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Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane,
10th Earl of Dundonald

Peter Weir's 2003 film Master and Commander is based on the fictional naval hero, Captain Jack Aubrey, created by the writer Patrick O'Brian. O'Brian's books have received literary and historical acclaim and have sold in their thousands all over the world. However, O'Brian based his character on the real life exploits of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald.

Thomas Cochrane had a truly remarkable career as a naval officer and a politician. Cochrane had one of the most extraordinary and controversial naval careers of the 19th century. After serving with distinction in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, he was wrongly jailed for fraud, stripped of his naval rank and parliamentary seat. Amazingly he went on to command the Chilean, Brazilian and Greek navies, helping these countries in their fight for independence. He completed a remarkable comeback when he received a Royal pardon and the restoration of his naval rank.

He entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman in 1793 and was quickly promoted on merit to lieutenant two years later. Cochrane soon established a reputation as one of the navy's most audacious and feared commanders. It was during his early appointment as Master and Commander of the sloop Speedy that Cochrane came to fame, fortune and notoriety in the Mediterranean. As a Lieutenant in command of his first ship, the sloop Speedy mounting fourteen 4-pounder guns and with a crew of only ninety-two, he captured fifty ships, 122 guns and 534 prisoners in just a year. The most famous engagement, illustrating the brilliance and daring that typified his career, was the capture of the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo on 6 May 1801. El Gamo was a powerful Spanish frigate with twice the firepower of the Speedy and over six times as many men and marines. Cochrane ordered the hoisting of the American flag to confuse the Spanish. El Gamo's broadsides missed and Speedy got close enough for her guns to open fire killing the Spanish Captain. Cochrane then stormed the Spanish ship with a boarding party who included the entire crew, except Speedy's surgeon. He ordered one man to climb the mast and haul down the colors, whereupon the Spanish crew of 319 surrendered.

Promoted to Post-Captain and given command of the frigates Pallas and later Imperieuse, he caused havoc on the French coast and made over £75,000 in prize money from captured shipping. Cochrane terrorized shipping along the French and Spanish coasts to such a extent that Napoleon referred to him as the Sea Wolf. In 1808 he attacked Valencia in Spain and captured several ships, some of which turned out to be American.

In 1805 Cochrane won the seat for Westminster and entered Parliment as an independent, standing against corruption and championing reform. He kept the seat for ten years but was often sent back to sea by request of Parliament because of his radical attacks on the Government.

In April 1809, Cochrane led a successful fireship attack on a powerful French squadron anchored in Basque Roads, off Rochefort. At the legendary Battle of Basque Roads, Cochrane used fireships and explosion vessels to cause terror among the French squadron, most of which was run aground. In the confusion of the attack, all but two of the French ships were driven hard on shore. Unfortunately the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Lord Gambier, hesitated to deploy the main fleet and the opportunity to annihilate the French was lost. Infuriated Cochrane, who had been elected as a radical MP in 1806, opposed a motion of thanks for Gambier in the House of Commons. Gambier insisted on a court martial to clear his name and as the establishment closed ranks he was duly acquitted. Both these incidents ruined Cochrane's naval career. In 1812 Cochrane presented the Admiralty with an innovative gas warfare plan. It was rejected on the grounds that it was inhuman although technically realistic.

With no further naval employment, Cochrane returned to the House of Commons. Cochrane had made some powerful enemies and his campaign against corruption in the navy offended other leading figures including some, such as Earl St Vincent, who was sympathetic to his views. The establishment was determined on revenge and seized on an opportunity to put Cochrane on trial in 1814 for an elaborate fraud on the stock exchange. Convicted after a suspect trial, he was swiftly dismissed from the navy and Parliament. After sensationally escaping from prison in 1815, Cochrane was soon released but the authorities put him under serious financial and political pressure and he decided there was little reason to remain in Britain.

In 1817 he left the country and for the next ten years conducted a series of incredible operations for the Chilean, Brazilian and Greek navies. From 1817 to 1827 he fought in the navies of Chile, Brazil and Greece in their wars for independence. The formidable Spanish fortress of Valdivia was captured by 300 Chilean troops under Cochrane command in 1820 and in the same year he cut out the flagship of the Spanish South American fleet, the Esmeralda, from the port of Callao. In charge of the embryonic Brazilian fleet and against all the odds, Cochrane captured the Portuguese garrison of Bahia and accepted the surrender of the fortress at Maranhao after an outstanding campaign of deception.

Cochrane was reinstated in the Royal Navy in 1832 under a new King, William IV, and a sympathetic Whig government. His final appointment in 1847 was to be Commander-in-Chief of the North American and West Indies Station. He commanded the West Indies and America station until 1851. During the Crimean War the government publicised the possibility of Cochrane commanding a Baltic fleet. With Cochrane's unrivalled reputation for coastal warfare, the Russians correctly interpreted this as a threat to their capital St Petersburg. In 1854, at the age of 80, he was deeply disappointed not to have been given a command in the Crimean War. During his career Cochrane always strived to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Navy. He invented improvements to gas lighting, convoy lanterns, tubular boilers, steam propulsion and proposed the use of smoke-screens and gas warfare as early as 1812. Cochrane died in 1860 at the age of 85. He is one of Britain's most extraordinary naval heroes and his life is summarized in his own Autobiography of a Seaman, published in the year of his death. One of Britain's most flamboyant and daring naval heroes and a reforming politician, Cochrane was buried in Westminster Abbey.