by Dudley Pope
As Otway later reported to Sir Hyde Parker, ‘Little or no attention was paid to my orders, not the smallest exertion [sic], the spirits broached and the greatest part of them drunk’.
Amidst all this confusion, the ship herself was still being lifted by the swell waves and relentlessly thrust forward. Flung down on to a reef by one swell wave, she was lifted up bodily by the next and surged forward by a third on to yet another reef. The rocks tore at her keel and gouged her hull planking; the rudder was wrenched off and the pieces floated away in the darkness. Eventually, with a final lurch and thump, the frigate came to a stop, hard aground. Someone took a cast of the lead and reported she was in fourteen feet of water. Since she had been drawing well over fifteen aft, that alone showed now much the swell waves had lifted her.
Otway’s feelings can be imagined: he knew that even if her hull could be patched up, the chances of getting the ship back over the reefs were slight, however much she was lightened by jettisoning guns and gear to reduce her draught.
Eventually Pigot’s anxious vigil drew to an end: almost imperceptibly the black of night diluted into grey and he could see the waves more clearly, rounded pyramids which surged past, burnished by the dawnlight to the colour of steel, and seeming hostile, cold and cruel. Slowly the visible horizon widened—fifty yards, then a hundred, and soon a mile. Pigot saw the three cays lying in the water like turtles; then beyond the line of the shore, low and even, with the swell waves moving in relentlessly towards it. From the Hermione they seemed in the distance to be grey ripples possessed of their own concentric rhythm, flecked with white where they hit rocks and scoured over reefs.
Finally, in line with the cays and inshore of the reefs, close to the beach, Pigot saw the Ceres. She was inert, like a half-tide rock; she did not rise and fall as the swell swept past her. Either she was stuck on a reef or she had sunk and was resting on the bottom.
Within a few minutes one of the Hermione’s boats, with Pigot on board, was making her way inshore towards the Ceres, with a man in the bows heaving a leadline and calling out the depths—both captains would need to know them if the stricken frigate was to be salvaged. The boat’s direct course from the Hermione to the Ceres took them within what Pigot was to call ‘a pistol shot’ of the south end of the southern cay.
But they were still three or four miles from the Ceres when the leadsman’s droning voice warned the water was shoaling fast. Pigot wrote later that until then he ‘flattered myself, however, from appearances I should be able to bring the Hermione to an anchor near enough to heave her [the Ceres] off without difficulty (as the wind was then moderate) before she received any damage [he was then unaware of the damage she had already received], but in this I was disappointed for on sounding I found we [the Hermione] could not approach nearer to her with safety than three or four miles’.
Pigot returned to the Hermione and brought her as close to the Ceres as he dared before anchoring again. He then set off in a boat to join Otway. He climbed on board the Ceres to find his friend busy, with the men who were still sober, building a raft to carry out an anchor. Pigot gave orders to his party and then the two captains went down to Otway’s cabin to plan the best way of salvaging the ship.
Otway told Pigot that the Ceres was making six feet of water an hour, but the main trouble was that although the pumps were clearing it aft, the limber holes (through which the water forward normally ran back to the pump wells amidships) were completely blocked up. This meant the whole forward part of the ship remained flooded under many feet of water, so that the limber holes could not be cleared. But the worst leaks were forward, and until the water was pumped out the Carpenter and his crew could not repair them….
No one could think of a way out of this seeming impasse until Midshipman Casey spoke up, ‘suggesting and strongly recommending (having been in a similar situation before) one or two of the hand pumps being removed forward’. This, Casey wrote later, ‘was instantly done, with the desired effect’. The main pump could clear about a ton of water a minute. The little hand pumps, used for washing decks, were similar to the old plunger type still found on village greens, with a long hose attached to reach down the ship’s side to the water.
It took many hours of arduous pumping to achieve the ‘desired effect’, and stopping the leaks was not enough: the ship was far too deep in the water to float back across the reefs. The only way of reducing her draught was to jettison as much heavy equipment as possible. Since dumping six tons of equipment would result in her floating only about an inch higher in the water, obviously Otway would have to be drastic.
Cutting the masts over the side and getting rid of the yards and spare topmasts and booms would save more than fifteen tons, with the standing and running rigging accounting for another twenty; the sails and spares could be transferred to the Hermione, saving more than three tons. The guns and carriages, powder and shot, would help by at least seventy-five tons. Jettisoning most of the provisions and fresh water represented more than fifty tons. It meant, in effect, gutting the ship of almost everything except the hull, but it would lighten her by at least 200 tons, reducing her draught by more than two and a half feet.
Leaving his party of men on board the Ceres, Pigot returned to the Hermione. He had a great deal to think about: he and Otway were facing a crisis in their respective careers. As senior officer, Pigot had been responsible for both the ships and the course they steered, while Otway was responsible for actually running the Ceres aground. Someone in authority might well blame Pigot because the ships ended up so close to Point Tucacas; but the Admiralty would also certainly want to know why, if the Hermione had sighted land in time to avoid running aground, the Ceres had not done so.
The obvious answer was of course that Lt Harris in the Hermione had been more alert than his opposite number in the Ceres. That was indisputable and could clear Pigot of some of the blame; but at the same time it would put more responsibility on the shoulders of his friend Otway….
Having worked out the exact position of the Ceres, and also made a note of various facts and figures from her log books to compare with his own, Pigot could now see that there had been a strong current setting into the Gulf of Triste. This meant, as Pigot later wrote to Sir Hyde Parker, that although the frigates had steered west-north-west ‘through the water’, the current setting into the Gulf had diverted them on an actual course ‘over the ground’ of south-west. In addition, ‘though by log we had only run twenty-seven miles’ from the point off Puerto Cabello where they had altered course the previous afternoon, the present position of the Ceres showed they had travelled between forty-five and sixty miles ‘over the ground’ thanks to the unexpected current.
Pigot did not consider himself in any way responsible—this is clear from his report to Sir Hyde Parker—but the fault was entirely his, since in laying off the course he failed to allow for a possible inset into the Gulf, although such an inset is common and to be expected anywhere in the world, and the currents in the Caribbean are notoriously unpredictable. With about sixty-six miles to sail from off Puerto Cabello to Point Tucacas, he deliberately laid off a course to pass twelve to fifteen miles to seaward of it. The ships were making five knots so he would reach the Point, if the wind remained steady, in thirteen hours. But since there was bound to be an inset, the current had only to sweep across his course at the rate of just over a mile an hour for that period and he was bound to hit the shore at the northern end of the Gulf. And to make matters worse his night orders had not mentioned the slightest possibility of sighting land. (Had he considered this likely, his orders should have referred to it.)
His letters and subsequent actions show that since Pigot did not consider himself, Otway, or the Ceres’s First Lieutenant responsible for the night’s events, he felt he had to point an accusing finger at someone else: a man who could be loaded with enough blame to prevent awkward questions being asked about the navigation or about the lookout being kept in the Ceres. He did not look far for such a s
capegoat.
It is not known for certain what parts Captain Otway and Sir Hyde Parker played in Pigot’s final solution: all three could have been concerned in what can only be called a wretched plot; on the other hand Otway and Sir Hyde might have been unwitting partners. However, Pigot’s own letters show that he was the prime mover in what followed, and they give a strong hint that Sir Hyde aided and abetted him.
Within a week of the grounding the Ceres had been sufficiently patched up for the Hermione to be able to leave her and return to the Mole. In the meantime Otway had heard news—possibly through the American Consul—of the seven seamen who had deserted the stricken ship in the barge: they had arrived at the Spanish port of Puerto Cabello. He sent a letter to the Governor under a flag of truce, politely requesting that they should be returned. He received a very prompt and equally polite reply: the seven men, the Governor claimed, were in fact American citizens; they had made the requisite declarations to the American Consul, who was satisfied and had put them under his protection. This reply, not unnaturally, infuriated Otway because apart from being cowards who had deserted an apparently sinking ship, the Ceres’s muster book gave a completely different and probably much more accurate account of the men’s nationalities.
Just before the Hermione left, Otway wrote a report for Sir Hyde Parker. Enclosing a copy of the relevant entries in the Ceres’s logs (‘which will inform you of the disaster that has befel the Ceres’), he wrote: ‘Should you, sir exhibit the smallest doubt that any blame is to be imputed to me… it will afford me the greatest satisfaction in your ordering my conduct to be publicly investigated.’ He described the condition of the Ceres’s crew when he took over command and concluded: ‘In short, sir, the ship never could have been saved if it had not been for the uncommon exertions of the Hermione’s men, Captain Pigot himself constantly assisting in person.’
The Hermione arrived back at the Mole early on June 9 and Pigot reported personally to Sir Hyde, giving him three signed letters. The first was his description of the Ceres grounding; the second requested a court martial on the Hermione’s Boatswain, Thomas Harrington; and the third asked that Thomas Leech, the deserter should also be court-martialled.
The letter concerning the Ceres told how the two ships were ‘imperceptibly drawn by a very strong current into the Gulf of Triste’. He described how he went on board the Ceres to consult with Otway. ‘I cannot help expressing to you, sir, my admiration of the steady, cool, exemplary conduct of Captain Otway throughout the whole of the arduous task that fell on him, and though beset by a variety of difficulties.
‘If, sir, there is any blame in this unfortunate business, from inattention to the situation of the ship, or imprudence in the course steered, as the senior officer (and consequently the senior ship), it must be laid to my charge; it therefore behoves me to lay before you as clear a statement of the situation on this subject as I possibly can.’
After describing in detail the events he wrote: ‘I beg leave to add, sir, though my own conscience entirely acquits me of having occasioned any misfortune by any neglect or inattention on my part, from the course steered, I feel great satisfaction in meeting any public investigation you might think proper to direct.’
Had he ended the letter at that point it would have been a reasonable report. However, although he had already claimed the grounding was due to being ‘imperceptibly drawn by a very strong current into the Gulf of Triste’, adding that if there was any blame over the course steered ‘it must be laid to my charge’, he then produced the person he now considered to be to blame for the whole episode. ‘… Having made inquiry respecting the lookout kept by the [Hermione’s] officers and people… I cannot bring to light at present any stronger proof of neglect in that respect, on their part, than from comparing the situation of the Ceres when aground with the course steered [when] it very clearly appears to me that we must have passed within pistol shot of the southernmost of the three cays…’
He did not consider the possibility that the Ceres might have been more than a quarter of a mile from the Hermione’s larboard quarter (which was probably the case). Instead, he declared: ‘From these circumstances I must confess I do not think a proper lookout was kept by the officer who had charge of the watch in the Hermione; that the misfortune which befell His Majesty’s Ship Ceres, and the consequent damage she suffered, is in great measure to be imputed to neglect, and as it was so near proving fatal to both ships, I beg to submit to your opinion the propriety of a further inquiry on that subject.’
So Lt Harris, the man whose keen eyesight had saved the Hermione, was being offered as the scapegoat for the Ceres grounding. Neither Otway nor Pigot mentioned that the First Lieutenant of the Ceres had seen nothing: that the first he knew of land being near was when the Ceres hit it, sailing at five knots under all plain sail. Indeed, no one on board the Ceres was to be blamed in any way, then or later.
Captain Pigot’s second letter to Sir Hyde was commendably direct and brief:
‘Thomas Harrington, Boatswain of His Majesty’s ship under my command having on the 2nd day of April last, in Port Royal Harbour, disobeyed the orders of Lt Harris and treated him in an insolent and contemptuous manner… and having been repeatedly guilty of the same offence, as well as totally neglecting his duties, and since his confinement been repeatedly drunk… I am to request you will be pleased to order a court martial to try him for the above offences.’
The third letter requested a court martial to be held on Thomas Leech ‘otherwise known as Daniel White’, and briefly outlined his various desertions and recaptures.
In the letter to Sir Hyde concerning the Ceres Pigot had begged ‘to submit to your opinion the propriety of a further inquiry’, which indicates that a fourth letter Pigot sent to the Commander-in-Chief that day, June 9, was written after the two men met. This letter began by saying he had made an inquiry into the lookout kept by Lt Harris, continued it with a long verbatim extract from his first letter, and concluded by quoting the last part of it, substituting Lt Harris’s name for ‘the officer’ and then altering the final phrase that the damage suffered by the Ceres ‘is in a great measure to be imputed to neglect’ to read ‘imputed to his neglect’. He then asked for an inquiry into Harris’s conduct—which was tantamount to asking for a court martial.
Clearly Pigot would not have requested an inquiry into Harris’s behaviour at the same moment that he asked for Sir Hyde’s opinion whether or not there should be a ‘further inquiry’, so it must have been the result of Sir Hyde’s opinion. The point is important in determining Sir Hyde’s role in what followed, because the whole episode was now, by accident or design, about to enter the realm of naval ‘polities’.
The reasons for this are almost disgustingly simple. An act of Parliament laid down that no person commanding a fleet or squadron of more than five ships could preside at a court martial abroad, ‘but that the officer next in command to such officer commanding in chief shall hold such court martial’. Sir Hyde’s next in command was Rear-Admiral Rodney Bligh, whom he detested (and who should not be confused with Captain William Bligh, formerly of the Bounty). Indeed, within a year Parker wrote to the Admiralty to ‘request Their Lordships will remove Rear-Admiral Bligh from under my command, or, that Their Lordships will allow me to resign from a situation which must be extremely unpleasant, finding myself so ill-supported by the person next to me in command in keeping up the discipline and subordination of this particular squadron’. The Admiralty’s view was expressed much later by the First Lord, writing to tell Parker he was being recalled: ‘… though in the course of your command a few circumstances have occurred in which I could have wished you to have acted differently from what you did, especially with regard to the business of Vice-Admiral Bligh, I can, however, assure you that it is not on that account that this arrangement [Parker’s replacement] is made’
Against this unhappy background was set the affair of Pigot, Otway and John Harris: the first two were Sir Hyde’s prot�
�gés, while Harris was Rear-Admiral Bligh’s.
On receiving Pigot’s letter concerning Harris, Sir Hyde wrote within twenty-four hours to Rear-Admiral Bligh, ordering him to assemble a court martial on June 16 to try Harris ‘for his conduct in having… negligently performed his duty, as set forth more particularly in a letter from Captain Pigot…’ Bligh was also ordered to try Boatswain Harrington and Thomas Leech.
10
A Snub for Pigot
* * *
EARLY ON JUNE 16 the thud of a gun firing echoed across the anchorage at the Mole and the Union Flag was run up at the mizen peak of the Brunswick, warning that a court martial was about to be held. Soon the four captains who were to form the court under Rear-Admiral Bligh were being rowed across from their own ships, smart in full uniform with swords—Bligh’s order to them had said ‘it is expected you will attend in your uniform frocks’.
In the Brunswick the wardroom had been fitted up as a courtroom, with a table running athwartships. Admiral Bligh sat at the middle of one side of the table, his back to the windows of the stern gallery, with the captains on his left and right. The Judge-Advocate, Mr James Griffith—in effect the clerk of the court—sat at the end of the table on the Admiral’s extreme right. A chair for witnesses stood in front of the table to the right; another chair to the left awaited the accused officer.
At a signal from Admiral Bligh everyone concerned with the trial was brought in. The Judge-Advocate began by reading out Sir Hyde’s orders for the trial and then administered the oaths. Then everyone except the five members of the court, the accused and Pigot were ordered out.