H. R. Fox Bourne

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I am persuaded, sir, that the House will easily perceive, and every honourable man, I am sure, participate in my feelings, that the fine, the imprisonment, the pillory—even that pillory to which I am condemned—are nothing, that they weigh not as a feather, when put in the balance against my desire to show that I have been unjustly condemned. Therefore, sir, I trust that the House will give a fair and impartial hearing to what I have to say respecting the conduct of my enemies, to expose which conduct is a duty which I owe to my constituents, and to my country, not less than to myself. ”

“ If Lord Cochrane's bearing at it was factious, it must be remembered how greatly he had suffered and how earnestly he desired to save the people at large from the sufferings entailed upon them by the Government which he and they had learnt to regard with a common dislike. By exposing what appeared to him and many others to be the hypocrisy of seeming philanthropists, and showing what he deemed the only real cause and the only real remedy of the national distress, he only acted as a brave and honest man, and his work was appreciated by the masses in whose interest it was done. ”

“ The magazines, instead of being the receptacles of filth and crime, will be full of the richest foreign and domestic productions; and all will be energy and activity, because the reward will be in proportion to the labour. Your river will be filled with ships, and the monopolist degraded and shamed. You will bless the day in which Omnipotence permitted to be rent asunder the veil of obscurity, under which the despotism of Spain, the abominable tyranny of the Inquisition, and the want of liberty of the press, so long hid the truth from your sight. ”

“ The members of this House are the maggots of the Constitution. They are the locusts that devour it and cause all the evils that are complained of. There is nothing wicked which does not emanate from this House. In it originate all knavery, perjury, and fraud. You well know all this. You also know that the means by which the great majority of the House is returned is one great cause of the corruption of the whole people. It has been said, 'Let the people reform themselves;' but if sums of money are offered for seats within these walls, there will always be found men ready to receive them. ”

“ Lord Cochrane put to sea on the 8th of May. "As a Greek citizen," one of the deputies in London, Andreas Luriottis, had written on the 17th of April, "I cannot refrain from expressing my sincere gratitude towards your lordship for the resolution which you have taken to depart almost immediately for Greece. This generous determination, at a moment when my country is really in want of every assistance, cannot be regarded with indifference by my countrymen, who already look upon your lordship as a Messiah. Your talents and intrepidity cannot allow us for a moment to doubt of success. ”

“ One bold stand had begun to be made, in which, throughout nearly a whole year, the Greeks fought with unsurpassed heroism, and then the whole struggle for liberty fell into the lawless and disordered condition which already had prevailed in many districts, and which was then to become universal and to offer obstacles too great even for Lord Cochrane's genius to overcome in his efforts to revive genuine patriotism and to render thoroughly successful the cause that he had espoused. ”

“ Every child who could hold a weapon had one placed in his hand. There was bitter leave-taking, and desperate words of encouragement passed from one to another, as the patriots were marshalled in the order of their departure;—three thousand fighting men to open a passage and four thousand women and children to follow;—the whole being divided into three separate parties. At length all was ready, and the first party silently passed out of the town and advanced to the bridges. To their amazement, they no sooner appeared than they were met by volley after volley of Turkish fire. ”

“ You must see, sir, that, in this my advice to the first officer arriving in command of a vessel, I can have no interest any further than inasmuch as I wish well to the Greek cause, and therefore do not wish to see a force that can be of great service rendered ineffective by falling into the hands of people totally incapable and unwilling to adopt a single right measure. ”

“ But at the close of the latter year, his uncle, Sir Alexander Cochrane, having been selected for the command of the fleet on the North American station, appointed him his flag-captain—an appointment resting only with the Commander-in-Chief, and one with which the Government could not interfere. It was always Lord Cochrane's belief that the implacable enmity of his foes in the Admiralty Office—determined to prevent by irregular means, since no regular course was open to them, his return to naval work—helped to bring about the cruel persecution by which his whole life was embittered. ”

“ Lord Ellenborough, who presided at the trial, delivered a charge which was even more virulent and more marked by political spite than was his wont, and the too compliant jury brought in a verdict of "guilty." Lord Cochrane vainly sought for a new trial, and vainly adduced abundant proof of his innocence. The chance of justice that is every Englishman's right was denied to him. He was sentenced to an hour's detention in the pillory at the entrance of the Royal Exchange, to a year's imprisonment in the King's Bench Prison, and to a fine of a thousand pounds. ”

“ Writing thus to the Minister of Marine, Lord Cochrane wrote also at the same time to General Freire, who, as has been said, asked him to join his revolutionary movement. "It would give me great pleasure, my respected friend, to learn that the change which has been effected in the government of Chili proves alike conducive to your happiness and to the interests of the State. For my own part, like yourself, I have suffered so long and so much that I could not bear the neglect and double-dealing of those in power any longer, but adopted other means of freeing myself from an unpleasant situation. ”

“ The Greek people—the peasants and burghers—were still patriots, though ill-trained and misdirected. They could defend their own homesteads with unsurpassed heroism, and hold their own mountains and valleys with fierce persistency. But they were unfit for distant fighting, even when their chiefs consented to employ them in it. Sultan Mahmud, therefore, who had been profiting by the hard experience of former years, and whose strength had been steadily growing while the power of the insurgents had been rapidly weakening, entered on a new and successful policy. ”

“ Pitt himself confessed that no honest man could hold the situation of minister for any length of time. There can be no honest minister until measures have been taken to purge and purify the House. If this be not done, it is in vain to hope for a renewal of successful enterprise in this country: the sun of the country is set for ever. It may indeed exist as a petty military German despotism, with horsemen parading up and down, with large whiskers, with sabres ringing by their horses' sides, with fantastically-shaped caps of fantastical colours on their heads ”

“ Six weeks before that, on the 20th of May, Lord Cochrane spoke on another famous motion—that made by his friend Sir Francis Burdett in favour of parliamentary reform. Once more, he complained that the existing House of Commons in no way represented the people, and was entirely regardless of its interests. Nothing better, he alleged, could be hoped for, without a radical change in the system of representation. "But," he continued, "reform we must have, whether we will or no. The state of the country is such that things cannot much longer be conducted as they now are. ”

“ They are a light-hearted people. I wish I could join in their fun. I was hopeful that I should; but the cursed recollection of the injustice that has been done to me is never out of my mind; so that all my pleasures are blasted, from whatever source they might be expected to arise."
That last sentence fairly indicates the state of Lord Cochrane's mind during these painful years. Weighed down by troubles heavy enough to break the heart of an ordinary man, he fought nobly for the thorough justification of his character and for the protection of others from such persecution as had befallen him. ”

“ All those who participated in the risks and glory of the deed also deserve well of their countrymen; and I have the satisfaction to be the medium of transmitting the sentiments of admiration which such transcendent success has excited in the chiefs of the army under my command." "It is impossible for me to eulogize in proper language," he also wrote to the Chilian administration, "the daring enterprise of the 5th of November, by which Lord Cochrane has decided the superiority of our naval forces, augmented the splendour and power of Chili, and secured the success of this campaign." ”

“ KOLOKOTRONES.—A captain of the Morea, and the most powerful one in all Greece. He owes this partly to the numerous ramifications of his family, partly to his reputation as a hereditary robber, and also to the wealth he has amassed in his vocation. He is a fine, decided-looking man, and knows perfectly all the localities of the country for carrying on mountain warfare, and he knows also, better than any other, how to manage the Greek mountaineers. ”

“ Oppressed by the Ottomans on account of their race and their religion, the oppression was none the less in that it induced many of them to cast off the last shreds of freedom and deck themselves in the coarser, but, to slavish minds, the pleasanter bondage of trickery and meanness. During the eighteenth century, many Greeks rose to eminence in the Turkish service, and proved harder task-masters to their brethren than the Turks themselves generally were. ”

“ The Government of Greece is waiting with the utmost impatience for the most zealous defender of the nation's liberty. It hopes to see you in its midst as soon as possible after your arrival at Hydra, and then to make you acquainted with the actual state of Greece, and to furnish you with all the means in its power for the achievement of the grand results proposed by your lordship. ”

“ This, at any rate, Lord Cochrane maintained should be urged upon him, for if something were not quickly done for the relief of the nation, trade and commerce would soon be utterly ruined, and the whole community would share the misery that had so long oppressed the lower orders. He again dwelt forcibly on the causes of this misery, and again denounced the conduct of the ministers and placemen who, while squandering the hardly-earned pounds of the people, claimed respect for their exemplary charity in doling out a few farthings for "the relief of the poor." ”

“ When Lord Cochrane returned, however, he found that the honest minister had been deposed, that his party had been ousted, and that the Emperor was surrounded by bad counsellors, who, unable to pervert his judgment, were strong enough to restrain its action, and who were robbing him, one by one, of all his constitutional functions, and doing their best to bring Brazil into a state of anarchy, with a view to the re-establishment of Portuguese authority in its old or in some new but no less obnoxious form. ”

“ Even during his brief holiday in Scotland, Lord Cochrane was troubled by the news that Mr. Galloway, the engineer to whom had been entrusted the chief work in constructing steam-boilers for the Greek vessels, was proceeding very slowly with his task. "My conviction is," wrote Mr. Ellice, "that Galloway, in undertaking so much, has promised what he can never perform, and that it will be Christmas, if not later, before the whole work is completed. No engines are to be got either in Glasgow or Liverpool. You know I am not sanguine, and the sooner you are here to judge for yourself the better. ”

“ The Turks had to defend themselves as best they could from numerous sorties, well-planned and well-executed, in May and June; and fresh courage came to the Greeks with the intelligence that Admiral Miaoulis was on his way to the port, with as powerful a fleet as he could muster. While he was being expected, however, on the 10th of July, the Turkish Capitan Pasha of Greece arrived with fifty-five vessels. Miaoulis, with forty Greek sail, made his appearance on the 2nd of August. Thus the naval and military forces of both sides were brought into formidable opposition. ”

“ Much has been said about the glorious result of the war; but has not lavish expenditure loaded us with taxation which is impoverishing the people and annihilating commerce? Are not vessels seen everywhere with brooms at their mastheads? Are not sailors starving? Is not agriculture languishing? Are not our manufactures in the most distressed state?"
Lord Cochrane asserted that the real revolutionists of England were the ministers and their followers. "I am persuaded that no man without doors wishes the subversion of the Constitution ”

“ When the Greek Revolution was at its height, he had contributed largely to its success; and in the ensuing years of disaster upon land, he had maintained its dignity on the sea by offering bold resistance to the great naval power of the combined Turkish and Egyptian fleets. No better proof of his patriotism could be given than in the zeal with which he surrendered to Lord Cochrane the leadership of the fleet which had devolved upon him for so long and been so ably conducted by him. ”

“ To reform the abuses which arise out of this system is the object of my honourable friend's motion. I will not, cannot, anticipate the success of the motion; but I will say, as has been said before by the great Chatham, the father of Mr. Pitt, that, if the House does not reform itself from within, it will be reformed with a vengeance from without. The people will take up the subject, and a reform will take place which will make many members regret their apathy in now refusing that reform which might be rendered efficient and permanent. ”