Cochrane - Britannia's Sea Wolf

dylanwinter

dylanwinter

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Cochrane

Yes Cochrane has been a great hero of mine since I first read about him in the early 1980s. Both CS Forester and Patrick O Brian say that he was the prototype of their characters and their plots were mostly based on his.
I was lucky enough to sail with the current Earl of Dundonald on Alba Venturer in the Scottish Islands Peaks Race in 2000, He was an excellent shipmate and very proud of his ancestor.
 
did you win?

semolina pilchard said:
Yes Cochrane has been a great hero of mine since I first read about him in the early 1980s. Both CS Forester and Patrick O Brian say that he was the prototype of their characters and their plots were mostly based on his.
I was lucky enough to sail with the current Earl of Dundonald on Alba Venturer in the Scottish Islands Peaks Race in 2000, He was an excellent shipmate and very proud of his ancestor.
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I hope he was aggressively competitive

Dylan
 
perfidious scots

Boreades said:
A fascinating account, I must get the book.

How strange that the Clan Donald had military leaders who rose through the ranks, but on opposite sides of the Napoleonic Wars!

See The French Macdonald or Field Marshal Jacques Macdonald.

Both seem to have fallen out with superior officers, and both went into politics as liberals.
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blooming Scots

perfidious celts

always prepared to side with the froggies to have a crack at the innocent English
 
Jack Aubrey's career is clearly based in part on that of Cochrane. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Patrick O'Brian mentioned that you didn't have to make any of it up - just read the Naval Chronicle.

The Navy of the time did seem to produce a large number of wonderful characters. One of my favourites is the Manxman John Quilliam. He was probably pressed into the Navy, but unusually managed to rise up through the ranks and was First Lieutenant on the Victory at Trafalgar. This got him his promotion to Captain and he went on to command a number of ships. After the war he left the Navy, returned to the Isle of Man and became a member of the House of Keys.

Not bad for someone who started out as an apprentice stonemason and labourer.
 
dylanwinter said:
it is not often I am prepared tip my hat to a toff
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On the other hand, he was a bit of a radical for his day, so much so that there is circumstantial evidence that his political opponents on the right set him up for false but very damaging accusations of (IIRC) insider trading and market manipulation. He wasn't a reactionary, more Scuttlebutt than Lounge, perhaps.
 
Sgeir said:
On the other hand, he was a bit of a radical for his day, so much so that there is circumstantial evidence that his political opponents on the right set him up for false but very damaging accusations of (IIRC) insider trading and market manipulation. He wasn't a reactionary, more Scuttlebutt than Lounge, perhaps.
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O'Brian treats this beautifully in The Reverse of he Medal (with proper acknowledgement of the source of the material) including the almost unbelievable trial.
 
Cobbett

machurley22 said:
O'Brian treats this beautifully in The Reverse of he Medal (with proper acknowledgement of the source of the material) including the almost unbelievable trial.
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he was a mucker of this bloke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cobbett

who travelled the UK making off the cuff comments about wenches, towns and the decline of Britan

D

here is a bloke on a horse talking about Cobbett

 
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dylanwinter said:
I am currently reading this book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cochrane-Br...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348684359&sr=1-1


it is about this bloke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cochrane,_10th_Earl_of_Dundonald



he really does make Hornblower and the other bloke seem rather pathetic

but Cochrane really lived

it is not often I am prepared tip my hat to a toff

but....

his really is an incredible story and beautifully told in Thomas's book

Dylan
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It's also worth reading this one if you can still get hold of it.
The Autobiography of a Seaman - by - Admiral Lord Cochrane, ISBN 1-86176-156-2.
It was written largely in his own defense for the "insider dealing" charge and finishes there, so nothing about South America and Greece, but you really do see where O'Brien got his material from.
 
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