cochrane (who, by the way, had made large pecuniary contributions to the king when an exile) received another mark of royal favour. He was advanced another step in the peerage, and

14 LIEE AND DAEIKG EXPLOITS

created first Earl of Dundonald, his minor title being " Lord Cochrane of Paisley and Ochiltree." T Earl of Dundonald had further, in past years, esta lished a claim to the kindly regard of the Meii-r Monarch by the fatherly care he had bestowed on the child of Lucy "Waters. After Monmouth became the husband of Ann, Duchess of Buccleugh, to whom Sir Walter's " Last Minstrel " is represented as having sung his lay,

the earl was of much service to the ducal pair by journeys he undertook before they were of age, and in furtherance of their interests to their estates in Ettrick Forest and Upper Teviotdale. His second son became implicated in the rebellion of Argyle and Monmouth against the Papist James. Only large bribes to the courtiers and Jesuit instigators of the tyrannical bigot, saved the young Cochrane from the fate of MacCallumore and the rebel of Sedgemoor. Bishop Burnet on this point says : —

" That Cochrane should be forgiven by a prince, vindictive beyond all example, seemed incredible. But Cochrane was the youngest son of a rich family ; it was, therefore, only by sparing him that money could be made out of him. His father, Lord Dundonald, offered a bribe to priests of the royal household, and a pardon was granted."

The first earl was succeeded by his grandson ; his son's death having preceded his own. The next earl died without issue. To him succeeded, as fourth and fifth earls, his brother and his nephew. At the death of the successor of the latter, direct male issue failed and the lately deceased earl, tenth of the name was descended from the youngest son of the first earl. His grandfather and father had been respectively eighth and ninth earls.

Archibald, ninth Earl of Dundonald, served in his youth for a few years in the navy, in which he rose no higher than to lieutenant's rank. His younger brother, Alexander, became a rear-admiral. The earl himself was disgusted with the service, by the disagreeables of a cruise on the Guinea Coast. The unfavourable impression produced on his mind was, as we shall hereafter see, attended with this further consequence. He interposed every objection to his illustrious son entering the service, and thereby retarded the commencement of his career afloat till some years after the usual age at which midshipmen commence their apprenticeship. Earl Archibald next tried the army, but from that service he also retired disgusted.

The truth was that his tastes lay in quite a different direction. He was a zealous scientific inquirer, and as zealous in the application of scientific discoveries to the actual needs of life. Either from a want of practicalness, or from ill-fate and opposition (as his son believed), or, as is perhaps more likely, from the circumstance that his own discoveries and inventions were previously, or simultaneously, made by other men who had a more business-like power of bringing the results of their labour before the inert public — from whichever of these causes the result proceeded, the result was simply this — to complete by large experimental outlay, the impoverishment of the ancestral estates, already much impaired bj several predecessors in the earldom. Our here "never inherited a foot" of the ancient barony o± the Cochranes, or any other of the family lands. He started, in other words, in one of the most unfortunate of all positions for an ambitious youth ; he was the heir to an old and honourable title, but was as poor as the most obscure and pedigreeless plebeian adventurer.