Buy this book on-line HARVEY,ROBERT**: : Cochrane:The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain.**LONDON.CONSTABLE,2000. ISBN 1841191620.
UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/FINE.No owner
inscrptn,no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright, crisp, clean, glossy laminated colour pictorial wrap-around artwork illustrated dw/dj [two sail ships at battle;Crescent and Reunion, 1793 - courtesy John Groves] with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges - no nicks or tears present.Head+
foot of spine/backstrip minisculely bumped with reciprocal creases.Top+fore-edges very,very lightly aged but clean;
contents bright, tight and pristine - no dog-ear creases to any pages' corners.
Clean, dark blue paper-covered bds with bright, stamped gilt letters to spine/
backstrip and b/w ship outline (HMS RISING STAR) illustrated eps.8vo,x-xix+4-332pp [paginated] includes half-title+
title-pages, contents+maps+illus lists, maps - b/w double-page Cochrane's Mediterranean exploits map,recto of which has Cochrane's Pacific+Atlantic campaigns 1819-25, prologue, Pts 1-4 comprising 20 chapters, 8pp b/w contemporary illus/
photographs,2pp selected biblio and an index.
The life and adventures of the daring seaman Thomas Cochrane, who rose from midshipman to admiral and was called 'the sea wolf' by Napoleon, are so extraordinary that his real life reads like a compelling, page-turning work of fiction.In one sense it became so, for the novelist Patrick O'Brian by his own admission took Cochrane's exploits and used them as the basis for Jack Aubrey, the protagonist of his best-selling series
of naval novels set during the Napoleonic War.Second only to Nelson among the heroes
of the Royal Navy, Cochrane became a household name in Britain when in 1800 he took command of the tiny brig,the Speedy, and armed only with fourteen 4-pounder guns created mayhem in the Mediterranean, earning himself and his crew a fortune in prize money.His extraordinary skill as a sailor and his mastery of gunnery, combined with audacious use of false colours and other ruses,enabled him to confront and capture vessels many times his size.His fearlessness became a byword.
Sent for by the Admiralty to carry out a daring plan of attack with fireships against the French fleet at Aix Roads, he dislodged the French from their anchorage and in a single frigate, against his admiral's orders, drifted in amongst them intending to complete the task singlehanded.His life on land was as colourful as at sea.
Like O'Brian's Aubrey he was framed in a Stock Exchange scandal.Sentenced to the pillory,he escaped from prison by means of a rope and fled the country (after a surprise appearance in Parliament) to become a mercenary admiral in the service of countries fighting for independence.
Off the coasts of Chile, Peru, Brazil and Greece, always outnumbered and outgunned, he became a legendary hero - on one occasion chasing the entire Portuguese fleet in a single ship.Perhaps the most innovative tactician of his day in terms of seamanship, he was the first advocate of in-shore guerilla raiding and promoted the use of explosion ships.In later life he recommended to the Admiralty the use of poison sulphur gas,propeller-driven ships and engines based on compressed air
- at one time even hiring Stevenson's steam-engine the Rocket to aid his experiments.
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