Cochrane also had been incensed that the brilliant Sir Edward Pellew, a tarpaulin officer, had been preferred over himself, a well connected aristocrat, as Admiral of the White to become Commander-in-Chief, East Indies. Cochrane tried to implicate Sir Edward Pellew, who had good relations with the Governor of Ferrol, in fraud, then making seriously damaging and unfounded allegations against Sir Edward Pellew's secretary Fitzgerald. These were never substantiated and destroyed Fitzgerald's career but didn't accomplish the destruction of its target, who later became Viscount Exmouth.