The Black Ship Read online

  Then, wrote Pigot, a few hours later, when the sloop was lying-to reefing sails, the Canada collided with her, ‘and I am strongly of opinion purposely’. All the time Pigot and his men strove to free the two ships, ‘the master of the Canada stood upon the bowsprit of his ship and addressing himself to me made use of the most insolent and provoking language…’ (The letter is shown opposite page 113.)

  The Secretary of the Admiralty noted on the letter, ‘Sent copy to the Master of Lloyd’s Coffee House’ for the Canada’s owners, hoping they would not condone such behaviour. By chance the next letter written by the Secretary referring to Pigot concerned the Jesup affair.

  Apart from the official aspects of the Jesup affair, the episode had caused Sir Hyde considerable personal distress because of all the officers serving under him, Hugh Pigot was one of his favourite captains: indeed, the young man’s father had once been the Commander-in-Chief of that very station. However, the Admiral had no way of knowing—until he received their reply in three or four months’ time—whether or not the letter he had just written to the Admiralty pleading in the young man’s favour would have any effect. There was undoubtedly a very definite risk that Pigot would be court-martialled and cashiered to placate the Americans, the King and the Opposition in Parliament, or even the First Lord of the Admiralty.

  This delicate situation had also produced an urgent operational problem for the Admiral: he had written his letter on January 24, but a convoy already assembling at the Mole was due to sail for England on February 14, and the Success had to be one of the escorts because she was under Admiralty orders to return to England.

  But with Pigot involved in a scrape, Sir Hyde clearly regarded it as an inopportune time for him to return to England: once there he would have no champion and no one to shelter him from the immediate and direct wrath of the Admiralty, Parliament and the newspapers. Undoubtedly Pigot was safer in the West Indies: whatever the Admiralty decided to do, Sir Hyde could up to a point argue and temporize for a considerable time. With letters taking weeks to cross the Atlantic, he could delay things long enough for tempers to cool and for the whole episode—at least as far as Parliament and Press were concerned—to have been forgotten.

  But the Success herself had to sail for England: that could not be avoided. Fortunately there was an easy solution—Pigot could exchange ships with another captain. Sir Hyde as Commander-in-Chief had full authority to agree to such an exchange—though he could not force it on anyone. By chance there was a captain commanding a frigate of the same size as the Success who was quite willing to change: he was Philip Wilkinson, of the frigate Hermione.

  While there is no surviving documentary evidence which says in so many words that Sir Hyde arranged the exchange solely to keep Pigot in the West Indies the motive is obvious, and it is known that up to a few days before the convoy was due to sail, Pigot expected to go to England in the Success, and his crew were aware of this. Then suddenly the exchange was arranged, and Pigot told more than a score of his men (while appealing to them to transfer with him to the Hermione) that he was disappointed that he would not be going to England with the Success. That Sir Hyde was deliberately protecting Pigot appears to be the only possible explanation—although one for which written evidence is unlikely to be available.

  2

  ISLANDS OF DEATH

  * * *

  THE WEST INDIES meant all things to all men in Hugh Pigot’s day: for the ambitious naval officer, whether a pimply junior lieutenant or a senior post captain, there was the frequent chance of a swift promotion since fatal tropical diseases created plenty of vacancies, while admirals with even moderate luck could reckon on a small fortune from prize money. For the British Government however the string of islands were a perpetual headache, since their defence was a never-ending drain on the Treasury and on the supply of men for the Army and Navy, whose resources were invariably overstretched. They were frequently a distraction for the politicians, who all too often counted the haphazard propaganda value of a dispatch in the London Gazette announcing the capture (at an unrevealed cost) of some wretched spice island as more important than a long-term strategic plan for operations in Europe. For the first few years of the war they stamped on the enemy’s toes under the impression they were slowly crushing his whole body.

  However, they were regrettably correct in the assessment of the propaganda value of their spice-island strategy since to the powerful merchants in Britain and the plantation owners the islands were an apparently inexhaustible well of wealth and political influence.

  The long semilune of islands loosely called the West Indies form a 2,500-mile-long barrier (the distance from Gibraltar to the Arctic Circle) enclosing the Caribbean, and are swept along their length by the trade winds, blowing from between north-east and south-east. The difficulty of sailing eastward against the prevailing winds and current from Jamaica and the other western islands meant that the Admiralty had to divide the Caribbean into two commands, the Leeward Island Station covering the eastern area, and the more important Jamaica Station to the west.

  We have seen that at the beginning of 1797, at the time of the Jesup affair, the Commander-in-Chief of the Jamaica Station had his headquarters at Cape Nicolas Mole (also variously called Mole St Nicolas and St Nicolas Mole), at the north-western end of what was then Santo Domingo (now Haiti). The Mole, not much more than a good anchorage, was well-placed by Nature as a sentry box at one side of the Windward Passage, a natural gap forty-five miles wide between Santo Domingo and Cuba, which was one of the main exits through the barrier of islands for ships bound to Europe. This highly-important sea highway—indeed, with convoys for Britain forming up at the Mole it was more of a cross-roads—had to be guarded by the Royal Navy and the Mole was the obvious base for their operations.

  Single ships and convoys coming to the West Indies from Britain were bound to certain routes by the trade, or prevailing, winds, and usually reached Barbados, at the south-eastern end of the islands, after five or six weeks at sea. If not bound for the southern ports in the Leeward or Windward Islands, a ship then turned north-west inside the barrier of islands.

  ‘… It is of the utmost importance to prevent any great alarm arising on account of our West Indies interests either in Jamaica or the Leeward Islands. So much property is embarked in both these quarters, any disaster in either would produce disagreeable convulsions at home’—so wrote Henry Dundas, the Secretary of State, to Earl Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, in January 1801. Spencer had earlier written that the capture of the Dutch island of Curaçao would be popular with the Government as well as ‘our merchants who are never backward in availing themselves of any fresh opening for their speculations’.

  Both Dundas and Spencer were hard-headed politicians; and the tragedy was that to retain popularity and placate the West India merchants a succession of ministers squandered the lives of thousands of men for the security of what was, except for sugar, basically a luxury trade. For example, at this time in Britain the price of bread was rising disastrously; but the West Indies’ exports did not include an ounce of grain. Strategically, after America gained independence, Jamaica would have been sufficient as a base; though for the purpose of trade the islands absorbed much of Britain’s exports.

  The Navy’s task in the West Indies was easy to define but difficult to carry out effectively. Most important was the need to protect the ‘trade’, in other words the merchant ships, while at the same time prevent French and Spanish merchantmen and warships arriving in or departing from the islands or the Spanish Main.

  The situation was complicated by the fact that French—and Spanish-owned islands were scattered haphazardly among those belonging to Britain; and in Santo Domingo, where Sir Hyde Parker had his base, all three nations were in occupation—Spain in the eastern portion and France in the western, with Britain occupying several ports and anchorages, such as Cape Nicolas Mole and Port au Prince on the west coast with French troops often less than a score of mile
s away. Almost every island had plenty of hiding places along its coastline for the privateers of all three nations, so that each of the trio had to convoy its merchantmen—if it had sufficient escorts available—against the privately-owned vessels licensed by their Governments to act against the enemy.

  Yet despite the fact that Sir Hyde was (like every other commander-in-chief) always short of ships, his greatest enemy, against whom he and his officers waged a constant but losing battle, was sickness: disease in the West Indies killed thousands more British sailors and soldiers than the French and Spanish. The islands were among the unhealthiest spots in which at this time the Navy and Army were called upon to serve. At the island of St Lucia in May 1796, for instance, the 31st Foot consisted of 776 men, but seven months later only fifteen were reported fit for duty—the rest were dead, dying or seriously ill. In Grenada in the nine months up to February 1797, when Pigot was facing the court of inquiry, the 57th Regiment lost fifteen officers and 605 men, while the 27th Regiment, in the same period, lost twenty officers and 516 men.

  These are not examples of exceptional losses: in the West Indies as a whole the figures are almost as bad. In the year ending April 1796, out of an average total of 15,881 white troops, some 6,480 died from sickness: forty per cent. In the next year 3,760 died out of an average force of 11,500: thirty-two per cent. Most of them fell victim to yellow fever.

  For private soldiers and NCOs, a draft to the West Indies was all too frequently a sentence of perpetual banishment and eventual death; but they were not the only victims: the Navy suffered dreadful casualties. In the campaign against Santo Domingo in 1794, forty-six masters of transport ships and 11,000 of the men in their ships died of yellow fever, according to the biographer of the man who was Agent of Transports for the West Indies.

  Captain John Markham of the 74-gun Hannibal, a son of the Archbishop of York, writing home from Santo Domingo in 1795 said, ‘Since my arrival [two months perviously] six of my people are dead, and every man in the ship has scurvy in a degree.’ Within a few weeks Markham was himself invalided home and a month later his former First Lieutenant wrote: ‘Since you left us… 170 have been buried already, and many more must go, I fear.’ The Hannibal eventually lost more than two hundred men in six months. The Reasonable, in a voyage of less than 300 miles from Jamaica to Port au Prince, buried thirty-six of her crew on the way.

  Yellow fever was, in the West Indies, clearly much more dangerous for a ship’s company than war, and it struck impartially. By comparison, casualties in battles were light: at Trafalgar, for instance, the heaviest British losses were to be in the Victory (fifty-seven killed) while the most in a ship of a comparable size to the Hannibal were the forty killed in the Colossus. The deaths from yellow fever in the three ships already mentioned totalled more than 260; the total British killed at Trafalgar, when twenty-seven British ships captured or destroyed eighteen French and Spanish ships, was only 449.

  A young midshipman serving in the West Indies at this time was William Parker, later to become an admiral of the fleet. His biographer, who served with him, wrote: ‘Blockading and chasing strange sail gave full occupation, but the yellow fever made its terrible ravages… None can realize, except those who have witnessed it, the effect of this terrible infliction in a ship, when men are seized by day and night with a poison from the atmosphere… The alarm engendered by this state of peril leads frequently to drinking on the part of those exposed to the danger; some feeling, or fancying, that extra stimulus is most desirable in such a climate, are unable to draw the line at moderation, while the old heathen feeling, “Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” actuates others who are reckless…’

  The other two major problems facing Sir Hyde Parker were finding enough seamen to replace those who were killed or permanently invalided by disease, and repairing his ships. The first was the most difficult—the Admiralty in London had too much trouble manning ships based in Britain to concern themselves with sending out replacements, despite direct requests to do so. The result was that every merchantman arriving in the West Indies could be sure that a press-gang would soon be on board to take off as many men as possible, leaving just enough to navigate the ship. Repairing warships was hampered by the fact that Port Royal, in Jamaica, was the only available dockyard and it was invariably short of almost every type of stores, particularly masts and spars, and guns.

  So much for an outline of the difficulties and dangers facing everyone from seamen to admirals in the West Indies. For the officers at least, the rewards were in proportion. Earl Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, telling Sir Hyde Parker that he was being recalled to England after three years in Jamaica, hoped he would regard it solely as ‘a change of service which may naturally be looked for after so long a term as you have enjoyed of the most lucrative station in the service’.

  It is obvious why it paid rich dividends to be a favourite captain of the Commander-in-Chief. There were two main tasks to be carried out by the frigates—convoying merchantmen, and cruising in search of enemy ships. When the commander-in-chief allocated his tasks, he would be only human if he sent his favourite captain cruising in the most profitable areas, with the less profitable going to the less favoured. For those captains who found no favour or patronage (not necessarily through any fault of their own) there were convoys to escort…

  An example of what Sir Hyde could do for young captains is given by his secretary at that time, the Reverend A. J. Scott. He referred to one capture by the Amphion and Alarm ‘whose invoice amounted to nearly £200,000, and that Admiral Parker and the two captains would at least have each £25,000’. Scott was, as the Admiral’s chaplain and confidential secretary, in a good position to know the figures.

  The numerous deaths through disease meant there were plenty of vacancies for promotion, so that an admiral could quickly advance those he favoured. And the First Lord, too—Lord Spencer, recommending a certain captain for promotion, told Sir Hyde, ‘He is the son of… a friend of mine’.

  Although social position and ‘influence’ was in this sense inherited, ‘patronage’ could be acquired: a brilliant young man (Nelson is an example) would, if he was lucky, obtain the patronage of a senior officer who would ensure his promotion. As the senior officer scaled the heights, so would he advance his protégés. Sir Hyde provides an example of this when, after being sent unexpectedly to command the Jamaica Station, he told the First Lord of ‘my own peculiar situation, being estranged from all my own officers, who have been following my fortunes, and some of them looking up to me from their childhood’. He would, of course, find new protégés in the West Indies, as well as favourites, who would look to him for advancement.

  3

  TAKING THE STRAIN

  * * *

  A ROPE can bear a heavy load for a long time without apparently being overstrained; then suddenly and usually without warning (although an experienced eye can sometimes detect the signs of stress) it breaks, often with disastrous results. Why does it happen at one moment and not another? Why can it bear a strain of perhaps ten tons and yet break when only a tiny extra load is applied? And why does it part at one point along its length and not another?

  The story of the dual tragedy of Pigot and the crew of the Hermione bears a curious similarity to a rope under a heavy load which, with only a slight warning, broke under the strain of but an extra ounce.

  To understand how and why the tragedy occurred it is essential to examine the background of the men and the events for the same clues one would seek when trying to discover why a particular rope parted in certain circumstances when apparently similar ropes did not. It is very important to know the strains to which it had earlier been subjected.

  In the case of the Hermione and her men these factors are not difficult to investigate and are only slightly complicated—but not obscured—by the late arrival on board of some men—including Captain Pigot—from the Success. They were few enough in numbers, but continuing the rope simile, they weighed ju
st that much more than an ounce.

  Because Pigot served in the Hermione for only eight months—from February 1797 until the tragedy occurred in the following October—one might suspect that the captain whom Pigot succeeded, Philip Wilkinson, had some responsibility for the subsequent behaviour of the crew, particularly since he had been commanding the frigate for the previous two and a half years. Was it a case of a kind captain being succeeded by a cruel one? Or a cruel man being replaced by one even more cruel? The affair of the Hermione was not something that happened overnight: it has in fact all the elements of a Greek tragedy: one small and apparently unimportant incident after another increased the tension almost imperceptibly, yet each made the bloody climax more inevitable.

  Philip Wilkinson was the son of a barber in Harwich and, in a Navy where the social position was most important in securing promotion, he had obviously done well in obtaining the command of a frigate. The man who helped him was Commodore John Ford, then senior officer on the Jamaica Station and who in September 1794 gave Wilkinson the command of the frigate Hermione, so that he became a post captain. (A commanding officer’s rank depended on the size of ship: a man commanding anything smaller than a sixth rate would be a commander or less in rank. Command of a sixth rate, like the Hermione, was a post for a captain.)

  The two log books kept on board a warship—one by the captain and one by the master—are usually taciturn accounts of day-today events in a ship. The amount of information they gave depended on the individuals keeping them, and fortunately those for the Hermione and Success give a good picture of events. But there is also a detailed description of Wilkinson—albeit a prejudiced one—by a man who served under him five years after Wilkinson left the Hermione.