Cochrane was charged with stock exchange fraud in 1814, stripped of his knighthood, and imprisoned for one year.

This IMO had more to do with his actions as MoP, trying to ensure good treatment for naval prisoners of war.

As a kid I was fascinated with the Hornblower stories. When I found they were based on a real person — this person, I went looking for all the biographies I could find. Turns out he’d written an autobiography: The Autobiography of a Seaman, which IMO is pretty readable (most military memoirs, with the exception of Grant’s, are not).

There have been a number of biographies since. Check the wikipedia page.

One thing is clear, he was a spectacular naval tactician, and was particularly adept at firing his ship (unlike modern ships, naval canons of that era rolled with the ship, and the commander’s call of ‘fire!’ had a lot to do with how effective they could be).

BTW/FWIW, ‘Hornblower series’ because this was years before the Aubery-Maturin stories. Both authors used actual events in in Cochrane’s life — but if you read the bios, you’ll note they didn’t try to fictionalize the more amazing ones, which means there’s still plenty of material for future authors…