The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. I

by Earl of Thomas Barnes Cochrane Dundonald; H. R. Fox Bourne

The tedium of his captivity was further relieved by his devotion to those scientific and mechanical pursuits which, all through life, yielded employment very solacing to himself, and very profitable to the world. While in the King's Bench Prison he was especially occupied in completing a plan for lighting the public streets by means of a lamp invented by him, in which the main principle was the introduction of a steady current of fresh air into the globes, whereby all the oil was fairly burnt, and a brilliant light was always maintained. In this way lamps much cheaper than those previously in use were found to have a far greater illuminating power. Early in October, 1814, the lamps in St. Ann's parish, Westminster, numbering eight hundred in all, were taken down and replaced by four hundred constructed on Lord Cochrane's plan; and even political opponents spoke in acknowledgment of the excellent result of the change. Had it not been for the introduction of gas, the superiority of these new lamps must soon have compelled their adoption all over London. It is curious that the discovery of the illuminating power of gas—undoubtedly due to his father—should have superseded one of Lord Cochrane's most promising inventions as soon as it had been brought to recognized perfection.

In such pursuits nine months of the unjust imprisonment were passed. "Lord Cochrane has hitherto borne all his hardships with great fortitude," wrote one of his most intimate friends on the 10th of November, "and, if there are any more in store for him, I hope he will continue to be cheerful and courageous." "His lordship always hopes for the best, and is never afraid of the worst," said the same authority on the 9th of December, "and therefore he is in good spirits."

This fearless disposition led, in March, 1815, to a bold step, which some of Lord Cochrane's best friends deprecated. Knowing that he was unjustly imprisoned, he conceived that, since his re-election as member for Westminster, the imprisonment was illegal as well as unjust, in that it was contrary to the privilege of Parliament. The law provides that "no Member of Parliament can be imprisoned either for non-payment of a fine to the King, or for any other cause than treason, felony, or refusing to give security for the peace." It may be questioned whether, in the presence of this law, his first imprisonment, even under the sentence of the Court of King's Bench, was legal. But having been imprisoned, and having been expelled from the House of Commons, it is clear that his subsequent re-election could not interfere with the fulfilment, of the sentence passed against him, especially as he had not been able to make good his title to membership by taking the prescribed oaths and claiming a seat in the House. He, however—acting as it would seem under the advice of William Cobbett and other unsafe counsellors—thought otherwise, and considered that he was only vindicating a high constitutional principle, against the exercise of despotic power by the Government, in making his escape from the King's Bench Prison. "I did not quit these walls," he said in a letter addressed to the electors of Westminster, on the 12th of April, "to escape from personal oppression, but, at the hazard of my life, to assert that right to liberty which, as a member of the community, I have never forfeited, and that right, which I received from you, to attack in its very den the corruption which threatens to annihilate the liberties of us all. I did not quit them to fly from the justice of my country, but to expose the wickedness, fraud, and hypocrisy of those who elude that justice by committing their enormities under the colour of its name. I did not quit them from the childish motive of impatience under suffering. I stayed long enough to evince that I could endure restraint as a pain, but not as a penalty. I stayed long enough to be certain that my persecutors were conscious of their injustice, and to feel that my submission to their unmerited inflictions was losing the dignity of resignation, and sinking into the ignominious endurance of an insult."

The escape was effected on the 6th of March, and by the same means which had proved successful in Lord Cochrane's retreat from the gaol at Malta, just four years before. His rooms in the King's Bench Prison, being on the upper storey of the building known as the State House, were nearly as high as the wall which formed the prison boundary, and the windows were only a few feet distant from it. The possibility of escape by this way, however, had never been contemplated, and therefore the windows were unprotected by bars. Accordingly Lord Cochrane, having been supplied, from time to time, by the same servant who had aided him at Malta, with a quantity of small strong rope, managed, soon after midnight, and while the watchman going his rounds was in a distant part of the prison, to get out of window and climb on to the roof of the building. Thence he threw a running noose over the iron spikes placed on the wall, and, exercising the agility that he had acquired during his seaman's occupations, easily gained the summit—to be somewhat discomfited by having to sit upon the iron spikes while he fastened his rope to one of them and prepared, with its help, to slip down to the pavement on the outer side of the wall. The rope was not strong enough, however, to bear his weight; it snapped when he was some twenty-five feet from the ground, and caused him to fall with his back upon the stone pavement. There he lay, in an almost unconscious state, for a considerable time. But no passer-by observed him; and before daylight he was able to crawl to the house of an old nurse of his eldest son's, who gladly afforded him concealment.

Long concealment was not intended by him. "If it had not been," he said, "for the commotion excited by that obnoxious, injurious, and arbitrary measure, the Corn Bill, which began to evince itself on the day of my departure from prison, I should have lost no time in proceeding to the House of Commons; but, conjecturing that the spirit of disturbance might derive some encouragement from my unexpected appearance at that time, and having no inclination to promote tumult, I resolved to defer my appearance at the House, and, if possible, to conceal my departure from the prison, until the order of the metropolis should be restored."

To the same effect was a letter addressed by Lord Cochrane to the Speaker of the House of Commons on the 9th of March. "I respectfully request," he said therein, "that you will state to the honourable the House of Commons, that I should immediately and personally have communicated to them my departure from the custody of Lord Ellenborough, by whom I have been long most unjustly detained; but I judged it better to endeavour to conceal my absence, and to defer my appearance in the House until the public agitation excited by the Corn Bill should subside. And I have further to request that you will also communicate to the House that it is my intention, on an early day, to present myself for the purpose of taking my seat and moving an inquiry into the conduct of Lord Ellenborough."

On the day of that letter's delivery, the 10th of March—also famous as the day on which Buonaparte's escape from Elba was published in England—Lord Cochrane's gaolers discovered that he was no longer in his prison. Immediately a hue and cry was raised. This notice was issued: "Escaped from the King's Bench Prison, on Monday the 6th day of March, instant, Lord Cochrane. He is about five feet eleven inches in height,[A] thin and narrow-chested, with sandy hair and full eyes, red whiskers and eyebrows. Whoever will apprehend and secure Lord Cochrane in any of His Majesty's gaols in the kingdom shall have a reward of three hundred guineas from William Jones, Marshal of the King's Bench."

[Footnote A: He was really about six feet two inches in height, and broad in proportion.]

Great search was made in consequence of that notice, and Lord Cochrane's disappearance was an eleven days' wonder. Every newspaper had each day a new statement as to his whereabouts. Some declared that he had gone mad, and, as a madman's freak, was hiding himself in some corner of the prison; others that he was lodging at an apothecary's shop in London. According to one report, he had been seen at Hastings, according to another, at Farnham, and according to another, in Jersey; while others declared that he had been discovered in France and elsewhere on the Continent.

None of the thousands whom political spite or the hope of reward set in search of him thought of looking for him in his real resting-place. "As soon as I had written to the Speaker," he said, "I went into Hampshire, where I remained eleven days, and till within one day of my appearance in the House of Commons. During that period I was occupied in regulating my affairs in that county, and in riding about the county, as was well known to the people of the neighbourhood, none of whom were base enough to be seduced by a bribe to deliver an injured man into the hands of his oppressors."