12 - 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 eight of the Life of Thomas Lord Cochrane,
tenth Earl of dun Donald, completing the Autobiography of the Seamen,
Volume two by Henry Richard Foxbourne and others. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain recording by Timothy Ferguson
eighteen forty eight to eighteen fifty. The foregoing chapter consists

(00:21):
chiefly of extracts from letters addressed to Lord dun Donald
during eighteen forty eight. In the present one free use
will be made of his own journal of a tour
among the colonies and islands whose interests he was appointed
to watch as Admiral of the North American and West
Indian Squadron. Footnote published in eighteen sixty one as a
pamphlet entitled Notes on the mineral Ology, government and Condition

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of the British West India Islands and North American Maritime Colonies.
Footnote ends. It furnishes much interesting information about the places visited,
and has also additional interest as illustrating the writer's tone
of mind and method of investigation concerning every object that
came in his way. The journal describes his occupations during

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eight months, beginning with the summer of eighteen forty nine,
and includes reminiscences of less systematic visits to the various
localities made during the previous year. Leaving Halifax in Nova
Scotia on the fourteenth of July, Lord Dundonald proceeded northwards,
passed Cape Breton Island to Newfoundland, the fisheries of which
it was part of his duty to protect. He entered

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Saint George's Harbor, the chief resort of the fishermen and traders,
on the twenty seventh of July. It is situated, he said,
in the angle of a deep bay between Agile and
Cape Saint George, the town being on the promontory and
having deep water close to it, No village can be
better placed for the herring fishery, as these gregarious fish,
at the season of their arrival on the coast, enter

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this harbor, as it were, into the cod of a net.
Whence they are lifted into the boats by scoops and
buckets with such slender means possessed by the inhabitants. The
average catch amounts to twenty two thousand barrels, but hundreds
of thousands might be taken where encouragement afford dead salmon
are also caught in the neighboring rivers, which are alive
with undisturbed and neglected trout. The barrels in which the

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herrings are packed are said to cost two shillings and
sixpence each, and some new regulation requires additional hoops, which
to those concerned appears a grievance. It is said that
the herrings must realize ten shillings per barrel in order
to repay costs and labor, but the best advices from
Halifax state that eight shillings only are offered by the merchants.

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The French, I understand, attend more to the cod fishery.
They are not at liberty if they adhere to the
treaty to draw nets on the shore. There is an
American merchant here who deals in truck with the English
settlers and obtains from them about a third part of
the herrings court, which he sends to the United States
in such of the enormous American schooners employed in the

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fishery as enter this bay. The unauthorized British settlers here
are said to be very jealous of intruders, as they
consider they have an exclusive right to the land and
fisheries in their actual possession, and from which all are
by treaty excluded. They seemed suspicious that the Wellesley might
have some motive in entering the bay contrary to their interests.

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No person whatever came on board, nor did any one
come off to the ship, even to offer himself as
a pilot. Some persons were lately desirous to set up
a saw mill, which would have been important, as they
obtained all their stars for herring casks, et cetera, from abroad,
But the sanction of the inhabitants could not be obtained.
There is no magistrate or civil or military authority, no

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medical man, and perhaps fortunately no attorney. Indeed, there is
no law, though justice is done amongst themselves after their
own manner. There is a neat little church at which
the bishop is now officiating, and the people who are
resorting to it seem well dressed and orderly. On the
thirtieth of July, Lord don Donald left the harbor to
pass round the shop promontory known as Cape Saint George.

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About midway, he said, are remotherable. Change takes place to
the northward of the table mountain, where the vertical strata
become in appearance horizontal along the whole shore of the
projecting Isthmus. The color of the strata is chiefly gray
in parallel layers of varying hardness, as appears from its
projections and indentations. I could not, without delaying the ship

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longer than I wished, procure samples of the strata, but
there was no appearance of carboniferous minerals. The same layers
were visible in detached places up to the tops of
the hills, which are of considerable altitude, though that is
not denoted in the chart. When we rounded Cape Saint
George on the following morning, the strata, which before appeared parallel,

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were observed to dip at a considerable angle towards the northeast,
and seemed, where sufficiently exposed to view, to be split
into large diagonal flakes. There as an island close off
the shore, about five miles to the eastward of the cape,
called Red Island, which is of quite a different formation,
seemingly red horizontal layers of sandstone of a soft nature,

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as is obvious from the encroachments of the sea. The
peninsula opposite to this island is of considerable elevation as
far as round head, whence it gradually lowest to a
point about ten miles farther to the eastward. Here the
level ground at first seems to be illuvial, but on
closer observation in undated rocks are seen to protrude in
flakes dipping into the sea. The bay formed by this

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promontory is of great magnitude. There are several islands at
its mouth and in the interior, but there being no
charter and no motive for entering it, we stood on
towards the mountains on the main shore, some of which
are very high. In many parts of the contortion of
the strata and the confusion of all kinds of materials
are extraordinary. The sides of the mountains on the shore
are clad with moss alone, trees of very stunted growth

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only appearing in the sheltered valleys. No visible portion of
the shore seems capable of producing food for man. From
the western coast of Newfoundland, Lord do Donald's sail due
north to visit Labrador, with it its natural resources and
the neglect of them. He was much surprised the British
possessions in Labrador. He said, extend our attractive country as

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great as the northern regions of Russia from Saint Petersburg
towards the Pole, wherein the Ural mountains competent the government
for the sterility of the soil. I have often felt
surprised at the indifference evinced by the Spanish government towards
developing the resources of its possessions. But it is with
still greater astonishment I view the supineness of our own
government in leaving this vast tract unexplored and its probable

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treasures undiscovered. Similar complaints were suggested to him by his
observations on the eastern side of Newfoundland to which he
sailed down on the sixth of August. We passed several
ports wherein there were numerous French ships and square rid
vessels dismantled and schooners and multitudes of fishing boats in
full activity in the offing. These schooners and fishing boats

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are manned by crews of the large French vessels, which
are laid up in port and constitute depots as well
as the means of transporting the produce of the fishery
to France, an arrangement highly advantageous to the French marine,
and which we erroneously abandoned by erecting Newfoundland into a
colonial government, thus surrendering our deep sea fishery entirely, even

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without rendering the inch or fishery available to the newly
erected colony throughout which it languishes for want of stimulus
or an adequate reward, even to induce the impoverished inhabitants
of the shore to avail themselves of their small and
almost costless boats to catch fish, which, by reason of
the bounties given by France and America, are unsaleable with

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profit in any country in Europe. It is grievous to
observe the difference in the mode of carrying on the
British fishery compared to that of the French. The former
in rudely constructed skiffs with a couple of destitute looking
beings in parti colored rags, the latter in fine while
equipped schooners, which may be called tenders to their larger ships.
The Semen uniformly dressed in blue with joinful hats, looking

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as men ought and may be expected to look, whose
interests and those of the parent state are understood to
be in unison and attended to as such at Saint John's, Newfoundland.
Lord Dundnald made some stay before sailing down to Sydney
in Cape Breton. Then he returned to Halifax to go
thence for a second visit to Bermuda. Respecting Bermuda, as

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we have seen, he had much correspondence this island, he
now said. Ever since the discovery of the opening in
the reefs by Captain Hurd, has been deemed of much
naval importance, and plans were formulated by the highest military
authorities for its defense. A naval arsenal also has been
designed for the accommodation of a large establishment of ships

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of war. Distant islands, however, cannot be defended on principles
which would be the most judicious at home, by the
erection of forts in all quarters that could be occupied
by an enemy. It is obvious that under the circumstances
of Bermuda, troops cannot be spared from the parent state
permanently to garrison the multitude of forts, which, on such
a principle of defense would be requisite. If they could,

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the expense would be enormous, and therefore I cannot dismiss
this subject without an expression of my satisfaction at the
intelligence I had lately received that such extravagant and unavailing
system of fortification has been suspended. In my opinion, it
is a great error to imagine that naval officers are
unfit to be consulted respecting maritime defenses. Had it not
been for so mistaken a notion, many hundreds of thousands

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of pounds, perhaps I might say a million might have
been saved. I unhesitatingly assert that gun boats not only
would suffice, butter by far the most available and infinitely
the cheapest defensive force among the rocks around the island
of Bermuda. The colored population of this island are a
fine race, incomparably superior to the generality of the colored

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population in the West Indies. They are accustomed to navigate
in their commercial vessels, their lives are almost spent in boats,
and no better crews could be got for the defense
of their own island than they would prove themselves to be.
The existence of this soliti mary island so far from
the continent of North America. We further read in Lord
dun Donald's journal as a circumstance meriting the attention of

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geologists as well as the uniform material of which it
is composed. It is all of a calcerous nature, but
differing in condition from any of the other islands of
the same substance. The strata are exposed in the perpendicular
cliffs on the seashore in numerous precipices from one hundred
feet to minor altitudes, and are composed either of the

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most minute shells, or of parts of shells so triturated
that they scarcely indicate their origin. In some places, however,
there are laminae containing shells in a far more perfect state,
all of a white colour, with the exception of one
which I found on digging a cave of a semicircular shape,
of a red colour and almost as large as an

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oyster shell. The whole of the substance of Bermuda can
be burnt into good lime, but there is an indurated
calcerous stone, often containing many perfect shells, on the island
on which the naval yard is being built, which is
preferred as more adhesive and better in quality. Although there
are no indications of volcanic products on this island, yet

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it exhibits manifest proofs that volcanic force has raised it
from the depths of the ocean in what stage of
induration it was at that period is difficult to conjecture.
The hills and vales throughout the whole extent of Bermuda
have the stratified calcerous material, generally conforming on all sides
to the inclination of the surface. There are, however, many

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situations in which the strata present themselves as manifestly broken
by force. In the deep cutting in the road which
enters into the enclosure around the Government House, one of
these breaks appears at the apex of the hill, dividing
its sides, which he inclined towards the center, exposing a
wedge formed supplementary part that fills up the intersty. In

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the grounds of the Admiralty House, curious instances of unconformable
strata are laid bare in old co quarries. These indicate
some other cause for their nonconformity than that before assigned,
and I am quite at loss to imagine how these
stratified materials could have been placed one above another at
such different angles, by the action of water or in

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any other way without appearance of disruption. There are caves
upon the island containing large stalactites. There is one on
Tucker's Island where these stalactites reach from the top of
the cave far below the surface of the salt water
it contains. I am not aware of any other instance
where similar crystallizations have taken place under the sea water.

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It seems to lead to the belief that this island
was at some time less submerged. There are other caves
much larger, and one which goes in so far that
the officers who accompanied me did not scramble to its end.
This cave is formed by two large masses of calcareous
matter having been reared up one against the other. I
have seen some very beautiful crystallizations taken from another cave,

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recently found in a quarry at Ireland Island, But the
absence of petrifications here, for I have never seen one,
constitutes a remarkable difference between this formation and that on
the island of Antigua, where the roads are almost made
with petrefactions. Inclaring the surface of the rock, as has
lately been done at the quarries and in laying in

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the foundation of the new convict barracks, the most irregular
formation is exposed. Large holes are found contiguous to each
other in the white calcerous rock, which are filled with
the substance resembling chocolate in its colour, unlike everything else
upon the island. From Bermuda, Lord Dundonald sailed down to Barbadoes,
where he arrived on the fifth of February. The Negroes,

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he said, who are much more numerous on this island
than on any other of the West Indies, appear to
be well fared and cheering in their dispositions. They live
in small wooden houses resting on clumps of water or
blocks of stone, a mode of construction which enables them,
when tired of or displeased with their locality, to transport
the Molseae, where I was told that a street of
stone huts constructed for their use is almost abandoned by

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reason of the immobility of such residences. I consider this
locomotive propensity a favorable trait in their character. Behind the barracks,
we stopped at a hut on the rising ground, where
on the barracks or to have been placed, and assuredly
I never saw a more contented scene. There was a
young negro, and I believe his wife, together with an
old woman perhaps the grandmother of the child she fondled.

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We made inquiries to their mode of living, and they
showed as green peas seasoned with red pepper ready to
be cooked, yams and cassava bread as good as oatmeal cakes.
These peas grow on large bushes, and vegetables of all
kinds surround their hut. From Barbadoes, Lord Dundonnell proceeded by
way of Tobago to Trinidad. On the morning of the

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fourteenth of February. He said, we weighed and returned through
the dragon's mouth, shaping our course for the great natural
curiosity of Trinidad. The pitch lake, which I hoped might
be rendered useful for fuel for our steamships, so important
in the event of war, as fuel is only obtained
at present from Europe, the United States and Nova Scotia
are never resorted to. Hence, could this pitch be rendered

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applicable as fuel our vessels would be supplied when an
enemy would be almost deprived of the use of steam
in these seas. We arrived at LaBrea, and before daybreak
on the following morning, we were on the road to
the lake, or rather on a stream of bitchumen now
indurated which in form rages overflowed the lake. Indeed, the

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bitchmen beneath this road still seems to be on the move,
as shown by curvilineal ridges on its surface, like waves
receding from stone thrown into water. The appearance of the
lake is most extraordinary. One vast sheet of bitchumen extends
until lost amidst luxurious vegetation. Its circumference is full three miles,
exclusive of the creeks, which double the extent. The bitchuminus

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surface is of a dark brown waxy consistence, except in
one or two places where the fluid still exudes. Obviously,
this spring is in full vigor beneath, for the whole
surface of the lake is formed into protuberances, like the
segments of a globe pressed together, having hollows between, filled
with rain, water, which except in the immediate vicinity of

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the bituminous springs, is inodorous and without taste, an extraordinary
fact showing that this bitumen is of a nature quite
different from that of pyrotechnic mineral or vegetable tar. In
its dry state, it is quite insoluble in water, though
when charged with essential oil, as it exudes from nature's laboratory.
It imparts a pungent and unpleasant taste. A considerable quantity

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of gas bobbles up through these bituminous springs, showing that
decomposition is still active amongst the materials. Whence it exudes,
some of the recent bitumen has an odour resembling vegetable gum.
Mister Johnson, the very obliging proprietor of a neighboring estate,
had the goodness to cause some of his labourers and
a cart to bring samples to the beach. Means of transport, however,

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were so inadequate that we had recourse to digging the
more impure pitch on the beach in order to prosecute
our trials for its substitution as fuel. This Bitchmen, which
had flowed upwards of a mile from the lake, was
combined with earthy and other substances which it had encountered
in its course. Various attempts had heretofore been made to

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apply the Bitchmen to useful purposes, but without success, as
we may judge from the total abandonment of those trials
and expectations, which for a brief period induced its shipment
to England with a view to its application to the
pavements of London and other cities. All excavation has consequently ceased,
and so low is the estimation in which the bitchymen

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is held, that the duty on embarkation is only one
halfpenny per ton. The nature of this bitchmen is very
different from that of coal. When exposed to a naked fire,
it becomes fluid and runs through the bars before gas
is disengaged, or at least before it is raised to
a temperature at which it will ignite. Perhaps it requires
more purer air than enters through the bars of steamboat furnaces,

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a conjecture which seems to be confirmed by the dense
smoke speedily produced the plains of Trinidad, wrote Lord Dundonnell,
have a fertile soil which, simply by clearing the ground
is capable of being rendered the most productive in the
West India Islands, for the growth of sugar and whatever
can be cultivated in a climate most uniform in its temperature,
most congenial to tropical plants, free from the evils of hurricanes,

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and from all impediments to vegetation. I am confident that
if the hands of the governor were not bound by
restrictions and routine. The progress of Trinidad would soon verify
this opinion. Lord Harris, the present governor, nobly tendered a
portion of his official income in alleviation of the burthens
which are so severely felt in the present depressed state
of agriculture and commerce. But from some cause his lordship's

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liberal intention was not realized. This example would have proved salutary,
as it must have been followed by reductions throughout other
West India ears islands, whose resources are even in a
worse state than those of Trinidad. Is it reasonable, whilst
the ground has ceased to be cultivated because production is unprofitable,
not only that the land should continue to be taxed

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at the rate it was in prosperous times, but that
a duty should be levied on the exportation of its produce.
Is it reasonable that whilst householders can obtain no rent
and have no income save the bare means of providing
a scanty subsistence, they should be assessed at the rack
rent of former valuation. Can any property be more entitled

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to protection than that of the owners of the soil
or of the dwellings they inhabit And yet all these,
as appears by numerous gazetted sales, are sacrificed to the
collection of sums, the bulk of which is uselessly and
prejudicially expended, whilst the government of the parent state has
alleviated the burdens on the productive classes. Is it just
that taxes on food and on all the necessaries of

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life should be continued throughout the colonies, and that even
their production should be intolerably burdened with local impults, whilst
complaints are allowed and true of the absence of all
renumeration from the sources which once constituted the prosperity of
those now impoverished and oppressed possessions. The above observations do

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not apply exclusively to Trinidad, but to the whole of
the islands, which scarcely differ in degree in the causes
of ruin, which seem irredeemable by any authority except the
legislature of the parent state. I am persuaded that the
chief of the Colonial Department at home would endeavor to
counteract the causes of widely spread and increasing ruin, were
he in possession of correct information, but popular representations of grievances,

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often embodying misapprehensions as to their true origin, and accompanied
by suggestions of impracticable remedies, are denied or disputed in
counter statements by interested officials, so that the colonial minister
is bewildered and can form no correct judgment from such
conflicting statements. I hold it to be impossible that the
monstrous absurdities and violations of every principle of good government

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which exist throughout these Western colonies could be tolerated an instant,
were their consequences known and believed by those in power,
or were they laid before the British public by any
person on whose judgment and opinion they could rely. Can
it be credited that even in the island of Trinidad,
not only multitudes of valuable properties are brought to sale
from the inability of their owners to pay the fiscal demands,

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but the properties are consigned to the government auctioneer, even
for so small an assessment as three fourths of a dollar.
This is, nevertheless the fact. The emancipation of the slaves
was a glorious act, But the rescue of these noble
possessions from ruin, and the restoration of prosperity to an
integral part of the Empire would redound to the honor
of any one who would successfully advocate the cause of

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reason and justice, not only on the principles of equity,
but with the less noble view of gained the parent state.
As it is certain that the consumption of British manufactured
articles has fallen off in these colonies to an extent
which has not been counterbalanced by the increase of exports
anticipated from the questionable policy of concession to Brazil, in
which I have reason to believe the supply of articles

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required for the slave trade constitutes a large proportion. Reflections
of that sort occurred to Lord dun Donald again and again,
as passing round from Trinidad, he visited all the principal
British West India islands, the last at which he called
on his way back to Halifax being Jamaica. No doubt,
he said, the generous and noble act by which, in
the reign of his late Majesty, slavery was abolished, produced

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a prejudicial change in the economy of the sugar plantations,
notwithstanding the large amount awarded to the proprietors, as the
sums so paid were for the most part, immediately transferred
to mortgages, leaving the proprietors in possession of the soil,
but without the means of paying the expense of its
cultivation by free labor. This is an evil which time
has not remedied, and of course, in the estimation of

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those who are in consequence losers, furnishes the pretext for
imputing to the black population a degree of reluctance to
labor far exceed the reality. Those who pay a reasonable
price for work and are punctual in their payments do
not fail to get as many labourers as they require.
I assert this not from any vague hearsay, but from various,
unquestionable and authentic documents, amongst which are the examinations taken

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by committees of the House of Assembly appointed to inquire
into the causes and difficulties alleged to exist in the
cultivation of the states. Whilst the poverty of the planters
and the destitution of the labouring population is so universal
it seems most extraordinary. On inspecting the custom house returns
to find almost every article of necessary consumption brought from abroad,
paying high duties on entry, whilst the concessions of small

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patches of land to the negroes, whom there is no
capital to employ, would, if accorded, to produce food, and
in a great measure dispensed with such injurious importations. Is
it reasonable to instruct the negroes in their rights as
men and open their minds to the humble ambition of
acquiring spots of land, and then throw every impediment possible
in the way of its gratification. I perceive by the

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impulse and des expenses on the transfer of small properties,
that a barrier almost insurmountable, is raised to their acquisition.
By the colored population. Have learned that small lots of
crown lands are scarcely ever disposed of, though three fourths
of these lands are still in the hands of the Crown.
It is lamentable to see the negroes in rags lying
about the streets of Kingston, to learn that the jails

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are full, the penitentiaries incapable of containing more inmates, whilst
the port is destitute of shipping, the wharves abandoned, and
the storehouses empty. While much, if not all, of this
might be remedied, it may be asked, how is this
to be effected, and I answer by justice, resolution, patriotism,
and disinterestedness. Never can this wretched state of affairs be

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remedied so long as taxes on the necessaries of life
are heaped on an impoverished population. Never can the peasantry
raise their heads with a contented aspect, whilst every animate
and inanimate thing around them is taxed to the utmost.
Not only is the attacks on land and on the
shipment of its produce, on houses, out houses and gardens,
on horned cattle and horses, but on asses and pigs,

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and the severest penalties are enacted for concealment or suppression.
In the returns. Officials are employed for the gathering of
pittances which do not defray the expense of collection. The harbor,
jews and exactions are such that no vessel, when it
can be avoided, is brought into the Port of Kingston. Consequently,
though Jamaica is admirably situated, even more favorably than Saint Thomas,

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the former port is abandoned, whilst that of the latter
is filled with the shipping of all nations. Lord Dundnald
detailed the substance of these opinions in a letter to
Earl Gray, the Secretary for the Colonies. I have to
thank your lordship. Lord Gray replied for your letter. The
observations of a person of your Lordship's knowledge and experience
upon the present state of our colonies are most interesting

(25:49):
and useful to me. I am aware that there exists
much distress in the West Indies at present, but I
am sorry to say I do not see what Parliament
can do towards removing it, beyond freeing their trade from
the remaining restrictions by the repeal of the navigation laws,
which I hope will now be soon accomplished. I own
I quite differ from your Lordship as to the propriety

(26:09):
of restoring to the planters the monopoly in the British
market they formerly enjoyed, and I believe that the permanent
interests of these colonies would be injured instead of being
advanced by doing so. End of Chapter twenty eight. Recording
by Timothy ferguson, Gold Coast, Australia,