The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald Volume I Part 16

The payment, therefore, of the value of these prizes to the captors, supposing even the full value to be paid, does not in effect take one penny out of the national treasury, or out of the pocket of any Brazilian. If it be false--and your excellency appears to scout the idea--that any danger exists of having to pay twice for these prizes; if there really is no danger of being compelled to purchase peace with a defeated enemy by restoring them their forfeited property--it follows that the responsibility of the Government in fulfilling its engagement with the captors is so far from being enormous, that it is literally nothing. How the fulfilment of a lawful engagement by the simple act of paying over to the squadron the value of its prizes taken in time of war from the foreign enemies of the state (such payment occasioning no expense, and no loss to the state itself) can be attended with an enormous responsibility, I am utterly unable to comprehend. So far as the engagements of the Government with me, or with the captors in general of the Portuguese prizes, are of a pecuniary nature, they appear to me to lay no great weight of responsibility on the herculean shoulders of this vast empire. And it is only in a pecuniary sense that I can conceive it to be possible for your excellency to have thought of complaining of the responsibility attending the fulfilment of the engagements of the Government with me.

It is no less difficult to comprehend how this supposed enormous responsibility has been incurred, "simplement et uniquement pour faire plaisir" to me; and it is still more difficult to comprehend how it happens that your excellency, "after all that you have heard and seen"

(apres ce que j'ai entendu et vu), should be at a loss to know in what manner I am to be contented (je ne saurais pas dequelle maniere on puisse vous contenter). If, indeed, your excellency imagines that I ought to be contented with honorary distinctions alone, however highly I may prize them as the free gift of his Imperial Majesty; if your excellency is of opinion that I ought with "remercimens et satisfaction" to put up with those honours in lieu of those stipulated substantial rewards, which even those very honours render more necessary; if your excellency thinks that I ought, like the dog in the fable, to resign the substance for a grasp at the shadow; if this is all that your excellency knows on the subject of giving me content, it is then very true that your excellency does not know in what manner it is to be done. But if, "after all that your excellency has heard and seen," you would be pleased to render yourself conversant with those written engagements under which I was induced to enter into the service, all that your excellency and the rest of the ministers and council of his Imperial Majesty would then have to do in order to content me to the full, would be to desist from evading the performance of those engagements, and to cause them at once to be fully and honourably fulfilled. And I do believe that my "Correspondance Officielle une fais rendue publique, en faira foi;"

for I am not conscious that I have ever called on the Government to incur one farthing of expense on my account beyond the fulfilment of their written engagements, which were the same as those which I had with Chili, which were formed precisely on the practice of England.

There was, indeed, a verbal and conditional engagement with the late ministers that certain losses which I might incur in consequence of leaving the service of Chili should be made good;[A] and the question as to the obligation of fulfilling that engagement I submitted (in my letter of the 6th of March to the Minister of Marine) to the consideration of their successors. It will be fortunate for me if this should prove to be one of those "ill-understood verbal transactions"

which your excellency a.s.sures me the present ministers and council always decide in my favour. I shall not in that case be backward to receive the benefit of the decision with "thanks and satisfaction;"

but I am willing to resign it rather than it should add an overwhelming weight to that "enormous responsibility" which your excellency complains has already been incurred with a view to my contentment. I repeat that I have never asked for more than I possessed in Chili, or than any officer of the same rank is ent.i.tled to in England; though British officers have heretofore received in the service of Portugal double the amount of their English pay; and though the burning climate of Brazil is injurious to health, while those of Chili and Portugal are salubrious. Your excellency, therefore, is perfectly welcome to publish the whole of my official correspondence, because instead of proving, as your excellency a.s.serts, the great difficulty of contenting me, it would go far to prove the much greater difficulty of inducing those with whom I have to do to take any one step for that purpose.

[Footnote A: As the Brazilian Government had obtained possession of a new corvette, named the _Maria de Gloria_, which cost the Government of Chili 90,000 dollars, without reimbursing to that State one single farthing; and by the said act had deprived Lord Cochrane of the benefit he would have derived, as commander-in-chief, from the services of that ship in the Pacific, the non-fulfilment of this engagement seems the more unjust.]

I confess, however, that in order to content me effectually it is necessary to fulfil not only all written engagements with myself individually, but generally with all the officers and seamen with whom, while I hold the command, I consider myself identified; and the more particularly because, in my own firm reliance on the good faith of the Government, I did in some sort become responsible for that good faith to my brother officers and seamen. But with whom, I put it to your excellency, has good faith been kept? Is it not notorious that previous to the departure of the expedition to Bahia, declarations were made to the seamen in writing by the late Minister of Marine, through my medium, and in printed proclamations, that their dues should be paid with all possible regularity, and all their arrears discharged immediately on their return? And is not your excellency aware that specific contracts were entered into by the accredited agent of his Imperial Majesty in England, with a number of officers and seamen, who, in consequence, were induced to quit their native country and enter into the employ of his Imperial Majesty? Can it be denied that these declarations and contracts, written and printed, were known to, and are actually in the possession of the ministers, or in the hands of the officers of the pay department, and yet is it not true that they were neglected to be fulfilled for a period of upwards of three months after the return of the _Pedro Primiero_; and was not the tardy fulfilment which at length took place procured by my incessant representations and remonstrances?

Permit me also to ask whether the good effects of prompt payment were not ill.u.s.trated on the arrival of the frigates _Nitherohy_ and _Caroline_, which happened just at the period I had succeeded in procuring payment to be made. Was it not in consequence of immediate payment that the greater part of the English crew of the _Nitherohy_ remained quietly on board, and are now actually engaged on an important service to his Imperial Majesty? And, on the other hand, is it not equally true that the English seamen of the _Pedro Primiero_ were so disheartened and disgusted with the long delay which in their case had occurred, and the manifest bad faith which had been evinced, that by far the greater part of them actually abandoned the ship?

And generally, is it not true that the violations of promise, the obstructions of justice, and the arbitrary acts of severity, have produced dissatisfaction and irritation in the minds of the officers and seamen, and done infinite prejudice to the service of his Imperial Majesty and to the interests and prospects of the empire?

Can it be denied that the treatment to which the officers are exposed is in the highest degree cruel and unjust? Have they not in many instances been confined in a fortress or prison-ship without being told who is their accuser or what is the accusation? And are they not kept for many months at a time in that cruel state of suspense and restraint without the means or opportunity of justification or defence? Have not some of them while incarcerated in the fortress of the Island of Cobras been deprived of their pay for a great length of time, and even denied the provisions necessary for their subsistence?

And if, after all, they are brought to trial, are not their judges composed of the natives of a nation with whom they are at war? Is it possible that English, or other foreign officers in the service, can be satisfied with such a system? Can your excellency entertain a doubt, that open accusation, prompt trial, unsuspected justice, and speedy punishment, if merited, are essential to the good government of a naval service? Nay, is it possible that your excellency should not know that the system of government in the naval service of Portugal is the most wretched in the world, and consequently the last that ought to have been adopted for the naval service of Brazil?

And here I would respectfully ask your excellency whether you know of any one thing recommended by me for the benefit of the naval service being complied with? Have the laws been revised to adapt them to the better government of the service? Has a corps of marine artillery been formed and taught their duty? Have young gentlemen intended for officers been sent on board to learn their profession? Have young men been enlisted and sent on board to be bred up as seamen? Or has any encouragement been given to the employment of Brazilians in the commerce of the coast?[A]

[Footnote A: It was the policy of Portugal to navigate the coasting-trade of Brazil by slaves; and that of Spain to allow none but Indians to exercise the trade of fishermen on the sh.o.r.es of their South American colonies.]

With regard to those difficulties, delays, and other impediments of which I have complained as existing in the a.r.s.enal and other offices, and which your excellency supposes me to have represented as being caused, or at least tolerated, by the minister, and which you are pleased to characterise as "tout a fait imaginaires, et n'ayant d'outre source que l'ambition sordide de quelque intrigant," I shall not now enter into them again at any length, as much that I have already written tends to refute your excellency's notions on the subject. That such abuses do really exist I have proved beyond the power of contradiction; and that they are at least tolerated by those--whoever they may be--who possess without exercising the means of preventing, does not require the ingenuity of an "intrigant" to discover, as the fact is self-evident. I cannot, therefore, admit that either my complaints or suspicions are "tout a fait imaginaires,"

or that they are "des pet.i.tesses," as your excellency is pleased contemptuously to term them; but whatever they are, they originate in my own observation, without any a.s.sistance from the spectacles of an "intrigant," with which I am so gratuitously accommodated by your excellency.

In still further proof, however, of the real existence of the evils in question, I may just observe that since the return of the _Pedro Primiero_, that ship has been kept in constant disorder by the delay in commencing and the idle and negligent mode of executing even the trifling alterations in the channels, which were necessary to enable the rigging to be set up, and which, after the lapse of upwards of five months, is now scarcely finished, though it might have been accomplished in forty-eight hours. Even the time of caulking was spun out to a period nearly as long as was occupied last year in the accomplishment of that thorough repair which the ship then underwent; and the painting is far from being completed after sixteen or eighteen days' labour, though a British ship of war is usually painted in a day. Even my own cabin is in such a state that when I am on board I have no place to sit down in. All these things may appear to your excellency as "des pet.i.tesses," or even "tout a fait imaginaires,"

but to me they appear matters of a serious nature, injurious and disgraceful to the service.

I may not, perhaps, succeed in convincing your excellency, but I have the satisfaction of being inwardly conscious that, independent of my natural desire to obtain justice for myself and for all the officers and men of the squadron, no small part of my anxiety for the fulfilment of the engagements of the Government proceeds from a desire to see the navy of his Imperial Majesty rendered efficient; which it can never be unless the same good faith is observed with the officers and men as is kept between the Government and navy of England, and unless indeed many other important considerations are attended to, which appear to have hitherto escaped the regard of the Imperial Government. Why, for instance, is there that indifference in regard to the clothing of the men? What but discontent, debas.e.m.e.nt, and enervation, can be the effects of that ragged and almost naked condition in which they have so long been suffered to remain, notwithstanding the numerous applications that have been made for the necessary clothing? I would also inquire the reason that officers and men, strangers to each other, and dest.i.tute of attachment and mutual confidence, are hastily shipped together in vessels of war going on active service, when better arrangements might easily be made. What can be expected from the vessels of war just gone out, in case they should meet with any serious opposition, but disgrace to those by whom they were so imperfectly and improperly equipped?

If this communication were not already too long, or if, after the letter I have received from your excellency, it were possible for me to continue my representations in the hope of redress, I could add to the list of those causes of complaint which I have already pointed out many particulars which none but those who are blindly attached to that wretched system which has been so injurious to the marine and kingdom of Portugal could consider either trifling or imaginary. But as my present object has been chiefly to repel those imputations in which your excellency has so freely indulged, and believing that I have fully succeeded in that object, and have shown clearly that your excellency has unjustly and untruly accused me of encouraging talebearers, making unfounded complaints, and of being of a nature so avaricious as never to be satisfied--which latter, by-the-by, is an extraordinary accusation to prefer against me--a man whom your excellency must know has not hitherto been benefited, after being more than a year in the service, to the amount of one shilling for the important services he has rendered, but who, on the contrary, as he can show by his accounts, has necessarily expended more in his official situation than he has received in the service; so that the "remercimens" and the "satisfaction," which your excellency accuses him of being deficient in, can scarcely yet be due, unless it is proper to be satisfied and grateful too for less than nothing--having, I say, fully repelled and refuted these unjust accusations, I shall avoid troubling your excellency with any further detail. But I repeat that your excellency has my free consent to cause the whole of my official correspondence to be published; for in all that I have advanced with respect to the violations of contracts, and on the subject of the unsatisfied claims of the squadron, and relative to the ill-usage of officers under arrest, and to the misconduct of the judges of prizes, and of those who have the management of the civil department of the marine,[A] and in all matters whatever in question between the Government of Brazil and myself, I am confident I may safely rely on the decision of the public. And if, at the same time, your excellency can give a satisfactory explanation of the motives of that line of conduct on the part of the ministers and council, which, without such explanation, would have the appearance of originating in bad faith, the publication would be doubly beneficial by placing the conduct and character of all parties in a proper point of view.

[Footnote A: Also Portuguese.]

I have the honour to be, Most excellent sir, Your respectful and most obedient Servant, COCHRANE AND MARANHAM.

His Excellency, Joo Sereriano Maciele da Costa, Secretary of State for the Home Department, &c., &c., &c.

END OF VOL. I.