The Shipwreck Cannibals

by Adam Nightingale

  Deane had ‘not yet determined’ his mode of transportation.

  Golovkin and the attendant panel demanded that Deane be specific.

  Deane refused to answer their question. Deane had very little in the way of retaliatory sticks with which to beat his enemies but this was one. His adversaries had had their way. They had defeated Deane’s designs before they had ever properly got under way. What difference did it make how he left the country so long as he did it in the time prescribed? His refusal to answer the question annoyed his enemies disproportionately and Deane seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in their blustering and harrumphing. Nevertheless, many of Deane’s enemies rejoiced rather conspicuously at his downfall. Iaguzhinsky and three members of the Factory went into the countryside and hurled themselves into a four-day eating and drinking binge in celebration of John Deane’s defeat.

  The next day John Deane received his passport. The passport gave Deane, ‘liberty to travel by land or water’. He now had ten days to leave St Petersburg and one month to get out of Russia. The humiliation of Deane’s return to Russia could only have been compounded by the brevity of his stay. But in the remaining time allotted to the English captain, John Deane met a man who promised to redeem the entire sorry business.

  13

  O’Connor

  Britain was not completely blind in Russia and John Deane was not entirely without friends in St Petersburg.

  There was Joseph Ney with whom Deane lodged. Information regarding Deane’s support in the events leading up to his expulsion had been leaked to him by an unnamed cabinet secretary. Dr Thomas Consett was a chaplain within the Factory. His pro-Hanoverian stance and support of bishops in favour of friendly relations with Britain had earned him overt persecution from Factory members who spat at him and threatened to beat him with their canes.

  John Deane recruited informers while he was at St Petersburg. There was an anonymous Factory member. There was Mr Trescod, a former sailor-turned-landlord. Deane placed a high value on Trescod’s usefulness and friendship. Trescod spoke numerous languages. He was very familiar ‘with the state of maritime affairs’ and in his position as publican associated with ‘all men except those of a very high degree’. Trescod intended to send his son to school in England. John Deane hoped to assist him in placing the boy in a good school as a reward for the exemplary service Trescod had provided in channelling information to Deane. It was through Trescod that John Deane was introduced to a young Irishman named Edmund O’Connor.

  Two days before John Deane came to Kronslot, Edmund O’Connor had attended a dinner at a general’s house. The dinner was a Jacobite gathering. Many of those present were discussing Deane’s imminent arrival. The levels of venom directed at John Deane surprised O’Connor and somewhat piqued his interest. ‘I never knew a man so hated and ill spoken of as he was this day at the general’s table,’ O’Connor observed. Once John Deane arrived in Russia it was O’Connor’s express intention to meet the reviled English captain.

  Edmund O’Connor was a Jacobite. He was about 30 years old. He was cousin to Peter Lacey, a Jacobite general in the Russian army. O’Connor was a courier. Five months prior to Deane’s arrival O’Connor had come to Russia from Spain. He had brought dispatches with him, which he delivered to prominent Jacobites. But O’Connor was disillusioned with the cause and wanted to leave. He was weary of Russia. He had sought a commission in the Russian army and had been offered a lieutenancy. He was insulted by the low rank and consequently resentful toward Russia. But mostly he was homesick and lovesick. He wanted to return to Ireland and settle down permanently in his country of origin where his fiancée waited for him.

  For once, John Deane’s appalling reputation abroad worked in his favour. O’Connor knew that Deane was in St Petersburg. He knew who John Deane was and everything negative he represented to the Jacobite cause in Russia. Through Trescod, O’Connor brokered a secret meeting with Deane and put his case to the Englishman. He wanted a pardon from the king of England. Deane told O’Connor that he could not authorise summary royal pardons but that he would use his influence to try and secure one on the Irishman’s behalf. But O’Connor would have to earn his pardon. The condition was that O’Connor offer up information on his former compatriots. This was something O’Connor was perfectly willing to do and had already done in the early stages of his conversation with Deane.

  Deane was particularly interested in a Scotsman named William Hay. Hay had been a captain in Peter the Great’s navy. He had been dismissed from the Russian navy on his own request shortly after Deane’s first expulsion. Deane knew William Hay and hated him. Hay was a Jacobite and his brother was a surgeon in the family of James III. Hay had been absent from Russia for two years. He had spent a considerable portion of that time in France, Italy and Spain. But about two weeks before Deane arrived in Russia William Hay returned and was currently staying with another prominent Jacobite named Henry Stirling.

  Since setting foot in Russia, Deane had been convinced the Jacobites were planning something significant. Deane’s suspicions were well-timed, aligning themselves with rumours in England that a dozen Russian ships were making ready to sail. Deane remembered the three men-of-war en route to Spain that he had seen on his journey to Kronslot. Stephen Poyntz, Townsend’s man in Stockholm, had reported the movements of two known Jacobites. Poyntz believed the activity of the two Jacobites was linked to the destination and purpose of the three warships. Poyntz would go even further and claim that the three ships were carrying weapons and that the weapons had been deposited in Northern Scotland. Back in Britain, the alarmists in Walpole’s government assumed that the combined weight of rumour pointed to one thing, a coordinated plan of invasion between Russia, Spain and Sweden designed to put James III back on the English throne. More cautious heads prevailed and Britain elected not to respond until more solid evidence was available.

  John Deane assumed that William Hay was involved in whatever Jacobite plot was being devised. Prior to meeting O’Connor, Deane had tried unsuccessfully to ‘learn Hay’s business’. O’Connor was now perfectly placed to glean that information. Deane decided to take a chance on O’Connor. It was dangerous for O’Connor to risk being spotted with Captain Deane, so most of their communication was done through a trusted intermediary. Once a system of communication had been established, Deane schooled the Irishman on how to best position himself among his brethren to be of maximum usefulness. The first thing O’Connor needed to do was convince the Jacobites that he intended to return to Spain. Deane hoped that the Jacobites would use O’Connor to transport sensitive correspondence back across Europe. If the Jacobites took the bait then John Deane would encourage O’Connor to try and time his departure as would best ‘answer the design of being entrusted with those letters’.

  Deane wanted O’Connor to fully embed himself into the social fabric of Jacobite life in St Petersburg. O’Connor must do as the other Jacobites did to further win their confidence. To quickly accomplish this, John Deane gave O’Connor an important piece of hard-won wisdom. There was no better shortcut to securing fellow Jacobite affection than to insult Deane behind his back. So if O’Connor was in the company of Jacobites and they started defaming Deane, Deane encouraged the Irishman to join in. When the time came to leave Russia, O’Connor would need to be issued with a passport. As he was a foreigner this would normally take a fairly long time and would cost O’Connor money. Deane told the Irishman to consult a mutual friend who could get him a passport in four days. Deane had also instructed the friend to ‘advance O’Connor forty roubles on his departure.’ All things being well, if the Jacobites took the bait and entrusted O’Connor with letters, then O’Connor was to go straight to Hamburg where Deane would read the letters and pass them on to Townsend. Deane gave O’Connor the name of a contact in Hamburg who would tell the Irishman what to do next.

  O’Connor updated Deane on what he heard about William Hay and why he was back in Russia. He knew that Hay had given his host Henry St
irling new instructions. O’Connor believed that Stirling had been told to ‘reside at the Russian court’. O’Connor had heard half morsels of conversation about ‘twelve ships of war’ that were ‘to be bought in Russia for the use of the Pretender’. The money for the purchase was put up by the papacy and by Spain. O’Connor told Deane he would try and get more information but encouraged him that if that was not possible, what was missing would almost certainly be contained in the letters he intended to deliver to Deane. O’Connor funnelled more rumours about William Hay and other enemies to John Deane. Hay’s official reason for buying Russian ships was as a representative of the Mississippi Company. Hay and Stirling had been at Kronslot shortly after Deane’s departure and had visited most of the ships in harbour there. O’Connor told Deane that he believed Golovkin was to be sent to Stockholm as an envoy. O’Connor finally confirmed what Deane had long suspected, that the Jacobites had known he was coming to Russia and had elaborately prepared to frustrate him the moment he entered their territory.

  Deane naturally had his doubts about O’Connor. Deane’s enemies were not stupid. Deane had considered the fact that O’Connor might well be acting ‘the double part’ – spying on Deane for the Jacobites by pretending to betray the cause. But having weighed all the circumstances, Deane believed that O’Connor’s overtures were genuine. What finally convinced Deane was the intense determination O’Connor had shown to return to Ireland and live there for the rest of his days.

  The day before Deane was due to leave St Petersburg, O’Connor contacted him. He told Deane that William Hay was set to leave Russia ten days hence. Deane told O’Connor to time his own departure ‘for at least fourteen days after’. But if Hay stayed then O’Connor was to leave ten or twelve days after Deane.

  It was time to go. John Deane’s luggage was eventually returned to him the day before he was due to leave.

  14

  That Violent Spirit

  Now Ceasing

  John Deane left St Petersburg on 22 June in the early hours of the morning. He paid a final visit to his old friend Apraxin. Once again the two men drank coffee together and talked. Their conversation was conducted in the presence of Apraxin’s secretaries. Both men lamented the role the Factory had played in evicting Deane from Russia. They mutually acknowledged the sad truth that the Factory could not have operated with such impunity without Russian patronage.

  The conversation had been relatively formal and looked like it had drawn to a close. John Deane rose to leave. Apraxin stopped him. He asked Deane if he had anything he wished to say to him alone, at which the Admiral’s secretaries withdrew from the room. John Deane spoke for a while, justifying his conduct in Russia. He placed immense weight on the Factory’s attempts to blacken his name by invoking his court martial as the significant element in his defeat. Apraxin expressed regret that Deane’s past had been used in such a manner. He reassured Deane that had he been present in St Petersburg he would have ‘endeavoured to prevent it’. Apraxin believed that what had transpired over the last few weeks would not damage Deane’s reputation back home.

  ‘You have the dismission that I gave you?’ Apraxin asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Deane replied.

  Deane told Apraxin that the ‘dismission’ to which the admiral referred, the papers that the admiral had given him when Peter the Great had expelled him from Russia, had been shown to both Viscount Townsend and the king himself.

  ‘Well then, they will certainly believe me to be as good a judge of you as an officer, as any that shall write against you.’

  Apraxin asked Deane if he could do anything for him.

  Deane asked Apraxin to think well of George I and take Townsend’s message as sincere. He wished for Apraxin to ‘continue his kindness’ to the king and ‘not easily credit’ Jacobite rumours that over-exaggerated their support in Great Britain. Deane reassured Apraxin that ‘everything was entirely easy and calm in Great Britain,’ but admitted that as far as a minor Jacobite presence in his country was concerned, ‘the spirit of that party was never quite distinguished’.

  Apraxin stood up. He told Deane that he would be England’s friend in working towards reconciliation. Apraxin ended the conversation on a note of warning. He seemed to classify himself as part of an older, nobler stock of Russian that prized peace with Great Britain, but he cautioned Deane that ‘there are younger men that have different ways of thinking’. Apraxin saluted Deane and the two men parted company.

  John Deane left Kronslot on 23 June. Aboard the ship were two friends of Deane’s, Captain Commodore Lane and Richard Brown, the master builder who had turned Deane’s beloved Samson into such a formidable warship. John Deane also shared passage with certain officers who he believed had come aboard ‘chiefly to satisfy their curiosity’ about him ‘and to make observations’; men Deane suspected ‘should be very glad to accompany me out of Russia’.

  John Deane was headed for Stockholm to inform Stephen Poyntz of ‘the state of affairs’. He continued his journey by boat and was put ashore at Gothland on 5 July. Deane ordered that his baggage be delivered to a Mr Tighe. Deane rode to Wisby looking for a vessel that could transport him to Stockholm. His travelling alias was that of a merchant. Deane needed to move quickly but couldn’t find any commercial vessel that wasn’t departing ‘in several days’ time’. The only swift option was to try and persuade a fishing boat to take him onboard. No fisherman would transport him so long as he was alone and pretending to be a merchant. They would transport him if he could drum up a few more paying passengers to make it worth their while. Deane tried and failed. He dropped the pretence of being a merchant and ‘declared himself a seaman’. One of the fishing boats welcomed him aboard. Deane left Wisby on 8 July and was set ashore at Aiver two days later. It took two more boat journeys to get him to Stockholm. He met Poyntz where he was given travel documents for the rest of the journey. Deane wrote to his confidantes in Russia instructing them to send a messenger to Poyntz in the event of an emergency.

  Deane arrived in Hamburg on 19 July. He left instructions with the man he had ordered to meet O’Connor to look after the Irishman when he eventually arrived. Deane sat down and wrote a letter to O’Connor reassuring him that he would do everything in his capacity to secure the pardon the Irishman craved. John Deane left Hamburg and travelled on to Hanover. He arrived in Hanover on 19 July.

  Deane wrote his account of the short brutal tenure in Kronslot and St Petersburg. He charted the twists and turns of his adventures with Apraxin, Golovkin, O’Connor and the Factory. But Deane also included his observations on the state of Russia under Catherine I. It seemed a vastly different country from the one he had served not that long ago. It was a more dissolute place than he remembered and seemed even more subject to factions than it had been under the tsar. The new Russia was a place afflicted by a strange inertia and a sense of rapid decay. Yet despite this, Russia was drunk on confidence. Deane believed that this had more to do with foreign perceptions of Russian strength than the sad reality of the state of their navy. The three ships that Deane had observed in Elsinor had caused panic among the Danes. At dinner with Apraxin, John Deane had witnessed Prince Menishikoff launch into a ruthless broadside at the king of Denmark’s expense for being so frightened of the three Russian ships that he had forced his own people to work on the Sabbath in preparation for an anticipated Russian onslaught.

  Deane included his own and others’ observations about the double-faced nature of the grief shown to the dead tsar in his report. Deane predicted that once ‘the mourning is over, both the Empress, as well as this court, will launch into all manner of gaiety, luxury and effeminacy’. Deane reported that Admiral Sievers had told him of the relief among ‘the senate and other Russians of family’ now that Peter the Great was dead, because of ‘the continental hurry the late tsar kept them in’. Yet, despite himself, John Deane seemed to lament the lost industry and brilliance of the tsar. Deane’s report contained a half sentence that read like a bitter epigrammatic
eulogy for the fallen ruler, his achievements and their ephemeral nature: ‘that violent spirit now ceasing, those things, that were all forced, will in a little while also cease’.

  15

  Tell Me What You Will

  Undertake And I Will Do It

  When the intelligence Deane had gathered reached Townsend and the more alarmist members of Walpole’s government, Deane’s reports of the three ships, then the twelve ships, William Hay, proposed Spanish and papal plots, and the possibility of a Jacobite invasion, placed him in a valued position on the continent. What should have been a disaster had worked out exceptionally well for John Deane. He had been an appalling diplomat; how could anybody with John Deane’s genius for making committed, impassioned and spiteful enemies have been anything otherwise? But Deane had proved himself an outstanding spy. Out of the wreckage of his time at St Petersburg he had managed to recruit an informer so valuable that an actual invasion might be averted if O’Connor was handled correctly. John Deane had a new vocation.

  It was August and plans had changed. O’Connor was to be sent to Amsterdam rather than Hamburg. He had succeeded in convincing the Jacobites in Russia to employ him as a courier. He had agreed to take Jacobite dispatches to France and Spain but had arranged to go straight to Amsterdam. Townsend had ordered John Deane to meet O’Connor there. Deane was keen to get to Amsterdam before O’Connor and arrived there at midnight.

  Townsend was in Hanover with the king. Townsend was not fully convinced about O’Connor. He did not share Deane’s full confidence in the Irishman, and he had not yet decided whether he was going to use O’Connor. As a precautionary measure he ordered Deane to ‘penetrate into his designs and prevent him making ill use of anything, should he be a Jacobin’. Deane and Townsend would correspond through written dispatch, with Deane keeping Townsend informed of every shift in the O’Connor business. Townsend would give great weight to Deane’s opinions but the viscount would ultimately have the last word in how, or if, O’Connor would be put to work.