nto a great occasion of feasting for all the inhabitants of
the town; and for defrayment of the expenses thus incurred a claim
for more than 1200_l._ was afterwards made upon Lord Cochrane. Through
eleven years he bluntly refused to pay the preposterous demand; but
his creditors had the law upon their side, and in the spring of 1817
an order was granted for putting an execution into his house at Holly
Hill.

[Footnote A: 'The Autobiography of a Seaman,' vol. i. pp. 203, 204.]

Lord Cochrane, however, having resisted the demand thus far,
determined to resist to the end. For more than six weeks he prevented
the agents of the law from entering the house. "I still hold out,"
he said in a letter to his secretary, "though the castle has several
times been threatened in great force. The trumpeter is now blowing for
a parley, but no one appears on the ramparts. Explosion-bags are set
in the lower embrasures, and all the garrison is under arms." In
the explosion-bags there was nothing more dangerous than powdered
charcoal; but, supposing they contained gunpowder or some other
combustible, the sheriff of Hampshire and twenty-five officers were
held at bay by them, until at length one official, more daring than
the rest, jumped in at an open window, to find Lord Cochrane sitting
at breakfast and to be complimented by him upon the wonderful bravery
which he had shown in coming up to a building defended by charcoal
dust.

That battle with the sheriff and bailiffs of Hampshire occupied nearly
the whole of April and May, 1817. In the latter month, if not before,
Lord Cochrane began to think seriously of proceeding to join in
battles of a more serious sort in South America, under inducements and
with issues that will presently be detailed. "His lordship has made up
his mind to go to South America," wrote his secretary on the 31st of
May. "Numbers of gentlemen of great respectability are desirous of
accompanying him, and even Sir Francis Burdett has declared that he
feels a great temptation to do so; but Lord Cochrane discourages all.
They think he is going to immolate the Spaniards by his secret plans;
but he is not going to do anything of the kind, having promised the
Prince Regent not to divulge or use them otherwise than in the service
of his country."

With this expedition in view, and purposing to start upon it nearly a
year sooner than he found himself able to do, Lord Cochrane sold Holly
Hill and his other property in Hamps