Whatever may have been the cause of the rejection of his offer to hasten that conclusion by means of his secret war-plans, the Earl of Dundonald experienced no lack of personal courtesy during the period of the correspondence, or throughout the brief remainder of his life. His closing years were cheered by many acts by which was nearly completed the tardy reparation for former injuries which was begun with his reinstatement in the navy by King William IV., and in which the most gratifying circumstance of all was the restoration of his honours as a Knight of the Bath by her gracious Majesty Queen Victoria.
"The death of Sir Byam Martin, and the promotion of Sir William Gage to the office of Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom," wrote Sir James Graham on the 23rd of October, 1854, "vacate the appointment of Rear-Admiral. It is an honorary distinction; and your standing in the naval service and your gallant achievements entitle you to this reward. I have taken her Majesty's pleasure, and the Queen has graciously approved my recommendation. I propose, therefore, with your lordship's permission, that you shall be gazetted Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom." "I accept the proposed honour with gratitude to her Majesty and with thanks to you," answered Lord Dundonald, on the 24th. "Permit me, however, to express a hope that such distinction shall not preclude my further service to the Crown and country, which long and matured consideration on professional subjects assures me I could now perform even more effectually than at an earlier period."
A month later he was honoured by a compliment from one who, kind and gracious in all his acts, had never failed in showing towards him special grace and kindness. "My dear lord," wrote Prince Albert on the 26th of November, "a vacancy has occurred in the list of Honorary Brethren of the Trinity House, by the lamented death of Sir Byam Martin. It has always been customary in that corporation to have the Royal Navy represented amongst the Elder Brethren by one of its most distinguished officers. I therefore write to inquire whether it would be agreeable to you to be elected a member of that body; as I should, in that case, have much pleasure in proposing, as Master of the Corporation, your name for the election of the Elder Brethren. Believe me always, my dear lord, yours truly,—Albert."
"May it please your Royal Highness," Lord Dundonald wrote in reply, on the 27th, "to accept my dutiful and most grateful thanks for the honour your Royal Highness is pleased to confer. I assure your Royal Highness that I shall ever look forward with anxiety to prove my devotion and gratitude to her most gracious Majesty, for signal acts of justice and favour, and to your Royal Highness for this highly-appreciated mark of your consideration."
A token of the estimation in which Lord Dundonald was at length held by all classes of his countrymen may here be recorded. After frequent refusal, on the ground of his age and love of privacy, he consented, in May, 1856, to seek admission to the United Service Club. Its members, thereupon, at once resolved, at the proposal of Vice-Admiral Sir George F. Seymour, which was seconded by Lieutenant-General Sir C. F. Smith, "to invite that highly-distinguished officer, Admiral the Earl of Dundonald, to become an honorary member of the Club, until the time of his lordship's ballot takes place."
In spite of compliments like these, however, it was his earnest desire that, before his life was ended, every shadow which had darkened it might be cleared away, and that he might not pass into the grave without the assurance that he was formally, and in every respect, acquitted of the unjust charges brought against him nearly half a century before. While one single consequence of those charges remained in force, he considered that he was not so acquitted, and with this object he laboured to the last.
"I venture to remind your lordship," he wrote to Lord Palmerston, on the 26th of May, "that the undeviating rectitude of my conduct through a long life has already induced the Crown, in the exercise of its justice, to restore my rank and honours. There yet remains, my dear lord, a gracious and important act to perform, namely, to order my banner to be replaced in King Henry VII.'s Chapel, and to direct the repayment of the fine inflicted by the Court of King's Bench, and the restoration of my half-pay suspended during my removal from the naval service. Unless these be done, I shall descend to my grave with the consciousness, not only that justice has not fully been done to me, but under the painful conviction that its omission will be construed to the injury of my character in the estimation of posterity. Independently of the justice of this claim on its own merits, I venture to express a hope that your lordship will admit that, during my temporary absence from the naval service, my exertions tended materially to promote the interests of our country by opening to commerce the ports of the Pacific and those of all the northern provinces of Brazil."
The appeal was unsuccessful. The part of it having reference to the replacement of Lord Dundonald's banner in Westminster Abbey was considered by Lord Palmerston to be a question with which it was not in his province to deal. "With regard to the fine," he said, "I am afraid that there are no funds out of which it could be repaid, and I should doubt there being any precedent for such a proceeding; and I find, on inquiry, that pay or half-pay has not been granted to any naval officer for any period during which he may have been out of the service." That reply induced Lord Dundonald to write again to Lord Palmerston on the 7th of June. "I submit," he then said, "that, the fine being imposed for an alleged offence of which I was wholly innocent, it ought to be repaid, even if there be no special fund appropriated to such a purpose. The peculiarity of my case may account for there being no precedent for such a proceeding, if none there be. The same peculiarity may distinguish my case from that of all other naval officers to whom no pay or half-pay has been allowed for any period during which they may have been out of the service. I may have been the only naval officer unjustly expelled, and assuredly I have been the only one so expelled after manifesting, by various acts, a truly patriotic zeal for the honour and interest of our country. No other naval officer, after such acts, was ever expelled the service and otherwise punished on mere conjectural evidence, since demonstrated to have been utterly groundless. I submit that instances have occurred of military officers recovering pay or half-pay after unjust expulsion, as in the case of Sir Robert Wilson; and I am not aware of the existence of any cause for a distinction in this respect between the two services. I feel the deepest gratitude and satisfaction that my life has been spared to a period when I may reasonably hope that the portion of justice yet due to me for the erroneous verdict and its injurious consequences will not be withheld. Of that justice, the first instalment, namely, the restoration of my naval rank, was granted by his late Majesty King William, and the second by her present most gracious Majesty, who, on the representation of my noble friend the Marquess of Lansdowne, was pleased to reinstate me in the Order of the Bath. For the third and conclusive portion of justice still remaining due to me, I cannot desist from looking to your lordship."
It is not necessary to detail the later correspondence that ensued upon this subject. Lord Dundonald found that the final reparation which he sought was not, then at any rate, to be conceded to him by the Government; and therefore he resolved to employ his last remaining powers in seeking from his countrymen that thorough justice which he rightly considered would result from an honest review of the incidents of his life.
During 1858, and in the beginning of 1859, he was engaged in the preparation of his "Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil from Spanish and Portuguese Domination."[24] That work was immediately followed by his "Autobiography of a Seaman," of which the first volume was completed in December, 1859, the second in September, 1860; bringing down the story to the date from which it has been continued in the present work.[25]