God & Gold, p. 123:
Thomas Cochrane, the tenth Earl of Dundonald, was a British admiral whose adventures Patrick O’Brian used as a partial model for his Aubrey/Maturin novels. Temporarily dropped from the British naval list after attempting to make money in the financial markets by abusing his naval position to spread false rumors about the abdication of Napoleon, Cochrane accepted an invitation from Chile’s revolutionary government (led by the interestingly named Chilean hero Bernardo O’Higgins) to help in the war against Spain. After O’Higgins and Cochrane destroyed Spanish naval power on the west coast of the continent, securing the independence of Chile and Peru, Cochrane went on to perform a similar service for Brazil in the naval conflict over its independence from Portugal. The intrepid admiral went on to help the Greeks in their (British-backed) campaign for independence from the Ottoman Empire until 1828, and, having been returned with full honors to the naval list in 1832, he was buried in Westminster Abbey when he died in 1860.
Damn, that’s enterprising.