n Castle-hill,
and afterwards in Crichton Street, she received many illustrious
friends, among whom were Mackenzie, Robertson, Hume, Home, Monboddo, the
Keiths of Ravelston, the Balcarres family and Lady Anne Barnard, the
authoress of "Auld Robin Gray." As a Rutherfurd she was a connexion of
Sir Walter Scott's mother, and was her intimate friend. Lockhart quotes
a letter written by Mrs Cockburn in 1777, describing the conduct of
little Walter Scott, then scarcely six years old, during a visit which
she paid to his mother, when the child gave as a reason for his liking
for Mrs Cockburn that she was a "virtuoso like himself." Mrs Cockburn
died on the 22nd of November 1794.

See her _Letters and Memorials_..., with notes by T. Craig Brown
(1900).

COCKBURN, SIR GEORGE, Bart. (1772-1853), British admiral, second son of
Sir James Cockburn, Bart., and uncle of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, was
born in London. He entered the navy in his ninth year. After serving on
the home station, and in the East Indies and the Mediterranean, he
assisted, as captain of the "Minerve" (38) at the blockade of Leghorn in
1796, and fought a gallant action with the Spanish frigate "Sabina" (40)
which he took. He was present at the battle of Cape St Vincent. In 1809,
in command of the naval force on shore, he contributed greatly to the
reduction of Martinique, and signed the capitulation by which that
island was handed over to the English; for his services on this occasion
he received the thanks of the House of Commons. After service in the
Scheldt and at the defence of Cadiz he was sent in 1811 on an
unsuccessful mission for the reconciliation of Spain and her American
colonies. He was made rear-admiral in 1812, and in 1813-14, as second in
command to Warren, he took a prominent part in the American War,
especially in the capture of Washington. Early in 1815 he received the
order of the Bath, and in the autumn of the same year he carried out, in
the "Northumberland" (74), the sentence of deportation to St Helena
which had been passed upon Bonaparte. In 1818 he received the Grand
Cross of his order, and was made a lord of the admiralty; and the same
year he was returned to parliament for Portsmouth. He was promoted to
the rank of vice-admiral in 1819, and to that of admiral in 1837; he
became senior naval lord in 1841, and held office in that capacity till
1846. From 1827 he was a privy councillor. In 1851 he was made admiral
of the flee