The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald Volume II Part 6

And to Greece the issues had been far less beneficial than he had hoped. The tedious and wanton delays to which he had been subjected at starting, whereby that starting was prevented for a year and a half, had hindered his arrival in Greece till it was too late for him to do much of the work that he had planned. The want of money, and, still more, the want of patriotism, courage, and even common honesty on the part of nearly all the leaders with whom he was to co-operate, and the officers and crews whom he was to command, had caused his ten months'

active service in Greece to comprise little more than a series of bold projects, and projects which, if he had been aided by brave men, would have been as easy as they were bold, in which he received none of the support that was necessary, and which accordingly all his energy and genius could not make successful. When, after his visit to England and France, he returned to Greece, eager and able to render invaluable a.s.sistance in the organization of the navy, he was treated only with neglect and insolence, from which at last he was enabled to escape through the generous sympathy of a Russian admiral.

Much, however, he had done for Greece. To his persistent entreaties were due all the meagre displays of patriotism by which the Government of the country was maintained and Capodistrias accepted as President, and all the feeble efforts by which the war was carried on and the triumph of the Porte was averted until the direct interference of the Allied Powers. That interference had been in great measure induced by the report that he had entered the service of Greece, so that to him was due not a little of the benefit that accrued from the whole course of diplomacy by which her independence was secured; and the independence was made more prompt and complete than could have been expected by the fortunate circ.u.mstance of his having occasioned the collision between the forces of Turkey and those of the Allied Powers which issued in the Battle of Navarino. Much more he would have achieved had his arguments been listened to and his plans supported.

His failures no less than his successes bespeak his worth.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A RECAPITULATION OF LORD COCHRANE'S NAVAL SERVICES.--HIS EFFORTS TO OBTAIN RESt.i.tUTION OF THE RANK TAKEN FROM HIM AFTER THE STOCK EXCHANGE TRIAL.--HIS PEt.i.tION TO THE DUKE OF CLARENCE.--ITS REJECTION BY THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S CABINET.--LORD COCHRANE'S OCCUPATIONS AFTER THE CLOSE OF HIS GREEK SERVICE.--HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND.--HIS MEMORIAL TO WILLIAM IV.--ITS TARDY CONSIDERATION BY EARL GREY'S CABINET.--ITS PROMOTERS AND OPPONENTS.--LORD COCHRANE'S ACCESSION TO THE PEERAGE AS TENTH EARL OF DUNDONALD.--HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE KING.--THE COUNTESS OF DUNDONALD'S EFFORTS IN AID OF HER HUSBAND'S MEMORIAL.--THEIR ULTIMATE SUCCESS.--THE EARL OF DUNDONALD'S "FREE PARDON," AND RESTORATION TO NAVAL RANK.

[1828-1832.]

Lord Cochrane's retirement from the service of Greece brought to a close his career as a fighting seaman. With one brief exception, occurring twenty years later, when he commanded the British squadron in the North American and West Indian waters, but when there was no warfare to be done the rest of his life, comprising thirty years of ripe manhood and vigorous old age, was pa.s.sed without employment in the profession which was dear to him, and in which he had shown himself to be possessed of talents rarely equalled and certainly never surpa.s.sed.

He entered that profession at the age of seventeen. In 1800, when he was twenty-four, he was promoted to the command of the _Speedy_. With that crazy little sloop, no larger than a coasting brig, he captured a large French privateer on the 10th of May, and on the 14th he recaptured two English vessels that had been seized by the enemy. On the 16th of June he took another French vessel, and on the 22nd another, with a prize which she had just obtained. On the 29th, he secured a large Spanish privateer, in spite of five gunboats which fought in her defence. On the 19th of July he captured another French privateer and rescued her prize; on the 27th he sunk another; and on the 31st he put another to flight and took possession of the prize which she had in tow. On the 22nd of September, he seized another of the enemy's vessels. On the 15th of December he wrecked one French war-ship and captured another, one of three which came to her a.s.sistance; and on the 24th, being attacked by two Spanish privateers, he took one of them. On the 16th of January, 1801, he chased two vessels, and seized one, and on the 22nd, two of the enemy's craft, one French and the other Spanish, struck to him. On the 24th of February a French brig fell into his hands. The same fate was shared by another vessel on the 11th of April, by another on the 13th, and by two others on the 15th. He captured a Spanish tartan and a Spanish privateer on the 4th of May; and on the 13th occurred his celebrated victory over the _Gamo_--carrying four times the tonnage, six times the number of men, and seven times the weight of shot possessed by the _Speedy_--which was soon followed by the taking of two other Spanish privateers heavily armed. On the 9th of June, the _Speedy_ and another little vessel had a nine hours' fight, first with a Spanish zebec and three gunboats, and afterwards with a felucco and two more gunboats which came to their aid, which were only allowed to escape when the English ammunition was nearly exhausted, the _Speedy_ having discharged fourteen hundred shot. On the 3rd of July, the pigmy vessel, after hard fighting, had to surrender to three French line-of-battle ships. It was on that occasion that their senior officer, Captain Palliere, declined to accept the sword of "an officer," as he said, "who had for so many hours struggled against impossibility." In his thirteen months' cruise Lord Cochrane had with his little sloop of fourteen 4-pounders, and a crew of fifty-four officers and men, taken and retaken fifty vessels, a hundred and twenty-two guns, and five hundred and thirty-four prisoners.

His next ship, the _Arab_, was made to serve during fourteen months in seas in which there was no work to be done; but for the _Pallas_, a fine frigate of thirty-two guns, he was allowed to find memorable employment. He was sent to the Azores, with orders to limit his cruise to a month. He captured one large Spanish vessel on the 6th of February, 1805, a second on the 13th, a third on the 15th, a fourth on the 16th. Forced after that to be idle, as far as prize-taking was concerned, for more than a year, he seized two French vessels on the 27th of March, 1806, and another a few days later. On the 6th of April he captured the _Tapageuse_, and on the 7th he chased three other corvettes till they were driven on sh.o.r.e by their crews and wrecked.

He took another prize on the 14th. On the 14th of May, the _Pallas_ had her famous engagement with the French frigate _Minerve_ and three brigs, the _Lynx_, the _Sylph_, and the _Palinure_, carrying eighty-eight guns in all, wherein she was so disabled that she was forced to return to Portsmouth to be refitted.

The _Imperieuse_ being a.s.signed to him in August, 1806, Lord Cochrane took two prizes on the 19th of December, and a third on the 31st. He was then ordered home, and there detained till the autumn of 1807. On the 14th of November, being again in the Mediterranean, he captured a Maltese pirate-ship, and soon afterwards he seized some other vessels.

Being ordered to scour the French coast during the summer of 1808, he took numerous prizes on the sea and effected yet more important work on land. "With varying opposition but with unvaried success," he wrote in his concise report to Lord Collingwood on the 28th of September, "the newly-constructed semaphoric telegraphs--which are of the utmost consequence to the safety of the numerous convoys that pa.s.s along the coast of France--at Bourdigne, La Pinede, St. Maguire, Frontignan, Canet, and Fay, have been blown up and completely demolished, together with their telegraph houses, fourteen barracks of gens d'armes, one battery, and the strong tower on the Lake of Frontignan." The list of casualties was "None killed, none wounded, one singed, in blowing up the battery." That work was followed by more of the same nature, a famous episode in which was Lord Cochrane's occupation of the Castle of Trinidad. "The zeal and energy with which he has maintained that fortress," wrote Lord Collingwood, "excite the highest admiration. His resources for every exigency have no end."

The splendid exploit with the fireships in Basque Roads followed in 1809, and with that Lord Cochrane's services to England as a seaman were brought to a conclusion. Official persecution kept him in idleness during the remaining period of war with France, and he was in the end driven to seek relief from oppression at home, and exercise for his talents, by devoting himself to the cause of freedom in Chili, Peru, Brazil, and Greece. His unparalleled successes on both sides of the South American continent, and the circ.u.mstances of his partial failure in Greece, have been sufficiently detailed in previous chapters.

All through that time of virtual expatriation, his dearest hope had been that England would, as far as possible, retrieve the cruel wrong that had been done to him. Full redress was impossible. The heavy cloud that had been cast over so many years of his most energetic manhood could not be removed by any tardy act of justice; but that tardy justice could at any rate be done to him, and for this he strove with unabated zeal.

To this end he was partly occupied during his temporary absence from Greece in 1828. On the 4th of June he addressed a memorial to the Duke of Clarence, then Lord High Admiral, who just two years afterwards was to become King of England. This memorial, eloquent in its simplicity and earnestness, the prelude to many others that were to be presented in later years, claims to be here quoted in full. "To his Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral," it ran, "the memorial of Lord Cochrane humbly showeth;--That for fourteen years your memorialist has suffered, among many injuries and privations, the loss of his situation and rank as post-captain in his Majesty's navy, in consequence of a verdict p.r.o.nouncing your memorialist guilty of an offence of which he was entirely and absolutely innocent;--That during the whole course of your memorialist's life, up to the day on which he was charged with the crime of conspiring with others to raise false reports for the purpose of fraudulently effecting a rise in the price of the public funds, the character and conduct of your memorialist were without reproach; and, numerous as have been the transactions in which your memorialist has subsequently engaged, he has, amid them all, uniformly preserved, though not an una.s.sailed, yet an unshaken and unsullied character;--That your memorialist has never ceased, and never can cease to a.s.sert his absolute innocence of the crime of which he was p.r.o.nounced guilty. He a.s.serts it now, most solemnly, as in the presence of Almighty G.o.d, and certain he is, if every doubt be not dissipated in this world, that when summoned to enter more immediately into that Awful and Infinite Presence, he shall not fail, with his last breath, most solemnly to a.s.sert his innocence;--That it was your memorialist's consciousness of innocence that contributed, perhaps more than any other cause, to produce his conviction; because it rendered him confident, and much less careful in making the necessary preparations for his defence than he ought to have been, or than he would have been, if guilty; while, on the other hand, there existed the utmost zeal, industry, and skill in the conduct of the prosecution;--That your memorialist did all that was possible to procure a revision of his case; but, as he had laboured under the disadvantage of being included in, and tried under, the same indictment with some who had probably no reason to complain of the result, as well as the still greater disadvantage of having his defence blended, with theirs, so was he denied a new trial for the same reason; it being a rule of Court that a new trial should not be allowed to any individual tried for conspiracy unless all the parties should appear in Court to join in the application; which, in the case of your memorialist, could not possibly be, some of the parties having quitted the country on the verdict being p.r.o.nounced against them;--That your memorialist has never been able to obtain a re-investigation of his extraordinary case, nor to obtain redress in any way; but now that your Royal Highness is Lord High Admiral, and has, among other ill.u.s.trious acts, distinguished yourself in that capacity by doing justice to meritorious officers, your memorialist feels that he has everything to hope from the magnanimity of your Royal Highness;--That it is indeed certain that nothing can be more repugnant to the feelings of your Royal Highness than that an individual who zealously devoted himself to the naval service of his king and country, as your Royal Highness knows your memorialist to have done, should be for ever cut off from the service without the most unquestionable certainty of the rect.i.tude of so severe an infliction. So far, therefore, as depends on your Royal Highness, your memorialist cannot but confidently entertain the hope that he shall not be doomed to remain all his life long the victim of a verdict of which he has not only never ceased to complain, but which he knows that he has proved to be unfounded, to the satisfaction of those who have examined as well what was advanced against him at the trial as what he has since adduced in his own justification. Your memorialist, therefore, is encouraged most respectfully to solicit your Royal Highness to represent his case--a case of peculiar and unprecedented hardship--to his most Sacred Majesty, and to advocate his cause. And if, happily for your memorialist, his most Sacred Majesty, recognising the innocence of your memorialist, and taking his long-protracted and unmerited sufferings into his gracious consideration, should, of his most gracious pleasure, vouchsafe to reinstate your memorialist in that rank and station in his Royal Navy which he previously held, your memorialist will ever maintain the deepest and most grateful sense of his duty to his most Sacred Majesty and to your Royal Highness, and will never cease to testify his grat.i.tude by all the means in his power."

That doc.u.ment was presented by Sir Robert Preston to the Duke of Clarence, who promised to use every endeavour to obtain a reconsideration of Lord Cochrane's case. He was unsuccessful. "Dear Sir," he wrote to Sir Robert Preston on the 14th of June, "immediately on the receipt of the memorial you brought from Lord Cochrane, I sent it to the Duke of Wellington, with a request it might be considered by his Majesty's confidential servants, and last evening I had a communication from his Grace to state that the King's Cabinet cannot comply with the prayer of the memorial. I ever remain, dear Sir, yours sincerely, William."

The harsh news of this failure was sent to Paris, whither Lord Cochrane had gone in furtherance of his efforts for the a.s.sistance of Greece.

To Paris he returned, as we have seen, after his final departure from Greece, and there he resided with his family for about six months. He paid a brief visit to England in September, 1829; but, seeing no immediate prospect of gaining the rest.i.tution of his naval rank, and finding that idle life at home was especially irksome to him, he soon went back to the Continent. The serious illness of Lady Cochrane induced him to pa.s.s the winter in Italy, where by the same cause he was detained for several months. He was in England again in the autumn of 1830.

One motive for his return was the accession of the Duke of Clarence to the throne as King William IV. The new sovereign's often-expressed sympathy for him, induced him to hope that now he had a better chance of obtaining the justice that had been so long withheld. The change of sovereigns, however, was of small avail while the ministers who had summarily rejected his former memorial continued to have the direction of affairs. "To pet.i.tion or memorialize the King whilst his present ministers remain in office," he said in a letter written on the 10th of September, "would be to debase myself in my own estimation, and, I think, in that of every man of sense and feeling." "I cannot pet.i.tion again," he said in another letter; "though I am a.s.sured from high authority it would be attended to. Sir Robert Wilson and others have obtained favour; but I, who protested against the forging of charts and public waste of money, have had no mercy shown!" Lord Cochrane ascertained, about this time, that his memorial of 1828, though sent by the Duke of Clarence for the consideration of King George IV., had never reached his Majesty, the Cabinet having preferred to dismiss it at once. He therefore had good reason for abstaining from further action until a more friendly ministry should be in power.

He had not long to wait. On the 16th of November, the Duke of Wellington's Cabinet resigned. In the Administration which succeeded Earl Grey was Premier, and Mr. Brougham, raised to the peerage, was Lord Chancellor. Lord Cochrane then lost no time in completing a "Review" of his case, which he had prepared for publication, and in getting ready some early copies of the volume to be presented to the King and his ministers.

The King's copy was forwarded through Lord Melbourne, the Home Secretary, on the 10th of December, accompanied by a brief pet.i.tion.

"a.s.sured that the memorial which I laid before your Majesty when Lord High Admiral," wrote Lord Cochrane, "was honoured with your earnest consideration, and that your Majesty was graciously pleased to make an effort in my behalf, with the desire of restoring me to my station in the navy; a.s.sured, too, that, had not the ministers of his late most gracious Majesty been opposed to the prayer of my memorial, I should then have been restored; and believing that no such obstacle to your Majesty's favour would be now interposed, I have every reason to hope that the auspicious moment is at length arrived when the redress which I have so long sought will be freely bestowed by my most gracious Sovereign. I beseech your Majesty to condescend to receive the accompanying review of my case, which, I trust, will prove to your Majesty that I am not unworthy of that act of your Majesty's favour which I humbly solicit. It is not because I have undergone a sentence heavier than the law p.r.o.nounced, it is not because I have been deprived for sixteen years of the rank and honours which I acquired in the Royal Navy, nor is it because I am deserving of any consideration on account of services to my King and country, that I now presume to appeal to your Majesty,--though no one is more likely than your Majesty to feel for my sufferings, and no one more competent to appreciate my services,--but it is because I had no partic.i.p.ation in, and no knowledge, not even the most indistinct or remote, of the crime under the imputation of which I have been so variously and so unceasingly punished. It is this alone which impels me to approach your Majesty, and this alone which enables me."

Other copies of the "Review" having been sent to the Cabinet Ministers, with letters urging its favourable consideration, Lord Cochrane, in nearly every case, received a friendly answer. "I need not say," wrote Earl Grey on the 12th of December, "that it would give me great satisfaction if it should be found possible to comply with the prayer of your pet.i.tion. This opinion I expressed some years ago in a letter which, I believe, was communicated to you. To the sentiments expressed in that letter I refer, which, if I remember right, acquitted you of all blame, except such as might have been incurred by inadvertence and by having suffered yourself to be led by others into measures of the consequences of which you were not sufficiently aware."

More than a year was to be spent, however, in persevering effort before Lord Cochrane's claim for justice was acceded to. Objection was taken by some to the form in which his address to the King was worded.

It was "a letter," they said, and not "a pet.i.tion;" and Lord Cochrane was distressed at hearing, on the 18th, that the doc.u.ment had been given back by his Majesty to Lord Melbourne without any comment.

"If I have erred as to the form of my pet.i.tion, which was in the shape of a most respectful and dutiful letter to his Majesty, or as to the channel through which it should have been forwarded," said Lord Cochrane in a letter to Earl Grey, written on the 23rd of December, "I have erred in judgment only; and it would be hard indeed should redress not be accorded by reason of an informality in the mode of my application. I have since been advised that my pet.i.tion ought to have been forwarded through the First Lord of the Admiralty, whom I have therefore solicited to present another pet.i.tion, the same in effect, but more brief, and in the regular form. When his Majesty was Lord High Admiral he received a memorial from me by the hands of Sir Robert Preston, and though it had not the effect, of procuring my restoration at that time, yet from the gracious manner in which, I am a.s.sured, it was received, I did flatter myself that his Majesty would have pleasure in the opportunity, which appeared to present itself when your lordship's Administration was formed, of originating a measure which all would consider gracious, and most, I hope, believe to be perfectly just. In reference to the letter, in answer to mine, with which your lordship honoured me on the 12th instant, which I cannot but perceive is written with a kindness of feeling which commands my best thanks, I beg only to state that any opinion of me in regard to the crime imputed to me that does not fully acquit me of all knowledge thereof whatever does not do me justice. That crime was contrived and completed so entirely without my knowledge that I had not the most distant idea of its having been meditated until I read of its commission in the public prints." In a brief reply to that letter Earl Grey stated that, the pet.i.tion having been presented to the King and being now under consideration, no more formal address need be sent in lieu of it.

Thus Lord Cochrane had only to await the result of his application, and he waited for sixteen months. During that interval many friends interceded on his behalf, especially Lord Durham and Lord Auckland, and from time to time his hopes were quickened by information that the subject was still being considered by his Majesty's ministers, who were anxious that right should be done.

But he was often disappointed. "The King," he said, in a letter written on the 1st of April, "has invited all the Knights of the Bath to dine with him on the 12th, which is the anniversary of the affair of Basque Roads, as well as that of Grambier's installation. If nothing is done on that day I shall not obtain justice during the life of William IV. Indeed, I understand that every effort has been made to influence the King to my prejudice."

"I was at an evening party at the Marquess of Lansdowne's on Friday,"

wrote Lord Cochrane on the 25th of April, "and there I met the Lord Chancellor [Brougham] who was very civil indeed, and told me they had a battle to fight for me, and hoped they would succeed. Since then the electors of the borough of Southwark have sent a deputation to beg me to stand; but hearing that Brougham's brother was also to be a candidate, I have declined opposing him. I had a double motive for this line of conduct, for, had I been returned to Parliament, I could not conscientiously have accepted a favour at the hands of the ministers of the Crown."

Service in the House of Commons was, soon after that, made impossible to Lord Cochrane. His father, Archibald, ninth Earl of Dundonald, died on the 1st of July, 1831. Lord Cochrane then ceased to be a commoner, and became in succession, when he was nearly fifty-six years old, Earl of Dundonald.

As Earl of Dundonald, however, he found it no easier to obtain an answer to his demand for justice than as Lord Cochrane. In September he heard that his opponents were making use of some Admiralty correspondence respecting his conduct in Chili, nearly ten years before, to throw fresh difficulties in his way. He at once applied to Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, for extracts from this correspondence of any parts requiring explanation, in order that he might furnish the same. "I beg leave to state," wrote Sir James in reply, "that it is not usual for his Majesty's Government to produce, from the records of public offices, doc.u.ments which do not appear to be required for any public purpose. I am therefore under the necessity of declining to comply with your lordship's request." "Is it not astonishing," said Lord Dundonald, in a letter to the Duke of Hamilton, "that Sir James Graham does not consider justice to an individual to be a public object?"

Tired out, at length, by the delays in the settlement of his case, Lord Dundonald wisely resolved to seek a personal interview with the King. With that object he went down to Brighton, and the interview was readily granted to him on Sunday, the 27th of November. He was graciously received, and the King listened attentively to his respectful claim for a fair investigation of the matter, and for permission to rebut any charges that might be brought against him respecting his conduct in connection with the Stock Exchange fraud, his Chilian service, or any other portion of his life that had been or could be complained of. His Majesty promised to see that the case was fairly looked into, and Lord Dundonald was not long in observing the good effects of his bold step.

"Lady Dundonald has seen Lord Grey, and he has expressed his readiness to do all he can," he wrote from London on the 17th of December. "But I understand there is something in the way. Burdett a.s.sures me that he will bring the whole affair before Parliament if they do not do me justice."

Sir Francis Burdett, who, never flagging in his friendship, had rendered valuable a.s.sistance during these weary months, continued in the same course to the end; but it was not necessary for him to appeal to Parliament in this case. Yet its settlement was further delayed. "I am unwilling to trespa.s.s on your lordship's most valuable time," wrote Lord Dundonald to Earl Grey, on the 28th of January, 1832; "but as it is now two months since I had the honour of an audience of the King, and of presenting to his Majesty my humble memorial setting forth my claims to be heard in my defence in refutation of the accusations existing against me in the Admiralty, and praying that I might be furnished with copies of the accusatory doc.u.ments, I can no longer refrain from entreating your lordship to relieve my mind from its present state of most painful suspense by making me acquainted with the decision of the Government. From my knowledge of your lordship's considerate feelings towards me, and of your desire, should it be found practicable and just, to restore me to my place in his Majesty's service, and from that consciousness of my own integrity which has maintained me during so many years of adversity, I cannot but be sanguine, notwithstanding the delay, of an ultimately favourable result. But the period of suspense is not only one of great mental anxiety, but in other respects most injurious. It places me in a position worse than that which I was in under the former Administration, which at once decided to dismiss my complaint without consideration, and spared me that uncertainty which 'makes the heart sick.' While those ministers were in power my character sustained no injury from their refusal to do me justice. But under the Administration of your lordship, the public opinion must be that my case has received every consideration, and that the ascertained justice of the verdict against me is the bar to my restoration. This opinion already operates so much to my disadvantage and annoyance as to paralyze all my pursuits, and will shortly compel me, unless your lordship spares me that sacrifice, to quit a country of which I have never, by any act of my life, rendered myself unworthy, and in the bosom of which, unless called out again in her service, I would fain spend the remainder of my life in tranquillity."

That letter was delivered by the Countess of Dundonald, who at this time, as at all others, laboured with rare energy and tact to lighten her husband's heavy load of suffering and to augment his scanty store of joy. "Lady Dundonald," he wrote on the 6th of February, "has had a long talk with Lord Grey on the subject of my affair, and it clearly appears that there are two individuals in the Cabinet who will not give in. It is now, however, determined that Lady Dundonald--I being out of town--shall go to the King with a very proper memorial on her part, praying that the stain on the family may be wiped away by a free pardon. It is supposed that this will succeed; because in that case the King can exercise his prerogative without other counsel than that of his Prime Minister, who is favourable."

That term "free pardon" was galling to Lord Dundonald. He knew that he had done nothing which needed forgiveness. It was justice, not pardon, that he sought. He had suffered so much, however, from official formalities, and his honest resentment of them, that he now reluctantly consented to accept the virtual acquittal which was the great object of his hopes and toils, though it might be couched in a phrase none the less distasteful to him because it was the phrase that from time immemorial had been used as a cloak for the withdrawal of official wrong.

His concession was successful. "The King," he was able to write on the 4th of March, "has at last promised to do that which the late Administration refused, and the present ministry had not the power or courage to accomplish. For this I am indebted to the zealous exertions of Lady Dundonald, who has been at Brighton, and has left Lord Grey and others no rest until her object was accomplished. Thus, you see, perseverance has done more than reason, right, and justice. The fact is that great folks neither read nor trouble themselves with judging from facts on subjects which do not immediately concern themselves. I have no doubt that the 'Review' has never been looked into by one of the ministers."

The "free pardon" was promised on the 28th of February, but it was not formally granted till five weeks afterwards. Lord Dundonald ascertained that one cause of the long delay in considering his case was the heat of party fight occasioned by the Reform Bill. The Government feared to show any kindness to a man whom the Tories had so long and so persistently reviled, lest thereby they should lose in the House of Commons a few wavering votes that were important. The Reform Bill pa.s.sed the Lower House, for the second time, at the end of March.[14] Its final adoption being expected with less difficulty than arose, it was now easier to do justice to Lord Dundonald. "I was happy to hear your memorial to the King read in Council and referred to the Admiralty," the Earl of Durham wrote to him on the 16th of April. "I trust we may eventually have the means of doing an act of private as well as of public justice, and that I shall see you restored to that service of which you are the highest ornament. But you well know that you have had not only my best wishes, but my warmest exertions, for the attainment of that object."

[14] "My dear Lord Durham," wrote the Earl of Dundonald, on the 15th of April, "allow me most sincerely to congratulate you on the attainment of the great object which the present Administration has now, so honourably for themselves and so fortunately for the country, brought to a pa.s.s wherein no retrograde movement can take place, whatever may be the obstructions offered by the interested proprietors of borough influence, or by persons whose ideas of Government have been formed under the tuition of preceding Administrations. It is rare felicity for a nation to be governed by men having the liberality and justice which induce them to confer free inst.i.tutions peacefully on the country; inst.i.tutions which merit the grat.i.tude of all who now exist, and will receive the unqualified applause of future generations. The page of history affords no parallel to the present event."

The object was at last attained. At a Privy Council held on the 2nd of May, a "free pardon" was granted to the Earl of Dundonald. He was restored to his position in the Royal Navy, and, on the 8th, gazetted as a Rear-Admiral of the Fleet.

In that capacity he was presented to King William IV. at the levee held on the 9th of May; and congratulations poured in from all quarters as soon as the good news was published. But he could not, even in the first moments of rejoicing, forget that the cause of congratulation was only a pardon for an offence which he had never committed, and for which he had been enduring heavy punishment during sixteen years of his life.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE INTENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES OF LORD DUNDONALD'S FATHER.--HIS OWN MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES.--HIS LAMPS.--HIS ROTARY STEAM-ENGINE, HIS SCREW-PROPELLER, HIS CONDENSING-BOILER, AND HIS LINES OF SHIP-BUILDING.--THEIR TARDY DEVELOPMENT.--HIS CORRESPONDENCE UPON STEAM-SHIPPING WITH SIR JAMES GRAHAM, THE EARL OF MINTO, THE EARL OF HADDINGTON, AND THE EARL OF AUCKLAND.--THE PROGRESS OF HIS INVENTIONS.--THE "Ja.n.u.s."--THE BENEFICIAL RESULTS OF HIS EXPERIMENTS.

[1833-1847.]

Lord Dundonald's father, the ninth earl, had devoted the chief energies of his long life to scientific pursuits, which won for him, not profit, but well-earned fame, and which proved of immense benefit to his own and succeeding generations. By him was discovered the art of extracting tar from coal, and out of that discovery was developed, partly by him and partly by others, the manufacture of gas, first used for lighting his tar-works. The important chemical process of making alkali and crystals of soda was also introduced by him, whereby a great impetus was given to the manufacture of gla.s.s and to many other important branches of industry. He discovered the present method of preparing alum, or sulphate of vitriol, and suggested its subst.i.tution for gum senegal, which has proved hardly less advantageous to the mechanical arts. In 1795, he published a treatise, the result of numerous and costly experiments, on the connection between agriculture and chemistry, which was almost the parent of all the later researches that have issued in beneficial plans for improving the soil and invigorating the growth of crops, and in various and important developments of scientific farming.

The tenth Earl of Dundonald inherited his father's mechanical and scientific genius. The lamp invented by him in 1814, which introduced the principle upon which all later lamps for burning oil, naphtha, and other combustibles have been constructed, has been already referred to. Many other inventions and discoveries occupied his leisure during the years in which he was allowed to follow his profession both in British and in foreign service;[15] and the fuller leisure forced upon him during the years following his return from Greece was chiefly devoted to further exercise of his inventive faculties.

[15] It is interesting to note that the recent introduction among us of the Turkish bath was due to Lord Dundonald. "Having recovered,"

says Dr. Gosse, in his treatise "Du Bain Turc," p. 58, "from two attacks of intermitting fever, I visited the islands of the Archipelago until summoned to Nauplia by Admiral Cochrane, who was then on board the little steam-vessel _Mercury_. There the air of the gulf, and the marshy miasma, brought on another attack of fever, from which I feared a fatal issue. Lord Cochrane had the kindness to take me in his arms, and to place me in the current of steam, which caused me to perspire freely. My illness disappeared as by enchantment." A similar service was rendered by Lord Dundonald to Mr. David Urquhart, whose attention was thus called to the advantages of the Turkish bath, and who became its great advocate.