Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald’
In The Copybook
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald’
In The Copybook
When Lord Cochrane went to a fancy dress ball in Valetta, his costume nearly got him killed.
In February 1801, Thomas Cochrane took HMS Speedy to Malta in search of supplies. Also on the island was a regiment of French Royalists, allies in the French Revolutionary Wars against the Government that had assassinated King Louis XVI; but allies or not, they found Lord Cochrane’s sense of humour a little too sans-culotte.
Young Thomas Cochrane learned early on that for a sailor, making a pet of a parrot could be surprisingly hazardous.
In 1793, the new French Republic declared war on Britain, and the Admiralty sent HMS ‘Hind’ to Norway to flush out any French privateers preying on our Baltic trade. Captain Alexander Cochrane’s crew included first lieutenant Jack Larmour, and also our author, the captain’s nephew Thomas, then a seventeen-year-old midshipman.