Two years after this event there occurred one of the saddest incidents that ever fell to the lot of a noble true-hearted man. A great fraud was perpetrated on the Stock Exchange, the price of funds having been raised by false intelligence of a victory of the Allied Armies. The bearer of the news was a man named De Bourg or Beringer; this man was seen to enter Lord Cochrane's house, and it was notorious that a relative of Lord Cochrane's made an

enormous sum of money by the panic. It was a golden opportunity for the enemies of the gallant sailor to avenge themselves; they piled up report and rumour against him, and the result was he was brought to trial.

Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough was undisguisedly biassed in his judgment against the victim, and the charge, which was brutal in its severity, led to his being found guilty, and sentence was passed. That sentence was-to stand for one hour in the pillory in front of the Royal Exchange; to suffer a year's imprisonment in the King's Bench Prison;

and to pay a fine of £1,000! The public voice was too strong to allow the first part of the sentence to be carried out, and it was rescinded; but Lord Cochrane was expelled from the House of Commons; his name was struck out from the Navy List and the roll of Knights of the Bath; and his banner taken down from Westminster Abbey-and it is said was kicked down the steps by an official. Never was degradation more terribly complete. But the knowledge of his own innocence, the comfort of his brave wife's faithful love, the sympathy of his constituents at Westminster, who immediately re-elected him, being confident that he was a victim of enmity, sustained him under the trial. Upon the £1,000 note with which he paid his fine, and which is still retained in the Bank of England, he wrote these 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 when he had completed his term of one year's imprisonment; prior to that, after nine months' incarceration, he escaped from the prison, fell from a height of five-and-twenty feet, and for some hours lay insensible. Then he crawled to the house of an old servant, and in a few days' time presented himself in Parliament, although a reward of three hundred guineas was issued for his apprehension. He was dragged from the House of Commons by main force, and confined in a miserable cell in the prison, where he remained until his term expired.

It is curious to us of this generation to know that such a state of things could be in existence only so few years ago. The men of Westminster believed him innocent, and, as we have said, re-elected him, though still a prisoner; the great mass of the people, with whom he was popular, believed him innocent; even Lord Ellenborough's mind misgave him, and his health failed, for he too, perchance, believed in his innocence; men of all shades of political opinion looked coldly upon the eminent lawyer, and for a time society shunned him. For all that it was forty-five years before Lord Cochrane had his innocence proved, and his good name and honours restored to him.

We cannot follow the story of that long period with anything like detail. Two years after his release Chili threw off its allegiance to Spain, and needing a daring leader to defend its liberties, appointed Lord Cochrane Vice-Admiral of Chili, Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the naval forces of the Republic.

It was not a large fleet, but with such as it was during a period of four years our hero brought all his old dashing heroism into play, was known throughout Spain by the name of "El Diabolo," and gallantly laboured in the cause he had espoused. Two incidents relating to his domestic life during this period will help to explain the source of the man's strength. When he was leaving Valparaiso to fight the Spaniards, his firstborn, a boy of five years old, escaped from his mother, made for the ship, shouted "Viva la patria!" when he got aboard, and so entreated to be taken with his father, that refusal was impossible. When firing began in the harbour at Callao the child was locked in his cabin for safety, but escaped out of the quarter-galley window and made his appearance on deck. He had not been there many minutes before a shot took off the head of the marine beside whom he was standing. Lord Cochrane was horrified, and rushed to the child, who nestled in his father's arms, 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!" The other incident was this. While Cochrane was away at Callao, Lady Cochrane remained at Valparaiso, and while there a Spaniard gained admission to her private apartment and threatened her with instant death unless she would reveal the secret orders given to her husband by the Government. This she resolutely refused to do; and as an important paper was lying on the table, she seized it, and though the ruffian struggled fiercely for it, she still retained it, shouting the while for assistance. In the struggle she received a severe wound from the assassin's stiletto, and would have perished but for the prompt attendance of the servants, who secured the miscreant.

Life was not a blank to Lord Cochrane with such a wife and such a child to live for. Still, his anxieties increased rather than diminished; he was badly treated by the Chilian Government, for whom he had done so much, and quitted the service in 1822. While he was engaged in fighting the battles of Chili a cruel plot was originated by his enemies at home in the introduction of a Bill relating to Foreign Enlistments, specially aimed at Lord Cochrane. But his brave wife hearing of it, returned immediately to England and defended him from the intended persecution.

After leaving the service of Chili, Lord Cochrane in 1823 entered the service of the Emperor of Brazil, and became First Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Brazilian Navy. But his fate pursued him still; although he achieved the liberation of Brazil, and did heroic deeds which were acknowledged with transports of enthusiasm, he was not treated well in the end, was deprived of his command, and never received the rewards which were due to him. Finally he accepted the appointment of Admiral of the Greek Navy; but it was an unfortunate effort on behalf of a then unfortunate people, and he soon left them to shift for themselves.

For thirty-five years after this, Lord Cochrane never drew his sword in active warfare. In 1831 he succeeded to the title of Earl of Dundonald; in 1832, when William IV. was on the throne, public opinion, in which the king believed, had so turned in our hero's favour, that he obtained a free pardon for the crime of eighteen years before, which he had never committed! And as the years rolled on he was restored to rank and honours. A higher Court than that of King's Bench reversed the cruel sentence, and greater lawyers than Lord Ellenborough—namely, Lord Brougham and Sir Fitzroy Kelly-vindicated his honour from all stain.

His name was replaced on the Navy List; he was made an Admiral; and a pension granted. In 1847 he was not merely restored to the Order of the Bath from which he was removed, but our noble Queen, who has always espoused every cause of justice, graced him with the higher rank of K.C.B. Again he entered into professional life, and although there were no battles to fight, he did good service to the Government as Naval Commander-in-Chief of the North American and West India stations. In 1854 he was made Rear-Admiral of England; and a few years later, although not until the interval between his death and burial, his knightly bearings-the banner, coat of arms, helmet, crest, mantling, and sword-were all replaced in Henry VII.'s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, by order of Queen Victoria.

At the age of eighty-five, with his eye not dim nor his natural force abated, and still in the possession of vigorous faculties, the brave old man went to his rest, and sleeps in Westminster Abbey. The Admiralty-all his old enemies dead and gone-stood around his tomb in the persons of gallant representative officers, and the Ministers of Chili and Brazil were there, and Lord Brougham, who had so nobly vindicated him, and many more. And press and

puipit and universal voice combined in saying that in that ill-used man, England had lost her most daring, gallant sailor; a man of genius, and of marvellous energy; a man who would have been an honour to any country in any age; "an ardent lover of liberty, an indomitable opposer of official corruption at all times and places, a friend of seamen and everything that could tend to seamen's welfare, an acute inventor of mechanical and chemical appliances, and a warm-hearted and generous man in all the relations of life."*

The "gentlemen of England who live at home at ease" have very little notion of the responsibilities and anxieties which press upon ships' captains in the Merchant Service; and although the officers in the Royal Navy come in for the lion's share of praise as regards heroism, seeing that they stand more prominently before the public, it is questionable whether in the Merchant Service we cannot find every whit as much heroism, although the circumstances in which the relative services are placed must of necessity be different. In the Navy two officers divide the duty, the Captain and the Master; in the Merchant Service the whole of the responsibility falls upon one. In the Navy there is a recognised discipline to which all have subscribed who enter the service; in a merchant vessel there are all sorts and conditions of men and women as passengers, a mixed and untried crew, and over all on board the Captain has to rule as king, enacting his own laws, and bringing all into subjection. The responsibilities are enormous, the duties most onerous; and yet in our Merchant Service, not one whit less than in our Navy, we shall find that heroism which makes us as a nation so proud of our gallant sailors.

In the whole course of English naval history there is hardly to be found an instance of more daring gallantry than was performed in the year 1861; and it is pleasant to record the heroic deed, for there are not wanting writers who have endeavoured to prove that we have no men left like the brave men who lived within "the wooden walls of England" in days of old. We venture to think, and have frequently endeavoured to show in the course of this work, that there is not a department of labour or sphere of life in which, given the opportunity, we have not amongst us men who are ready to do deeds as valorous as ever were done in the past. Although the narrative may remind some of similar stories told of the days when we were at war with America and with France, we venture to think that it would be impossible to find a deed more gallant or more worthy of record than the re-capture of the Emilie St. Pierre. The Emilie St. Pierre was a large Liverpool East Indiaman, commanded by Captain William Wilson. On the 27th November, 1861, she left Calcutta with orders to make the coast of South Carolina, to ascertain whether there was peace or war. If it was found that peace had been declared, Captain Wilson was to take a pilot and enter the port of Charlestown; if war had been declared, and there was a blockade, he was to proceed forthwith to St. John's, New Brunswick.

On the 8th March, 1862, he considered his vessel to be about twelve miles from land, when he saw a steamer coming towards him, which proved to be a Federal vessel of war, the James Adger. Soon Soon it came within hail, and the Emilie St. Pierre was ordered to heave to. Hauling

The whole story of the life of this gallant sailor may be found in his " Autobiography of a Seaman," "Observations on Naval Affairs," and " Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil from Spanish and Portuguese Domination," also Allen's "Life of the Earl of Dundonald," and other works.

THE "EMILIE ST. PIERRE" BOARDED.

117

up her courses and backing her mainyard, Captain Wilson found himself boarded by two boats, whose officers and crew took possession of his ship, and filling on the mainyard they steered for

the Federal fleet, and brought the ship to anchor about half-past two. Captain Wilson was then ordered into the boat, all his papers were taken from him, and he was taken on board the flag-ship Florida, where he remained in solitary confinement for a couple of hours, at the end