Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, Marquess of Maranhão (14 December 1775 – 31 October 1860), styled Lord Cochrane between 1778 and 1831, was a British naval officer, politician and mercenary. Serving during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in the Royal Navy, his naval successes led Napoleon to nickname him le Loup des Mers (the Sea Wolf). He was successful in virtually all his naval actions.
Cochrane was dismissed from the Royal Navy in 1814 after a controversial conviction for fraud on the London Stock Exchange. Travelling to South America, he helped to organise and lead the revolutionary navies of Chile and of Brazil during their respective wars of independence during the 1820s. While commanding the Chilean Navy Cochrane also contributed to Peruvian independence through his participation in the Liberating Expedition of Peru. He was also hired to help the Greek Revolutionary Navy during the Greek War of Independence, but ultimately had little impact. In 1832 Cochrane was pardoned by the Crown and reinstated in the Royal Navy with the rank of Rear-Admiral of the Blue. After several more promotions, he died in 1860 with the rank of Admiral of the Red, and the honorary title of Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom.
Cochrane's life and exploits inspired the naval fiction of 19th- and 20th-century novelists, particularly the fictional characters C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey.
Thomas Cochrane was born at Annsfield, near Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. He was the son of Archibald, Lord Cochrane (1748–1831), who later became, in October 1778, the 9th Earl of Dundonald, and his wife, Anna Gilchrist. She was the daughter of Captain James Gilchrist and Ann Roberton, the daughter of Major John Roberton, 16th Laird of Earnock.
Thomas, Lord Cochrane, as he himself became in October 1778, had six brothers. Two served with distinction in the military: William Erskine Cochrane of the 15th Dragoons, who served under Sir John Moore in the Peninsular War and reached the rank of major; and Archibald Cochrane, who became a captain in the Navy.
Lord Cochrane was descended from lines of Scottish aristocracy and military service on both sides of his family. Through his uncle, Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, the sixth son of the 8th Earl of Dundonald, Cochrane was cousin to his namesake, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thomas John Cochrane (1789–1872). Sir Thomas J. Cochrane also had a naval career and was appointed Governor of Newfoundland and later Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom. By 1793, however, the Cochranes had fallen on hard times; with their fortune spent, the family estate was sold off to cover debts.
Cochrane spent much of his early life in Culross, Fife, where his family had an estate.
Through the influence of his uncle Alexander Cochrane, he was listed as a member of the crew on the books of four Royal Navy ships starting when he was five years old. This common (though unlawful) practice, known as false muster, was a means of gaming naval regulations, enabling well-connected officers to attain the years of service required for promotion if and when they joined the Navy. Cochrane's father secured him a commission in the British Army at an early age, but Cochrane preferred the Navy. He joined it in 1793 upon the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars around the time his family lost their wealth and lands.
On 23 July 1793, aged 17, Cochrane joined the navy as a midshipman, spending his first months at Sheerness in the 28-gun sixth-rate frigate HMS Hind commanded by his uncle, Captain Alexander Cochrane. He transferred to the 38-gun fifth-rate HMS Thetis, also under his uncle's command. While aboard Thetis, he visited Norway and next served on the North America Station. In 1795 he was appointed acting lieutenant. The following year on 27 May 1796, he was commissioned lieutenant after passing the examination. After several transfers in North America and a return home in 1798, he was assigned as 8th Lieutenant on Lord Keith's flagship HMS Barfleur in the Mediterranean.
During his service on Barfleur, Cochrane was court-martialled for showing disrespect to Philip Beaver, the ship's first lieutenant. The board reprimanded him for flippancy. This was the first public manifestation of a pattern of Cochrane being unable to get along with many of his superiors, subordinates, employers and colleagues in several navies and Parliament, even those with whom he had much in common and who should have been natural allies. His behaviour led to a long enmity with Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent.
In February 1800 Cochrane commanded the prize crew taking the captured French vessel Généreux to the British base at Mahón. The ship was almost lost in a storm, with Cochrane and his brother Archibald going aloft in place of crew who were mostly ill. Cochrane was promoted to commander and took command of the brig sloop HMS Speedy on 28 March 1800. Later that year, a Spanish warship disguised as a merchant ship almost captured him. He escaped by flying a Danish flag and fending off a boarding by claiming that his ship was plague-ridden. On another occasion, he was being chased by an enemy frigate and knew that it would follow him in the night by any glimmer of light from Speedy, so he placed a lantern on a barrel and let it float away. The enemy frigate followed the light, and Speedy escaped.
In February 1801 at Malta, Cochrane got into an argument with a French Royalist officer at a fancy dress ball. He had arrived dressed as a common sailor, and the Royalist mistook him for one. This argument led to Cochrane's only duel. Cochrane wounded the French officer with a pistol shot and was himself unharmed. One of his most notable exploits was the capture of the Spanish xebec frigate El Gamo on 6 May 1801. El Gamo carried 32 guns and 319 men, compared with Speedy's 14 guns and 54 men. Cochrane flew an American flag and approached so closely to El Gamo that her guns could not depress to fire on Speedy's hull. The Spanish tried to board and take over Speedy, but whenever they were about to board, Cochrane pulled away briefly and fired on the concentrated boarding parties with his ship's guns. Eventually, Cochrane boarded El Gamo and captured her, despite being outnumbered about six to one.
Cochrane then took part in the raid on Oropesa along with HMS Kangaroo on 9 June which saw the destruction of a Spanish convoy under the cover of a large on-shore battery. In Speedy's 13-month cruise Cochrane captured, burnt, or drove ashore 53 ships before three French ships of the line under Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois captured Speedy on 3 July 1801. While Cochrane was held as a prisoner, Linois often asked him for advice. In his autobiography Cochrane recounted how courteous and polite Linois had been. A few days later he was exchanged for the second captain of another French ship. On 8 August 1801 he was promoted to captain.
After the Peace of Amiens, Cochrane attended the University of Edinburgh. Upon the resumption of war in 1803, St Vincent assigned him in October 1803 to command the sixth-rate 22-gun HMS Arab. Cochrane alleged that the vessel handled poorly, colliding with Royal Navy ships on two occasions (Bloodhound and Abundance). In his autobiography, he compared Arab to a collier. He wrote that his first thoughts on seeing Arab being repaired at Plymouth were that she would "sail like a haystack". Despite this, he intercepted and boarded the American merchant ship Chatham. This created an international incident, for Britain was not at war with the United States. Arab and her commander were assigned to protect Britain's important whaling fleet beyond Orkney in the North Sea.
In 1804, Lord St Vincent stood aside for the incoming new government led by William Pitt the Younger, and Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, took office. In December of that year Cochrane was appointed to command of the new 32-gun frigate HMS Pallas. He undertook a series of notable exploits over the following eighteen months, among them a cruise in the vicinity of the Azores, where Pallas captured three Spanish merchant ships and a Spanish 14-gun privateer.