Cochrane (21 page)

The
Imperieuse
returned the fire, warping round and round with her springs, to silence the most galling. This continued for nearly an hour, by which time the captured vessels were under all sail, and then the
Imperieuse
hove up her anchor, and, with the English colours waving at her gaff, and still keeping up an undiminished fire, sailed slowly out the victor.
⁷

During the hour of the duel, Cochrane had felt the first breath of wind, just enough to turn impending catastrophe into triumph.

He repeated escapades of this sort a score of times in the spring of
1808.
Yet the truly sensational event of that period was one in which he had no direct part. The
Imperieuse
reached Gibraltar on
31
May, having had no contact with Spanish forces since
20
May, when the guns of Cape Palos fired on the passing frigate. But the day after Cochrane's appearance at Gibraltar, H.M.S.
Trident
and a merchant convoy arrived from England. The news they brought was the most portentous since
1793.
On
2
May, in Madrid, and subsequently throughout much of Spain, the people had risen in a "War of Liberation" against Napoleon, determined to restore their captive king, Ferdinand VII. The patriotic movement was spreading like fire throughout the country. Already the native army, or guerrillas, were fighting the French. In England, there was talk of an expeditionary force to Spain. Before the month was over, Lord Castlereagh, as Secretary of State for War, had written a letter on the subject to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Arthur Wellesley.

To Cochrane, the news of revolution in Spain was a gift from the gods of war. There had never been the least doubt of his ability to disrupt enemy commerce or to harry a hostile coast. But now the war presented a quite different prospect, no less than one of the largest armies of France caught between the Spanish guerrillas ashore and the swift manoeuvring of frigates like the
Imperieuse
at sea. Geographically, the French position in eastern Spain was dependent largely on the coastal roads and the sea routes between Marseille and Catalonia. For the first time since Trafalgar, naval power might determine the outcome of the great land campaigns.

Napoleon's response to the defection of his Spanish ally was prompt and predictable. Ferdinand VII was summoned to Bayonne and there made a prisoner of the French. Napoleon's brother, Joseph Buonaparte, King of Naples, was proclaimed by the Emperor as King of Spain. Every insult that could have been contrived seemed to be offered to the patriotic feelings of the Spanish people. They had gained little by their alliance with France and had lost much. Now they were to be reduced to the state of a satellite power, under a foreign army of occupation and under the rule of a foreign puppet.

After a fortnight's refit at Gibraltar, the
Imperieuse
put to sea again on
18
June
1808,
Cochrane having received "orders from Lord Collingwood to assist the Spaniards by every means in my power". Five days later, the frigate passed close to Almeria, where Cochrane had seized the French munition ship and her convoy four months previously. This time, he hoisted Spanish colours as well as English, acknowledging the enthusiasm of the townspeople who watched him pass. Two days later, he anchored off Cartagena, the scene of some of his "recent hostile visits". But this time, a party of senior Spanish officers came out in a boat to welcome the
Imperieuse,
and Cochrane was invited ashore by the Governor. He and his men received an enthusiastic welcome in the hot streets of the port, the crowds shouting for Cochrane, King George, and England. At every landfall along the Catalan coast, the same cheers and flag-waving greeted him in "one continued expression of good feeling".
⁸

Of course, the French had not withdrawn from the area, indeed they were hastily reinforcing their positions against the attacks of Spanish troops, who were known as guerrillas even when uniformed and in regular formations. At Barcelona, Cochrane cruised just out of range of the shore-batteries, which none the less opened fire on the
Imperieuse.
By way of reply, he hoisted English and Spanish colours, with the French tricolour flying lower down in a position of defeat. Then, for good measure, he fired a derisive
21
-gun salute to the enemy shore-batteries. This provoked a storm of salvoes, the plumes of spray rising just short of the frigate as she continued to cruise, tantalisingly, beyond their range. Cochrane went through his repertoire of insults, goading the French batteries into reply, as they used up the powder and shot which were soon to be in critically short supply.

During the exchanges, Cochrane attended to the most important matter of all. Standing on the frigate's quarterdeck, he surveyed the town and harbour of Barcelona carefully through his spy-glass. The streets were empty, except for the blue uniformed groups of infantry patrols and the white of the French cavalry. But the roof tops were crowded with the inhabitants who watched the skirmish and, conspicuously, did not cheer on the French gunners. It was common knowledge that the French under General Duhesme had entered Barcelona in February and were now an army of occupation. But even the
100,000
men whom Napoleon had sent to Spain were too few to police a country of such size. Cochrane concluded his survey, which confirmed that the French position in Catalonia depended on concentrations of troops in such towns and cities as Barcelona, supplied and reinforced from France by means of the coastal road. It was the challenge of which he had dreamed.

With a final salute, Cochrane turned the stern of the frigate to the French and sailed northward along the coast, towards the enemy frontier. Each time that the
Imperieuse
dropped anchor, the inhabitants of such towns as Blanco and Mataro came off in small boats with presents for the crew and complaints for Cochrane about the manner in which the French were helping themselves to the possessions, the girls, and even the lives of the Catalans on the pretext that some act of "resistance" had been committed. When the Spanish guerrilla army blew up a section of the vital coast road, the French commander compelled the local inhabitants to fill in the gap with their own furniture, agricultural implements, even their clothes. Once the work had been completed, Napoleon's grenadiers destroyed the buildings of the village. Cochrane, seeing the devastation from the
Imperieuse,
led his marines ashore at Mataro, blew up the road in a number of new places, and located the nearest French shore-battery. It was on the cliff outside the town. Using sailors as well as marines, he attacked from the rearward slope, where the battery was undefended, drove out the gunners, and before the main body of the French army could be summoned he ran the four brass
24
-pounders over the cliff and re-embarked his men safely. To add insult to all this, he quietly put his men ashore on the following day to collect the brass artillery and ferry it out to the
Imperieuse.
On the next day, the frigate raced the French troops to Canette, which they had left in order to deal with Cochrane at Mataro. To his delight, there were more brass cannon, hardly defended, on the cliff top. It was easy enough to seize the position, carry hawsers from the frigate to the cliff, and "hop" the guns on board by use of capstan and tackles. Then, while the French army struggled back through the heat of the Catalan summer, Cochrane noted with satisfaction, "took a party of seamen and marines on shore, and broke down or blew up the road in six different places".
⁹

All this was excellent for morale, both English and Spanish, but Cochrane had yet to show that it could have a decisive effect on the course of the war. His chance came three days later, on
29
July
1808,
when the
Imperieuse
anchored off Mongat, ten miles on the French side of Barcelona. General Duhesme's army had left Barcelona some time before in order to besiege the Spanish at Gerona. The siege being over, he was now marching back to the garrison at Barcelona, Mongat being the only other French fortress on his route. The fort at Mongat was quite well defended and, though Duhesme had not yet reached the town with his main body of troops, his heavy artillery had already been formed into a park at a little distance on the Gerona side.

No sooner had the
Imperieuse
dropped anchor, at sunset, than the local guerrilla leaders came out in a boat and promised that they had eight hundred men ready and that, with Cochrane's assistance they could take the fortress of Mongat.

As Cochrane afterwards remarked, he would have done better for himself and his men if he had kept to the business of taking prizes, but there was something about sabotage and demolition which had evidently begun to grip his imagination. Waiting until it was properly dark, he went ashore with his more experienced marines and worked with silent efficiency. The advance guard of Duhesme's force, which now formed the garrison of the fortress, woke to the sound of two massive explosions lighting the night sky on either side of them. As the summer dawn broke, they saw, towards Barcelona, a formidable gap blown in the road, as well as piles of rock from above brought down to block it still more effectively. There could be no escape nor reinforcement in that direction. Worse still, on the Gerona side, the road had been blown up between the fort and Duhesme's artillery, which now stood forlorn and immobilised. Its present position was quite useless in any defence against Cochrane.

Cochrane put to sea for the rest of the day, anchoring off Mongat again the next morning. The French infantry had spent an unhappy day calculating their position. They were cut off from help, without their heavy guns, and surrounded by eight hundred guerrillas intent not only on victory but on vengeance. As the
Imperieuse
anchored and Cochrane went ashore in his gig to survey the position, the guerrillas stormed a French outpost on a hill top, and put to death the survivors who fell into their hands.

Cochrane ordered the
Imperieuse
to open fire with broadsides against the French position. It took only a couple of these before the defenders of Mongat signalled to the frigate their wish to surrender. The guerrillas stormed the slope with great cheering. But the French had no intention of surrendering to those who were intent on personal vengeance. They had only offered to surrender to Cochrane and now proceeded to open fire again to drive back the Spanish. At length Cochrane was led through the crackle of musketry to parley with the French commander, who insisted he would not surrender to the guerrillas. Cochrane gave him a stern lecture on the barbarity with which the French had behaved, deploring "the wanton devastation committed by a military power, pretending to high notions of civilisation".

Then the second battle of Mongat began, the struggle to get ninety-five French prisoners down to the beach and on to the frigate without allowing them to be lynched by the guerrillas. In a bizarre sequel, ragged men and women emerged from their hiding places to join the guerrillas in cheering Cochrane's marines, while the marines themselves used fists and musket butts to beat back those guerrillas who were trying to scale the parapet of the fort and get their hands on the French prisoners. The French commander had surrendered his sword to Cochrane and the entire garrison had laid down its arms. After a good deal of argument between Cochrane and the Spanish commander, it was agreed that there would be no lynching but that, as a recompense, the guerrillas should be allowed to loot the fortress. The prisoners were duly marched down to the boats followed by the abuse of the guerrillas and the jeering of the Spanish women. When the looting was over, Cochrane set a charge under the French ammunition and the fort of Mongat went skyward in a spectacular explosion. The display attracted H.M.S.
Cambrian
to the scene, and Cochrane transferred some of his prisoners to her.
¹⁰

The first official news of what had happened was contained in Cochrane's despatch to Lord Collingwood, which announced the bewildering but very welcome intelligence that the major French fortress between Gerona and Barcelona "surrendered this morning to his Majesty's ship under my command". The implications were considerable. General Duhesme had lost the advance guard of his force, and the whole of his artillery which he had been obliged to abandon. The road through Mongat was impassable for regular troops and he arrived at Barcelona a month late, after an arduous journey through the interior, where his column was more easily a prey to guerrilla ambushes. Cochrane in no way underestimated the abilities of the Catalans in all this, paying tribute to their "patience and endurance under privation". From the British point of view, the damage done to General Duhesme's army and the whole French presence in Spain was out of all proportion to the effort expended, which amounted to the use of one frigate for two or three days. But as Cochrane sat in his stern cabin on the night of the action, writing his despatch to Lord Collingwood, the
Imperieuse
was already sailing towards the marine frontier of Spain and France.
¹¹