e by your exposure of the abuses in the
prize courts, by your endeavours to restore to the right owners
the immense sums unjustly alienated under the names of Droits of
Admiralty, by your honest explanation of the causes which prevented
the naval renown of your country being complete at Basque Roads, and
by having caused to be produced in Parliament, and published to the
nation, that memorable account of sinecures, pensions, and grants
which so usefully enlightened the public, you never would have
been prosecuted for a pretended fraud on the funds. Your lordship's
constituents, being thus fully sensible that you have suffered and are
still suffering solely for their and their country's sake, would deem
themselves amongst the most ungrateful of mankind were they to neglect
this occasion to tender you the most solemn assurances of their
unabated attachment and their most resolute support, and, whilst they
are endeavouring to discharge their duty towards your lordship, they
entertain the consoling reflection that the day is not distant when
you will mainly assist in carrying forward that measure of radical
parliamentary reform which alone can be a safeguard against all sorts
of oppressions, and especially oppressions under which your lordship
has so long and so severely suffered."

To that honourable address an honourable reply was penned by Lord
Cochrane on the 24th of December, and presented to the electors of
Westminster at another meeting assembled for the purpose on the 1st of
January ensuing.

The direct persecution which began with the Stock Exchange trial and
its antecedents was now at an end, after three years of gross and
untiring vindictiveness. Indirect persecution was to continue for more
than thirty years.

CHAPTER V.

THE STATE OF POLITICS IN ENGLAND IN 1817 AND 1818, AND LORD COCHRANE's
SHARE IN THEM.--HIS WORK AS A RADICAL IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT.--HIS
FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN THE PRIZE MONEY DUE FOR HIS SERVICES
AT BASQUE ROADS.--THE HOLLY HILL BATTLE.--THE PREPARATIONS FOR HIS
ENTERPRISE IN SOUTH AMERICA.--HIS LAST SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT.

[1817-1818.]

The years 1817 and 1818 were years of great political turmoil. The
English people, weary of the European wars, which in two-and-twenty
years had raised the national debt from 230,000,000_l._ to
860,000,000_l._, thus causing a taxation which amounted, in the average,
to 25_l._ a year upon every family of five persons, were in no mood to
be