to the end of his life Lord Cochrane used every occasion of asserting
his innocence and courting a full investigation of all the incidents
on which his assertion was based. Posterity, as he truly prophesied,
has learnt to endorse his judgment; and therefore, in the ensuing
pages, it will not be necessary to adduce from his letters and actions
more than occasional illustrations of the temper which animated him
throughout with reference to this heaviest of all his heavy troubles.

By these troubles, however, even in the time of their greatest
pressure, he was not overcome; and in the midst of them he found time
and heart for active labour in the good work of various sorts that was
always dear to him. He used the advantages of his liberty in striving
to perfect the invention of improved street lamps and lighting
material that had occupied him while in prison, and to procure their
general adoption. His place in Parliament, moreover, all through the
session of 1816, was employed not only in seeking justice for himself,
but also in furthering every project advanced for benefiting the
community and checking the pernicious action of the Government. A
zealous, honest Whig before, he was now as zealous and as honest
as ever in all his political conduct. And his devotion to the best
interests of the people was yet more apparent in his unflagging
labours, out of Parliament, for the public good. His great abilities,
rendered all the more prominent by the cruel persecution to which he
had been and still was subjected, made him a leading champion of the
people during the turmoil to which misgovernment at home, and the
distracted state of foreign politics, gave a special stimulus in 1816.

A long list might be made of the great meetings which he attended,
and took part in, both among his own constituents of Westminster
and elsewhere, for the consideration of popular grievances and their