“Earl Grosvenor did not think the services of Lord Gambier of such a
nature as to require the particular thanks of the House. He thought
such should only be given on very signal and important victories.
Nobody could doubt they were due to Lord Howe for his victory on the
1st of June, to Lord Duncan for his victory at Camperdown; to Lord St.
Vincent for his glorious achievements near the cape which gave him his
title, or to the immortal Nelson for the splendid exploits with which
he had adorned our naval history. These were things which spoke for
themselves, and nobody could doubt the propriety of voting thanks, as
it were, by acclamation. He thought, however, _the services of Lord
Gambier were of a very inferior description, and called for no such
reward_.”
“Earl Darnley had no objection to the vote of thanks, but at the same
time he thought the present vote one of the efforts now too often
resorted to _to throw a false lustre on the Government_. To compare
the services rendered by Lord Gambier at Basque Roads with the battles
of the Nile or Trafalgar would be the height of presumption!”
Lord Darnley was right; the vote itself, no less than the assumption of
victory, where, through the pusillanimity of the Commander-in-chief,
none had been achieved, had no other object than to “throw a false
lustre upon a Government” powerful in rotten-borough influence, but
justly mistrusted by all besides, whether in Parliament or out of it.
Because I acted practically and conscientiously on these sentiments, I
have been marked through life an object of party malevolence.
However dexterous might be the ministerial legerdemain which could
convert into victory the admitted intention of the Commander-in-chief
_not to fight_,[69] Lord Melville alone exposed the real secret of the
matter:—
Footnote 69:
See Captain Broughton’s Evidence, p. 95.
“Lord Melville conceived the Admiralty to have acted extremely wrong
in giving to Lord Cochrane a command so contrary to the usual rules of
the service, and which must have been so galling and disgusting to the
feelings of other officers in Lord Gambier’s fleet. He respected as
much as any man could the zeal, intrepidity, and enterprise of Lord
Cochrane, but it was wrong to presume that these qualities were
wanting in officers of that fleet of superior standing to his
Lordship. Such a selection naturally put Lord Cochrane upon attempting
enterprises whereby great glory might be obtained.”
Here lies the gist of the whole matter. Had I devised the plan of
attack, and had the Board of Admiralty acceded to my earnest wish, and
left it to my seniors to execute, or had I persisted in my determination
to refuse a command which the Admiralty literally forced upon me, all
would have been well. Even had Lord Mulgrave fulfilled his promise of
satisfying the _amour-propre_ of the fleet—which he neither did nor
intended to do—all might have been well. As it was, I was exposed to the
full amount of hostility which formed my reason for declining the
command in the first instance.
It was felt—as Admiral Austen plainly says—by the officers of the fleet
in Basque Roads, that a decisive victory would elevate me in national
estimation over my seniors, as it unquestionably would have done. Lord
Gambier was an easy man, and the “shoal and current” bugbear was
successfully used to bring the fleet to an anchor in place of going on
to the attack, he knowing no better, and having taken no trouble to
ascertain the fact; in short, confining himself to mere blockade. This
was the fault of the Commander-in-chief, but it did not justify him in
bringing forward charts made up for the purpose of proving imaginary
dangers from ruined fortifications and shoals where none existed.[70]
Nor did it justify the evidence of influenced witnesses to _prove_
danger—in defiance of his Lordship’s own admission that _no ship
suffered injury_![71] It did not justify his Lordship in assuming many
things in his defence, which were not in evidence at all, and many more
things that were totally at variance with the evidence contained in the
minutes. To have declined pushing an advantage to victory, in deference
to the jealousy of senior officers, was one thing; to trump up a story
of _an old storeship breaking up a boom of more than a mile in lineal
extent, and moored with a hundred anchors, was another_.
-----
Footnote 70:
See Captain Broughton’s evidence, p. 64.
Footnote 71:
See Lord Gambier’s defence, p. 100.
-----
It will now be seen why the Government of that day refused the
production of _“minutes”_ of the court-martial, almost every page of
which would have rendered the defence of the Commander-in-chief—or
rather that of his solicitor, Mr. Lavie, for I will do Lord Gambier the
justice of believing that he did not write the defence read to the Court
by the Judge-Advocate—untenable for a moment. That the Ministry of that
corrupt day should have resorted to such a subterfuge can, however,
scarcely add to the contempt with which history already regards them.
I told the House of Commons that “_posterity would judge their acts_.”
Here, then, is matter for that judgment. That it was not made public at
the time arose from two causes. First, that in those days the bulk of
the press was influenced by the Ministry; and a jackal howl, from one
end of the kingdom to the other, would have been—and was, the reward of
my pains. Secondly, that until his Grace the Duke of Somerset gave me, a
few months since, the chart and other official materials requisite to
lay the matter before posterity, it was not in my power to do so;
except, as on my previous attempts at justification, by assertions,
which would have had no more effect on the public mind than now would
those of the factions which persecuted me. As I belonged to no party in
the House, I found no friends but the few who, like myself, stood alone
in their independence of party. Those were themselves disorganised, and
deceived by the well-timed eulogy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
into the belief that the vote of thanks included me also. The numbers of
the independent party were, however, as nothing compared to the
organised masses in power, or eager to place themselves in power. The
debate was felt to have most seriously damaged the party to whom I was
politically opposed, and that party ever afterwards made me a mark for
their revenge. In this brief sentence may my whole subsequent history be
comprised.