A RECAPITULATION OF LORD COCHRANE'S NAVAL SERVICES.--HIS EFFORTS TO
OBTAIN RESTITUTION OF THE RANK TAKEN FROM HIM AFTER THE STOCK EXCHANGE
TRIAL.--HIS PETITION 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 passed 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
surpassed.
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
assistance; 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 PalliËre, 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 shore 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 assigned 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 pass 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 circumstances 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 pronouncing 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 unassailed, yet an unshaken
and unsullied character;--That your memorialist has never ceased, and
never can cease to assert his absolute innocence of the crime of which
he was pronounced guilty. He asserts it now, most solemnly, as in the
presence of Almighty God, 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 assert 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 pronounced 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 illustrious 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 rectitude 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 gratitude by all the means in his
power."
That document 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 assistance 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 restitution 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 pass 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 petition 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 petition
again," he said in another letter; "though I am assured 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 petition.
"Assured 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; assured, 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 pronounced, 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 participation 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 petition. 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 petition;" and Lord Cochrane
was distressed at hearing, on the 18th, that the document had been
given back by his Majesty to Lord Melbourne without any comment.
"If I have erred as to the form of my petition, 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 petition ought to have
been forwarded through the First Lord of the Admiralty, whom I have
therefore solicited to present another petition, 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 assured, 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 petition 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, documents 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 assures 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 assistance 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 trespass 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 documents, 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 passed 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 pass 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 institutions peacefully on
the country; institutions which merit the gratitude 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 levÈe
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.