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Why did he deem it neccesary to visit Rotherhithe in disguise? No mean feat, given that the average British male stood at under 5’-6” and Cochrane was over 6’, with red hair and a Scots accent. Was he really intending to join the Chillean fight for independence from Spain as a naval mercenary in the worlds first “Stealth” warship, or had he a more sinister objective? Kitty his wife, believed there had been a plot to rescue Bonaparte from St Helena, and set him up as Emperor of South America. And who was it who purchased the nearly completed “Polar” ship on behalf of a consortium who ran it as a Margate steamer, “The London Engineer”?

Confusion becomes worse confounded with the departure of Cochrane for Chile on board “Rising Star”, generally acknowledge to be the first steam warship, a vessel identical in size, engine power and general design to “London Engineer” and built in the same dockyard…

There follows even more dubious activity in connection with many thousands of pounds raised in London to aid the Greek fight to free themselves from the Ottoman Empire.

There follows even more dubious activity in connection with many thousands of pounds raised in London to aid the Greek fight to free themselves from the Ottoman Empire. The funds were supposed to be spent on warships firing red hot shot, as devised by Frank Abney Hastings, but there was delay after delay, getting the engines to work properly. Then it emerged that the man responsible was also supplying arms to theTurks, someone who featured in this paper earlier, who in his frequent attempts to gain election to the Corporation of London, styled himself on his election material as “THE RADICAL LONDON ENGINEER”.

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