after brief schooling, he joined the _Hind_, as a midshipman, in June,
1793, when he was nearly eighteen years of age.

During the next seven years he learnt his craft in various ships
and seas, being helped in many ways by his uncle, the Hon. Alexander
Cochrane, but profiting most by his own ready wit and hearty love
of his profession. Having been promoted to the rank of lieutenant in
1794, he was made commander of the _Speedy_ early in 1800. This little
sloop, not larger than a coasting brig, but crowded with eighty-four
men and six officers, seemed to be intended only for playing at war.
Her whole armament consisted of fourteen 4-pounders. When her new
commander tried to add to these a couple of 12-pounders, the deck
proved too small and the timbers too weak for them, and they had to be
returned. So Lilliputian was his cabin, that, to shave himself, Lord
Cochrane was obliged to thrust his head out of the skylight and make a
dressing-table of the quarter-deck.

Yet the _Speedy_, ably commanded, was quite large enough to be of
good service. Cruising in her along the Spanish coast, Lord Cochrane
succeeded in capturing many gunboats and merchantmen, and the enemy
soon learnt to regard her with especial dread. On one memorable
occasion, the 6th of May, 1801, he fell in with the _Gamo_, a Spanish
frigate furnished with six times as many men as were in the _Speedy_
and with seven times her weight of shot. Lord Cochrane, boldly
advancing, locked his little craft in the enemy's rigging. It was, in
miniature, a contest as unequal as that by which Sir Francis Drake and
his fellows overcame the Great Armada of Spain in 1588, and with like
result. The heavy shot of the _Gamo_ riddled the _Speedy's_ sails,
but, passing overhead, did no mischief to her hulk or her men. During
an hour there was desperate fighting with small arms, and twice