The Black Ship

by Dudley Pope

  By comparison with the other seamen Cronin was an educated man: he could write well and persuasively, whether it was notes for a haranguing speech to a mob of mutineers or a letter seeking favours from a Spanish governor.

  His sense of timing would have done justice to a good actor: he came on to the stage to take his part in the Hermione mutiny dramatically, emerging from the darkness forward to stride aft along the lowerdeck to the gunroom, shouting for all the men to gather round the after hatchway and the skylight.

  From the rum bucket on the fo’c’sle, from the spirit room below, from the gangways and the quarterdeck, the men streamed to the stage that Cronin had chosen. And he had chosen it with care, because by standing on the gunroom table he would be halfway through the skylight and able to dominate both the lowerdeck—for he towered over the prisoners in the gunroom—and the half-deck forward of the Captain’s cabin. The mutineers crowding round the skylight and afterhatch would be able to see the prisoners, and for what Cronin had to say the juxtaposition was important.

  As the men gathered round, Cronin leapt on to the table and called for someone to hold up a lantern. Taking a piece of paper from his pocket, he smoothed it out and held it up to the light. The men waited expectantly.

  ‘I have something to read to you,’ he announced. It had been written before the mutiny began, he said, and concerned the conduct of the officers. He began by declaring, ‘I have been a Republican since the war,’ adding that the Hermione’s people were doing a very right, a very good thing. That set the men cheering, and as soon as they were quiet again he continued that all the remaining officers must be put to death, or it was no use putting one of them to death.

  Southcott, describing Cronin’s speech later, said, ‘I heard great parts of it as I lay in my bed’. To Midshipman Casey, lying in his hammock a few feet away, ‘The scene now became dreadful, and the greatest confusion prevailed. All were more or less inflamed and excited by spirits, except about forty or fifty of the principal mutineers, who kept sober and steady, and opposed to taking any more lives; but the majority of the crew prevailed against them…’

  As soon as Cronin finished his speech there was again uproar: from the men on the halfdeck there were bellows of ‘Hand ’em up! Pass the buggers up! Kill them all!’

  At that moment the flimsy gunroom door crashed open and a small group of men burst in, shouldering aside the sentries. They included Joe Montell, William Marsh, David Forester, Adam Brown—a recent arrival in the ship—and two Marines, Patrick Field and another known as ‘Happy Tom’. Before any of the sentries could stop them, they seized the Purser, Stephen Pacey, and dragged him up the ladder to the quarterdeck, stabbing and punching him viciously as he cried out for mercy. As soon as they reached the gangway several of them, led by Marsh, lifted Pacey up and flung him over the ship’s side into the sea.

  They then ran back down to the gunroom again, where Sansum waited, white as a sheet, beside the mizenmast. Jumping up and down round the Surgeon like a jackal and taunting him in a shrill voice was his fourteen-year-old servant, James Hayes. Earlier, as men had shouted down the skylight for the officers, Hayes had been repeating their cries, parrot-fashion, shrieking ‘Hand them up! Hand the buggers up!’

  The group, still led by Forester, Montell and Marsh, seized Sansum and dragged him out of the gunroom, stabbing, punching and kicking him at the same time, with Hayes a screeching demon dancing round. They took him up to the gangway and he too was thrown into the sea, still alive. Southcott, who had heard and seen all but the last few moments of this episode, said later that Hayes ‘boasted of having been the occasion of putting his master to death, and the rest of the mutineers said that [Hayes] was the great cause of the Surgeon being put to death’. The fact that Hayes had been punished for stealing from the Surgeon, Southcott added, ‘was the occasion of his persuading the people to put his master to death; to be revenged, he called it’.

  The same group, apparently acting independently of the rest of the mutineers, had not finished: it was now the turn of the First Lieutenant. Reed was still slumped in his cot with a bandage round his head covering the stitches so carefully sewn by Sansum. The mob, already perspiring freely from their efforts in hurling Pacey and Sansum overboard, rushed back to the gunroom, seized Reed and dragged him up to the gangway, where they threw him over the side.

  By now Richard Redman had other things than mutiny and murder on his mind: he was apparently thinking of the Boatswain’s wife—a woman, and a white woman into the bargain, and there was only one man standing in his way.… He went below to the lowerdeck and, striding up to Martin’s cabin, exclaimed, ‘By the Holy Ghost, the Boatswain shall go with the rest!’

  He dragged the protesting Martin out of his cabin, forcing him to go up the ladder to the maindeck. He then hauled him over to one of the gun ports and pushed him out. Sgt Plaice said later that he ‘heard the Boatswain cry out when he was overboard’. Redman then went down to the Boatswain’s cabin, watched by John Jones, who noted that he ‘remained in the cabin with the Boatswain’s wife, and I saw him no more that night’.

  But even though the Captain, the three lieutenants, Surgeon, Purser, Boatswain and a midshipman had been murdered up to then, many of the mutineers were still not satisfied. ‘The language, noise and scene altogether was horrible, as may easily be imagined,’ wrote Midshipman Casey.

  Once again the dreadful cry of ‘Hand the buggers up!’ echoed through the ship; once again a mob swarmed down to the lower-deck. This time their quarry was Captain Pigot’s clerk, John Manning, who was still in his cabin next to the one now occupied by Redman and Mrs Martin.

  John Brown, the maintopman, was horrified to see a mob dragging Manning up the ladder. Among them he noticed James Hannah, Adam Brown, William Marsh and David Forester, all of whom helped push Manning out through a gun port.

  There was, however, still more killing to be done: still some grudges to pay off. Marine Patrick Field, his comrade in arms ‘Happy Tom’, James Hannah and one or two other men went down to the gunroom again and thrust their way into the cabin of the Marine Lieutenant, McIntosh, whose death throes were still being watched by Sgt Plaice. McIntosh, in the last stages of yellow fever, was foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling, his whole body jerked by convulsions. ‘The Doctor did not expect him to live that night’, according to Sgt Plaice.

  The Marines seized the ends of the blanket on which McIntosh was lying, lifted him out of the cot and carried him from the cabin. By the dismal light of the lanterns they saw the livid blotches covering McIntosh’s body which showed them they would only just beat Nature in the race to kill him.

  They had great difficulty in getting the alternately limp and convulsing body up the ladder, but finally struggled over to a gun port. Then, with a ‘one, two and heave!’ they slung McIntosh out into the sea; the tenth man to die that night.

  The mob, still in a frenzy, were joined by several more men as they ran below to fetch up their next intended victim, Mr Southcott. The sentries left on guard at his cabin door tried to stop them, but they were outnumbered. ‘There were eight or ten men in my cabin to take me out,’ said Southcott, ‘and the gunroom was full of them.’ But just as they seized Southcott and began to drag him out, more mutineers appeared at the skylight overhead and ‘they called out upon deck to stop their hands, not to put any more to death’.

  ‘The Master,’ said Casey, ‘was principally saved by two of the principal mutineers placing themselves as sentinels at his cabin door, and by his servant boy, quite a youth… going through the ship crying, and begging of the crew most piteously that his life might be spared.’

  But the fact that Southcott had been saved—temporarily, at least—did not mean that the others—Midshipman Casey, the Gunner and the Carpenter—were to be left in peace: all three were ordered to go up to the quarterdeck, where they found ‘a greater part of the ship’s company present’.

  There was a great deal more yelling and arguing, and ‘after some
little consultation, they agreed to save our lives’, said Casey. Undoubtedly one of the men who spoke up on Casey’s behalf was Thomas Nash, who by then appears to have been gaining a measure of control over the mutineers. Nash, it will be recalled, helped kill Pigot and told the men to ‘launch’ Foreshaw, and with the American John Farrel, threw the Lieutenant over the side after he had climbed inboard again. After that neither man took part in any more killings, and Nash several times did what he could to help Casey. Now, however, his friendship was about to prove an embarrassment to the Midshipman.

  With the mutineers agreeing to reprieve the three men, Nash acted quickly. Whether it was to seize the initiative in front of the whole ship’s company and prove himself their leader, or because he knew or sensed they already accepted him in that role, there is no way of knowing for certain, but the evidence points to it being the former case.

  William Turner, the Master’s Mate, was standing near Nash, who turned to him and announced: ‘Mr Turner, you are to consider yourself captain of the ship while she is in our charge, and you, Mr Casey, are to be the First Lieutenant.’

  Casey, however, refused and much to his relief was allowed to go below to his hammock.

  An argument then broke out over where they should take the Hermione. Should they make for an enemy port in Santo Domingo or Puerto Rico, or sail to the Spanish Main? The nearest important port on the Main was La Guaira, about five hundred miles southwards across the Caribbean.

  The French and Spanish ports in the islands of course were much nearer; indeed some could be reached within a few hours. But the more intelligent of the mutineers must have realized that any island was likely to become a trap: the news of their arrival would reach Sir Hyde Parker, and he would blockade the island. The chances of escaping in a French, Spanish or neutral ship without being intercepted by a British frigate would then be slender.

  The Spanish Main seemed a much better proposition: it was farther to sail, with more chance of being intercepted by a British ship—but she would have no suspicion that there was anything wrong on board the Hermione, and the mutineers had Captain Pigot’s secret signal books. By going to the Spanish Main they would also have a better chance of getting to the country that some of them wanted to adopt as their own—the United States.

  So the men finally voted for the Spanish port of La Guaira, and a few minutes later the sentries were knocking on the door of Southcott’s cabin, demanding that a messenger be allowed in. ‘It’s Captain Turner’s orders that you tell him where the ship is,’ he explained.

  ‘I can’t tell him,’ replied Southcott, ‘I wasn’t on deck yesterday.’

  The man was back a few minutes later asking for Southcott’s log book and ‘Day’s work’—the rough notes of the course and distances the ship had steered the previous day. Southcott handed them over. (It is believed the mutineers destroyed the Captain’s and Master’s logs before entering La Guaira: there is no trace of either in the Spanish State and naval archives, nor are they referred to in Spanish official correspondence. The Muster Book was destroyed for reasons which will soon become apparent.)

  Despite the mutineers’ reprieve at the quarterdeck meeting earlier in the night, Southcott, Casey, Price and Searle were still in grave danger of being murdered by various drunken mobs who in the darkness were still ranging through the frigate like packs of wolves. ‘My life was repeatedly debated,’ wrote Casey, ‘and for some hours in the scales. I was subsequently told by my friends that I was twice or thrice condemned, and on the point of suffering [death], and that it was with the greatest difficulty that I was saved; two or three of them always kept near me during the night, as a protecting guard, and removed me occasionally from place to place for more safety.’

  Southcott was also having an anxious time: describing the period after the quarterdeck ‘reprieve’ he said that ‘a great many different times during the night until half past eleven o’clock next morning—I suppose twenty times—they attempted to take me out and put me to death, and were stopped by others desiring them not to do it.’ Among the ‘others’ was the quartermaster John Elliott: but the names of the rest who acted as sentries to save the lives of both Southcott and Casey are not known.

  The reason for Price’s reprieve, according to Casey, was his long service in the Hernione. A Welshman, he had joined the Hermione in December 1792 as an able seaman, while the ship was commissioning at Chatham, and had the fourth longest service in the ship. He was promoted to Carpenter’s Mate and then, through Captain Wilkinson, obtained his warrant as Carpenter, which meant he had probably served an apprenticeship with a shipwright—perhaps at some small shipyard on his native Menai Straits.

  As daylight filtered through the Hermione it lit up parts of the ship that by then looked more like a slaughterhouse. Captain Pigot’s cabin was naturally bloodstained, while on the deck below, the gunroom and its furniture had first been splashed with the blood of Southcott and Reed; then Lt Douglas and Midshipman Smith had been attacked in there, as well as Sansum and Pacey. Outside the gunroom, between the door and the after ladder, it was even worse, since both Douglas and Smith had lain there, badly hacked about, before being dragged on deck. A bloody trail left by Reed, Douglas, Smith, Sansum, Pacey and Manning led up the ladder to the half deck, and then to various gun ports and the gangways, where the men had been thrown over the side. Even on the quarterdeck there were ominous stains showing where Foreshaw had been attacked.

  However, the mutineers seemed unworried about these sanguinary signs of the recent massacre; for many of them daylight meant only that they could see what they were drinking, for few of them had been to sleep. Richard Redman emerged red-eyed and bleary from the Boatswain’s cabin after his sojourn with the newly-widowed Mrs Martin. But if his face looked debauched, he made up for it sartorially. ‘I saw him dressed with a ruffed shirt and white waistcoat,’ reported the watchful steward John Jones.

  It is not known whether Redman had added rape to his crimes or whether he found Mrs Martin acquiescent; but it is perhaps significant that with seven men passing her cabin door on their way to be murdered, and her husband dragged from her side by Redman and flung into the sea, not one witness (including Southcott, Casey—who was in his hammock less than a dozen feet away—and John Jones, who saw most of what went on that night near the gunroom) ever reported hearing her evince alarm, cry for help or ask advice. Jones heard no feminine protest when he saw Redman go into the cabin with the obvious intention of spending the night with her—yet she knew that Redman had killed her husband.

  Few people except Redman had time or inclination to worry about Mrs Martin’s chastity, but Southcott in the midst of the constant sallys into the gunroom by groups of mutineers intending to murder him, had time to notice young James Allen, the servant of Lt Douglas, swaggering about. ‘He had one of his master’s rings on his finger,’ said Southcott, ‘a fancy ring with hair in it, and he had some of the officers’ shirts on, and was cutting the legs off one of his master’s pairs of half-boots to put on as shoes’.

  With daylight the perils of the mutineers in the Hermione increased a thousandfold—particularly the danger of discovery and interception. No ship could be regarded as friendly—even in the unlikely event of a meeting with a Spanish or French warship, the chances of a disastrous misunderstanding were great. None of them was safe until they had arrived at La Guaira and arranged their terms with the Spanish authorities.

  So at daybreak Turner ordered the topgallants—the third highest of the square sails—to be set, to help speed the Hermione southwards. With the northerly breeze she had a soldier’s wind—it did not need much sail-trimming skill to keep her sailing fast.

  The men then returned to their drinking. One bucket of rum and another of wine under the half deck were of absorbing interest to a group of mutineers who included several Marines, among them John Pearce. Dipping his mug deeply was James Duncan, the foretopman whose alleged bad toe had led him to being made sentry at the porter cask. Accord
ing to Steward Jones, he was ‘very much in liquor’. The mutiny and the liquor had apparently cured him in a way previously unknown to medical science, since ‘he seemed very active among the people, very lively and contented. He had not walked about for some time on account of [his] sore toe, but after the mutiny he walked about very fast.’

  Another ostensibly sick man was William Bower, who had been on the surgeon’s wine list. When Mr Southcott saw him he was ‘active with the rest and seemed to be rejoiced at what had happened, and was dancing, singing and drinking.’ John Jones reported him, with an unconscious pun, as being ‘lively and full of spirits’.

  With the mutiny over and the men settling down to some serious drinking, it is possible to analyse the roles played by various individuals during the recent lurid hours, which have been described in detail entirely from eyewitness accounts. At the last muster on board the frigate of which a record remains, the ship had a crew of 168. It is unlikely this total changed much during the following six weeks.

  A close study of all the documents concerning the mutiny, including several confessions and examinations, shows that there were sixty-two known active mutineers, i.e. men who committed specific acts, as distinct from the rest who obeyed the leaders’ orders. Of these sixty-two (who were also named later by loyal men and are listed in Appendix D, page 338) the nationalities of forty-six are known for certain. Twenty were English, ten Irish, three Scottish, three Swedish, one American, two Danish, two Italian, and there were one from each of the following countries: Germany (Hanover), Portugal, St Thomas, Spain, and France. Of the sixteen ‘unknowns’, one was coloured and West Indian, twelve had British-sounding names and three were definitely foreign. Among the sixty-two there was the nucleus of eighteen men referred to earlier who actually plotted the mutiny, or took leading parts immediately it began, and can be considered the ringleaders.

  Just how loyal had proved the men that Hugh Pigot handpicked in the Success and brought over to the Hermione? Of the original twenty-one petty officers and ratings and two boys, the Negro boy Peter Bascomb perished in the fall from the topsailyard. Of the twenty-one adults, eight were among the eighteen ringleaders (and included Jay and Redman) and they and four more were among the sixty-two active mutineers. Of the remainder, only two are known to have definitely remained loyal (Pigot’s cook John Holford, and the son). Midshipman Wiltshire, who was not included among the twenty-one adults, was at least sympathetic towards the mutineers.