[8] 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.

[10] 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.

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.

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.

He attacked shore installations such as the Martello tower at Son Bou on Menorca, and he captured enemy ships in harbour by leading his men in boats.

In 1810, Sir Francis Burdett, a member of parliament and political ally, had barricaded himself in his home at Piccadilly, London, resisting arrest by the House of Commons.

Lord Brougham's brother had decided to run for the seat, and Cochrane also thought that it would look bad for him to be publicly supporting a government from which he sought pardon for his fraud conviction.

While serving as the Commander-in-Chief of the North America and West Indies Station, Cochrane became acquainted with geologist and physicist Abraham Gesner in Halifax.

[18] The pair planned a commercial venture that would supply Halifax with lamp oil and mine bitumen deposits in Trinidad and Albert Country, New Brunswick.

Cochrane called Katherine "Kate," "Kitty," or "Mouse" in letters to her; she often accompanied her husband on his extended campaigns in South America and Greece.

The claims were seemingly confirmed by a man in a red staff officer's uniform identified as Colonel de Bourg, aide-de-camp to Lord Cathcart, the British ambassador to Russia.

[25] Share prices rose sharply on the Stock Exchange in reaction to the news and the possibility of peace, particularly in volatile partly-paid government securities called Omniums, which increased from 26+1⁄2 to 32.

Cochrane had disposed of his entire £139,000 holding in Omnium (equivalent to £12,280,000 in 2023) – which he had only acquired a month before – and was named as one of the six conspirators, as were his uncle Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone and his stockbroker, Richard Butt.

[27] The evidence against Cochrane was circumstantial and hinged on the nature of his share dealings, his contacts with the conspirators, and the colour of uniform which De Berenger had been wearing when they met in his house.

[29] The prosecution summoned as key witness hackney carriage driver William Crane, who swore that De Berenger was wearing a scarlet uniform when he delivered him to the house.

Belatedly, Cochrane's defence team found several witnesses who were willing to testify that De Berenger had arrived wearing a green uniform, but Lord Ellenborough dismissed their evidence as inadmissible because two of the conspirators had fled the country upon hearing the guilty verdict.

In subsequent weeks, he was dismissed from the Royal Navy by the Admiralty and expelled from Parliament following a motion in the House of Commons which was passed by 144 votes to 44.

[35] Subsequent reviews of the trial carried out by three Lord Chancellors during the course of the 19th century concluded that he ought to have been found not guilty on the basis of the evidence produced in court.

[38][39] Support from friends in the government and the writings of popular naval authors such as Frederick Marryat and Maria Graham increased public sympathy for Cochrane's situation.

[Note 2] Loose words from his wife Katy resulted in a rumour that Cochrane had made plans to free Napoleon from his exile on Saint Helena and make him ruler of a unified South American state.

This could not have been true because Charles,[clarification needed] the supposed envoy bearing the rumoured plans, had been killed two months before his reported "departure to Europe".

He blockaded the Portuguese in Bahia, confronted them at the Battle of 4 May, and forced them to evacuate the province in a vast convoy of ships which Cochrane's men attacked as they crossed the Atlantic.

Cochrane sailed to Maranhão (then spelled Maranham) on his own initiative and bluffed the garrison into surrender by claiming that a vast (and mythical) Brazilian fleet and army were over the horizon.

As in Chile and earlier occasions, Cochrane's joy at these successes was rapidly replaced by quarrels over pay and prize money, and an accusation that the Brazilian authorities were plotting against him.

In August 1825 Cochrane was hired by Greece to support its fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire, which had deployed an army raised in Egypt to suppress the Greek rebellion.

His subordinate Captain Hastings attacked Ottoman forces at the Gulf of Lepanto, which indirectly led to intervention by Great Britain, France, and Russia.

The full return of Lord Dundonald, as he was now known, to Royal Navy service was delayed by his refusal to take a command until his knighthood had been restored, which took 15 years.

During the Crimean War, the government considered him for a command in the Baltic, but decided that there was too high a chance that Lord Dundonald would risk the fleet in a daring attack.

Rising Star was a 410-ton vessel adapted to a new design at Brent's Yard at the Greenland Dock at the Thames: twin funnels, a retractable paddle wheel, and driven by a 60-horsepower engine.

"[60] His epitaph, written by Sir Lyon Playfair, reads: 'Here rests in his 85th year Thomas Cochrane Tenth Earl of Dundonald of Paisley and of Ochiltree in the Peerage of Scotland Marquess of Marenham in the Empire of Brazil GCB and Admiral of the Fleet who by his confidence and genius his science and extraordinary daring inspired by his heroic exertion in the cause of freedom and his splended services alike to his own country, Greece, Brazil, Chile and Peru achieved a name illustrious throughout the world for courage, patriotism and chivalry.