The autobiography of a seaman (volume 2 of 2)

Description

"The autobiography of a seaman (volume 2 of 2)" by Earl of Thomas Cochrane Dundonald is an autobiography written in the mid-19th century. This volume focuses on Cochrane’s fight to vindicate his conduct during the 1809 Basque Roads operation and to expose what he saw as Admiralty obstruction and a court-martial engineered to acquit his commander, Lord Gambier. It blends meticulous documentary analysis of charts, logs, and testimony with an outspoken personal narrative critiquing naval administration, legal abuses, and political reprisals. The opening of the volume explains why Cochrane is only now, after decades of refusals, able to present original evidence: recent First Lords allowed him access to logs and charts previously withheld, enabling him to trace and publish them. He recounts how the court-martial rejected an official French hydrographic chart (showing a clear two‑mile channel and safe deep anchorages) while embracing charts prepared for the trial by Mr. Stokes and Mr. Fairfax that, he argues, mislocated grounded French ships, invented shoals, and narrowed the channel to about a mile—errors that supported Gambier’s inaction and acquittal. Cochrane details his fruitless 1818 correspondence with the Admiralty over altered charts, his departure for Chile, and, much later, the Duke of Somerset’s order granting full access, which confirmed to him that a key chart had long been suppressed. He further warns that later official charts may have absorbed these distortions, and introduces supporting views from senior officers (not examined at the trial) alongside a brief rebuttal of claims that he was rewarded rather than persecuted. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• Admirals -- Great Britain -- Biography
• Dundonald, Thomas Cochrane, Earl of, 1775-1860
• Great Britain -- History, Naval -- 19th century
• DA