“The thanks of that House did not deserve to be lavished on any man,
unless his services were of that rank which forced itself into
universal report and universal admiration. It was not to be evolved in
some obscure process of official chemistry, not to be drawn out under
bundles of obscure records, not to be elicited by any keen, cunning,
recondite, subtilising process[64] beyond the practice or perception
of the general mass of mankind. To be praised, it must be known; to
become matter of thanks, it must be matter of public fact.
In voting thanks it was time to pause. These old rewards had become
worthless. It had been said that nothing was left but the peerage, and
even of that high honour ministers had been most lavish. This was the
natural process when there was no distinct scale of merit and reward.
It was high time to stop. They had in their hands the great provision
for national virtue. They had the honours of the country intrusted to
them, and it became them as legislators not to suffer its streams to
be idly diverted, nor to be prodigally and profusely poured forth to
slake the thirst of undeserving ambition, still panting, still
insatiable.”
-----
Footnote 64:
Alluding to the court-martial.
-----
Argument and fact were alike unavailing, and Sir John Orde’s
extraordinary reasons and opinions prevailed. To 161 of the Admiralty
opinion, only 39 could be found alive to a true sense of legislative
dignity or functions.
A few remarks on what passed in the House of Lords, where similar thanks
were voted, are necessary.
Lord Mulgrave said that it was with great surprise that he first heard
that a noble lord serving under the noble Admiral, and a member of
another House, had intimated his intention to oppose the vote of the
House of Commons, on the ground that his commander had not done his duty
to _the utmost_. Lord Mulgrave, of course, alluded to my conversation
with him nine months before, though I never said anything of the kind to
his Lordship. What I said was, “that the Commander-in-chief had not done
anything deserving the thanks of Parliament.” Had the _Minutes_ been
allowed to be produced in either House, this would have been proved
beyond question, in spite of the _sentence of acquittal_, which was
alone laid on the table.
Lord Mulgrave was no less unjust in attempting to convince the peers
that I had done nothing but carry out _Lord Gambier’s plan of
fireships_; referring them to Lord Gambier’s letter of March 19th, 1809,
in which, instead of recommending an attack by fireships, Lord Gambier
had denounced such an attempt as “_hazardous, if not desperate_,”[65] as
would have appeared had the minutes of the court-martial been laid
before them.
-----
Footnote 65:
See Lord Gambier’s letter, Vol. I. p. 342.
-----
Mine, as explained in the first volume, was not an attack by fireships
alone, for such an attack could only have ended in the boarding of the
fireships by the enemy’s row-boats, and the murdering of the crews. It
was an attack by means of explosion-vessels, which should impress the
enemy with the idea that every fireship was similarly charged, so as to
have the effect of deterring them from boarding, and thus, the
fireships, had they been properly directed, must have done their work in
spite of the enemy’s row-boats.
Yet Lord Mulgrave followed Lord Gambier in this “_suppressio veri_.” On
the very day Lord Gambier had _not_ recommended the use of
fireships—though Lord Mulgrave’s speech would lead the House, in the
absence of the minutes of the court-martial, to infer that he _had_
recommended their use—the Commander-in-chief had stated that an attack
with fireships would be “_hazardous, if not desperate_.” A curious way,
truly, of recommending the use of fireships; though, had he recommended
them, they would have been of no use without the explosion-vessels, the
terror created by which formed the very essence of my plan, and was the
sole cause even of the trifling success gained. Again, said Lord
Mulgrave:—
“Lord Cochrane arrived at Plymouth. He had on a former occasion been
employed in blockading Rochefort, and was acquainted with the coasts.
He was, therefore, consulted, and _spoke with greater confidence of
the success of the attempt than those who wrote from that quarter_, It
was not, however, merely the zeal and _desire of execution_ he showed,
but also the talent he displayed in meeting the objections _started by
naval men_, which induced the Admiralty to employ his Lordship.”
This representation was thoroughly incorrect. So far from there being
any “desire of execution” on my part, I tried every means in my power to
avoid being intrusted with the execution of my own—not Lord
Gambier’s,—plans as Lord Mulgrave insinuated. He, however, unconsciously
admitted that other naval men “started” such objections, that they could
not be got to undertake an attack with fireships, and therefore the duty
was _thrust_ on me, with the addition of the explosion-vessels I had
suggested, thus convincing the Admiralty Board that an attack, on my
plan, was both easy of execution and certain in its result. Lord
Mulgrave’s expression of “those who wrote from that quarter,” viz Lord
Gambier, showed that the Commander-in-chief had _no confidence_ in
fireships. Neither had I, unless accompanied by my plan of
explosion-vessels.
Still persisting that this was an attack by fireships merely, Lord
Mulgrave told the House that it was nothing new, which was the case, if
the explosion-vessels were left out, but that—
“In the course of the last century there were two services performed
by fireships; the first in 1702 at Vigo, and the second off Minorca in
1792. But _what was the present service_? Recollect, a fleet protected
by _shoals and currents_, in sight of their own coast, and in presence
of their countrymen. _Nothing in the annals of our Navy was more
brilliant!_”
Who, then, performed that “_brilliant_” service, than which nothing
could be more satisfactory? Lord Mulgrave told the House that Lord
Gambier did, _whilst lying with his fleet nine miles off_, and
reluctantly sending two line-of-battle ships and some frigates to my
“assistance,” when almost too late to rescue me from the dilemma into
which, in sheer despair of anything being done, I had voluntarily
rushed, with the determination that if my frigate was sacrificed, while
he was calmly looking on, he should take the consequences, and what they
would have been I need not say. It was this act of mine, and this only,
which caused the paltry service to be effected of destroying two
line-of-battle ships and a store ship, instead of the whole enemy’s
fleet!