all his life long the victim of a verdict of which he has not
only never ceased to complain, but which he knows that he has proved to
be unfounded, to the satisfaction of those who have examined as well
what was advanced against him at the trial as what he has since adduced
in his own justification. Your memorialist, therefore, is encouraged
most respectfully to solicit your Royal Highness to represent his
case--a case of peculiar and unprecedented hardship--to his most Sacred
Majesty, and to advocate his cause. And if, happily for your
memorialist, his most Sacred Majesty, recognising the innocence of your
memorialist, and taking his long-protracted and unmerited sufferings
into his gracious consideration, should, of his most gracious pleasure,
vouchsafe to reinstate your memorialist in that rank and station in his
Royal Navy which he previously held, your memorialist will ever maintain
the deepest and most grateful sense of his duty to his most Sacred
Majesty and to your Royal Highness, and will never cease to testify his
gratitude by all the means in his power."

That document was presented by Sir Robert Preston to the Duke of
Clarence, who promised to use every endeavour to obtain a
reconsideration of Lord Cochrane's case. He was unsuccessful. "Dear
Sir," he wrote to Sir Robert Preston on the 14th of June, "immediately
on the receipt of the memorial you brought from Lord Cochrane, I sent it
to the Duke of Wellington, with a request it might be considered by his
Majesty's confidential servants, and last evening I had a communication
from his Grace to state that the King's Cabinet cannot comply with the
prayer of the memorial. I ever remain, dear Sir, yours sincerely,
William."

The harsh news of this failure was sent to Paris, whither Lord Cochrane
had gone in furtherance of his efforts for the assistance of Greece.

To Paris he returned, as we have seen, after his final departure from
Greece, and there he resided with his family for about six months. He
paid a brief visit to England in September, 1829; but, seeing no
immediate prospect of gaining the restitution of his naval rank, and
finding that idle life at home was especially irksome to him, he soon
went back to the Continent. The serious illness of Lady Cochrane induced
him to pass the winter in Italy, where by the same cause he was detained
for several months. He was in England again in the autumn of 1830.

One motive for his return was the accession of th