The Shipwreck Cannibals

by Adam Nightingale

  The one thing Deane did request was the means to make a fire. The crew of the shallop agreed and dispatched a man in a canoe. The canoe reached Boon Island safely and Deane helped drag it ashore. The fisherman, standing face to face with John Deane, couldn’t speak for a moment. He was shocked to silence by Deane’s emaciated form and wasted appearance. Deane asked him questions and the man found his voice. Deane wanted to know what day it was. He wanted to know about the Swede.

  The fisherman didn’t know anyone called Swede. Someone had found the remains of a raft on the mainland shore. They had found a dead man on shore, frozen solid with a paddle tied to his wrist. It wasn’t the Swede. The Swede, whoever he was, must have been lost to the ocean. But the presence of the raft meant a shipwreck and the prospect of survivors. The local government had been moved to send a search party to seek out the marooned.

  Deane led the fisherman across Boon Island toward the tent. On the way, the fisherman spotted a pile of raw meat on the rocks. He expressed pleasure that the survivors had had a ready source of food to eat during their ordeal. John Deane agreed but didn’t elaborate on the true nature of the meat, allowing the fisherman to walk to the tent comforted in his ignorance.

  Once again the fisherman was stunned when he saw the physical state of the rest of the men. He helped them to build a fire and then talked to John Deane about how best to get them off the island. It was agreed that Deane would return to the shallop with the fisherman in the canoe. Then the canoe would come back, the plan being to empty the island of survivors one or two at a time. John Deane climbed into the canoe and nature’s black comedy played itself out once again when a wave forced the canoe into a rock and John Deane and the fisherman went into the sea. Deane barely had the strength to swim back to shore. The canoe was retrieved. It was relaunched but without Deane. The fishermen promised to return the next day if the weather wasn’t too dangerous. The shallop sailed back toward the mainland.

  The sky turned black. A storm blew up. The storm lasted the night and the length of the next day. Nobody came back for Deane and his men that day. It was too dangerous to sail. The survivors’ spirits were low but the fire made a difference.

  The fire was never to be left unattended. At any time, during the day or night, two or three of the crew were given the task of feeding and stoking the flames. But to begin with the fire was more of a hindrance than a blessing. There wasn’t any kind of vent for the smoke within the tent. The men had failed to pre-empt this and asphyxiated themselves until a tear could be made in the roof to let the smoke out. The other obvious benefit of the fire was cooked food. That evening the carpenter’s flesh was broiled and the men had their first hot meal on the island. Cooked flesh inflamed the men’s desire for more. Deane was pragmatic. He increased their ration in the hope that it would sate the men’s hunger somewhat.

  During the night John Deane was lying on his side, unable to sleep. Two members of the crew were tending to the fire. They were talking in a furtive manner. Deane couldn’t hear what they were saying but inferred mischief by the tone of their conversation. One of the two men crawled out of the tent. He returned with a piece of carpenter’s flesh and began to cook it in the fire. John Deane erupted. He grabbed the meat and publically denounced both men before the rest of the crew who had been rudely woken up by the violent disturbance. Deane was angry. He was fully intent on punishing the thieves. But his fury seemed to dissipate as soon as it had risen and he merely reprimanded them instead.

  On the morning of 4 January some kind of moral semblance seemed to have reinforced itself in the routine of the men. The men were praying when their devotions were interrupted by the sound of a gunshot, a musket fired into the air to get their attention. Deane and the men left the tent. A shallop was anchored near the island. A canoe disembarked from the shallop. Aboard the canoe were two friends of John Deane: Captain William Lang, an Englishman; and Captain Jethro Furber, a native of New England. The captains were accompanied by three more men. The weather was good enough to effect a rescue.

  In comparison with the drama of Deane and company’s trilogy of abortive attempts to leave Boon Island, Lang and Furber’s rescue was comparatively mundane in its efficacy. It took two hours to transfer the crew from the island to the shallop. Talking with his rescuers it became evident to Deane that, had the survivors left with the fishermen on 2 January, they might not have survived. During the storm the shallop had struggled to get back to shore. But the fishermen got word to the authorities in Portsmouth who had made haste to get to Boon Island as quickly as they could.

  John Deane was taken aboard the shallop first. The rest followed in twos and threes. Many of them had to be physically carried onto the boat.

  On board the shallop, on the way to Portsmouth, the survivors were given a bit of bread to eat and a dram of rum to drink. It was a deliberately small ration followed up a short while later with a bowl of gruel. The sea took a rough turn. The men threw the gruel up. The effect of the vomiting was twofold. It cleansed the men’s stomachs but also intensified their hunger. The crew of the shallop, for health’s sake, had to take extra care to control their guests’ intake of food, now that food was more freely available.

  The shallop sailed up the Piscataqua River. It docked at Portsmouth. The men were delivered into the care of the locals. There were numerous amputations of gangrenous toes and frostbitten fingers.

  Once they had convalesced awhile, the crew members that weren’t directly embroiled in the feud that was to flare up between Deane and Langman drifted off, ‘some sailing one way and some another’.

  3

  The First Mate’s Tale

  What follows is based on Christopher Langman, Nicholas Mellin and George White’s version of events.

  The Nottingham Galley sailed from Gravesend on 2 August 1710 with a cargo of rope.

  Christopher Langman was displeased with the state of the ship. Four of the ten guns didn’t work and of the fourteen-man crew, Langman would claim that, ‘not above six were capable to serve in the ship, in the case of bad weather.’

  On 7 August the Nottingham Galley joined a convoy of merchant ships headed for Scotland. The convoy was protected by two men of war. The Nottingham Galley enjoyed the safety of the convoy until Whitby. A gale blew up. The convoy refused to sail during the bad weather. Captain John Deane left the convoy, deciding to chance it and made for Ireland where he was to pick up the rest of his cargo.

  On 21 August, off the coast of Ireland, John Deane was standing watch. He spotted two ships, three leagues distance from the Nottingham Galley. The ships were waiting in a bay to the leeward of Dean’s vessel. He called Christopher Langman on deck. Deane told Langman that he wished to sail toward the two ships. Langman and other members of the crew observed the vessels and perceived that the ships were probably French privateers. To obey the captain’s orders was to risk capture. They advised a more evasive course of action. John Deane repeatedly made his wishes clear: approach the ships. The crew refused to obey his orders. Deane did nothing.

  Nicholas Mellin and George White overheard Charles Whitworth talking to John Deane. Whitworth admitted that he had rather the Nottingham Galley be captured by the French. Whitworth owned an eighth of the ship. He stated that he had insured the ship to the sum of £200. The implication was that the money that could be made on the insurance, should the vessel be taken, was a greater financial enticement than selling the cargo in New England. John Deane admitted that his brother Jasper had had exactly the same thoughts, having paid £300 in insurance. John Deane stated that if he could get away with running the ship ashore and claiming the insurance money then he would do so. It is unclear in Langman’s account and the subsequent affidavits whether this conversation took place during the night, during the following day, or whether the conversation took place twice. But all three of the crew members that would later sign the affidavits were united in the conviction that John Deane, his brother and Charles Whitworth intended to deliberately lose the No
ttingham Galley for criminal profit.

  In the morning the privateers were spotted again. John Deane repeated his intention to sail toward them, or else weigh anchor and allow the French to approach the Nottingham Galley. John Deane was supported by his brother and Charles Whitworth. Once again Langman and the crew opposed their captain. John Deane changed tactics and bid the men sail toward the shore. At some point in the morning Deane ordered Nicholas Mellin to hoist the Nottingham Galley’s tackle over the side of the ship, a precursor to going ashore. John Deane and Charles Whitworth went into the cabin. They collected their valuables and put them in a chest. They ordered the chest to be moved to a rowing boat. Then Deane assured his men that they ‘should want for nothing’. It was a tacit bribe to enlist their support in what he was preparing to do. John Deane intended to run the ship aground.

  Once again, Christopher Langman refused to obey John Deane’s commands. He explained to Deane that the Nottingham Galley was only 7 leagues from its destination. The wind favoured them. They could outrun the privateers and be in port and safety before nightfall. Langman would not sail the ship any closer to shore than was absolutely necessary. Deane let the first mate have his way. Langman navigated the Nottingham Galley safely between the shore of the Irish coast and a nearby island evading the privateers and arriving in the port of Killybegs sometime between six and seven o’clock in the evening.

  The Nottingham Galley stayed in Killybegs for the rest of August and most of September. Thirty tons of butter was loaded aboard the ship as well as three hundred cheeses. On 25 September 1710 the Nottingham Galley set sail for Boston.

  As a captain, John Deane’s conduct off the coast of Ireland had been extraordinary. He had attempted to take a course of action flagrantly designed to effect either the capture or the loss of his vessel when alternative means of escape were available. He had also given orders that had been refused and hadn’t disciplined his crew for what was effectively mutinous behaviour. For better or worse, a captain’s authority needed to be absolute in the hermetic commonwealth of an ocean-going vessel. But now that Deane and his crew were in the open sea the captain reasserted his authority with a vengeance. He began a campaign of systematic abuse. He beat the men. He singled out two crew members that had been particularly conspicuous in their opposition during the privateer episode. He beat them so badly that they couldn’t work for an entire month. He weakened the men by reducing their rations, allowing them a single quart of water per day. To exacerbate their thirst, he fed them salt beef. To sate their thirst, whenever it rained, the crew were driven to virtually lap water from the ship’s deck.

  On one particular occasion, John Deane forgot to lock the hold that permitted access to the ship’s water supply. An unnamed member of the crew discovered the captain’s error. He stole below deck. He took a gallon of water. His intention was to distribute it among the crew and give them a decent drink. John Deane interrupted him. He hit the man hard, knocking him to the ground. Many of the crew thought, for a few moments, that John Deane had killed their shipmate.

  Deane’s actions had no pragmatic value to them. He had re-established his authority, but in doing so had also physically weakened his crew. The motives for his actions appeared to have had more to do with revenge for the earlier usurpation of his authority and the spoiling of his scheme than anything else. Deane’s violence and the crew’s inability to withstand it attested to something about Deane that his own, his brother’s, and his enemy’s testimonies all agreed on: John Deane was a physically tough man. His constitution could endure more punishment than his peers, if Deane’s and his brother’s accounts are to be believed. He could also dish out brutal physical punishment without fear of retaliation, if Langman and company’s testimonies are to be believed. Even taking this into account, the crew’s passivity seems a little bit extraordinary. John Deane had his brother Jasper and Charles Whitworth to support him but they were not particularly tough men. The crew’s passivity becomes more understandable when we know that John Deane had access to at least one firearm. And before the voyage was done he would use his gun to threaten the life of Christopher Langman, the only crew member still capable of defying the increasingly unstable captain.

  As the Nottingham Galley approached Newfoundland, a ship was spotted sailing toward her. The ship appeared to be in pursuit of the merchant vessel. John Deane and Charles Whitworth’s previously grim mood changed with the news. They were both suddenly agreeable and generous. They opened the ship’s store of grog and gave the men free reign to get as drunk as they pleased on brandy and strong beer. Deane and Whitworth both believed that the new ship was another privateer. To receive their captors, Deane and Whitworth changed into their best clothes. They were mistaken. The ship was the Pompey, an English vessel.

  As the Nottingham Galley sailed on to New England, the first land spotted was Cape Sables. Boston was 50 leagues away. John Deane lay the ship by for a few days. This was the process in which a ship would stop sailing in order to avoid bad weather or else administer repairs. The weather was reasonable. When Deane set sail for Boston, the weather was starting to become more troublesome, strong enough to necessitate the furling of the ship’s sails to avoid them being shredded by the wind. A westerly wind forced the ship off course. The Nottingham Galley lost sight of land.

  Between seven and eight o’clock in the morning, on 11 December, Nicholas Mellin spotted land. The land was situated leeward of the Nottingham Galley: Cape Porpus. Mellin called the captain and the first mate to the deck. Almost as soon as the two men were brought together they began to argue. John Deane claimed that the land Mellan had spotted was the first land that they had sighted. Langman disagreed. They had spied land a week previously when they had passed Cape Sables. The argument must have seemed, for a moment, like a fatally mistimed exercise in one-upmanship between two master pedants. But there were consequences to Deane’s lapse of memory that Langman felt compelled to point out. The Nottingham Galley was currently too close to shore. The Nottingham Galley had strayed off course precisely because Deane had decided to lay the ship near the very Cape Sables he currently couldn’t remember having seen. Deane’s delay had caused the ship to hit the bad weather that had blown them off course; he was responsible for their current situation. Deane’s actions had cost them a week. Had they carried on at Cape Sables then they would, in Langman’s estimation, be in Boston by now. As it stood, they were unnecessarily delayed and too close to the shore.

  The discussion was now an argument from which the crew seemed to draw a form of moral strength that favoured Langman. Deane appeared to concede the argument. He walked away and went below deck to fetch the men their water ration. Deane distributed the water and went down into the ship’s hold. Christopher Langman was drinking his ration from a bottle. Jasper Deane approached Langman, took the water bottle from him and struck him with it. John Deane emerged from the hold, carrying a wooden periwig stand. Langman was stunned from the bottle attack and, in those moments, unable to defend himself properly. John Deane hit Langman across the head three times with the wooden block. Langman collapsed. He lay on the deck and didn’t move. Blood ran from the wounds in his skull soaking Langman and the deck around him red. The crew thought that Langman had been murdered. Now they would do whatever John Deane ordered them to do.

  Langman survived the assault. He was taken below deck to his cabin, physically damaged and temporarily silenced. He remained there for twelve hours as the situation above him deteriorated. The weather was turning hostile. The ship was being forced towards the mainland. John Deane was back in command and unopposed.

  John Deane attacked Christopher Langman with a periwig stand hours before the Nottingham Galley struck rock at Boon Island. Illustration by Stephen Dennis

  In the early evening Nicholas Mellin realised that the Nottingham Galley was far too close to shore. He alerted the captain but also told Christopher Langman. The first mate walked onto the deck. Covered in his own dry blood, Langman challenged Dean
e for the second time that day. He stated that Deane had no right to be so close to the shore unless it was his express intention to wreck the Nottingham Galley. Langman counselled Deane to ‘haul further off’, to sail against the wind rather than let it blow the galley further inland.

  Deane told Langman that he would not listen to him, even if it cost him the ship. Deane threatened Langman. He told Langman that he would get his pistol and shoot him. Then Deane told his men that he would ‘do what he pleased except they confined him to his cabin’. The captain was throwing down a gauntlet. He was instructing his crew to go ahead and mutiny if they had the courage to do so.

  John Deane didn’t shoot Christopher Langman. The crew didn’t mutiny. A weird stasis seemed to fall on the captain, the first mate and crew of the Nottingham Galley. John Deane was in his cabin preparing for bed when the ship struck Boon Island.

  As the Nottingham Galley came apart on the rocks John Deane apologised to anybody that would listen. He told his crew to prepare themselves for death as any hope of escape was futile. Many of the men tried to make their way onto the deck of the ship but breaking waves forced them back below. Deane began to weep and howl like an animal but other members of the crew were trying to determine the extent of the damage and see what could be done to save their companions. Nicholas Mellin went below deck to see if the hold had been breached. The hold was letting in water. Mellin returned to the cabin and gathered the men around him. They prayed to God that the ship might keep together until morning.