Dan Snow's History Hit - 2. Thomas Cochrane: The Battle of Basque Roads

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

2/3. Thomas Cochrane and his crew of the HMS Imperieuse embark on their greatest and most audacious scheme yet; Cochrane leads a flotilla of burning vessels and exploding bomb ships piled high with gunpowder into a fleet of Napoleon's forces off the coast of Biscay. The Battle of Basque Roads made Cochrane a national treasure but only for a while... when the truth about what happened that night reaches London, Cochrane finds himself up against enemies far worse than the French.You can find episode 1 here: https://shows.acast.com/dansnowshistoryhit/episodes/1-thomas-cochrane-the-real-master-and-commanderWritten by Dan Snow, produced by Mariana Des Forges, edited by Joseph Knight and sound designed & mixed by Dougal Patmore.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Britain and France spent most of the 18th century competing for control of the world. From South Asia to the Americas, their merchants vied for the fabulously lucrative sugar trade that flourished as their empires seized swathes of the Caribbean and West Africa. Their strategists obsessed about the other's moves in the Mediterranean and the Levant. Not for nothing have historians called this period the second Hundred Years' War. The world just wasn't big enough for the hegemonic ambitions of Britain and France and Napoleon. So when peace was agreed in 1802, both sides knew it wasn't really going to last for long. This would be good news for Thomas Cochrane, a young naval officer who

just found out his vocation was war. After the peace treaty between Britain and France was signed in March 1802, the Royal Navy contracted hugely in peacetime as a frugal government sought to slash its expenditures. Officers languished ashore on half pay. The competition for the few seagoing commands was intense. Cochrane was one of the most junior captains in the Navy. He was at the back of the queue. So, he enrolled in university. He attended the University of Edinburgh, first doing ethics, then chemistry. But he craved the adventure, the adrenaline of the sea and of war.

Napoleon came to Cochrane's rescue. In spring 1803, he ordered a massive fleet to be prepared for an invasion of Britain. He refused to withdraw from Holland, and he annexed Piedmont, which now sits just across the French border in northwest Italy. Conflict was inevitable, and on the 18th of May 1803, Britain declared war on France. A few months later, Cochrane received the news he so desperately wanted. He had another command. A vessel called HMS Arab. And so began a stunning series of adventures, including one unlike any he'd taken on before.

One that would see him strap himself to a floating bomb in shoal-infested waters in a rising storm in the dead of a moonless night. A mission that would make him a national treasure. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit and part two of my three-part series about one of the most remarkable sailors in the history of the Royal Navy, Thomas Lord Cochrane, whose story is as unlikely and exciting as any ever penned by an author, but is in fact completely true. This is the real story of the man who inspired Patrick O'Brien's master and commander. In the last episode, which you can find a link to in the show notes, we saw Cochran start to make a name for himself as a wily, bold, brilliant ship's captain who saw the Navy as a route to fame and fortune. David Cordingley's biography,

Cochran the Dauntless, was the inspiration for this series and when I spoke to him about the man, he gave me an excellent summary of Cochran's early career in the Navy, which gives us a recap of what we've covered so far. He spent about a year roving around the Mediterranean being an absolute menace, capturing merchant ships, pirates, attacking fortresses. He is unconventional and I think he's impatient. And he's impatient with all the admirals. He's impatient with conventional naval wisdom. He just wants to get up and fight the war, you know, get at the French, wisdom. He just wants to get up and fight the war, you know, get at the French, just as Nelson did. When Cochrane arrived in Portsmouth in the autumn of 1803, after Britain's declaration of war against Napoleon's France, he was dismayed. When he set eyes on his new ship, HMS Arab, he saw a bare wooden skeleton which needed a lot of work. He unkindly dismissed the ship as a collier,

a dumpy dependable cargo ship like the ones which carried thousands of tons of coal a year from Newcastle to London. He watched the repairs as dockyard workers added timbers from broken up old ships. She was longer than his old ship the Speedy. She had 22 guns aboard and 155 men and boys. He never corrected his first impression, saying it sailed like a haystack and in fact he was mortified because twice in just a few weeks he crashed into other British ships. He demanded a court-martial to clear his name to highlight the poor sailing qualities of his ship, but their lordships didn't give him the chance. Things continued to be frustrating for Cochrane. He ignited an international incident by boarding an American merchant ship, the Chatham,

which is probably another example of his propensity to be a little bit of a hothead, and probably as a result he was sent to escort ships to Shetland. Not a great sign. He called it a naval exile in a tub. But then, as he so often did, Cochrane got a stroke of luck. The first Lord of the Admiralty, Lord St Vincent, who did not like Cochrane at all and made no bones about it, was replaced by Lord Melville, who was a friend of the Cochrane family. In late 1803, after months of frustration, he got the welcome news that he would command a brand spanking new frigate, the Pallas, just off the stocks in Plymouth. He was finally a frigate captain. Now, frigates are fast scouting

ships, commerce raiders, big enough to overpower any merchantman, too small though to fight in a big fleet battle like Trafalgar. Their job was to project force into shipping lanes, up enemy river estuaries. No harbour in Napoleon's empire could feel entirely safe when a British frigate's to gallant masts poked above the horizon. when a British frigate's two-gallon masts poked above the horizon. Captain of a frigate was the perfect job for an ambitious, war-loving young hothead. It was a job that offered opportunities for prize money, adventure and fame. On November the 17th 1804 there was a great spectacle in Plymouth Harbour. The master shipwright there wanted to show off. He'd just built two frigates in six months, which was an astonishing feat. And he had also just finished a massive 120-gun Hibernia,

one of the biggest warships in the world at the time. And the 98-gun St George had just finished a refit. So this shipwright wanted to launch them all on the same day. We've got a wonderful commemorative print showing the waters off the dockyard that day, thronged with little boats, the massive hull of the Hibernia crashing into the water, and the two frigates bedecked with massive flags. One of those frigates was Cochrane's. His new command was 127 feet long, nearly 50 feet longer than the Speedy. new command was 127 feet long, nearly 50 feet longer than the Speedy. The crew was 215, nearly three times that of the little vessel in which he'd made his name. The palace also had five times the firepower. There were 26 cannon on her gun deck, each capable of firing a 12 pound iron

cannonball, and 12 carronades on her quarterdeck and fo'c'sle, each firing a 24-pound ball. These carronades were such innovative new weapons. They were short, they were light, but they could fire a heavy calibre round at low velocity, so they were very effective at close range. Napoleon himself was very jealous of them. Meanwhile, Cochrane would face not only a French enemy, but the Spanish as well. Britain was now at war with Spain, after British ships had attacked a Spanish treasure convoy when they weren't technically at war. Cochrane was given his dream job. He was told to head to the Azores, islands out in the middle of the Atlantic, and lurk, pounce on any knackered Spanish ships

returning home from the Americas. But before he could go to sea, Cochrane needed to find more recruits. He asked for volunteers, and that didn't produce quite as many as he would have liked. Instead, he and his men had to roam the pubs of the waterfront and try and impress men. Particularly in times of war, the Royal Navy was simply allowed to seize seafarers in port cities and stick them on naval vessels to crew them up. You won't be surprised to hear this could often be quite a violent process. People did not wish to be carried away from their civilian lives to serve his majesty's pleasure. Fights broke out. Cochrane ignored the mayor's ban on press gangs and the mayor tried to arrest him but Cochrane cared nothing for the mayor of Plymouth's arrest warrant. It would be a brave man who tried to seize Cochrane off his own quarterdeck and stick him in a cell. On the 21st of January, he put to sea, crewed by both the willing and unwilling.

Iron ballast in his hull, powder in his magazines, fresh canvas for his sails. The mayor's officials waved their arrest warrant harmlessly in the air on the quayside. It's that same easterly breeze pushed the palace out into the English Channel and towards adventure. Cochrane rode that lucky tailwind to fortune. By February, the prizes started to come in. First, a ship from the Caribbean carrying a cargo of sugar. Next, he captured a ship carrying a stash of treasure, gold and silver, from the Spanish main, out of Havana, bound for Spain. On the 15th of February came yet more good fortune. In the appropriate shape of La Fortuna, a Spanish ship carrying mahogany from Veracruz and £400,000 worth of gold and silver coin. As they were transshipping that precious cargo onto Palace,

they spotted another sail made after it and captured yet another Spanish ship with more treasure aboard You just could not ask for a more lucrative job in the navy of this period than cruising in a brand new frigate with a polished bottom and a taut rig in the Azores just after the outbreak of war when the enemy thought they could risk dashing home one last cargo before the grimly inevitable curtains of British naval blockade bottled up the ports of the home country. Cochrane claimed in a

later memoir that on the way home he was chased by French battleships. He tied horses to the top of the mast so he could set every scrap of sail he could in a high wind. Then suddenly he turned the ship around and dashed between the Frenchmen who took several miles to carry out the same manoeuvre. That night he released a raft with a light on it that acted as a decoy, but historians have been unable to find any reference to this adventure in the contemporary ship's log. What is certainly true was that in a month he'd made his fortune. It was the practice of the Royal Navy at the time that the captain received a quarter of the value of whatever he captured. It was a bizarre fall of incentivisation. An eighth, very annoyingly,

for the admiral sitting at a desk back in Plymouth, and then three-eighths given to the officers on board. When he returned to Plymouth he made quite a statement, lashing three great golden candelabras to his rigging, and he never struggled to recruit men ever again. The rest of 1805 was a little quieter. Humdrum jobs like convoy protection. On Christmas Eve, Pallas was in Sheerness in Kent when HMS Victory sailed past, just two months after its victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. The following year, 1806, was spent harassing the French coast, looking into bays, snatching fishing vessels and coastal merchantmen. He raided villages, his men's boots no stranger to French soil, walking, burning and thieving with impunity on mighty Napoleon's home turf. As his reputation grew, French ships ran themselves ashore rather

than face the flying Pallas. At 8.30 at night on the 5th of April, Cochrane launched a raid of dizzying audacity and danger. Having anchored Pallas just outside the shoals that guard the entrance to the Gironde, which is the great estuary of the river that runs down to Bordeaux, he ordered the crews into the small boats that had been winched into the water from their usual place of stowage on the upper deck towards the bows. Rowing past the gun batteries that dominated the river entrance, they headed upriver until at 3am they came across a small French warship of 14 guns. They took the crew completely by surprise, but the shouts and the odd pistol shot alerted other French ships in the squadron, however, and Cochrane's men had to fight

off a French brig before setting sails and heading north to the river mouth. In the meantime, Pallas was in trouble. She was attacked by three French corvettes, small naval vessels, all of which she outgunned, but she only had a crew of 40 to work the ship and man the guns, because most of her men were on the raid. Cochrane responded brilliantly. He had the sails tied up with light yarn, which could all be cut at once. So when he gave the orders, the sails all fell from their yard arms smartly and filled before the winds, implying that there was a full complement of men on board. He headed straight for the French mini flotilla. He chased them, the skeleton crew straining to keep every sail trimmed, running from one set of ropes to the next, each doing the work

of five men. As they neared the French, they fired a few shots from their forward-facing, their bow chaser cannon. The French captain ran his ship aground, the shock of which sent his mast pinging over the bow like dominoes. The second and third French ship did the same, before Cochrane was finally reunited with the rest of his crew and the ship they'd stolen from up the river. The admiral in charge sent a report to London saying that the whole operation called for his warmest approbation. Interestingly, we hear that Cochrane's attacks were bold, but his crew never thought they were foolhardy. Before any of them, he would personally reconnoiter. He would take depth soundings. He would check sailing angles. He would personally scout enemy positions. He was complimented by contemporaries, by men serving under him,

for taking good care of his crew. One of his young midshipmen was called Frederick Marriott, and he would later write a fictionalised account of his escapades with Cochrane. It was called Mr Midshipman Easy, published in 1836. He joined the ship's company around this time and he recalled, quote, the coolness and courage of our captain, inoculating the whole of the ship's company, the suddenness of our attacks, the gathering after the combat, the killed lamented, the wounded almost envied, the powder so burnt into our faces that years could not remove it, the proved character of every man and officer on board, the implicit trust and the adoration we felt for our commander.

On the 18th of June, 1806, Cochrane took a rather strange detour. He launched into politics with all the panache he'd learned on the field of battle. He dashed to the town of Honiton in Devon, where he fought and lost a by-election. And we're told there was much merriment and hilarity. What there wasn't was enough votes to send Cochrane to Parliament, and for the moment that institution would not be graced with his particular talents. By the end of August, Cochrane received joyous news. He was given command of another lovely frigate, HMS Imperieuse, the biggest ship he'd ever commanded to that point. She was formerly

the Spanish frigate Medea. She had 38 guns. She'd been captured by the British in 1804. She packed quite a punch. Twelve of her guns were 32-pound carronades, so 32-pound balls, savage at close range. And he hassled everyone in the naval hierarchy until he got his own way and the entire crew of the palace was transferred aboard. He would go to sea with 284 men, around 200 of whom were old shipmates, including of course his surgeon, his lifelong friend James Guthrie, who was the inspiration for Patrick O'Brien's character Dr Stephen Maturin. In October, just before they went back to sea, he blazed back into Honiton. Parliament had been dissolved and there was a general election, so another chance at starting a political career.

This time he promised anyone who'd vote for him 10 guineas. Remember, it was a public ballot at the time, so everyone knew who he'd voted for for and he careered around town with some of his crew in carriages acting like they were cutting out an enemy vessel. They obviously did something right because Cochrane was duly elected. His political career had begun. Now we talked today about MPs having second jobs but Cochrane didn't even have time to go to Parliament because within a couple of weeks of winning the election, he was back at sea. Now, in every remarkable military career, there comes a moment when the entire story could have been snuffed out. Alexander the Great was millimetres from death in his first Persian battle at the Granicus. Napoleon survived a bayonet thrust at the siege of Toulon.

Wellington had two horses shot from underneath him at the Battle of Assaye at the start of his career. And in the early hours of November the 19th, 1806, doing eight knots before a stiff breeze off the coast of Brittany, Cochrane's ship, HMS Imperieuse, smashed into a rock. It was a terrible navigational error. Someone had left iron too near the compass, causing the needle to show the wrong direction. Thankfully the rock was at such a depth and the speed of the ship so fast that it was dragged over the top of the rock and the damage was not terminal. It was a situation that could easily have killed every man aboard. Cochrane and his crew had survived by inches. Not long after another swell, a man fell overboard. A crew leapt into one of the ship's boats. Cochrane waded up and ordered them not to go, fearing losing them all. They watched helplessly as the man swam against the

swell until he was ultimately swallowed by the ocean. Cochrane spent that winter in the Mediterranean, causing even more trouble. In Arcachon Bay on the southern Atlantic coast of France, there was a fort called Roquette. Cochrane decided to storm it. Off went the ship's boats before dawn on the 6th of January 1807. The defenders fled. The British sustained no casualties. They blew up the magazine, spiked the guns,

destroyed the gun platforms and burned the supplies. It capped off a pretty good three-week period. They'd seized eight vessels, destroyed another seven. The young midshipman, Frederick Marriott, describes that time. The cruisers of the Imperieuse were periods of continual excitement, from the hour in which were constantly being raised and lowered forever hoisting up and lowering down. Marriott's referring here to the small boats which were constantly being raised and lowered onto the Imperieuse as Cochrane's crew was being sent off to storm a shore fortification or capture an enemy ship at anchor. Unsurprisingly by the spring Cochrane was knackered. He took a couple of months off and a new captain was appointed. Now he turned up to be pretty useless and didn't do very much, to the enormous surprise of the crew who were used to action and adventure. Meanwhile though,

Cochrane had found plenty of that. Things were kicking off ashore. Cochrane was in London, the government dissolved Parliament, and he was given the opportunity to stand in one of Britain's most notorious constituencies. In places like Honiton, there were very few electors and they could each be bribed. It was a world of so-called rotten boroughs. Only 20 seats in the British Parliament had more than a thousand electors. Westminster had 11,000. It meant that even the richest of men could not bribe their way to victory in Westminster. In that constituency, voters had to be persuaded. It was always uproarious, and this one was no exception. There was a duel, there were wild public meetings, and Cochrane won. The first thing he did was march

into Parliament and speak searing words about naval corruption and abuses. He spoke up for sailors, saying they spent too long away from home, they had low morale, and he accused members of Parliament giving the best jobs to their family members and friends. It was a brave thing to do. It was probably the right thing to do. He was speaking truth to power. He was representing those who had no voice. But it wasn't the smartest move. The Admiralty were furious. All of Cochrane's parliamentary motions were rejected, so he achieved nothing except convince many in the naval hierarchy that he was a total liability. From this point onwards, he was a marked man. Cochrane returned to his beloved Imperieurs in the summer of 1807 to the rejoicing of his bored crew, and probably many

of those sitting in the Admiralty in London too. By early 1808, he was back in the Mediterranean, and he went on a rampage. In early February, he was attacked by four gunboats off Barcelona. rampage. In early February, he was attacked by four gunboats off Barcelona. He sank two of them and captured one. In broad daylight, flying an American flag, he dropped his anchor in a heavily protected bay and took the ship's boats to attack a French privateer. The French crew were suspicious, they made ready, and they fired on the Brits as they rode closer. The British lieutenant leading the expedition was hit by a dozen bullets and keeled over dead. The rest of Cochrane's crew hid beneath the thwarts until they came alongside then they leapt up and boarded the French ship. Trampling one midshipman who lay next the corpse of the dead lieutenant the midshipman had his

hands on his head apparently terrified both by the boots of his friends and the swords of his enemy. But then batteries of cannon on the shore opened up. Spanish onlookers crowded to the water's edge to enjoy the action. Cochrane's Imperiors blasted the batteries with its cannon. Under the covering fire of the Imperiors, Cochrane's crew boarded two more merchant ships, capturing them as well, and then Imperius shook out its British ensign and led its three prizes away on a gentle breeze out to sea. After all that action, she needed a full refit in Gibraltar, after which she again set sail in March with fresh paint glinting from the top sides, a clean scoured out bilge, blacked yards, tarred rigging and polished brass. By the end of May they were back in Gibraltar with a flotilla of prizes. Lord Collingwood was the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean. He was a

legend in his own right. He was first into battle at Trafalgar aboard HMS Royal Sovereign and he was the man who replaced Nelson as commander after his death in battle. He sent the Admiralty a list of ships captured in the region. Most captains had captured a couple. A captain named Campbell had managed 11. Cochrane had captured 29. In May 1808, the twists and turns of the Napoleonic War saw a transformation in the political situation in the Mediterranean. Napoleon's forces invaded Spain, occupied Madrid and the country's main fortresses. King Ferdinand VII had been forced to abdicate and was headed for prison in France. In his place, Napoleon installed his brother Joseph on the throne. In retaliation, the Spanish people rose up

in spontaneous, furious resistance. Towns chased out French officials and troops. An uprising spread across the country. It was a genuinely popular, uncoordinated shriek of rage against the French occupiers. They even invented a new word for this low-level type of conflict. From the Spanish for war guerra, they had themselves a little war, a guerrilla war. Napoleon's Iberian nightmare had begun, and the British naturally chose to make it a lot worse. The Spanish rebels called for support, and Cockram was on hand to supply it. He received new orders from Collingwood. You are hereby required and directed to proceed immediately off the port of Barcelona and cruise between it and Marseille, using every exertion to

prevent reinforcements or supplies of any sort getting into the Spanish dominions from the neighbouring territory of France. It being His Majesty's intention that during the present struggle of the Spanish nation to throw off the yoke of France that every assistance and aid should be rendered by the British forces. In late June, Cochrane sailed into Cartagena with a Spanish flag alongside his British one. He was cheered by people on the quay despite the fact that five weeks before he'd launched a fierce attack on Spanish shipping in the area. He harassed French troops on the long coast road linking France with Barcelona. He blew up

stretches of it, he caused landslides, he burned bridges, he battered gun batteries. He captured guns ashore and ziplined them down to his ship. He captured the fortress at Mongat with a Spanish guerrilla force having smashed it with his artillery, taking 70 French troops prisoner and then blowing up the castle. He then cruised the French coast demolishing signal stations, capturing code books, British sailors and marines wandering about with near impunity on Napoleon's precious French soil. The French forces would scramble to meet these raiders. On one occasion, Cochrane's shore party was in danger of being attacked by French cavalry. As he was sailing along, he ordered the anchor to be dropped like a handbrake turn.

It swung the ship violently around and allowed her to blast the road with her broadside. Collingwood was impressed. Nothing can exceed the zeal and activity with which his lordship pursues the enemy. The success which attends his enterprises clearly indicates with what skill and ability they are conducted, besides keeping the coast in constant alarm, causing a general suspension of the trade and harassing a body of troops employed in opposing him. The Imperieurs also helped defend the town of Rosas when it was besieged, with Cochrane and the crew occupying and defending Fort Trinidad.

He arrived, basically superseded the superior officer who was in charge, but feeling a little dispirited, and he just got amongst it. Cochrane took a stone splinter to the face, writing a later memoir. The splinter flattened my nose and then penetrated my mouth. By the skill of our excellent doctor, Mr. Guthrie, my nose was, after a time, rendered serviceable. It's very difficult for us to imagine just how dangerous and charged the environment was on a ship and ashore in this period. Cochrane and his men were risking death and injury nearly every single day. On one occasion one of his crewmen who was with him defending Fort Trinidad, he was loading a cannon. He rammed home the charge of powder when suddenly it went

off. His face was burnt off, both arms removed and his internal organs exposed. We're told he didn't die instantly but cursed the French, swearing that he would have his revenge. Another man had his arm blown off and was bodily blasted over the castle wall landing on the rocks below where he was collected by his mates, astonishingly he made a full recovery. Cochrane held that fort against 12,000 professional soldiers for two weeks, as effective on dry land as he was at sea. By the end of January 1809 he was once again exhausted and asked for leave. Instead, though, he was sent on the most demanding job of his career.

You listened to Dan Snow's History and we're talking about Thomas Lord Cochrane. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings.

Normans. Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. On the 19th of May 1809, the Imperials sailed into Plymouth on the famous south-westerly breeze which so often blows along that coast. It pushed the square-rigged ship right up into the mouth of the Tamar, around the rocky shores of

Mount Edgecombe. As soon as they reported their arrival, London requested Cochrane's presence immediately. In the capital, he learnt that a powerful squadron of French ships had escaped the British naval blockade in Brest, France's premier naval base. They'd gone to an anchorage by the Ile d'Aix where it joined other ships. This fleet now numbered 11 battleships and four frigates. The Admiralty expected that they were probably going to try and make for the West Indies to disrupt Britain's essential trade with the Caribbean islands. British ships were standing out to sea keeping an eye on them. The commander of this fleet was Lord Gambier. He didn't want to risk his ships, sailing them into what he thought was a narrow anchorage beset

with shoals on all sides. So he kept his distance, sailing backwards and forwards, bottling up the French fleet, making sure they were trapped. But trapping them was very different to destroying them, and the British Admiralty wanted those ships burnt, captured, or sunk. Now there was one weapon that Gambier could have used, dangerously effective when it works, but rarely used because it was deeply unpredictable, and that is fire ships. Most famously, fire ships were used by Drake and Howard to scatter the Spanish Armada in 1588. The technique is basically take an old ship, you fill it up with tar, with old sails and wood, and you sail it straight at the enemy.

When the time comes, you set fire to it, you jump overboard, and you let the fire ship float into the heart of the enemy fleet, hoping to set them on fire, or at least throw them into confusion. We know it's a technique that dates back to at least the 3rd century AD. The Chinese used to chain a number together in order to ensnare and tangle an enemy in a floating furnace. Gambier had considered fire ships, but he described any attempts to use them as hazardous, if not desperate.

But hazardous and desperate, well, they're right in Cochrane's wheelhouse. He knew the area well. In fact, he'd recommended a fire ship attack there before. Whilst in London, he gave advice direct to the First Lord of the Admiralty. He didn't think fire ships alone would do the trick. They had to be accompanied by bomb vessels, ships which didn't just burn, but would catastrophically explode as well. He also recommended that these ships would be rigged with a weapon in the very earliest stages of development, rockets. They were extremely inaccurate, they were like giant fireworks but they were terrifying and in a packed anchorage at night, fear, disorientation and confusion

were as powerful weapons as fire. On March 29th, ten days after Imperius had arrived in Plymouth Harbour, she sailed straight back out. By the 3rd of April, they'd reached the Basque Roads, which is the big sheltered bay on the coast of Biscay, where the port of La Rochelle sits. The river Charente empties into the Atlantic here and there's a scattering of rocky islands and outcrops

some with Napoleonic gun batteries on them. It's a messy, dangerous bay for the British and it wasn't just enemy artillery they needed to worry about it was the shoals, the mud, the sand, the rock between them. It's the tide that hammered in and out, as it still does today. The spring biscay gales that spiral in off the Atlantic. 25 knots of wind from the west crashing into a powerful ebb tide can produce steep standing waves, white-capped and angry. I sailed there in the summer with GPS and an engine and it was fine. It was actually quite

nice but it was a very different scene in April 1809. As soon as Cochrane arrived he was rowed across to Admiral Gambier, the commanding officer. He was on the massive 120 gunship Caledonia. Gambier was an evangelical, a teetotaler, he hated bound language, he was known to his men as Dismal Jimmy and he was certainly dismal about his current assignment. He didn't want to be there, he didn't think any attack could be made. The French were anchored in two lines between sandbanks in a narrow channel that led eventually to the Charente River. They deliberately left gaps in the first line of ships that meant the guns of the second line could fire through the channel itself was also blocked with a massive piece of cable as thick as a torso

suspended from two boys attached to five ton anchors this barrier boom as it was called was protected by frigates who made sure the Brits didn't attempt to destroy it. The French admiral knew perfectly well the Brits might attempt to use fire ships, and so he had swarms of little boats contesting the water alongside this boom. Something like 70 boats, crews prepared to tow fire ships or perhaps fight to protect their boom. And for good measure, the fleet was also anchored under the guns of the fortress on the Eel decks. These shore batteries, these cannons sitting on dry land, were their insurance policy. You can mount much heavier guns on earth and stone than you can mount on the

wooden deck of a ship. Ground is a steady platform, so your aim should be true, and you can roast iron cannonballs in a furnace. They don't just smash through a ship's hull but they start fires as they tear through wood. These guns on all the other protective measures and the fiendish navigation would surely do for any attacking force or so the French thought. They hadn't reckoned on Thomas Cochrane. Cochran immediately set about assessing the situation. He correctly assessed that the gun batteries ashore looked much more dangerous than they were. He believed that most of them were in a poor state of repair and improperly manned. On one of his many reconnoitres he went close enough to the enemy to fire a shot at them, and he reckoned there were probably a maximum of 20 cannons on the nearby Eel decks. With these optimistic reports from Cochrane, Gambier gave permission for the fire ship assault to go in.

Cochrane focused his attention on four explosion vessels. They would lead the way and blow up to discourage the French from grappling with any of the fire ships that followed. Massive casts of gunpowder were placed on board. Several hundred shells placed around. 3,000 hand grenades. One of them, we hear, had 36 barrels of powder in the hold. There was a fuse, which was a canvas hose with gunpowder running along it, which would give the crews 15 minutes to escape.

Behind the explosion ships were no fewer than 20 fire ships. The fire ship was such a weapon of terror that if any of the crews were caught, they would not be accorded the status of prisoners of war. They would be executed. Once these sacrificial ships were assembled, all they needed was an incoming tide, a moonless night, and someone to command. Someone bold enough to steer a floating bomb into the heart of an enemy fleet at night, through hazardous waters, with everybody shooting at them.

Captain Cochrane announced he would command the lead ship. The first ship into action. An exploding ship. Gambier gave the go-ahead on the 11th of April. High tide was at 8pm. There was a stiff breeze, clouds, no moon. Cochrane sailed with only his foresails raised, straight into a French stronghold on a night so dark you couldn't see the bowsprit. A survivor said it was like entering the gates of hell.

He and his tiny crew set the fuse, jumped in the small rowing boat they were towing, and then hauled on their oars because their lives depended on it. They fought mountainous seas, adverse wind and tide to get back to the Imperieuse. The wind made the fuse go more quickly, and the ship blew up after just a few moments. The huge explosion briefly illuminated the entire bay. Debris was blown high into the sky. A tidal wave hit the little boat and almost capsized.

One of the following ships then crashed into the boom. It heeled over as the crew lit their fuse and scarpered. They were 200 metres away when it blew. They watched as shells blasted into the air. They too pulled down their oars desperately, the fire ships coming pinging past them, rockets in the rigging exploding as flames caught them like fiery serpents. The largest fire ship sailed with determination,

smashed into the boom and finally broke it. The crew were abandoning her when an explosion killed one of them and blew the others overboard. The burned and injured crewmen somehow managed to row back to their mother ship. An eyewitness said it was like watching a procession of fiery pyramids. I'm quoting, The French were ready for an attack like this,

but they assumed the Brits wouldn't launch one in such a howling gale. Their little boats guarding the boom had been summoned back. So now, as explosion vessels blasted off, 20 fire ships screamed down on the French. Of those, only a fraction made it to the French fleet. Only four British fire ships got among the French, but as so often with a fire ship attack, the real impact is not physical, but mental. As for the Spanish Armada in the port of Calais in 1588, the French crews lost their cool and panicked. You can't really blame them.

Most of the men on board couldn't swim, not that it mattered. If it's a cold spring night on the Atlantic coast of Biscay and you're on a ship made entirely of combustible material that's set alight, you're a dead man on it and you're a dead man over the side. Fire ate up those wooden ships with their fibrous, kindling-like rigging. It was a slow, searing death until the powder magazine went up. Over the side, well, the black, freezing, choppy, wind-lashed sea offered no safety. The swim to a darkened shore across shoals and a

great stretch of water was not a realistic proposition. The French cut their anchor cables. There was no time to methodically raise the anchor and flake the vast cable at the bows of the ship. No, it was a powerful foc'sle hand with an axe, and seconds later the anchor cable gave way and the ship was adrift. They'd raise sails later. A French officer on board the flagship, Océan, recalled that they staved off one fireship and cut their cable before re-anchoring again. But when they saw more fireships bearing down, they cut their second anchor free as well. Now, let me give you a little insight into some sailing here.

If you cut your anchor with the wind howling from sea to shore and the tide with it and then scramble about in the dark trying to get some sails up, you are going to be pushed sideways or backwards or any way the wind is going. And if the wind is blowing straight at the land, that's where you're heading to. Ocean didn't stand a chance. She ran aground in the shallows. Another three fire ships approached her. They pushed one off course by blasting it with a broadside which brought its fiery mass down but another fire ship crashed into her. They used their pumps and hoses to blast the afterdate with water to stop the fire spreading. They used long poles and spars to push the fire ship away.

No mean feat with the wind blowing in the other direction. They had to slash at the grappling hooks that Cochrane had hung in the rigging, swinging around like fish hooks trying to foul hook a juicy salmon. Monstrous things, those fire ships. They staved them off, but two more French ships emerged from the dark and collided. Bowsprits were torn off, men wrenched overboards their death. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. As the grey dawn rose, not a single French ship had been set ablaze, but 13 of their 15 vessels were now firmly aground,

mud or rock beneath their keels. The tide was going out now, the water level was dropping, and so there were thirteen sets of masts at rakish angles, decks sloping, beams and planks groaning as the unusual stresses threatened to break them up. A man-of-war at sea is a thing of beauty. Aground, they're pitiable, like a beached whale. Napoleon's fleet had been rendered entirely inoperable. For now. The tide was out. The French were helpless. But in a few hours the tide would bring the waters back in, the level would rise and it would be possible to refloat most of them, drag them off the ground with anchors, rowing boats and sweat. But for now they lay helpless on their sides, broadside guns pointing in the air, undefended timbers of their keels exposed to British guns.

Cochrane raised a simple signal, a combination of colourful flags up in the rigging. Half the fleet can destroy the enemy. He expected that the big British battleships would now come in and turn the stranded French to driftwood. But there was no stirring from Admiral Gambier. The rest of the fleet looked out in vain for a colourful raise of flags on the flagship's signal halyards. Cochrane followed it up with another signal. Only two afloat. He knew that the British fleet could sail under the flood tide, blast the French and sail out on the ebb. The French were now throwing guns and stores overboard,

lightening the ships, preparing to haul off. But Gambier didn't want to risk his ships at all. It turns out that he was working from an inaccurate chart. He and his staff had not done the close personal reconnaissance that Cochrane had. Gambier believed that his ships could not get close enough in shallow waters to the French fleet to do any damage. But eventually Gambier was shamed into it. With the entire fleet looking on and Cochrane's repeated messages saying the French were helpless, fleet looking on and Cochrane's repeated messages saying the French were helpless, the British fleet did get underway. Cannons run out, ready to finish off the French. At the very sight of the approach of the British, the two remaining floating French ships raised their anchors and fled, running

themselves aground on the mudflats of the River Charente. So now they too were aground. But then something bizarre happened. Gambier signalled for his fleet to anchor. He ordered them to drop their anchors just outside the range of the shore batteries and sent one solitary bomb vessel forward to lob exploding shells at the French. Cochrane was livid. If the Admiral would not attack, well then he would, by himself if necessary. He was ready to disobey orders and prepared to take the consequences. He would later write, It was better to risk the frigate, or even my commission,

than to suffer a disgraceful termination to the expectations of the Admiralty after having driven ashore the enemy's fleet. He had his crew pull up the anchor just enough that it started to drag along the bottom of the sea. So he drifted towards the enemy with his anchor down, as if he had no control over it. Then when he was close enough, he signalled the flagship. The ship is in distress and requires to be assisted immediately. He then let out more anchor chain, came to a stop and started firing, not on one, not on two, but on three French battleships, all vastly superior to him in firepower.

There is simply not another moment like it in naval history. He knew, though, it wasn't a suicide mission, because the French had thrown so many of their cannon overboard to lighten their hulls, to make them float higher and get them off the sandbank. Plus, he knew the French had been awake for hours, cannon overboard to lighten their hulls to make them float higher and get them off the sandbank. Plus he knew the French had been awake for hours, traumatised by the night attack, and had spent hours with their ships groaning on their sides. The French were able to fire back a bit, but it was a shadow of the barrage they ought to have been able to deliver on paper. Gambier was shamed by the request of assistance from one of his comrades.

British battleships were finally detached by the reluctant admiral. Ships of the line, big, powerful warships, now added their terrible broadsides to that of the little Imperieurs. One French crew starved to abandon their ship. Cochrane sent his men in to burn her. At 3.30pm, Cochrane ordered the Imperios to pull away. The other British ships could take over now. His frigate was battered, the bosun was running around carrying out repairs as French shots sliced through ropes.

Reef knots were being tied fore and aft. The carpenter and his mate were malleting bungs into jagged holes shot into the hull. One teenage sailor took a cannibal to the guts, which sprayed all over two midshipmen, temporarily blinding them. Cochrane was so exhausted he could hardly stand. At 5.30, two French battleships surrendered after brave resistance. Another crew abandoned their ship and set fire to it. It blew up spectacularly at 7.30.

An hour later, it was followed by another French it. It blew up spectacularly at 7.30. An hour later it was followed by another French ship which also blew up. It had been the spare ammunition carrier for the whole fleet. An eyewitness called it the most terrific and sublime spectacle the human mind could contemplate or the eye survey without emotions of terror. The following day Cochrane again seemed to disobey orders to blast other French ships still aground. On the third day, Gambier ordered him to return to the fleet. He was to be sent back to England with news of the successful action. Gambier would stay off the coast, where atrocious weather gave him the excuse not to do very much. A French officer wrote,

They have not made any movement whatever for these three days, which is a thing not at all to be understood, for they might with ease attack the Régulus and oblige her crew to abandon her. For the loss of no ships, 10 men and 37 wounded, the British had destroyed five ships, and reports suggest that three other French ships were so damaged that they were converted for other duties. They would never sail in line of battle again.

One of the French frigates was also beyond repair. The French captains were put on trial. One was shot. Two imprisoned. The psychological blur was probably even more serious. The French now feared that nowhere was safe. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before the Brits sailed into Brest itself, their main naval base, and torched the fleet at its moorings. French commanders grew even more

timorous. Many years later, when Napoleon was in exile, he discussed this battle and used scathing words. He called the French admiral an imbecile, but then said, yours was just as bad. I assure you that if Cochrane had been supported, he would have taken every one of the ships. Even so, it was a success for the British. In fact, I always think if the Battle of Basque Roads, as it's called, had been at the beginning of the war. It would have been a triumph, perhaps studied in history lessons years later. But Trafalgar in 1805 had set British expectations high. Brits wanted victories to be as sudden, dramatic and overwhelming as that of Trafalgar. The Battle of the Basque Roads should be up there with the greatest exploits of Drake and Nelson, but today it's forgotten. And that's

partly because of the ugly scene that followed. Because Cochran, being Cochran, wanted the world to know who had messed up. He wanted to make it clear that it had been the Admiral's call not to finish off the wounded French, not his own. Cochrane wanted justice, of course, and he was about to further alienate some very powerful men. And he would discover that the manoeuvres of his adversaries in London were considerably harder to overcome than those of his enemies in France. in France. You've been listening to my series on Cochrane. Be sure to listen to the next and final episode, the story of how Cochrane was disgraced, impoverished, imprisoned, humiliated, and how he escaped, travelling to South America,

and became a founding figure of new nations. A fittingly dramatic end to an incredible story. If you're a paying subscriber, you can listen to this final part now, or if you're a regular listener, you can get it tomorrow. But I advise you to finish the story while it's all fresh in mind. You can subscribe using the link in the show notes. Goodbye. Thank you. you