The Black Ship

by Dudley Pope

  They left on board L’Espoir the murderous David Forester, as well as Simon Holmes, the former cook’s mate, and two other mutineers. Mason later recalled that he had heard that George Chapman and William Carter—both of whom are known to have been against the mutiny—and a third man were also at Curaçao. La Magicienne, with five former Hermiones among the eighty-three men on board to help serve the guns and share the spoils, then left Santo Domingo to search for some richly-laden British merchantmen. But La Magicienne’s captain was singularly unfortunate in his choice of a hunting ground.

  Young William Johnson, the former clerk at Port au Prince, had developed a bad ulcer on his left foot at the time the mutineers had taken the Hermione to La Guaira. He was so young at the time, he explained later, that ‘I suffered myself to be carried to the house of the Commandant,’ where a Spanish surgeon attended him. As soon as the ulcer was cured he followed the other men to Curaçao, but he had no intention of going to sea again: he had quite enough of a sailor’s life and his counting-house training helped him in ‘finding an advantageous situation… as clerk to the American Consul’.

  William Bower, from Chesterfield, was another needing medical treatment at La Guaira, and he later claimed that while still in hospital tried to give himself up as a prisoner of war, but the Spanish authorities would not accept him. He then signed on in an American ship bound for Philadelphia, but at Charleston, her first port of call, Bower was alarmed to find posters on the wall offering one thousand dollar rewards for the capture of Hermione mutineers.

  Two of the Hermone’s coloured seamen, the African Thomas Diamond and John Jackson, the bargeman who helped murder Pigot, joined a coasting vessel and faded into the anonymity which their colour afforded them in the West Indies.

  Of the other important mutineers, whose adventures will be dealt with more fully later, Thomas Nash, signed on an American ship and went to Charleston, and soon set that South Carolina seaport humming, with its newspapers, attorneys and leading citizens lambasting each other, and finally involved the President of the United States in his affairs.

  Four others, the Scotsman William Benives, who had been partly blind at the time of the mutiny, John Brown, the maintopman called down to the fo’c’sle by David Forester before the mutiny started, William Herd, who had won a watch in the lottery for the officers’ valuables, and John Hill, a foretopman, finally went to Curaçao. There they managed to get on board a cartel ship going to Guadeloupe and, according to a story told by Benives and Hill, captured her from the Spaniards ‘and carried her into Port Morant Bay, Jamaica’.

  The Irishman James Irwin, who had been taken to Puerto Cabello with John Holford and forced to work in the Santa Cecilia, finally managed to get back to La Guaira and in April, 1798, joined an American schooner bound for New York. He made an unfortunate choice.

  James Duncan, the foretopman who had declared in Southcott’s hearing that ‘If the buggers [the officers] were living he would never have had his toe well’ had been over-optimistic about the curative effect of mass murder, since later he had to go to hospital for three months. He recovered about the same time as a fellow-patient, John Williams, the man who had cried in the presence of Price, the Carpenter.

  Both Duncan and Williams then spent several weeks trying to find work, but without success. As soon as they were allowed to leave, they signed on in a Danish brigantine bound for Santa Cruz, Duncan telling Williams that he wanted to get home if he could. Both men were to have many adventures before they were called to account for their behaviour in the mutiny.

  Thomas Jay, the other Boatswain’s Mate of the Hermione, was reported to have joined a Spanish gunboat at La Guaira. However death claimed some of the men: John Luxton, a Bristol-born able seaman who had voted to kill all the officers and later received sixteen dollars at the share-out of the valuables at the capstan, was one who died from illness; William Allen, a Devon man from Lynmouth and named by John Brown as a ‘principal mutineer’, also died in hospital. They were, perhaps, lucky to meet death in this way: many others were to be less fortunate.

  21

  ON BOARD A CORSAIR

  * * *

  AT NOON on March 1, 1798, more than five months after the mutiny, Sir Hyde Parker was cruising in the Queen with the Valiant and Carnatic in company. Up to that moment the Admiral had not succeeded in capturing even one of the Hermione’s mutineers: his only knowledge of what had happened in the frigate came from the captain of the San Antonio. He still believed that of the officers only the surgeon survived.

  Shortly after noon the Queen’s lookouts reported a strange sail in sight. Sir Hyde gave his orders, and the signal to chase, with the Valiant’s number and the bearing of the strange sail, was hoisted and a single gun fired to draw Captain Crawley’s attention to it.

  Soon both the strange ship—which had taken to her heels—and the Valiant were out of sight of the flagship. Five hours later the Valiant was hove-to windward of the chase which, Captain Crawley could see, was a 16-gun French privateer.

  Since one broadside from the Valiant would have reduced her to so much driftwood, the privateer hauled down her colours without firing a shot, and a lieutenant with a boarding party took possession. She was La Magicienne from Curaçao, and within a few minutes her crew were lined up ready to be ferried across to the Valiant as prisoners. However, one of the prisoners, who spoke perfect English, told the lieutenant he wanted to speak to the Valiant’s captain. The reason he gave was described by Captain Crawley in a report to Sir Hyde.

  ‘It being hinted to me that James [sic John] Mason, late carpenter’s mate of His Majesty’s ship Hermione, was one of the corsair’s crew and was desirous of relating what he knew concerning the mutiny, murder and piracy committed on board His Majesty’s ship Hermione, I thought it proper to avail myself of the opportunity of bringing to light such an atrocious act.’

  He called to his cabin as witnesses his two senior lieutenants, and Mason was inarched in under a Marine guard. Captain Crawley began questioning him and was startled to find that Mason had not been the only former Hermione on board La Magicienne: there were four others among the prisoners, now in the Valiant, all intent on keeping their identity secret. The questioning was interrupted while Anthony Mark (who was Antonio Marco), John Elliott, Joseph Mansell (Joe Montell) and Peter Delaney (Pierre D’Orlanie) were weeded out from the other prisoners and put in irons under the watchful eye of the Valiant’s Marines.

  Captain Crawley finally had a written statement drawn up in the form of a deposition which Mason signed. In it he named nine officers and the midshipman killed by the mutineers, and listed the other officers and men who were prisoners of war at La Guaira. He added that several other Hermiones were on board another privateer, L’Espoir.

  Rejoining Sir Hyde Parker next day, Captain Crawley gave him Mason’s deposition and his own covering letter. Sir Hyde, delighted at the prospect of hearing for himself at first hand all the details of the murderous affair, ordered Mason to be brought over to the flagship. After a prolonged questioning, the facts that Mason had given were drawn up as another statement, which Mason signed. (The deposition is shown opposite page 240).

  They were just the facts that Sir Hyde needed—particularly the names of ‘the leading characters’, whom Mason listed as Turner, Nash, McReady, Farrel, Bell and Lawrence Cronin. There had been only one woman on board, said Mason; no firearms had been used (i.e. no shots had been fired); he ‘saw a great quantity of blood in the Cabin window and at the afterhatch leading from the Gun Room’; and he had heard ‘repeated groans and screeches from the officers when murdering [sic]’. The colour of the Hermione’s hull, he added, was black with white mouldings.

  But if Sir Hyde knew of the harsh way Captain Pigot had habitually treated the majority of his men—and it is inconceivable that he was unaware of it—then the last four lines of Mason’s statement were significant. ‘The night before the mutiny two men [but he lists three] fell off the mizen topsail yard and were k
illed, their names are Francis Statten [Staunton], a Negro boy Peter, another (name unknown). There was punishment for several days previous to this and no appearance of mutiny.’

  As soon as Sir Hyde satisfied himself that Mason, if not necessarily innocent, was the least guilty of the five prisoners, he decided he would use him as the main—and indeed the only—prosecution witness against the other four.

  However, even before Sir Hyde signed the order for the court martial he was horrified to discover that the crew of at least one other frigate, Captain Rolles’s Renommée, had been on the verge of a similar sort of mutiny while at sea.

  Sir Hyde later reported to the Admiralty that ‘a plot was discovered on board His Majesty’s Ship Renommée just in time to prevent its execution. The intention was to perform the same tragedy as that in the Hermione, by murdering all the officers and carrying the ship into Havanah.’

  Sir Hyde added that, ‘The man who first warned Captain Rolles of his danger is one of so insignificant character as not fit to be rewarded by promotion. I therefore submit to Their Lordships’ consideration whether a pension for life might not be attended by a general good as an example to hold out for the encouragement of men coming forward upon similar occasions.’

  While the four would-be mutineers of the Renommée were kept in prison at the Mole under a heavy guard, Sir Hyde gave orders for the court martial of the four actual mutineers from the Hermione, appointing Captain Bowen the president and sending him three documents—copies of Captain Mends’s letter from the Diligence, Captain Crawley’s report on the capture of the men in La Magicienne, and John Mason’s deposition. The other members of the court were Captains Edward T. Smith, John Ferrier, Man Dobson and John Crawley, and the trial began at 9 a.m. on March 17 on board the York. Mr William Page acted as Deputy Judge-Advocate and brought the Articles of War, the Bible, a Crucifix and law books with him.

  As soon as Captain Bowen gave the order the four prisoners, manacles securing their arms, were marched in under a Marine guard. Once the witnesses were all present, Mr Page stood up and read out Sir Hyde’s order to try the men ‘upon an information contained in a letter from Captain Mends… and also a deposition of John Mason, late Carpenter’s Mate of His Majesty’s Ship Hermione… representing the said Anthony Mark, alias Antonio Marco, John Elliott, Joseph [Mansell Montell] and Peter Delaney, alias Pierre D’Orlanie, were a part of the French privateer La Magicienne… and were actually on board His Majesty’s said Ship Hermione at the time the mutiny, murder and piracy were committed on board her; and for being taken in arms against His Majesty’. (On this and subsequent occasions the real names and aliases were transposed in the charge.)

  After Page had administered the necessary oaths, he read out Captain Mends’s letter. To the two Italians, the Frenchman and the Man of Kent the scene must have appeared entirely unreal: the drone of Page’s voice as he read Mason’s deposition; the cold, impersonal glances of the five captains in full dress; the solemn ritual of the trial itself—all so remote from that wild night six months earlier when they had shouted and cheered and wielded cutlasses and tomahawks to kill the tyrannical Pigot and secure their liberty.

  What had then seemed just and reasonable was now given a sinister turn: slinging Hughie over the side had become murder and mutiny: going into La Guaira with the Hermione was piracy: signing on in La Magicienne was being ‘in arms against His Majesty…’

  Three of the four men might have protested that they owed no allegiance to His Britannic Majesty: D’Orlanie could have been accused by the French Government of being in arms against France, while as far as Marco knew, his allegiance was to the Republic of Genoa (although in fact three and a half months earlier it had become the Ligurian Republic). Montell’s birthplace in Italy is not known, but his allegiance was to one of more than a dozen states. Yet had the men made that protest they would have been reminded of the oath of allegiance they had taken when, as pressed men or volunteers, they had first entered the Royal Navy—an oath to ‘His Sovereign Lord King George the Third’, promising to serve him faithfully ‘in defence of his person, Crown and dignity against all his enemies and oppressors whatsoever’.

  All except the first of the witnesses were ordered out of the court, and the four accused sailors recognized the man in lieutenant’s uniform who held the Bible while Page administered the oath as Lt John Harris.

  ‘Did you know any of the prisoners as belonging to the Hermione?’ asked Captain Bowen.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Harris, ‘since the 17th of June last, when I left her, they all belonged to her.’

  One witness was probably lucky not to be manacled with the other four men. He was John Kelly, a Catholic, who took the oath on the Crucifix before testifying that he had been in the Hermione on her last cruise until sent away in a prize. At the time he left, he said, the accused men were members of the crew.

  A copy of John Mason’s deposition was then produced in court and the former Carpenter’s Mate signed it, whereupon ‘he was sworn in to give evidence against the prisoners’. Mason, who was thirty years old and came from Belfast, also swore on the Crucifix as a Catholic.

  ‘Inform the court,’ ordered Captain Bowen, ‘what you know of the transaction relating to the mutiny, murder and piracy which took place on board the Hermione.’

  ‘It was about ten o’clock at night,’ said Mason. ‘I was in my hammock and I heard the ship’s company cheering and saying that the ship was their own.… I went down between decks and saw the Gunner sitting in his cabin, stripped and crying; the Carpenter likewise. The whole cry of the ship was “Hand them up”, meaning the officers…’

  From time to time Captain Bowen and other members of the court interrupted with questions to clear up points as Mason went on to describe how the ship was taken to La Guaira. But he gave no evidence whatsoever about the role the four accused men had played in the mutiny, although he described how they had served with him later in the French privateer.

  When the four accused men were asked ‘separately and severally’ if they had any defence to offer, they said they had none, and Captain Bowen ordered the court to be cleared. The onlookers left; the Marines closed in round the four prisoners and shuffled them out. The five captains did not take long to reach a verdict and decide on the sentence. The Deputy Judge-Advocate wrote it out in the time-honoured formula and the court was opened once again. The four men were marched in to hear Page read out the court’s findings.

  ‘At a court martial assembled and held on board His Majesty’s Ship York, Mole St Nicolas… the Court… having heard the evidence… and very maturely and deliberately weighed and considered the several circumstances… and the prisoners having no evidence to produce, or anything to offer in their defence, the court is of opinion that the charge of mutiny, murder and running away with His Majesty’s Ship Hermione and delivering her up to the enemy; and being found actually in arms against His Majesty and his subjects, on board La Magicienne, a French privateer, are fully proved…’ The four men were ‘to be hung by the necks until they are dead, at the yardarms of such of His Majesty’s ships, and at such times, as shall be directed by the Commander-in-Chief.

  ‘And as a further example to deter others from committing, or being accessory to, such shocking and atrocious crimes, that when dead their bodies be hung in chains upon gibbets on such conspicuous points, or headlands, as the Commander-in-Chief shall direct…’

  Unfortunately the first half of the court’s verdict was sheer rubbish. The men had not been charged with ‘mutiny, murder and running away with His Majesty’s said Ship Hermione and delivering her up to the enemy’; yet the court ‘fully proved’ this non-existent charge. The charge in fact said ‘and were actually on board… at the time the mutiny, murder and piracy were committed on board her’, which was a completely different thing.

  Secondly, even if they had been charged with mutiny, murder, running away with the ship and delivering her up to the enemy, the court never heard one word of evidenc
e to prove it. Witnesses testified the four men were on board the Hermione as late as September 4, seventeen days before the mutiny, while Mason’s oral evidence in court never once mentioned any of the quartet by name. The only evidence linking them with the mutiny in any way was in Mason’s written deposition, which said the four men ‘were actually on board His Majesty’s Ship Hermione at the time of the above-mentioned murder, mutiny and piracy’.

  This, of course, covered the actual charge drawn up by Sir Hyde; but men cannot be condemned to death for crimes not mentioned in a charge. However, in this case there is no need to waste any sympathy on the men, since justice was done, albeit by accident. They were four of the worst mutineers; and the second part of the charge, ‘being found actually in arms against His Majesty and his subjects’, was fully proved, and for that alone the death sentence was inevitable.

  As soon as Sir Hyde received the minutes of the court martial, he ordered some large posters to be printed. Beginning ‘At a court martial…’ they went on to describe the trial and ended up with the stark wording of the sentence. As soon as the posters were ready (see illustration opposite page 241), they were pasted up in ports the length and breadth of the Caribbean.

  The execution of the four men was arranged to take place on board the York and Sir Hyde ordered a chaplain to attend them. The chaplain was Mr Scott, the Commander-in-Chief’s secretary, and the episode is described in his biography. ‘When he was in attendance on them after they were condemned, they exhibited so much good feeling that he was greatly interested for them. They were, moreover, all young, and in person the finest models of seamen that he had ever seen of any nation.’