possible, to capture two richly laden ships reported as ready to sail from Manila. As they neared the islands it occurred to Cooke that they might pass themselves off as French. The Sibylle, a French-built ship, was easily disguised, and he himself spoke French fluently, an officer of the Fox spoke French and Spanish, and a little paint enabled both frigates to pass muster. On 14 Jan. they were off Manila. No suspicion was excited, the guardboats came alongside, the officers were taken down to the cabin and hospitably entertained, while in the foremost part of the ship the Spanish seamen were stripped, and English sailors dressed in their clothes were sent away in the guardboats to capture what they could. They thus took entirely by surprise and brought off three large gunboats. By the time the townsmen and the garrison realised that the two frigates were English, Cooke and Malcolm, in friendly talk with the Spanish officers, had learned all that there was to learn. They then sent them on shore as well as all the prisoners, to the number of two hundred, and, with the three gunboats in tow, stood out of the bay (James, ii. 237). The carrying off the gunboats under cover of a false flag was a transgression of the recognised rules of naval war, but they seem to have considered the thing almost in the light of a practical joke, and the Spaniards, who had been liberally entertained, bore no grudge against their captors.
In February 1799 the Sibylle was lying at Madras when Cooke learned that the French frigate Forte was in the Bay of Bengal, and on the 19th he put to sea in quest of her. On the evening of the 28th the Sibylle was off the Sand-heads; about nine o'clock she made out three ships, which she understood to be the Forte and two Indiamen just captured. The Forte supposed that the Sibylle was another country ship, and, as she came within hail, fired a gun and ordered her to strike. The Sibylle closed at once, and, with her main yard between the enemy's main and mizen masts, poured in a broadside and shower of musketry with deadly effect. The Forte was, in a measure, taken by surprise; the terrible broadside was the first intimation that she had to do with the largest English frigate on the station. For nearly an hour the two ships lay broadside to broadside at a distance seldom greater than pistol shot. About half-past one Cooke's shoulder and breast were shattered by grape shot, but the action was stoutly maintained by Mr. Lucius Hardyman, the first lieutenant. At half-past two the Forte, being entirely dismasted, and having lost a hundred and fifty men killed and wounded, struck her colours. She was at the time the largest and most heavily armed frigate afloat; was about one-third larger than the Sibylle, and carried 24-pounders on her main deck, as against the Sibylle's 18-pounders. And yet the Sibylle's loss was comparatively slight. The darkness of the night, which rendered still more marked the very superior discipline and training of the Sibylle's men, must be held to account for the extraordinary result of this, one of the most brilliant frigate actions on record. Lieutenant Hardyman was immediately promoted to be commander, and, in January 1800, to be captain of the Forte. But Cooke's terrible wounds proved mortal. After lingering for some months in extreme agony he died at Calcutta on 25 May. He was buried with the highest military honours, and monument erected to his memory by the directors of the East India Company.
[James's Naval History (1860), ii. 365; Naval Chronicle, ii. 261, 378, 643.]
COOKE, EDWARD (1755–1820), under-secretary of state, born 1755, was the third son of Dr. William Cooke, provost of King's College, Cambridge [q. v.] He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge; B.A. 1777, M.A. 1785. About 1778 he went to Ireland as private secretary to Sir Richard Heron, chief secretary to the lord-lieutenant; and in 1786 he was appointed second clerk to the Irish House of Commons. In 1789 he was nominated under-secretary to the military department, and was M.P. for Lifford 1789–90 and for old Leighlin borough from 1790 till the union in 1801. In 1795 he was removed from office by Lord Fitzwilliam, with whose policy he did not sympathise, and to whom, moreover, he proved personally objectionable. He was offered a pension, which, according to Fitzwilliam, he rejected, thinking ‘a retreat upon 1,200l. a year an inadequate recompense for the magnitude and importance of his services’ (A Letter from Earl Fitzwilliam to the Earl of Carlisle, 1795). There are conflicting statements as to the value of the compensation, which it appears took account of services only, and not of Cooke's losses in being ‘removed from a station of much advantage and opportunity’ (Observations on the Letters of Lord Fitz——m to Lord Carlisle, 1795; A Letter to a Venerated Nobleman lately retired from this Kingdom, Dublin, 1795; Memoirs of the Court and Cabinet of George III, 1853, ii. 331). This dismissal was among the causes that led to Fitzwilliam's recall. Cooke was reinstated by Lord Camden, and in 1796 he was appointed under-secretary in the civil department. He was
