09 - Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol 2 by Henry Richard Fox Bourne

Immerse yourself in the thrilling tales of Lord Cochrane, a renowned sea captain from the Napoleonic era, whose life was rich with high-seas adventures that later inspired numerous naval fiction series. This second volume of his biography, penned by his secretary and son, completes the unfinished Autobiography of a Seaman. Discover how Cochrane valiantly assists the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire, marks his presence in the House of Lords, regains his knighthood, and makes a striking comeback to the Royal Navy.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twenty five of the Life of Thomas Lord Cochrane,
tenth Earl of dun Donald, completing the Autobiography of a Seaman,
Volume two by Henry Richard Foxbourne and others. This Liberox
recording is in the public domain recording by Timothy Ferguson
eighteen thirty three to eighteen forty eight. As zealously as
the Earl of dun Donald strove through nearly twenty years

(00:20):
to perfect and make generally useful his inventions in connection
with steam shipping, he attached yet greater importance to another
and older invention or discovery, which, though its efficiency has
been admitted by all to whom it has been explained,
has never yet been adopted. This was the device known
as his secret war Plans, for capturing the fleets and
forts of an enemy, by an altogether novel process attended

(00:43):
by little cost or risk to the assailant, but of
terrible effect upon the objects attacked. These plans were conceived
by him in eighteen eleven, and in the following year,
as he has told in his autobiography, he submitted them
to the Prince Regent afterwards, King George the Fourth. By
the Prince they were referred to a secret committee consisting

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of the Duke of York as President, Lord Keith, Lord Exmouth,
and the two Congreves, who, on the details being set
before them, declared this method of attack to be infallible
and irresistible. Lord do Donald was pledged to secrecy by
the Prince Regent, and it was proposed to employ the
device in the war still proceeding with France. That proposal, however,

(01:25):
was abandoned, and another for the trial of the plan
under Sir Alexander Cochrane in North America in eighteen fourteen,
was prevented by the Stock Exchange Trial. After that, the
long piece enjoyed by England would have postponed the experiment.
Even if Lord dun Donald had not been debarred from
pursuit of his calling as an English naval officer, he
might have used his secret in Chile, Brazil and Greece,

(01:48):
but his promise to the Prince Regent and patriotic feelings
that were even more cogent than that promise restrained him.
Once used, it would cease to be a secret, and
he resolved that the great advantage that was a crew
from the first use should be reserved for his own country.
The project, however, was not forgotten by him. Soon after
the ascension of King William the Fourth he explained it

(02:10):
to His Majesty, who acknowledged its value and paid a
tribute to Lord dun Donald's honorable conduct in keeping his
secret so long and under such strong inducements to an
opposite course. Soon afterwards, and during many years, the prospect
of another war induced him to engage in frequent correspondence
on the subject with various members of the successive governments.
I long ago wrote the Marquess of Lansdowne, then President

(02:33):
of the Council, in May eighteen thirty four, communicated the
substance of the paper you left with me on the
important objects which might be accomplished by the agency you
describe in an attack upon an hostile marine, to such
of my colleagues as I then had an opportunity of seeing,
and more particularly to Lord Minto, whom I found in
some degree apprized of your views upon this subject. As

(02:56):
questions of such importance to the naval interests of the
country can only be satisfactorily inquired into by the Admiralty
Department of the Government, I should recommend you entering into
an unreserved communication with him on the subject, which I
know he will receive with all the attention due to
your high professional character and experience. The Earl of Minto

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gave many proofs of his regard for Lord dun Donald,
but he was not disposed to think favorably of the
secret war plan, and it was kept in abeyance for
four years more. In the autumn of eighteen thirty four,
Lord dun Donald again pressed its consideration upon Lord Lansdowne,
alleging as a reason the warlike attitude of Russia. I
am obliged to you for your letter, wrote Lord Lansdowne

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in reply on the fifth of November, and will certainly
make use of the communication it contains in the proper
quarter if the occasion arises, which I sincerely hope it
will not ambitious and encroaching, as Russia is seen and
felt to be in all directions. I am confident that
her own true policy is to avoid giving just course
for war, and that busily as she may use all

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indoe direct means towards her ends which she thinks she
can justify, she will yield to remonstrance when these limits
are transgressed. By her agents. This is a course, however,
which requires to be and I trust will be most
carefully watched. In that interesting letter, Lord Lansdowne showed by
his silence that he was not inclined to investigate the

(04:22):
war plan, and alike indifference was experienced by Lord dun
Donald in his repeated efforts during the ensuing years to
secure its acceptance by the government. It was submitted to
a favored few, and all to whom it was explained
acknowledged its efficacy, but no more than that was done.
Its most competent critic was the Duke of Wellington, who
recognized the terrible power of the device, although he objected

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to it on the score that too could play at
that game if the people of France shall force their
government to war with England, wrote Lord dun Donald to
Lord Minto on the third of August eighteen forty, I
hope you will do me the favorite justice to reflect
on the nature of the opinion you received from the
Duke of Wellington in regard to my plans, which is
the same as that given to the Prince Regent by

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Lords Keith and Exmouth and the two Congreves in the
year eighteen eleven, and that your lordship will perceive that
although two can play at that game, the one who
first understands it can alone be successful in the event
of war. I beg to offer my endeavors to place
the navy of France under your control, or at once
effectually to annihilate it. Were my plans known to the world,

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I should not be accused of overrating their powers by
the above otherwise extraordinary assertion. Lord Minto's answer was very brief.
I shall bear your offer in mind, but there is
not the slightest chance of war. For the same reason,
the secret plans were set aside by the Earl of Haddington,
who was first Lord of the Admiralty under Lord Minto.

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He rented considerable aid to Lord mac donald in testing
his steam engine and boiler, but considered the fact that
England was at peace a sufficient reason for not discussing
the value of a new instrument of war. Lord Dundar Ronald, however,
who knew the value of his invention, thought otherwise. While
vast sums of money were being spent at dover Portsmoth
and elsewhere upon fortifications and harbors of refuge for trading vessels,

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which at wartime could have no chance of safety against
fighting steamships in the open sea. He deemed it especially
important the attention should be paid to a project calculated
to effect an entire revolution in the principles and methods
of warfare. If his project was feasible, it furnished an
instrument by which fortifications and harbors of refuge would be

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rendered useless, seeing that the most powerful enemy might by
it be effectually prevented from coming within reach of those defenses,
or if he was allowed to approach them, could use
it with terrible effect, to which the most formidable defenses
could offer a resistance. It was under this impression that,
on the twenty ninth of November eighteen forty five, finding
governments indifferent to his arguments, he addressed a vigorous letter

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to the Times, had gunpowder and its adaptation to artillery,
he there said, been disres governed and perfected by an individual,
and had its wonderful power been privately tested, indisputably proved,
and reported to a government or to a council of
military men. At the period when the battering ram and
crossbow were chief implements in war, it is probable that

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the civilians would have treated the author as a wild visionary,
and that the professional counsel. Due to this spirit de
corps would have spurned the supposed insult to their superior
understanding science and the arts, both of peace and war. Nevertheless,
in despite full such retarding causes have advanced, and probably
will advance until effects and consequences accrue which the imagination

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can scarcely contemplate. It is, not, however, my intention to
intrude observations of an ordinary nature, but to endeavor to
rectify an erroneous opinion which appears to prevail that consequences
disastrous to this country may be anticipated from the introduction
of steamships into maritime warfare. I am desirous of showing

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that the use of steamships of war, though at present
available by rival nations, need not necessarily diminish the security
of our commerce, but still less need it necessarily endanger
our national existence, which appears to be apprehended by those
who allege the necessity of devoting millions of money to
the defense of our coasts. I contend that there is

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nothing in the expected new system of naval warfare through
the employment of steam vessels, that can justify such expensive
and derogatory precautions, because there are equally you and yet
secret means of conquest which no devices hitherto used in
maritime warfare could resist or evade. That the prejudice or incredulity,
which in all probability would have scouted the invention of gunpowder,

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if offered to notice under the circumstances above supposed may
exist to a considerable extent in the present case, is
extremely likely. Yet I do not the less advisedly affirm
that with this all powerful auxiliary invasion may be rendered
impossible and our commerce secure, by the speedy and effectual
destruction of all assemblages of steamships, and if necessary, of

(09:03):
all the navies of the whole world, which for ever
after might be prevented from inconveniently increasing away with the
sinister forebodings which have originated the recent devices for protruding
through the sterns of sluggish ships of war, additional guns
for defense in fight away with the projected plans of
protective forts and ports of cowardly refuge. Let the manly

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resolution be taken, when occasions shall require vigorously to attack
the enemy, instead of preparing elaborate means of defense. Factitious
ports on the margin of the channel cannot be better
protected than those which exist, respecting which I pledge any
professional credit, I may possess that whatever hostile force might
therein be assembled, could be destroyed within the first twenty

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four hours, favorable for effective operations in defiance of forts
and batteries mounted with the most powerful ordinance now in
use in the capacity of an officer, all hopes seemed
to be precluded that in time of peace, I could
render service to my country. A new light, however, has
beamed through the cloud. For in the pursuit of my
vocation as an amateur engineer, it has become apparent that

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a plan which I deemed available only in war may
contribute to prevent the Naval Department from being paralyzed by
a wasteful perversion of its legitimate support. Protective harbors, save
as screens from wind and sea, may be likened to
nets wherein fishers seeking to escape find themselves inextricably entangled,
or to the guardian care of a shepherd who should

(10:32):
pen his flock in a fold to secure it from
a marching army. No effective protection could be afforded in
such ports against a superior naval force equipped for purpose
of destruction, whilst their utility as places of refuge from
steam privateers is quite disproportioned to their cost. Privateers could
neither tow off merchant vessels from our shore nor regain

(10:53):
their own if appropriate measures shall be adopted to intercept them.
Impressions in favor of so expensive and so inadequate a
scheme can have no better origin than specious reports emanating
from delusive opinions derived from a very limited knowledge of facts.
The hasty adoption of such measures, and the voting away
the vast sums required to carry them into execution, are

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evils seriously to be deprecated. It is therefore greatly to
be desired that those in powers should pause before proceeding
further in such a course. It behooves them to consider,
in all its bearings and in all its consequences, the
contemplated system of stationary maritime defense, subject as that system
may become to the overwhelming influence of the secret plan

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which I placed in their hands, similar to that which
I presented in eighteen twelve to His Royal Highness the
Prince Regent, who referred its consideration confidentially to Lord Keith,
Lord Exmouth, and the two congreves professional and scientific men,
by whom it was pronounced to be infallible under the
circumstances detailed in my explanatory statement. Thirty three years is

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a long time to retain an important secret, especially as
I could have used it with effect in defense of
my character when cruelly assailed, as I have shown at
length in a representation to the Government, and could have
practically employed it on various occasions to my private advantage.
I have, now, however, determined to solicit its well merited consideration,
in the hope privately, if possible, to prove the comparative

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inexpedients of an expenditure of some twelve million pounds or
twenty million pounds sterling for the construction of forts and harbours,
instead of applying ample funds at once to remodel and
renovate the Navy, professionally known to be susceptible to immense improvement,
including the removal from its swollen bulk of much that
is cumbrious and prejudicial. However injudicious, it might be thought

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to divulge my plan at least until energetically put in
execution for an adequate object. Yet, if its disclosure is
indispensable to enable a just and general estimate to be
formed of the merits of the mongrel terrequacious scheme of
defense now in contemplation, as compared with the US, the
mighty power and protective ubiquity of the floating bulwarks of Britain,

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unsatisfied that the balance would be greatly in favour of publicity,
it would demonstrate that there could be no security in
those defenses and those asylums on the construction of which
it is proposed to expend so many millions of the
public money. It might therefore have the effect of preventing
such useless expenditure, and of averting the obviously impending danger

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of future parsimonious naval administration, abandonment of essential measures of
nautical improvement, on the national disgrace of maritime degradation, or
inseparable from an unnatural hermephrodite union between a distinguished service
which might still further be immeasurably exalted, and the most extravagant, derogatory, inefficient,

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and preposterous project that could be devised for the security
and protection of an insular, widely extended, colonial and commercial state.
Red letter ends. A few months after that letter had
been written, Lord Dundonald's hopes that his secret plans would
be accepted by the government were revived. In eighteen forty six,
his friend, Lord Auckland took office as First Lord of

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the Admiralty, and by him, with very little delay, it
was proposed to submit the plans to the judgment of
a competent committee of officers. This was all that Lord
Dundonald had asked for, and he gladly accepted the proposal.
The officers chosen were Sir Thomas Hastings, then Surveyor General
of the Ordnance, Sir J. F. Burgoyne, and the tenant
Colonel J. S. Calhoun. By them the project was carefully considered,

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and on the sixteenth January eighteen forty seven they tended
their official report upon it. These plans, it was there said,
may be classed under three heads. First, one on which
an opinion may be formed with experiment for concealing or
making offensive warlock operations. And we consider that under many
particular circumstances the method of his lordship may be made

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available as well by Land as by sea, and we
therefore suggest that a record of this part of Lord
dun Donald's plans should be deposited with the Admiralty, to
be made use of when, in the judgment of their lordships,
the opportunity for employing it may occur. Second one, on
which experiments would be required before a satisfactory conclusion could

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be arrived. At third Numbers one and two combined for
the purpose of hostile operations. After mature consideration, we have
resolved that it is not desirable that any experiment should
be made. We assume it to be possible that the
plan number two contains power for producing the sweeping destruction
the inventor ascribes to it. But it is clear that

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this power could not be retained exclusively by this country,
because its first employment would develop both its principle and application.
We considered in the next place, how far the adoption
of the proposed secret plans would accord with the feelings
and principles of civilized warfare. We are of unanimous opinion
that Plans two and three would not be so. We

(15:53):
therefore recommend that, as hitherto, Plans two and three should
remain concealed. We feel that great credit is due to
Lord Dundonald for the right feeling which prompted him not
to disclose his secret plans when serving in war as
naval Commander in chief of the forces of other nations,
and under many trying circumstances, in the conviction that those
plans might eventually be of the highest importance to his

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own country. That report was, in the main highly gratifying
to Lord dun Donald. It recognized the efficacy of his
plans and recommended their partial use at any rate in
time of need. Permit me to express, as far as
I am able, he wrote to Lord Auckland on the
twenty seventh of January, my deep sense of obligation to
your lordship in causing my plans of war to be
thoroughly investigated by the most competent authorities, and for the

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extremely kind terms in which you have informed me of
the satisfactory result with regard to their disposal, I submit
that it would be advisable to retain them inviolate until
the period shall arrive when the use of them may
be deemed beneficial to the interests of the country. I
have to observe as to the opinions of the Commission
that Plans numbers two and three would not could with

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principles and feeling of civilized warfare. That the new method
resorted to by the French of firing horizontal shells and
carcasses is stated by a commission of scientific and practical
men appointed by the French government to ascertain their effects,
to be so formidable that it would render impossible the
success of any enterprise attempted against their vessels in harbor,

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and that for the defense of roadsteads, or for the
attack of line of battleships becalmed or embayed, its effect
would be infallible, namely by blowing up or burning our ships,
to the probable destruction of the lives of all their crews.
I submit that against such batteries as these, the adoption
of my plans numbers two and three would be perfectly justifiable.

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Readers note letter ends that the French, not yet forgetful
of the injuries inflicted on them in the last Great
War and in the frequent wars of previous centuries, were
still hoping and planning for an opportunity of retaliation, and
that their plans needed to be carefully watched and counter acted.
Were convictions strongly impressed upon Lord dun Donald in those years,
and in eighteen forty eight he had a singular verification

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of them and close a paper of some consequence, wrote
Lord Auckland to him on the thirtieth of June. It
contains the plan which the in Contemplation of war has
been submitted to the French Provisional government for naval operations.
It is perhaps little more than the pamphlet of the
Prince de Joinville, carried out methodically and in detail, and
the writer seems to me to anticipate a far more

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exclusive playing of the game only on one side than
we should allow to be the case. But nevertheless, such
a mode of warfare would be embarrassing and mischievous, and
I should like to have from you your views of
a counter project to it, and your criticisms upon it.
Read his no letter ends. The report forwarded to Lord
dun Donald by Lord Auckland, entitled La Poissance maritime de

(18:53):
la France, and designed to show that anguis maratime esplus
ere d'etur poor angelettaire quepola France, besides effecting curious confirmation
of Lord dun Donald's opinions, is a document very memorable
in itself. Its main idea was that in naval warfare,
victory is obtained not by mere numbers, but by superiority

(19:13):
in ships and guns. In the present condition of our marine,
said its author, we must give up fleet fighting. The
English can arm more fleets than we can, and we
cannot maintain a war of fleets with England without exposing
ourselves to losses as great as those we experienced under
the First Empire. Though during twenty years, however, our warfare,

(19:34):
as carried on by fleets was disastrous, that of our
cruisers was nearly always successful. By again sending these forth
with instructions not to compromise themselves with an enemy superior
to them in numbers, we shall inflict great loss on
English commerce. To attack the commerce is to attack the
vital principle of England. To strike to her heart it
is not quotends. That was the view advanced under Louis

(19:56):
Philippe's reign by the Prince de Jeanneville, but it was
much more a laborately worked out by the advocate of
naval energy in days immediately preceding Prince lou Napoleon's assentsion
to power. What I propose, he said, is a war
founded on this principle of striking at English commerce. In
a naval war between two nations, one of which has

(20:17):
a very large commerce and the other very little military
forces are of small consequence. In the end, peace must
become a necessity to the power which has much to
lose and little to gain. Let us see what took
place in America during the disputes on the Oregon question.
Despite the immense superiority of the English navy, the Americans
maintained their pretensions. England found out that well equipped frigates

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and countless privateers were sufficient to carry on a war
against her commerce in all parts of the globe, whilst
all the damage she could do to America was the
destruction of a few coast towns, by which she could
gain neither honor nor profit. And so she decided to
preserve peace by yielding the question. It is this American
system that we in France might thus to adopt. Renouncing

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the glory of fleet victories, we must make active war
on the commercial shipping of Great Britain. If America and
her small means could gain such an advantage over England,
what results may we not expect to obtain with one
hundred and fifty ships of war and three hundred corsairs
armed with long range guns, which is not quote ends.
The report recommended that the naval force of France should

(21:22):
be organized into twenty corsair divisions. These were to have
Cherbourg for their headquarters, one to look after the merchant
shipping in the British Channel, another to watch the mouth
of the Thames, and a third to cruise along the
Dutch and German coasts so as to intercept our Baltic trade.
And all these were to be aided by a line
of telegraphs from Breast to Dunkirk and correspondence with the

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line of scouts ranged along the French coast, with orders
to communicate to the central station at Cherberg every movement
of British merchantmen. Three similar divisions were to be formed
at Breast, charged respectively, with the overside of the East
and West Indian shipping as it passed Cape Clear, of
the Azores and of the Irish coast. A seventh division,
stationed at Rockfort, was to watch for a favorable opportunity

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of cooperating with the other six, and, if desirable, in
transporting an army to Ireland. An eighth division was to
watch the neighborhood of Gibraltar, and four others were to
be stationed in various parts of the Mediterranean. Three other
divisions were to cruise along the North American coast to
harass our commerce with the United States, to intercept the
trade of Canada and the neighboring colonies, and in springtime,

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to capture the produce of the New Fountain fisheries. Three
smaller divisions were to be charged with the annoyance of
our West Indian islands and the destruction of their commerce,
and the remaining two were to scour the coasts of
South America. A separate and formidable establishment of screw frigates
was to have for its headquarters a port of refuge
to be constructed in Madagascar, whose operations were to be

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directed in all quarters against our East Indian possessions and
their extensive trade. In addition to these means, it was
further sedment report the departmental councils should each armed one
steam frigate commanded by an officer of the Navy born
in the department. The prizes captured by each should in
this case be at the disposal of the departmental councils,
a portion being devoted to defraying the expenses of the vessel,

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and the remainder applied to the execution of public works
within the department. As regards the defense of French ports,
this may best be effected by flat bottomed hulks armed
with long range guns adapted to horizontal firing. The chances
against invasion are greatly in favor of France on account
of the superiority of her landforce and the facility of

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transporting troops by railway to the locality attacked. A great
point will be the perfect training of the French squadron
by annual evolutions and with double or treble the requisite
number of officers. If these suggestions are carried out, France
will establish at sea what Russia has done on land,
to the injury and restriction of British commerce, which must

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be seriously damaged without material harm being done to ourselves.
This loss of commerce will especially effect the working classes
of England, and must bring about a democratic inundation which
will compel her to a speedy submission which is not
quote ends. Those were the chief proposals of the Secret memoir, which,
falling into the hands of the British government, so far

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alarmed it as to lead it to call upon the
Earl of Dundonald for his opinions as to the best
way of meeting the threatened danger. This document, he wrote
in his reply to Lord Auckland, describes a plan of
maritime operations undoubtedly more injurious to the interests of England
than that pursued by France in former wars. There is
nothing new, however, in the opinions promulgated. They have long

(24:38):
been familiar to British naval officers, whose wonder has been
that the widespread colonial commerce of England has never yet
been effectually assailed. It is true that the advice given
in the memoir derives more importance now from the fact
that the application of steam power to a system of
predatory warfare constitutes at every harbor a port of naval
equipment requiring to be watched, not in the passive manner

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of former blockades, but effectively by steam vessels having their
fires kindled, at least during the obscurity of night. The
cost a number of such blockades need not be dwelt on,
nor the indefinite period to which prudence on the part
of an enemy and vigilance on that of the blockading
force might prolong a war. One hundred million sterling added
to a national debt would solve a doubt whether the

(25:21):
most successful depredations on British commerce could produce consequences more
extensive and permanently injurious. The memoir obviously anticipates that the
usage de Cannon's bombs duteless attennas on ussi ProDigi effect
will prevent our blockading ships from approaching the shores of France,
and thus their steam vessels might escape unobserved during night,

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even with sailing vessels in tow. This is no vague conjecture,
but a consequence which assuredly will follow any hesitation on
our parts to counteract the system extensively adopted and now
under the consideration of the National Assembly of arming all
batteries with projectiles whereby to burn or blow up our
ships of war, a fate which even the precaution of
keeping out of range could not avert by reason of

(26:05):
the insindery and explosive missiles. Whereby les petit batemint at
vapor poura attoiquois la pla grus vassieaux. It is impossible
to retaliate by using similar weapons. Forts and batteries are incombustible.
Recourse must therefore be had to other means whereby to
overcome fortifications protecting expeditionary forces and piratical equipments. Letter n.

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The means recommended by Lord dun Donald, it need hardly
be said, were the secret war plans, which he had
developed nearly forty years before, and the efficacy of which
had recently been again admitted by the committe appointed to
investigate them in eighteen forty six. It is not allowable,
of course, to quote the paragraphs in which Lord dun
Donald once more explained them and urged their adoption in
case of need. The only objection offered to them was

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that they were too terrible for use by a civilized community.
These means, he replied, all powerful, are nevertheless humane when
contrasted with the un use of shells and carcasses by
ships at sea, and most merciful as competent to avert
the bloodshed that would attend the contemplated descent an anglitaire
on an Ireland, and other hostile schemes recommended in the

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memoirle It. That letter was forwarded to Lord Auckland from Halifax,
where Lord Dundonald then was in the beginning of August. Assuredly,
the reasons which you give for the use of the
means suggested are such as it is difficult to controvert,
wrote Lord Auckland on the eighteenth. But I would at
least deffer my assenter descent to the time when the

(27:35):
question may be more pressing than it is at present.
I would postpone my own reflections on the secret plans,
he wrote again on the first of September, and would
fain hope that events will allow this government longed to
postpone all decision upon them. I agree with you, however,
in much that you say upon their principle, and am
well satisfied that to no hands better than yours could

(27:58):
the execution of any vigorous plan be entrusted rooted. No
letter ends when, however, as will be seen on a
latter page, an opportunity did arise for the enforcing those
plans against another power than France. Their execution was not
permitted to Lord dun Donald strongly, as he himself was
impressed by their importance. They formed only a part of

(28:20):
a complete system of opinions respecting the defense of England
at which he arrived by close study and long experience.
These have already been partly indicated. He did not wish
that his plans should be lightly made use of, but
believing that they would ultimately become a recognized means of warfare,
and that even without them, a great revolution would soon
take place in ways of fighting. He deprecated as useless

(28:42):
and wasteful the elaborate fortifications which were in his time
beginning to be extensively set up at Dover, Portsmouth and
other possible points of attack upon England, and urged with
no less energy that vast improvements or to be made
in the construction and employment of ships of war. Fortifications
considered were only desirable for the protection of the special

(29:02):
ports and depots around which they were set up, and
even for that purpose they ought to be so compact
as to need no more than a few troops and
local garrisons for their occupation. To have them so complicated
and numerous as to require the exclusive attention of all,
or nearly all, the military force of England appeared to
him on the a source of national weakness. His own

(29:25):
achievements at Valdivia and elsewhere showed him that skillful seamanship
on the part of an invader would render them much
less sufficient for the defense of the country than was
generally supposed. Before our soldiers were scattered along various points
on the coast, it would not be difficult for the
enemy by a bold and sudden conslaught, was still more
by a feint of the sort in which he himself

(29:45):
was master, to take possession of one, and then there
would be no concentrated army available to prevent the onward
march of the assailant. Much wiser would it be to
leave the sea board comparatively unprotected from the land, and
to have a powerful army so arranged as to be
ready for for prompt resistance to the enemy if by
any means he had gained a footing on the shore.

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To prevent that footing being gained, however, Lord Dundonald was
quite as eager as any champion of monster fortifications could be.
But this prevention, he urged, must be by means of
movable ships, and not by immovable land works. A strong
fleet of gun boats stationed all along the coast, and
with carefully devised arrangements for mutual communication, so that at
any time their force could be speedily concentrated in one

(30:27):
or more important positions, would be far more efficacious and
far more economical than the more popular expedients For the
military defense of England. He heartily believed, in fact, in
the old and often proved maxim that the sea was
England's wall, and he desired to have that wall guarded
by a force able to watch its whole extent and
capacities from one point to another as occasion required, desiring

(30:49):
that thus the coast should be immediately protected by efficient gunboats.
He desired no less to augment the naval strength of
the country by means of improved warships as much like
gunboats as possible to large ships, if constructed in moderation
and applied to special purposes. He was not a verse,
but he set a far higher value upon small and
well armed vessels able to pass rapidly from place to

(31:10):
place and to navigate shallow seas. Give me, he often said,
a fast, small steamer with a heavy long range gun
in the bow and another in the hold to fall
back upon, and I would not hesitate to attack the
larger ship afloat. His opinion on this point also was
confirmed by his own experience, most notably in the exploits
of his little Speedy in the Mediterranean, and by the

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whole history of English naval triumphs since the time when
the so called invincible Armada of Spain into the British Channel,
designed to conquer England by means of a huge armaments,
and when the bulky galleons and gallases of Philip's haughty
sailors were chased and worried by the smaller barques and
pinnacles of Drake Hawkins, Frobisher, and the other sea captains
of Elizabeth, who sailed round and round their foe, and

(31:54):
darted in and out of his unwieldy mass of shipping,
never failing to inflict great injury, while his volleys of
artillery passed harmlessly over their decks to sink into the sea.
There had been abundant proof of the constant superiority of
small worships. Of a large A mosquito fleet, as he
called it, was what Lord Dundnell wished to see developed
a swarm of active little vessels just large enough to

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carry one or two powerful guns which would go anywhere
and do anything to which the larger crafts of the
enemy would afford convenient targets, but which small and nimble
would be much less likely to be themselves attacked, and
even if attacked and sunk, would entail far less loss
than would issue from the destruction of a huge warship.
As large a gun as possible in a vessel, as

(32:38):
small and swift as possible, and as many of them
as you can put upon the sea was Lord dun
Donald's ideal for this, he argued during half a century.
For this he labored hard and long in the exercise
of his inventive powers. In eighteen twenty six, the plan
of the war steamers which he was to have taken
to Greece was explained to Lord Exmouth No slight authority

(32:58):
on naval matters. White not only the Turkish fleet, exclaimed
the veteran, but all the nabors in the world. That
you will be able to conquer with such craft as
these end of chapter twenty five. Recording by Timothy ferguson
Gold Coast, Australia,