The Imperieuse being assigned to him in August, 1806, Lord Cochrane took two prizes on the 19th of December, and a third on the 31st. He was then ordered home, and there detained till the autumn of 1807. On the 14th of November, being again in the Mediterranean, he captured a Maltese pirate-ship, and soon afterwards he seized some other vessels. Being ordered to scour the French coast during the summer of 1808, he took numerous prizes on the sea and effected yet more important work on land. "With varying opposition but with unvaried success," he wrote in his concise report to Lord Collingwood on the 28th of September, "the newly-constructed semaphoric telegraphs—which are of the utmost consequence to the safety of the numerous convoys that pass along the coast of France—at Bourdigne, La Pinede, St. Maguire, Frontignan, Canet, and Fay, have been blown up and completely demolished, together with their telegraph houses, fourteen barracks of gens d'armes, one battery, and the strong tower on the Lake of Frontignan." The list of casualties was "None killed, none wounded, one singed, in blowing up the battery." That work was followed by more of the same nature, a famous episode in which was Lord Cochrane's occupation of the Castle of Trinidad. "The zeal and energy with which he has maintained that fortress," wrote Lord Collingwood, "excite the highest admiration. His resources for every exigency have no end."

The splendid exploit with the fireships in Basque Roads followed in 1809, and with that Lord Cochrane's services to England as a seaman were brought to a conclusion. Official persecution kept him in idleness during the remaining period of war with France, and he was in the end driven to seek relief from oppression at home, and exercise for his talents, by devoting himself to the cause of freedom in Chili, Peru, Brazil, and Greece. His unparalleled successes on both sides of the South American continent, and the circumstances of his partial failure in Greece, have been sufficiently detailed in previous chapters.

All through that time of virtual expatriation, his dearest hope had been that England would, as far as possible, retrieve the cruel wrong that had been done to him. Full redress was impossible. The heavy cloud that had been cast over so many years of his most energetic manhood could not be removed by any tardy act of justice; but that tardy justice could at any rate be done to him, and for this he strove with unabated zeal.

To this end he was partly occupied during his temporary absence from Greece in 1828. On the 4th of June he addressed a memorial to the Duke of Clarence, then Lord High Admiral, who just two years afterwards was to become King of England. This memorial, eloquent in its simplicity and earnestness, the prelude to many others that were to be presented in later years, claims to be here quoted in full. "To his Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral," it ran, "the memorial of Lord Cochrane humbly showeth;—That for fourteen years your memorialist has suffered, among many injuries and privations, the loss of his situation and rank as post-captain in his Majesty's navy, in consequence of a verdict pronouncing your memorialist guilty of an offence of which he was entirely and absolutely innocent;—That during the whole course of your memorialist's life, up to the day on which he was charged with the crime of conspiring with others to raise false reports for the purpose of fraudulently effecting a rise in the price of the public funds, the character and conduct of your memorialist were without reproach; and, numerous as have been the transactions in which your memorialist has subsequently engaged, he has, amid them all, uniformly preserved, though not an unassailed, yet an unshaken and unsullied character;—That your memorialist has never ceased, and never can cease to assert his absolute innocence of the crime of which he was pronounced guilty. He asserts it now, most solemnly, as in the presence of Almighty God, and certain he is, if every doubt be not dissipated in this world, that when summoned to enter more immediately into that Awful and Infinite Presence, he shall not fail, with his last breath, most solemnly to assert his innocence;—That it was your memorialist's consciousness of innocence that contributed, perhaps more than any other cause, to produce his conviction; because it rendered him confident, and much less careful in making the necessary preparations for his defence than he ought to have been, or than he would have been, if guilty; while, on the other hand, there existed the utmost zeal, industry, and skill in the conduct of the prosecution;—That your memorialist did all that was possible to procure a revision of his case; but, as he had laboured under the disadvantage of being included in, and tried under, the same indictment with some who had probably no reason to complain of the result, as well as the still greater disadvantage of having his defence blended, with theirs, so was he denied a new trial for the same reason; it being a rule of Court that a new trial should not be allowed to any individual tried for conspiracy unless all the parties should appear in Court to join in the application; which, in the case of your memorialist, could not possibly be, some of the parties having quitted the country on the verdict being pronounced against them;—That your memorialist has never been able to obtain a re-investigation of his extraordinary case, nor to obtain redress in any way; but now that your Royal Highness is Lord High Admiral, and has, among other illustrious acts, distinguished yourself in that capacity by doing justice to meritorious officers, your memorialist feels that he has everything to hope from the magnanimity of your Royal Highness;—That it is indeed certain that nothing can be more repugnant to the feelings of your Royal Highness than that an individual who zealously devoted himself to the naval service of his king and country, as your Royal Highness knows your memorialist to have done, should be for ever cut off from the service without the most unquestionable certainty of the rectitude of so severe an infliction. So far, therefore, as depends on your Royal Highness, your memorialist cannot but confidently entertain the hope that he shall not be doomed to remain all his life long the victim of a verdict of which he has not only never ceased to complain, but which he knows that he has proved to be unfounded, to the satisfaction of those who have examined as well what was advanced against him at the trial as what he has since adduced in his own justification. Your memorialist, therefore, is encouraged most respectfully to solicit your Royal Highness to represent his case—a case of peculiar and unprecedented hardship—to his most Sacred Majesty, and to advocate his cause. And if, happily for your memorialist, his most Sacred Majesty, recognising the innocence of your memorialist, and taking his long-protracted and unmerited sufferings into his gracious consideration, should, of his most gracious pleasure, vouchsafe to reinstate your memorialist in that rank and station in his Royal Navy which he previously held, your memorialist will ever maintain the deepest and most grateful sense of his duty to his most Sacred Majesty and to your Royal Highness, and will never cease to testify his gratitude by all the means in his power."

That document was presented by Sir Robert Preston to the Duke of Clarence, who promised to use every endeavour to obtain a reconsideration of Lord Cochrane's case. He was unsuccessful. "Dear Sir," he wrote to Sir Robert Preston on the 14th of June, "immediately on the receipt of the memorial you brought from Lord Cochrane, I sent it to the Duke of Wellington, with a request it might be considered by his Majesty's confidential servants, and last evening I had a communication from his Grace to state that the King's Cabinet cannot comply with the prayer of the memorial. I ever remain, dear Sir, yours sincerely, William."

The harsh news of this failure was sent to Paris, whither Lord Cochrane had gone in furtherance of his efforts for the assistance of Greece.

To Paris he returned, as we have seen, after his final departure from Greece, and there he resided with his family for about six months. He paid a brief visit to England in September, 1829; but, seeing no immediate prospect of gaining the restitution of his naval rank, and finding that idle life at home was especially irksome to him, he soon went back to the Continent. The serious illness of Lady Cochrane induced him to pass the winter in Italy, where by the same cause he was detained for several months. He was in England again in the autumn of 1830.

One motive for his return was the accession of the Duke of Clarence to the throne as King William IV. The new sovereign's often-expressed sympathy for him, induced him to hope that now he had a better chance of obtaining the justice that had been so long withheld. The change of sovereigns, however, was of small avail while the ministers who had summarily rejected his former memorial continued to have the direction of affairs. "To petition or memorialize the King whilst his present ministers remain in office," he said in a letter written on the 10th of September, "would be to debase myself in my own estimation, and, I think, in that of every man of sense and feeling." "I cannot petition again," he said in another letter; "though I am assured from high authority it would be attended to. Sir Robert Wilson and others have obtained favour; but I, who protested against the forging of charts and public waste of money, have had no mercy shown!" Lord Cochrane ascertained, about this time, that his memorial of 1828, though sent by the Duke of Clarence for the consideration of King George IV., had never reached his Majesty, the Cabinet having preferred to dismiss it at once. He therefore had good reason for abstaining from further action until a more friendly ministry should be in power.

He had not long to wait. On the 16th of November, the Duke of Wellington's Cabinet resigned. In the Administration which succeeded Earl Grey was Premier, and Mr. Brougham, raised to the peerage, was Lord Chancellor. Lord Cochrane then lost no time in completing a "Review" of his case, which he had prepared for publication, and in getting ready some early copies of the volume to be presented to the King and his ministers.

The King's copy was forwarded through Lord Melbourne, the Home Secretary, on the 10th of December, accompanied by a brief petition. "Assured that the memorial which I laid before your Majesty when Lord High Admiral," wrote Lord Cochrane, "was honoured with your earnest consideration, and that your Majesty was graciously pleased to make an effort in my behalf, with the desire of restoring me to my station in the navy; assured, too, that, had not the ministers of his late most gracious Majesty been opposed to the prayer of my memorial, I should then have been restored; and believing that no such obstacle to your Majesty's favour would be now interposed, I have every reason to hope that the auspicious moment is at length arrived when the redress which I have so long sought will be freely bestowed by my most gracious Sovereign. I beseech your Majesty to condescend to receive the accompanying review of my case, which, I trust, will prove to your Majesty that I am not unworthy of that act of your Majesty's favour which I humbly solicit. It is not because I have undergone a sentence heavier than the law pronounced, it is not because I have been deprived for sixteen years of the rank and honours which I acquired in the Royal Navy, nor is it because I am deserving of any consideration on account of services to my King and country, that I now presume to appeal to your Majesty,—though no one is more likely than your Majesty to feel for my sufferings, and no one more competent to appreciate my services,—but it is because I had no participation in, and no knowledge, not even the most indistinct or remote, of the crime under the imputation of which I have been so variously and so unceasingly punished. It is this alone which impels me to approach your Majesty, and this alone which enables me."