THE STOCK EXCHANGE FRAUD-COCHRANE'S DISGRACE: 1814. Passing over the year 1813, during which Cochrane was busily but unsuccessfully engaged in advocating naval and other kinds of reform, we come to 1814, the most miserable year in the life of this remarkable man; a year marked by an incident in every way extraordinary-the Great Stock Exchange Fraud. About midnight on the 20th February, a person calling himself Colonel de Bourg, aide-de-camp to Lord Cathcart, presented himself at the Ship Hotel at Dover, representing that he was the bearer of intelligence from Paris to the effect that Bonaparte had been killed by the Cossacks-that the allied armies were in full march for Paris-and that immediate peace was certain. After this announcement, he forwarded similar intelligence by letter to the port-admiral at Deal, with a view, as was supposed, of its being forwarded to London by telegraph; thus making the portadmiral the medium of communication with the government. The report was wholly false, and most unquestionably got up to influence the prices of funds on the Stock Exchange. It succeeded. The news spread like wildfire. Every one was rejoiced that the archenemy of European peace was at length dead; and the funds went up rapidly. The very next authentic dispatches from the continent, however, made known the fact that Bonaparte was not dead; and then those who had bought in at high prices bitterly complained of the fraud, to investigate which the Stock Exchange appointed a committee.

Such was the fraud. The two facts which came out as affecting Cochrane were-that one of his uncles made an enormous sum of money by it; and that the man who had disseminated the rumour was seen to enter Cochrane's house. Cochrane, in an affidavit afterwards made public, thus narrated all he knew on the subject. On the morning in question he breakfasted with his uncle, Mr Cochrane Johnstone, and went with him into the City. While there, a note came, requesting him to come home immediately. On returning, he found one Captain Berenger waiting for him. The captain, who was known to him, pleaded great distress, and earnestly entreated Cochrane to take him out with him in the Tonnant, to which Cochrane had just been appointed. Cochrane lent him a coat and hat, to enable him to make a visit where he said a military uniform would be inconsistent; and he then left the house in a coach. Berenger appears to have been the man who originated the false rumours at Dover; and it also appears that his visit to Cochrane was made simply to aid his own escape from detection, regardless of consequences to his lordship.

This

The subject created an immense sensation. As De Bourg, or rather Berenger, had unquestionably been seen to enter Cochrane's

house on the morning after the origination of the rumour, and as the uncle unquestionably realised a large sum of money by the fraud, the evidence looked so black as to lead to the trial of Cochrane. This trial was conducted by Lord Chief-justice Ellenborough, in a manner which has been severely commented on by later judges. His bias against the accused was evident from the first; and his charge to the jury led to the conviction of Lord Cochrane, with a fine, an imprisonment, and a condemnation to stand in the pillory. This was followed by his expulsion from the House of Commonsaltogether a bitter ordeal for such a man as Cochrane.

There is no doubt now in the mind of any one that he was guiltless of participation in the fraud, although his uncle was guilty. For the first and only time, an English chief-justice was at the same time a cabinet minister; and the mode in which Lord Ellenborough made the second of these two offices affect his decision in the first, has met with severe condemnation. Lord Brougham and the late Lord Campbell endorsed this opinion. The latter, in his Lives of the Chief-justices, said that Ellenborough was blamed, 'not only by the vulgar, but by men of education on both sides in politics; and he found upon entering society and appearing in the House of Lords that he was looked upon coldly. Having now some misgivings himself as to the propriety of his conduct in this affair, he became very wretched..... In obedience to the public voice, the part of his (Cochrane's) sentence by which he was to stand in the pillory was remitted by the crown; and a bill was introduced into parliament altogether to abolish the pillory as a punishment, on account of the manner in which the power of inflicting it had been recently abused. It was said that these matters preyed deeply on Lord Ellenborough's mind and affected his health. Henceforth, he certainly seemed to have lost the gaiety of heart for which he had before been remarkable.'

It was a sad picture. The brilliant Lord Cochrane sentenced to pay a fine of £1000, to be imprisoned in the Marshalsea for twelve months, and to be placed in the pillory for an hour in front of the Royal Exchange! The last part of the sentence was, as we have seen, rescinded; but the fine was paid, and the imprisonment suffered. Nor was this all. He was expelled from the House of Commons, from the Navy List, and from the order of the Bath-all for an offence which, it is now universally believed, he did not commit! He lived forty-five years longer to see his good name restored to him; but no tongue can tell what his gallant spirit suffered during this interval. The electors of Westminster, refusing to believe in his guilt, re-elected him; but as he was a prisoner, he could not take his seat in the House. The Bank of England retains as a curiosity the £1000 note with which Cochrane paid the fine, and on which he wrote the following words: 'My health having suffered by long and close confinement, and my oppressors being

resolved to deprive me of property or life, I submit to robbery to protect myself from murder, in the hope that I shall live to bring the delinquents to justice.' This was written in July 1815, after a year's imprisonment.

COMMANDS THE CHILI FLEET: 1817-1823.

There then occurred two years of enforced idleness. The vigorous and daring Cochrane found nothing to occupy his fertile mind, because the navy was cruelly closed against him. At length, however, about the middle of 1817, the heroic naval commander was called to a new scene. Chili, having thrown off its allegiance to Spain, and finding it needful to defend its liberties by sea as well as by land, offered to Lord Cochrane the command of such a fleet as it could manage to get together. Cochrane was at once appointed Vice-admiral of Chili, Admiral and Commander-in-chief of the naval forces of the republic. The Chilian fleet was certainly a small one, comprising only the O'Higgins, 50 guns; San Martin, 56; Lantaro, 48; Chacabuco, 20; Galvarino, 18; and Aracauno, 16. Two of the ships were traders, hastily mounted with guns.

Our hero's four years of service in Chili were years of activity and brilliant enterprise. Just as he was leaving Valparaiso to commence operations against the Spaniards, he received an unexpected volunteer in the person of his first-born, a child of five years old, who had made his escape from his mother, and appeared mounted on the shoulders of a lieutenant, waving his little cap and shouting: 'Viva la patria! Nothing would satisfy him but accompanying his father, which he accordingly did. Cochrane's first plans, in the early part of 1819, were frustrated by the fogs which so often prevail along that coast, and which he had not yet learned to understand. During a skirmish in the harbour of Callao, the child Cochrane, the boyvolunteer, was locked into the cabin, to keep him out of the way of harm; but not liking the confinement, he contrived to scramble out of the quarter-galley window, and joined his father on the deck. The men then dressed him in a miniature uniform which they had made for him; and he felt proud to employ himself in handing powder to the gunners. Whilst thus employed, a round shot took off the head of a marine standing close to the child; the father was in agony for a moment, but the little fellow ran up to him, crying: 'I am not hurt, papa; the shot did not touch me: Jack says the ball is not made that can kill mamma's boy!' This was indeed a 'chip of the old block.'

Cochrane's first attack had failed from various causes; but the Spaniards now knew, from the daring way in which it was made, that the terrible Englishman was near them; and ever afterwards they called him El Diabolo. The Spanish fleet in those waters consisted of the Esmeralda, 44 guns; Venganza, 42; Sebastiana, 28;

Maypen, 18; Pezuela, 22; Potrilla, 18; a schooner; seven armed merchantmen; and twenty-seven gun-boats. This force was very much larger than Cochrane's; but in such disparity he took positive delight. Very early in his operations, he had been able to liberate, in the small island of San Lorenzo, thirty-seven Chilian soldiers who had been imprisoned by the Spaniards for seven years; they had been forced to work in chains, and at night were chained by the leg to an iron bar in a filthy shed. Cochrane established a laboratory in San Lorenzo; and while rockets and fire-ships were being prepared there, he sailed hither and thither, capturing treasure-ships belonging to the Spaniards, and intercepting treasure-trains inland. While these things were doing, Lady Cochrane, who had taken up her abode in a villa outside Valparaiso, was attacked one night by a Spaniard, who threatened her with instant death unless she revealed the secret orders which had been given to her husband by the government. This she heroically refused to do: she was stabbed with a stiletto; and her life was saved only by the prompt attendance of servants, who secured the would-be assassin.

In September 1819, Cochrane set forth to attack Callao, the seaport of Peru. His squadron consisted of seven vessels, with two fire-ships, and four hundred soldiers to act as marines. On the 30th he entered the bay. He sent a flag of truce, challenging the viceroy of Peru to fight him, ship for ship; which challenge was of course prudently declined. Rafts were made to serve as rocket-rafts and mortar-rafts; but Cochrane was put to many shifts for want of efficient stores, and his first attack with rockets failed on this account. Nor did the fire-ships answer his purpose much more completely. To add to his vexation, a treasure-ship contrived to elude the attention of some of his cruisers, and to enter Callao safely with treasure to the value of half a million sterling. Cochrane, postponing a further attack on Callao for a time, steered to Pisco, where was a well-appointed Spanish force of one thousand men, supported on their right by a fort on the sea-shore. The marines under him stormed the fort and defeated the Spaniards in a very gallant way. Early in 1820, Cochrane conceived the daring plan of carrying Valdivia by storm. Circumstances beyond his own control had checked him at Callao; and he now resolved on something after his own heart. 'Cool calculation,' he said to General Miller, 'would make it appear that the attempt to take Valdivia is madness. This is one reason why the Spaniards will hardly believe us in earnest, even when we commence; and you will see that a bold onset, and a little perseverance afterwards, will give a complete triumph; for operations unexpected by the enemy are, when well executed, almost certain to succeed, whatever may be the odds; and success will preserve the enterprise from the imputation of rashness.' He was right. He had with him only a frigate, a schooner, and a brig. On the way, he narrowly escaped shipwreck in the frigate,

and only kept the vessel afloat by continual pumping-Cochrane repairing the pumps with his own hands. Valdivia, a noble harbour, was defended by a chain of nine Spanish forts; each fort had a ditch and rampart; and the whole mounted 118 guns, manned by 1600 troops. This was indeed a formidable place to attack with three small ships. The forts were, however, much isolated, with very indifferent passages between them; this led Cochrane and Miller to attack them singly, which was done with astonishing success. In truth, the Spaniards were so dismayed at the audacity of the attempt on the night of the 3d of February, that they failed to make due resistance; fort after fort fell to the invaders; and on the 5th, Valdivia, with the whole of the forts, surrendered to Cochrane. Large quantities of stores were captured, as well as much treasure.

When Cochrane returned to Valparaiso from Valdivia, the populace greeted him with enthusiasm, but the ministers of the republican government harassed him; for there was a clique against the great Englishman. The government, too, were desperately selfish; he obtained no reward; and his gallant men were left almost in rags, without pay or prize-money. Numberless difficulties impeded his path; and it was only by threats to resign that he could obtain any attention to the wants of the fleet. When these difficulties were surmounted, he set off once again, to assist in rescuing Peru from the Spaniards. Unfortunately, General San Martin, who commanded the military portion of the expedition, was wedded to his own plans, which clashed with Cochrane's; and, as a consequence, much precious time was lost. Cochrane occupied the dismal period with capturing the Esmeralda, a frigate lying under a fort defended by 300 guns. His manner of effecting this, by boats' crews rowed along silently on a dark night, was worthy of the man who had achieved such things in the Mediterranean. Month after month followed, in which Cochrane's prowess was repeatedly exhibited, to the discomfiture of the Spaniards. But all his larger plans were thwarted by San Martin, who was secretly planning to carve out a new republic for himself.

In 1821, while Cochrane was thus engaged, Lady Cochrane, who had won the hearts of the Chilians by her mingled grace and spirit, returned to England, to defend her husband from a new persecution intended for him. This was in the form of a Foreign Enlistment Act, the clauses of which were especially aimed at those who had engaged in a service that had for its object the expulsion of Spain from her American colonies.

The ending of Lord Cochrane's career in Chili was not such as his high and generous spirit had anticipated. He was surrounded by men who looked rather to their own interests than to the welfare of their country. San Martin contrived to make himself dictator or president of Peru, and then disavowed all obligations to Chili and to Cochrane, whose seamen and marines were reduced to the utmost