The mutineers had firm control of the Bounty, and they were determined never to go back to England. Bligh had feared that the unusual length of time the crew spent on Tahiti might undermine discipline, but he could do nothing about it. He had planned a much shorter stay. But because of delays in leaving England, Bligh arrived in Tahiti at the end of October, which meant that his departure would have to be delayed until the eastern monsoon began in May.
Once the Bounty left Tahiti, Bligh’s insults grated on the disgruntled tars. Twenty-three days after leaving, they could take it no more and seized the Bounty, setting Bligh adrift in the middle of the Pacific in a twenty-three-foot launch, crammed with nineteen men and provisions for only five days. At the time of the mutiny, the Bounty’s complement was forty-three, and at least twenty-two of them did not support those who seized the ship. But none of them resisted either. Eighteen went meekly into the launch, even though they faced almost certain death. Four others, who made it plain they were with Bligh, were forced to remain on the Bounty.
Bligh’s chances of survival were practically nil, but incredible luck and seamen’s skills of a high order saved him. On August 18, 1789, he reached Coupang (Kupang) on the island of Timor in the Dutch East Indies with all of his men but one, after an amazing forty-one-day voyage of 3,618 miles in an open, overcrowded boat. Eventually, he made his way back to England to tell his improbable tale.
Porter studied Bligh’s account carefully, absorbing important lessons that would guide his conduct. To begin with, he was determined not to be taken by surprise, as Bligh had been. He intended to watch for any signs of trouble and planned to react swiftly. He had certain advantages that Bligh did not have. The tiny Bounty had no marines on board. She was not on a wartime mission. Bligh’s orders had been to gather breadfruit plants and bring them to the Caribbean, where British planters hoped to grow them in abundance and feed them to their slaves. A contingent of marines, acting as the ship’s police, might have prevented the mutiny. The Essex, on the other hand, had a full complement of marines, and Porter intended to use them.
Porter’s plans to avoid a mutiny did not include restricting the men’s sexual activity—or his own. He gave the crews wide latitude to satisfy their appetites. He knew this could create problems, but he thought they would be manageable if he did not remain in the Marquesas for too long, as Bligh had on Tahiti. Even so, no matter how long he stayed, mutiny remained a possibility, and Porter intended to be on his guard. Knowing what had happened to Bligh was a constant reminder to stay alert.
Acting in Porter’s favor was the crew’s knowledge that if they took the Essex they would be forfeiting substantial prize money. Even though seamen were notorious for living day to day, thinking only in the present, and not planning ahead, the prospect of losing all that money was sure to give the most disgruntled hands pause.
Another advantage that Porter had that Bligh did not was having observed early in his career how a skillful captain dealt with a mutinous crew. When he was a midshipman in 1798–99 aboard the Constellation during the Quasi-War with France, he saw how Captain Thomas Truxtun reacted to unrest in a crew, and he never forgot it.
Mutiny was in the air in those days. There had been two spectacular mutinies in England during 1797—one at Spithead (the anchorage between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight), from April 16 to May 15, and the other at the Nore (an important anchorage in the Thames Estuary) from May 12 to June 13.
The mutiny at Spithead involved the entire Channel Fleet, Britain’s principal defense force. It was well organized and unusually peaceful. Little blood was shed. The men (actually, two representatives from each ship), in a notably respectful manner, requested an increase in pay (which had not risen since 1652); improved care and compensation for the wounded; better food; an increase in bounties; and the removal of certain unpopular officers. For weeks prior to the mutiny, the leading spokesmen for the tars had made requests for reform to the Admiralty, but they had been ignored. When the men finally took action, they got a response, although the Admiralty was still reluctant to negotiate, even though the requests were obviously reasonable. The situation might easily have gotten out of hand had it not been for Admiral Lord Richard Howe, who intervened at a critical moment, and, in a relatively short time, brought the Admiralty, Parliament, and the mutineers together on reform. The parties were able to reach agreement with minimal bloodshed, although, except for a modest pay increase, little of what was promised actually materialized. With matters apparently settled, the Channel Fleet sailed on May 17, and resumed its blockade off Brest, the major French naval base on the Atlantic. At that point Britain had been at war with France for nearly four and a half years.
Inspired by the apparent success at Spithead, another mutiny occurred on May 12 among warships assembled from various places (not a united fleet like the one at Spithead) at the Nore. The mutineers demanded far more than their more modest brethren at Spithead. The Admiralty, when it considered the additional demands, reacted negatively, and beginning on May 28 took action against the mutineers, starting with cutting off their supplies. Whatever cohesiveness the mutiny had started to crumble. Unlike the protesting tars at Spithead, these mutineers had little public support, and when they felt their cause being undermined, they seriously considered blockading the Thames, or sailing their ships to a neutral, or even a French port. Their talk was so reckless that patriotic seamen soon took over the ships, and the mutiny ended on June 13. Twenty-nine men were hanged, but some of the leaders escaped.
Not long afterward, another sensational mutiny took place in the Caribbean during the night and morning of September 21–22, 1797, aboard the 32-gun British frigate Hermione. Its unusual brutality drew the world’s attention. There were other mutinies and near mutinies during this time, but this one stood out. The vicious action taken by the crew against a tyrannical skipper remained part of the consciousness of seafarers for years to come, and it directly touched David Porter.
To begin with, the Hermione had an infamously cruel captain, Hugh Pigot. His predecessor, Philip Wilkinson, had been just as cruel, if not more so. Thanks to Wilkinson’s two-and-a-half-year tyranny, Pigot inherited a sullen crew, which he mindlessly alienated further. The son of an admiral, Pigot had been a privileged character from the start of his career and exhibited no self-control. Unpredictable, a raging sadist, he frequently used strong language—always to demean, never to praise. He was arbitrary in dealing with subordinates, and a heavy flogger in both the Hermione and his previous command, the 32-gun frigate Success. To make matters worse, he played favorites; certain men escaped his wrath for no apparent reason.
For nine months, Pigot’s abusive behavior embittered the already estranged crew, but hands remained obedient until a particularly outrageous incident. At six o’clock on the evening of September 20, 1797, a sudden squall came up, and Pigot ordered the topsails reefed. Topmen were soon at their tasks in difficult conditions, as the masts gyrated in the storm. Pigot observed from below and was unhappy, as he often was, with the men’s performance. He screamed at them through a speaking trumpet, and grew enraged. He was especially upset with the ten men working on the mizzen topsail yard. Suddenly, he shouted at them, “I’ll flog the last man down,” by which he meant that after work on the mizzen topsail was completed, the last man to reach the deck would receive at least twelve strokes from a cat-o’-nine-tails—a common, but brutal, practice that Pigot regularly employed. In their rush to reach the deck, three young, terrified sailors lost their balance and fell fifty feet screaming from the mizzen topsail yard to the deck. Two of them smashed directly into the quarterdeck, nearly at Pigot’s feet. The other glanced off Pigot before hitting the hard-as-iron oak planking. Pigot looked at the lifeless, disfigured bodies with disgust and yelled, “Throw the lubbers overboard.” The entire ship was shocked. Experienced topmen on the mainmast murmured loud enough for Pigot to hear, and he ordered all of them to be whipped the following day. But that order was never carried out. During
the night of September 21, a savage mutiny began, and Pigot, nine officers, and a midshipman were killed and thrown overboard.
The mutineers then sailed the Hermione to the Spanish Main, entering the Spanish port of La Guairá just north of Caracas (in present-day Venezuela) and surrendered the frigate to Spain, which, at the time, was Britain’s enemy.
The Admiralty went after the mutineers with a vengeance, never closing the books on the case, continuing the search for years. In time, thirty-three of the Hermione mutineers were caught and twenty-four hanged after trials. One was exiled to Australia. But over a hundred were never caught, including many of the ringleaders.
It was not clear who planned the mutiny. It appeared to be a spontaneous uprising spurred by recent events like the deaths of the three topmen and Pigot’s sacrilegious abuse of their dead bodies. The Admiralty and its numerous supporters in Parliament insisted that Pigot’s cruelty was an exception, not the rule, in the Royal Navy. But Pigot’s superior, Admiral Hyde Parker, who knew about Pigot’s methods, had never reprimanded him for them. Pigot’s cruelty was tolerated, if not encouraged, by his superiors’ passive acceptance of his methods.
The well-publicized events on the Hermione influenced how Captain Thomas Truxtun handled unrest in the 44-gun heavy frigate Constellation. Eighteen-year-old Midshipman David Porter watched him and learned an important lesson. The incident began on June 26, 1798, during the Constellation’s shakedown cruise. She had a crew of 313, nearly all of whom were inexperienced. Some were already disgruntled at what they thought was Captain Truxtun’s excessive discipline.
As the big frigate plowed south along the American coast, Truxtun heard more than the usual grumbling. The complaints were loud enough that he sensed a mutiny might be in the works. Without hesitating, he mustered all hands and read the Articles of War pertaining to mutiny and the severe penalties, including death, that could be awarded to anyone caught trying to foment one. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Truxtun meant what he said. To emphasize the point, he inflicted a dozen lashes on a marine private for insolence to a superior, including trying to take a pistol from his hands.
A few weeks later, the secretary of the navy informed Truxtun that a letter written by one of his crew to the Speaker of the House of Representatives indicated a spirit of mutiny might exist aboard the Constellation. Truxtun acted swiftly again, calling the crew together, and reading off the descriptions of men who had mutinied on the Hermione, in case any had gotten aboard his ship. This led to the confession of an able seaman, Hugh Williams, who admitted that he had been one of the mutineers. His admission did not surprise Truxtun, who had thought right along that Williams was a troublemaker. Truxtun got him off the ship quickly, sending him to Norfolk, where he was turned over to the British consul and certain harsh discipline, including possible execution.
Truxtun’s fast action impressed Porter. If there was a mutiny being planned on the Essex, he was determined to know about it, and deal with it decisively. He intended to remain alert, as Truxtun had, and Bligh had not.
AS LIGHT TRADE WINDS SWEPT THE ESSEX WEST TOWARD THE Marquesas, no one but Porter was thinking about mutiny. Fantasies of luxuriating on enchanted Polynesian sands with accommodating women occupied the crew’s thoughts. After all, this is what the captain had promised back on February 3, when he announced the ship’s destination as the South Pacific. Porter added to the building excitement now by posting a notice on the bulletin board. It read, in part:
We are bound to the western islands with two objects in view:
Firstly, that we may put the ship in a suitable condition to enable us to take advantage of the most favorable season for our return home:
Secondly, I am desirous that you should have some relaxation and amusement after being so long at sea, as from your late good conduct you deserve it.
Hands already had a good idea of where they were going, but when the official announcement was made, enthusiasm grew. Porter supposed that for the remainder of the passage, his men could think of nothing but “the beauties of the islands they were about visiting; every one imagined them Venus’s and amply indulged themselves in fancied bliss, impatient of our arrival at that Cytherean Paradise where all their wishes were to be gratified.” He did not mention his own fantasies, but one can only imagine they were powerful.
Sex was not the only thing on Porter’s mind, however. He was alert to the unexpected surprises Captain Cook had encountered during his brief visit to the Marquesas in April 1774. Cook personally led the initial landing party, arriving with outstretched arms seeking friendship. He thought the people were the most beautiful he had ever seen. The men were strikingly handsome, tall, and vigorous, and often covered with elaborate tattoos from head to toe. But what was truly striking was the astonishingly beautiful women he saw. They were as fair as Europeans, and he thought they were without a doubt the best-looking people in the South Seas.
Unfortunately, Cook soon got caught up in a dispute with the natives over trading. Using iron nails as currency, he began trading for food, but some of his midshipmen soon began exchanging more valuable articles with the islanders, who then wanted more than nails. Trading became more difficult, and then impossible after April 8, when some of Cook’s men inadvertently shot and killed a thief who had stolen an iron stanchion from the Resolution. The dead man’s ten-year-old son was in the boat when the incident occurred. Cook tried to make amends, but when he went to the boy’s hut the frightened youngster fled. Cook gave up and moved on to the more familiar ground of Tahiti, weighing anchor on April 13, leaving what had become an inhospitable place.
Porter knew the story well, and in the same notice of the Essex’s destination, he cautioned the crew:
We are going among a people much addicted to thieving, treacherous in their proceedings, whose conduct is governed only by fear and regulated by views to their interest. . . . We must treat them with kindness but never trust them. . . . Disputes are most likely to arise from traffic with them: therefore to prevent these I shall appoint a vessel for the express purpose of trading, and shall select an officer and four men to conduct all exchanges; every other person is positively forbid to traffic with the natives, except through the persons so selected to conduct the trade.
The Marquesans were not used to dealing with strangers like Cook. When he arrived, no other European had visited the islands for two hundred years. The last had been disastrous for the natives. The Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira had chanced upon the islands on July 21, 1595. He named them Las Islas Marquesas de Mendoza, in honor of the wife of his patron, Don García Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Cañete, the Spanish viceroy of Peru.
The first island in the archipelago that Mendaña saw looked uninhabited. But suddenly, as if from nowhere, outrigger canoes shot out from shore, filled with dozens of people. In fact, the island was densely populated, containing, in all probability, tens of thousands of people. Mendaña was struck by their beauty, as every European and American would be when they first saw them.
Mendaña’s chief pilot, Pedro Fernández de Quirós wrote that water, wood, and food were plentiful and the climate pleasant. The houses were made of timber and cane and roofed with leaves. The great canoes were carved from a single tree, and held thirty or forty paddlers. The native men were a bit too dark for his taste, but the women were graceful, light skinned, and strikingly beautiful. Quirós recorded with regret that the Spaniards were quick to use their weapons for real or imagined threats, or just because they could do so with impunity. During the few days Mendaña was on the islands, many natives were killed. Quirós estimated that by the time Mendaña and his men left, on August 5, two hundred natives had been slaughtered.
The Marquesas were spared more European visitors until April 7, 1774. On that day, Cook happened on them while sailing from Easter Island to Tahiti during his second voyage of discovery from 1772 to 1775. After Cook’s brief visit, the islands remained isolated until the early 1790s, when explorers
, merchants, and whalers put in for refreshment, relaxation, and trade, especially for wood. Outsiders never visited the Marquesas with the frequency they did Tahiti, however, and when Porter considered going there, the islands were still well off the beaten path.
AS THE ESSEX DROVE WEST, THE WEATHER AND SEA WERE remarkably pleasant. The air temperature grew hotter, but the heat did not produce squalls, thunder, lightning, or heavy rain, and the current continued to set in a westerly direction, but at a gradually decreasing rate. In spite of the idyllic conditions, Porter was impatient. He could hardly wait to get to the promised land, and to capture a British merchant ship, the Mary Ann, which he believed would be waiting there. Downes had seen her in Valparaiso and had heard her captain boasting about stopping in the Marquesas for wood, water, and food, and to refresh his crew before sailing to India. There was no mistaking what “refresh the crew” meant. A British ship sailing from England to India would normally go by way of the Cape of Good Hope, a much shorter route, rather than risk the hazards of Cape Horn. The prospect of Polynesian women evidently had a powerful hold on her captain. Since the Mary Ann was actually in Valparaiso and apparently did intend to go to India, Porter thought her captain might be adventurous enough to stop in the Marquesas, although Tahiti seemed a more likely place. In any event, Porter wanted to capture her if he could. The sluggish sailing of the prizes was slowing him down, however, and on October 6 he sent Downes and Essex Junior on ahead in case the Mary Ann arrived in the islands before the Essex.
The Shining Sea Page 21