The Black Ship

by Dudley Pope

  The reason was that Mr Robert Liston, the British Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in the United States, had of course read Jesup’s account in the newspapers. From Philadelphia he had written an indignant report to the Secretary of State, which arrived in London after the Board’s first letter to Sir Hyde had been sent off to Falmouth. Basing his judgment solely on the newspaper accounts, Liston wrote on August 13: ‘It is with great concern I observe that the complaints of acts of injustice and insult committed by our officers against American citizens continue and increase… A deep impression has in particular been made upon persons of all ranks by the enclosed statement of an outrage offered to Mr William Jesup… which has been published in every newspaper in the United States.

  ‘Although the petition of the injured party does not probably explain in its full extent the nature of the provocation given to Captain Pigot,’ Liston admitted, ‘yet the number of respectable names which are subscribed to the certificate annexed appear to leave little or no doubt as to the facts of the cruel treatment. And the matter is such that it seems to merit the most serious attention on the part of the King’s Ministers.’

  Lord Grenville received this letter and an extract from a newspaper at the beginning of October. After showing it to the King he returned to Downing Street and wrote to the Admiralty, enclosing an extract from Listen’s letter, saying ‘I am to signify to Your Lordships His Majesty’s pleasure that a particular inquiry be immediately made respecting the conduct imputed to Captain Pigot, and the circumstances of the transaction’.

  The Admiralty, who had of course already seen the New York Diary a week or two earlier, instructed Mr Nepean to send the second letter to Sir Hyde, this time in harsher terms, saying that the Secretary of State had sent them documents ‘relative to the outrageous and cruel behaviour of Captain Pigot’, and signifying the King’s pleasure that an inquiry should be held ‘into this very extraordinary proceeding, transmitting to me without delay a full statement of the case as you shall find the same to be, in order that Their Lordships may take such measures… as may appear to be meet and proper’.

  By the time the packet reached Cape Nicolas Mole after her long southward sweep into the Atlantic to pick up the trade winds which carried her across to the regular landfall at Barbados, Their Lordships’ second letter was six weeks old. The Jesup episode had occurred five months earlier, and for the whole of that time Hugh Pigot had lived in a state of ever-increasing uncertainty.

  Sir Hyde Parker may well have reflected that his efforts to hush up the whole business had been the worst mistake he could have made, since in any dispute the first person to protest to authority with boldly-phrased and well-documented allegations secured considerable tactical advantages. Now—well, Pigot must face a court of inquiry, and the Admiralty, not Sir Hyde, would then decide if Pigot should be court-martialled.

  Such a court of inquiry was not authorized by law; its existence was based on custom. Usually it comprised three captains whose task was to investigate and see if there were sufficient grounds for a court martial. Sir Hyde gave orders on January 19, 1797, that Commodore John Duckworth, with Captains James Bowen and Man Dobson, were to ‘inquire into the conduct of Captain Pigot’. There was a safeguard for Pigot in Sir Hyde’s order because the next phrase said the inquiry was to be based ‘on the evidence of such officers and seamen as he [Pigot] may choose to bring before you’. Thus Pigot could, if he wished, make sure that no one likely to give unfriendly or potentially dangerous evidence would be heard.

  Pigot selected his witnesses, but the Master of the Success, who had been on watch at the time of the collision, was now in hospital at Jamaica, the Gunner was also at Jamaica in a prize, and the ship had had only one lieutenant on board at the time.

  Captain Pigot’s cabin in the Success was prepared as a courtroom, and the day after Sir Hyde issued his order the Commodore and two captains arrived on board the frigate with all due ceremony. With their clerk taking the minutes, they began the inquiry. On either side of the cabin, looking like a squat bulldog, was a 12-pounder cannon, the barrel gleaming black on its buff-painted carriage. The light from the skylight overhead was diffused by the white canvas awning stretched over the quarterdeck and poop, but where it streamed in unshaded through the stern windows it was harsher, giving more than a hint of the heat outside. The cabin was low—a man of average height had to duck and hunch his shoulders to avoid hitting his head on the beams. The cabin bore signs of Pigot’s occupation—a white-handled, light cavalry sword hung from a hook in its scabbard; a brass speaking trumpet, bell-mouthed, and highly polished, hung nearby; and a telescope sat in its rack. The silverware on the sideboard showed Pigot was not a poor man.

  The Commodore ordered Captain Pigot to be called in, and the clerk first read out Sir Hyde’s order to hold the inquiry, followed by Mr Jesup’s petition and the accompanying certificates. Pigot had been busy writing in the hours before the inquiry, and when asked for a statement describing his side of the affair he handed Commodore Duckworth several sheets of paper covered in his large handwriting.

  This was then read out to the court. Headed ‘Circumstantial account of the American ship Mercury running on board the Success,’ it said that Pigot had been asleep at 1 a.m. on July 1, when he was wakened by the Master calling out Tut your helm hard a’starboard or you will be on board of us’. Pigot said that while he was dressing he heard the Master ‘repeat these words very distinctly four or five times; and when the ship he was hailing had approached so near as to make it impossible for her to wear clear of the Success’s quarter, I likewise heard him repeatedly call to them to throw all a’back’. [Thus stopping the ship.]

  The other ship, the Mercury, was close to the wind on the larboard tack, said Pigot, while the Success and the rest of the convoy were on the starboard tack [the Mercury was approaching the Success from the frigate’s right-hand side]. The Mercury ‘struck the Success with all her sails full on the starboard beam, her bowsprit passing through the Success’s main shrouds’.

  Pigot added that ‘Fortunately for both the wind was slight, and not much swell. Our people were immediately employed endeavouring to clear the two ships.

  ‘I must here observe that to the best of my knowledge and belief they did not cut away more of the rigging or anything else belonging to the Mercury than was absolutely necessary to disengage the two ships from each other. I, as well as the officers of the Success, repeatedly called to the people on board the Mercury… pointing out many other necessary steps to be taken to prevent her yards catching the rigging of the Success… I can confidently say that from the time she was first hailed until she struck the Success and during the time she was on board her, not a soul belonging to the Mercury made the smallest effort (in the first instance to avoid it) nor afterwards in endeavouring to clear the ships of each other.’

  Pigot listed the damage to the Success, and said that although it blew a strong easterly wind next day he saw the Mercury ‘carry as much sail as any other ship, and to be one of the first beating into Port au Prince’. He recalled that on the morning before the collision the officer of the watch in the Success ‘hailed this ship and cautioned her against keeping so near us, as she had narrowly escaped several times falling on board of us,’ and added that ‘the circumstances already mentioned, added to the many instances I have been witness to and experienced, of the incivility of the Americans to His Majesty’s ships officers, and the partiality shown by them to our enemies, led me firmly to believe the Mercury’s running on board the Success was not accident but design’, so that the Success would be damaged and would be forced to leave her convoy at the mercy of the French privateers from Leogane.

  ‘So firmly was I impressed with this idea, which was strengthened by their want of exertion in endeavouring to clear the ships… that passion overcame my reason, and I am sorry to acknowledge, on the Master of Mercury coming on board the Success, I immediately ordered him to be punished by the boatswain’s mate
with the end of a rope; however,’ Pigot admitted, ‘I now feel sensible that in the heat of passion I was led to exceed much the bounds of propriety by inflicting that or any other punishment of the kind.’

  It must have taken a great deal of effort on Pigot’s part publicly to admit having been even that much in the wrong; but he was almost certainly acting under advice—advice which told him that without a complete apology for the flogging it would be impossible for the Admiralty to avoid a trial. However, Pigot qualified his statement by adding: ‘I feel it equally necessary for my own justification to declare on my word of honour (and I may say if further proof is wanting I can call on the officers and ship’s company under my command to certify) the circumstances as related in the American papers is for the most part—particularly by that relative to the severity of the punishment inflicted—fraught with the greatest falsehood and malice, and I can take it upon myself to say I do not believe the Master of the ship would himself have taken any notice of it, had he not been urged to do so by the Americans at Port au Prince with the hope of extorting money from me, as they offered to come to compromise, but gave out it should not be for any small sum.’

  As soon as his statement was read, Pigot handed Commodore Duckworth a list of his witnesses. The first one was the Success’s First Lieutenant, William Hill, who described the collision and continued, ‘The Master of the Mercury then said we had better take his ship and destroy her, than to leave him in that situation, and murmured greatly at our people when on board [the Mercury] assisting him to get clear of us: he likewise said to our people when on board his ship that he was fearful of their stealing from him. On that expression Captain Pigot called him on board and… desired him to remain aft on our quarterdeck.… During the time we were employed clearing the ships of each other, the Master of the American still murmuring and abusing our people on board his ship, Captain Pigot directed me to send two boatswain’s mates aft, and ordered them to thrash him, and I suppose he received about twenty strokes with a rope’s end on his back.

  ‘Captain Pigot then ordered him into the jolly-boat, at that time alongside, to go on board his own ship. When going down the ship’s side, he [Jesup] swore and said he would pay his Mate for that, and thought himself very well off in escaping so well.’

  The three officers forming the court then questioned Lieutenant Hill. ‘Do you recollect Captain Pigot giving directions to his people to cut away the Mercury’s jib and foretopmast-staysail and bring them on board the Success to make themselves trowsers?’ they asked. ‘I did not hear it,’ said Hill.

  ‘Is it your opinion, as a gentleman, officer and man of honour, that the cause of the Mercury’s getting foul of the Success arose from negligence and inattention, or appeared to be from design?’

  ‘It appeared to happen from negligence and inattention,’ said Hill, ‘as that ship was frequently hailed and no person answered…’

  ‘Did Captain Pigot express any apprehension that the American ship had acted by design, to disable the Success?’ asked the court.

  ‘Captain Pigot did express those sentiments to me immediately on the Master of the Mercury going from the Success, and likewise in the morning watch, being then opposite to the enemy’s post of Leogane.’

  The next witness was the Surgeon, Mr John Crawford, who told the court that Captain Pigot had said the American ship might have intended to disable the Success, and he had ‘mentioned a circumstance which had happened to the trade [i.e. merchant ships] we had last convoyed to Port au Prince, of a gunboat coming from Leogane and attacking a brig in a calm, not more than two gun-shots off…’

  ‘Do you know,’ inquired the court, ‘that Mr Jesup… was so cruelly beat on board the Success as to be nearly bereft of his senses?’

  As a medical man, Crawford was of course an expert witness; but more important was his considerable experience in patching up men after they had been flogged on Captain Pigot’s orders. ‘I do not think so,’ said Crawford, ‘and I heard the punishment, and did not consider at the time it could injure him materially.’

  With this assurance ringing in their ears, the court adjourned for the day, and when they met again their first witness was a young master’s mate, Mr John Forbes, who had been on deck at the time of the collision. In answering the stock question whether Jesup was beaten in such a manner as nearly to have deprived him of his senses, Forbes said no: he had received from twenty to twenty-four strokes, ‘and in going into the jolly boat said that he would be damned if he did not give his Mate the same’.

  Finally the name of Thomas Jay was called: he was one of the two boatswain’s mates who had actually administered the ‘starting’ to Jesup. Did he give the American such a severe beating, inquired the court, that the man was nearly deprived of his senses? ‘No I did not,’ declared Jay.

  ‘What sort of rope was it that you gave the strokes with?’—‘It was a piece of one of the main ratlines, cut for the purpose of disentangling the ships from each other.’

  The court—which had already read in Jesup’s petition that Pigot was to blame for the collision—had now heard Pigot put it squarely on Jesup, denying the American’s story that he was forcibly taken on board the Success. And although Pigot said he thought Jesup deliberately tried to disable the Success, his four senior witnesses had all considered it was an accident.

  The court when it met again did not take long to draw up its written report, which was soon on its way by boat to Sir Hyde on board the Queen, to be followed later by the minutes of the inquiry evidence.

  For both the Commander-in-Chief and his hot-tempered captain the findings were not unsatisfactory. The Mercury, the report said ‘instead of being run foul of by His Majesty’s ship Success, was from negligence and inattention, or from wantonness and design, evidently run on board the Success, when it might have been avoided if the person directing the Mercury had only complied with the seamanlike suggestions offered to him by the Master of the Success.…

  ‘After this extraordinary act was committed it fully appears… that the two ships were extricated from the alarming situation… with most officer-like dispatch by the crew of the Success, under the directions of Captain Pigot, and in the performing of the essential and momentous piece of service, it does not appear that any wantonness in destroying the sails and rigging of the ship Mercury was committed… or any kind of plunder authorized by Captain Pigot, or any language such as might appear indignant to the nation the vessel belonged to, used; nor was the said Mr William Jesup seized and brought on board of the Success by force, but came on board without being touched.…’

  ‘We must’, continued the court, ‘give due praise to Captain Pigot’s conduct thus far in the proceedings, but we must (as Captain Pigot in his statement of proceedings doth) most truly lament that the agitation and torment produced in his mind by this act of negligence and inattention, or wantonness or design, had so put him off his guard, as an officer and a gentleman, that he did improperly and in a manner not to be justified, direct the said Mr William Jesup to be punished with some stripes with a rope’s end across his shoulders, though it does not appear that in this act there had been the least premeditation, as there were no orders for stripping the said Mr William Jesup, nor does he appear to have been so confined as to prevent him using his endeavours to avoid the strokes by moving about.…

  ‘We therefore feel that Captain Pigot’s situation was a very particular one, and trust it will clearly and evidently appear that the warning given to the Mercury on the morning previous to the accident, as well as the Master’s again hailing her directly antecedent to her running on board of the Success, had impressed Captain Pigot’s mind with a full conviction that it was committed by design, which with his admitted and known zeal and ardor [sic] for His Majesty’s service, and considering his honour and character as an officer blended in the protection of the vessels under his convoy, which had he been disabled would most probably have been captured…had created such warmth and irritation in his mind, as
by the impulse of the moment to make him lose sight of what he owed to Justice and his own character: but it appears to us as evident during the whole transaction that Captain Pigot had not in his thoughts the most distant idea of any national offence, or disrespect to, the States of America, and that act could only be applied to the individual aggrieved, and consequently we experience great distress of mind that Mr Liston, His Majesty’s Minister in America, should in an extract of his letter, say that the complaints of acts of injustice and insult committed by His Majesty’s naval officers against American citizens continue and increase, as with great truth and confidence, we can assert during our service in this country [the West Indies] the reverse has been the case…’

  Sir Hyde, after reading the report, wrote to the Admiralty that he had the honour of transmitting the minutes and result of the inquiry, ‘and trust that however unjustifiable [Captain Pigot’s] conduct may appear to Their Lordships, they will be of opinion with me, that it is proved to be far, very far, more favourable than what has been represented either by Mr Liston or the party aggrieved, and most sincerely hope that His Majesty will be graciously pleased, when the papers are laid before him, to see and consider it in the same manner or light as I do’.

  His Majesty’s views were never recorded; but it is certain neither he nor Sir Hyde knew that in a file at the Admiralty containing official letters from captains was one from Pigot, dated two years earlier and written within a month of him obtaining his first command, the sloop Swan. Pigot complained to the Board of ‘the insolent conduct of the master of the Canada, West Indiaman, towards me’. The Swan was part of the escort of a convoy which included the Canada, and the senior officer of the escort ordered Pigot to ‘enforce the sternmost of the merchant ships… to carry more sail and attend to his signals’. But, complained Pigot, ‘I received for answer from the master of the Canada that he would make what sail he thought proper and desired me to fire at him at my peril… Upon my firing a shot across his forefoot [i.e. bow] he set his maintopgallant sail and made use of some insolent language…’