The Black Ship Page 13

  Admiral Bligh said to Pigot: ‘You will be the first to be interrogated by the court about what you know of the charge against the prisoner: after that you will be at liberty to stay in court and conduct the prosecution’.

  After Pigot had sworn that his evidence would be ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ he began by making several claims: that a southerly current had swept the Hermione into the Gulf; that she had passed the three cays on her starboard side without Harris seeing them; that Pigot knew this because of the position of the Ceres when aground; and bearing in mind the Ceres’s position, the Hermione must have passed so close to the cays that Harris should have seen them.

  Admiral Bligh then asked Pigot a series of questions.

  ‘What height out of the water was those cays?’—‘I suppose about the height of the hull of the ship.’

  ‘At what distance could you have seen those cays?’—‘At about the distance of one mile.’

  Bligh then asked: ‘Do you suppose it possible, if you had passed between the cays and the mainland, you would have passed at a mile or more distant from the cays?’—‘Not in steering the course we then did.’

  Here Pigot had, of course, made a slip: with the southerly current affecting the ship in the way he had claimed, the course steered would not represent the ship’s track ‘over the ground’—she would be moving slightly crabwise. Admiral Bligh was quick to spot this.

  ‘Was you not driven to the southward by an unaccountable current into the Gulf of Triste?’—‘Yes, we were.’

  ‘Might not that current have drawn you nearer to the mainland than the cays, and on that account [you would] have passed nearer to the mainland than the cays?’—‘As I understand the Ceres was a quarter of a mile on our larboard beam, I think if we had been a mile from the cays the Ceres would have struck on the other shore, or would have certainly have [sic] run aground more to the southward of where she did.’

  But no one thought to ask Pigot one vital question: was the Ceres in sight from the Hermione? If she had been a quarter of a mile away, as Pigot had ordered, it should have been possible to see her, since Pigot was blaming Harris for not seeing cays allegedly visible a mile away which were ‘about the height of the hull of the ship’. Likewise the Ceres should have seen the Hermione suddenly turning to starboard—if she was only a quarter of a mile away.

  Admiral Bligh’s next question was intended to find out if Pigot had considered the possibility of sighting land. ‘What orders did you leave with the officer of the watch that night?’—‘I left no other than the General Order.’

  Had he or anyone else an idea they would fall in with the land that night? ‘I had none; nor did any officer communicate his ideas to me on that head,’ Pigot replied.

  That finished the court’s questioning, and Harris said he had no questions to ask Captain Pigot, who then left the witness’s chair and took over the role of prosecutor. He called the Master, Edward Southcott, as his first witness, and after the usual routine questions he asked: ‘At the time you came on deck, what distance do you suppose we were from land?’—‘About a mile.’

  How far off did he think the Hermione must have passed the southern cay? Half a mile, said Southcott.

  Admiral Bligh then interrupted: was the channel between the cays and the mainland wide enough for the Hermione to have been more than a half a mile off the cay? Yes, said Southcott.

  Might not the current have driven the Hermione more than half a mile south, since the channel was wide enough? ‘Yes’, Southcott replied, ‘but from the bearing of the Ceres when aground, from the Hermione, we could not have passed much more than that.’

  Admiral Bligh asked: ‘Can you take it upon you to say with any precision what distance you passed the cay?’—‘No,’ admitted Southcott.

  The Master’s Mate, John Forbes, was asked by Harris about the night orders left by Captain Pigot. Were not those orders usually given ‘when there is no idea of falling in with land or vessels?’—‘Yes.’

  Would not others have been given ‘if there was any idea of being drove into the Gulf of Triste?’—‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Forbes.

  When the quartermaster, Thomas Dugal, gave evidence he was asked by Admiral Bligh: ‘Who was the first person that saw the land the morning of the 24th May when the ship struck?’—‘Mr Harris,’ said Dugal, who was a former Success.

  Harris asked: ‘Was not the Ceres between us and the land when we struck, and if the officer of the watch on board the Ceres had kept that lookout which was kept on board the Hermione, have seen the land and got clear, in your opinion, as we did?’—‘He must,’ declared Dugal, ‘if he had kept a good lookout, as he was nearer the land than we was.’

  Harris no doubt intended the court to be reminded that no witnesses were present from the Ceres, and his question was obviously a broad hint that the wrong First Lieutenant was being tried.

  The Hermione’s lookouts were the next witnesses: one man who had been on the starboard gangway swore that he did not see the land ‘until long after Mr Harris had discovered it from the quarterdeck and the ship had struck’; a second emphasized that Lt Harris had sighted it first.

  Their evidence closed the prosecution case, and Harris called his own defence witnesses. He began by asking Forbes about a hypothetical situation. When Forbes came on deck he had difficulty in making out the land some time after Harris had already seen it, so did Forbes think that if he had been the officer of the watch he would have sighted it sooner?

  ‘No,’ Forbes said firmly, ‘I do not.’

  ‘That being the case,’ said Harris, ‘do you suppose the charge of not keeping a good lookout can in the smallest degree be attached to me?’

  Forbes’s immediate future depended on Captain Pigot, who was sitting watching him a few feet away. Nevertheless, Forbes declared: ‘No, I think not: Mr Harris deserves credit for keeping such a good lookout, not knowing that land was there.’

  Harris called no more witnesses and went straight on to make his defence statement. Captain Pigot, he said, had claimed that the damage to the Ceres, the fact that the Hermione touched, ‘and what might and nearly did prove fatal to both ships,’ was ‘in a great measure to be imputed to my neglect’.

  But, he said, he had been the first person to sight the land—the evidence had proved that; and the lookouts and officers all proved the weather to be dark and hazy, and that it was impossible for them to see the land. The Hermione had received no damage when she touched ground—‘for it scarcely deserves the appellation of striking’. He then declared: ‘If the First Lieutenant of the Ceres had seen the land as well as myself, she would not have been hurt.’

  The starboard side was not the place where an officer could expect to see land; and if they had run within pistol shot of the southernmost cay, the man stationed on the starboard side had declared it could not be seen. ‘Where the probability of seeing land was, I saw it… therefore the blame, if any, must be on the men stationed on the starboard side, but which I think there cannot be, as every member of this court must know the rapid currents of this country… If, on the other hand, the low land on the main should or ought to have been seen before, all the blame lay on the Ceres, who was a quarter of a mile nearer to it than us; consequently must have seen it plainly, but in fact never saw it till she was aground with the helm hard a’starboard’ [sic].

  That ended the evidence and the pleas. Captain Pigot and Lt Harris left the court with the rest of the onlookers; only the Judge-Advocate, the four captains and Admiral Bligh remained to consider the verdict. It did not take long and soon the word was passed through the Brunswick that the court was reassembling. The Provost Marshal brought Harris in, and the Judge-Advocate picked up a piece of paper. ‘At a court martial assembled on board HMS Brunswick…’ he read, recounting names of the members, the original order from Sir Hyde, and the charge, ‘… having heard the evidence produced in support of the charge, and what the prisoner had to allege in his defence, and
having maturely and deliberately weighed and considered the whole, the court is of the opinion that the charge has not been proved against the prisoner, but on the contrary, that every necessary arrangement was made, and such a good lookout kept [underlined in the original] as to mark a judicious good officer, and do therefore fully acquit the said Lieutenant John Harris…’

  The verdict must have been a violent blow to Pigot’s pride: here was the man whom he said was responsible for the Hermione touching and the Ceres running aground not only found innocent, but actually given considerable praise by the court for the very behaviour which had led Pigot to ask for him to be tried.…

  Lt Harris ‘immediately quitted the Hermione’, recorded Midshipman Casey, ‘and join’d his friend Admiral Bligh’s ship; I believe they were related in some way’.

  Leaving aside the background of the Parker-Bligh clashes, there is no doubt at all, on the trial evidence, that the verdict was fair. Even if he ignored the verdict, on the evidence alone Sir Hyde should have ordered the Ceres’s First Lieutenant to be tried for failing to keep a good lookout. It goes without saying that since Pigot had worked out the course to be steered without taking the elementary precaution of allowing for an inset into the Gulf, he should have been the first man to be brought to trial.

  Next day Admiral Bligh and the same four captains held a court martial on Boatswain Harrington. The case was a curious one. Everyone would have known that a few weeks before leaving the Success for the Hermione, Captain Pigot had brought the Success’s boatswain to trial and had him dismissed the ship; and within a short time of joining the Hermione he had requested a court martial on her boatswain as well.

  Harrington, in his defence, produced a certificate of good behaviour signed by Pigot’s predecessor, Captain Wilkinson, covering the period from September 1796 to February 1797; yet the evidence of Pigot and his officers—including Lt Harris—against Harrington was overwhelming. They all cited several instances when Harrington had been insolent, insubordinate, asleep when he should have been on duty, and drunk when he was under arrest. Since Pigot’s evidence was backed by Harris, Forbes and Casey, there can be no doubt of Harrington’s guilt. The court’s verdict was not surprising—that ‘the charge had been proved, in part’, and that Harrington was sentenced to be ‘dismissed from his office of Boatswain of His Majesty’s Ship Hermione’.

  Yet the next time that Harrington appeared at a court martial connected with the Hermione, less than a year later, he was the second master of the 74-gun ship Thunderer: he had a much more responsible post and his pay was £3 IOS. a month compared with the £2 a month he received as the Hermione’s boatswain.

  That he had become the second master of a line-of-battleship less than a year after being dismissed as the boatswain of a small frigate indicates he behaved himself well enough after his dismissal, while Captain Wilkinson’s certificate of good conduct shows he behaved well before Pigot joined the Hermione. Clearly Pigot had taken an instant dislike to him; and Harrington was contemptuous of Pigot: all the offences he committed tend to bear this out.

  With Harrington dismissed, the court turned its attention to the case of Thomas Leech, alias Daniel White, and the first witness was John Forbes, who related Leech’s activities as a deserter. After various others gave evidence, Leech asked Captain Pigot ‘to speak to my character’. Pigot, as we saw earlier, considered him a ‘sober, attentive seaman, and always obedient to command’, and added that he was so satisfied with him that after his first return he had made him captain of the foretop, ‘and had he not repeated the crime of desertion I should have not brought him to a court martial’.

  The court found Leech guilty, ‘but in consideration of his having delivered himself up; and the general good character given him by Captain Pigot and others’, sentenced him ‘to receive only three dozen lashes with a cat-o’-nine-tails on his bare back on board the Hermione whenever the Commander-in-Chief shall think proper..’

  Thomas Leech was a lucky man: it will be recalled that John Bowen, a former shipmate in the Success, had been given forty-eight lashes by Captain Pigot for attempting to desert.

  Captain Pigot had to get a new First Lieutenant and a new Boatswain. He must have suggested the Second Lieutenant, Samuel Reed, who was his favourite, should be promoted to First Lieutenant, and the Junior, Archibald Douglas, made Second, leaving a vacancy for a new junior lieutenant. Sir Hyde agreed, made out the necessary orders, and sent Lt Henry Foreshaw to fill that vacancy. (Foreshaw’s name was subsequently spelled in various official documents as Foreshaw, Fairshaw and Fanshawe. ‘Foreshaw’ is used in this narrative.)

  Since the Hermione also wanted a Lieutenant of Marines—she had been without one for some months—Lt McIntosh was sent to her. The new Boatswain was William Martin, and his arrival most probably caused a lot of lewd comment among the seamen because he was allowed by Captain Pigot to bring his wife on board. ‘Allowed’ is not strictly accurate: Pigot was probably careful to remain officially in ignorance of Mrs Martin’s presence, since the regulations forbade it. It must have been an uncomfortable life for Mrs Martin, since she had to share her husband’s box of a cabin.

  Samuel Reed’s promotion to be the Hermione’s First Lieutenant gave few people pleasure. He had very little experience—his appointment was dated exactly eleven months after he joined the Success as acting Junior Lieutenant and four months after he transferred to the Hermione with Pigot as acting Second Lieutenant. However, from Pigot’s point of view he had a pliant personality. Midshipman Casey, who had already served with him for four months and was to serve with him for a total of seven, commented that Reed’s appointment was ‘rather unfortunate, he being for many reasons unfit for the situation, particularly with such a person as Captain Pigot’.

  While the three courts martial had been in session, several merchantmen had arrived at the Mole to wait for a convoy to Jamaica. A frigate was needed to escort them, and Sir Hyde chose the Hermione, telling Pigot also ‘to proceed to Port Royal for such things as you may be in want of, and return to this port’.

  Some days after the Hermione had arrived in Port Royal, Pigot was delighted to see the Ceres being towed in to the dockyard, and he was soon on board. Otway was, of course, very pleased to see him and as a token of gratitude for his help in salvaging the Ceres he presenedt Pigot with a silver teapot.

  11

  The Last Farewell

  * * *

  THE Hermione arrived back at the Mole on Tuesday, July 18, escorting the Westmoreland packet, which had brought out the mail from England. As soon as the Commander-in-Chief’s correspondence from the Admiralty was taken on board his flagship, Sir Hyde began going through the official letters. There was one, marked ‘Secret’ and bearing the fouled anchor seal of the Admiralty, which was dated May 3 and told Sir Hyde in measured terms that—

  ‘Disturbances have taken place among the crews of His Majesty’s ships at Spithead under the command of Admiral Lord Bridport, but which by the measures which have been pursued, are happily terminated.’ Their Lordships enjoined Sir Hyde to take every possible measure to prevent any disturbances in his squadron, ‘should any attempt be made for that purpose’.

  The Westmoreland had already delivered to Fort Royal, Martinique, a similar letter to the Commander-in-Chief of the Leeward Island Station, Rear-Admiral Henry Harvey, who had been able to reply at once that ‘at present there is not the least appearance’ of any disturbance.

  Fortunately the Board’s letter to Sir Hyde was not a complete surprise: a few days earlier the frigate Cascade had arrived from England with a warning letter from the First Lord, Earl Spencer, saying it was ‘absolutely necessary to avail myself of the sailing of the Cascade to let you know the very disagreeable situation of things here.’ Her captain would give particulars of ‘the very extraordinary and alarming mutiny which has broken out at Spithead’. Spencer said ‘a very liberal offer has been made to them by Government on the subject of the grievance they complain of’, and he
was enclosing a copy of the offer, the conditions of which ‘will be adopted whether the mutineers here should choose to accept them or not’.

  Lord Spencer’s letter was dated April 21, and that from the Admiralty May 3, but unknown to Sir Hyde the Spithead Mutiny had subsequently become worse, despite the Board’s assurance it was ‘happily terminated’, and then spread to the Nore, where the effects were much more serious. Nevertheless Sir Hyde knew that the complacent phrases in the Admiralty’s letter, and the rather more alarmed note sounded by Lord Spencer, could not minimize the basic fact that the Fleet had mutinied—the very Fleet on which Britain’s existence depended. To a Commander-in-Chief of Sir Hyde’s staid temperament and isolated position, it must have seemed that the world he knew was likely to topple about his ears; that the bloody Revolution which had swept France was setting foot in Britain—or at least in her ships.

  Far more important, however, was that he received the Admiralty’s warning against the background of an ugly rumour which had just reached him—one which sounded horrible enough to be true.

  ‘A report prevails,’ Sir Hyde wrote to the Admiralty the day after the Westmoreland anchored, ‘which I am very apprehensive is founded upon truth, that the crew of H.M. schooner Maria Antoinette mutinied, threw the lieutenant and another officer overboard, and have carried the schooner into Gonaives’. He soon heard that the schooner’s surgeon and five loyal seamen had survived and were prisoners in French hands.

  Thus the seeds of mutiny had also grown in the West Indies. They had not spread from Spithead—the Maria Antoinette’s crew had murdered their two officers long before news of the Spithead mutinies reached the West Indies. The mutiny in the little schooner was a brutal, traitorous affair; a straightforward case of coldblooded murder and treason, whereas the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore involved only accidental bloodshed, and the men’s loyalty to the Crown was never in doubt.