by Dudley Pope
To round off the statistical aspect of the mutiny we can see who had been the main killers so far. Eleven men are known to have taken an active part in killing two or more people, and curiously enough only one of them, Redman, came from the Success. Three of the men who helped kill Pigot were Successes.
Far ahead of the others on the list of killers was David Forester, who had helped murder seven people (Pigot, Douglas, Smith, Pacey, Sansum, Manning and Reed); Montell and Hannah, each with five victims; Marsh and Adam Brown with four; William Crawley, Marine Field and ‘Happy Tom’, each with three; Nash and Farrel with the same two (Pigot and Foreshaw); and Redman with two (Pigot and Martin). Thomas Jay, Thomas Leech, Hadrian Poulson, John Phillips, Patrick Foster and John Jackson had also helped kill Pigot, while in addition Redman had wounded Southcott, and Montell had wounded Marine McNeil and Lt Reed. Only one mutineer, Redman, had been solely responsible for one murder—his victim was, of course, the Boatswain, Martin.
Nash and Farrel seem to have had enough of actual killing after dealing with Pigot and Foreshaw. Forester, however, never tired—he was active at the first and the penultimate murders.
The events already described by eyewitnesses, and those about to occur, indicate the mutiny was not the work of one man: rather that a crowd of men helped by a bucket of rum finally decided to make the first move, planning to attack in two groups: one would go aft along the main deck to kill the Captain and then the officers in the gunroom below, while a second group would secure the quarterdeck.
The first group—which included Jay, Nash, Montell, Redman and Forester—left the fo’c’sle and dashed aft to Pigot’s cabin, where their gruesome task probably took longer than they anticipated. The second group was delayed—whether because they lost their nerve or had a disagreement is not known—and they arrived on the quarterdeck several minutes late, if their attack was supposed to coincide with the other group’s.
It might be asked why Lt Foreshaw, on watch on the quarterdeck, did not hear the arguing, fighting and heavy drinking on the fo’c’sle immediately before the mutiny began, and which was described by the maintopman Brown. The explanation is simple enough: the distance from the fo’c’sle to where Foreshaw would have been standing on the quarterdeck, and from the fo’c’sle to John Brown in the maintop, was the same—between eighty and ninety feet. Brown, by his own account, knew nothing of the brawling until, after David Forester’s threats, he climbed down the mainstay to the fo’c’sle. If Brown in the maintop had heard nothing, then it is unlikely that Foreshaw would have done. The men who were quarrelling and drinking would have realized that Lt Foreshaw must not hear them, whether or not they were going to take the ship (and at that time John Farrel and John Smith were cursing and saying the men were ‘not fit to go through with the business’, according to Brown). And of course a square-rigged ship beating to windward makes a good deal of noise. (One or two brief accounts of the mutiny say that the men rolled shot along the decks before the mutiny began. This is not borne out by evidence, and was clearly impossible since every officer was taken by surprise.)
The lack of a single leader caused a good deal of confusion and probably much more bloodshed than the original mutineers intended. It is significant that Nash, who finally emerged as a real leader, and the American John Farrel, who appears to have been his right-hand man, took part in no more killings after the murder of Pigot and of Foreshaw, and although Nash warned the Purser and Surgeon to prepare for death, he did not help kill them and was instrumental in getting a reprieve for Southcott, Casey and Price—for the time being, anyway.
The morning after the mutiny passed slowly. Displaying recurrent paroxysms of rage, like men obsessed with a murderous grudge, a gang of mutineers constantly appeared at the after ladder, howling for Southcott and Casey to be brought up and killed. Each time they were calmed down and talked out of it by others acting as sentries in the gunroom.
After each sally the gang returned to their bottles and buckets of liquor, becoming more drunk and more determined. Some were probably aware they had been tardy in taking up their tomahawks and were more than anxious to prove that they were loyal to the mutiny. Others had let a sickening mixture of rum, wine and blood reduce them to the level of wild animals. They talked and argued among themselves about the unreasonable attitude of their leaders and the sentries down in the gunroom. Of course, the Master and that puppy Casey must go; and the Gunner and the Carpenter too. Cronin was right—they must all go!
Finally by 11.30 a.m. they had soaked up sufficient liquor and noisy argument, and waved their tomahawks enough times to stir themselves to action, only this time they would not be talked out of it. With a series of bellows they rushed down to the gunroom, thrust aside the protesting sentries, and seized Southcott. As several of them dragged him up to the quarterdeck, the others went through the ship shouting to everyone to come aft to ‘see the Master put to death’. Southcott thought once again his last moment had come: after more than twenty attempts they had finally managed to get hold of him.
Seamen ran, staggered and lurched to the quarterdeck: many were so drunk they could see two or three Southcotts, and most of them were shouting and cheering, taking up the old refrain of ‘Kill the buggers! Hand the buggers up!’ Southcott was unceremoniously dumped on the grating abaft the capstan. From the position of the sun he could see the frigate was being steered south: that told him they were probably making for the Spanish Main. However, his eyes and ears warned him that it was a voyage he would not be making as the monotonous chorus of ‘Kill the buggers!’ slurred now as the men became more drunk, swelled through the ship.
Some of the mutineers sat on the carronades; others perched in the mizen shrouds and on the nettings. The shouting finally became a babble; then they stopped talking, waiting for something to happen. At that point, Southcott said afterwards, ‘The principal ringleaders, Redman among them, those that were petty officers in the ship before, spoke to the others’.
But the bewildered Master could hardly believe his ears because, speaking forcefully, these men asked the rest of the mutineers ‘if they saw any occasion to put me to death in cold blood after they had got the ship so long, and those who had a mind to save my life should hold up their hands’.
Southcott looked round: more than 150 pairs of eyes were watching him. More than 150 men, many of them very drunk, were about to pass judgment and signal whether he would live or die: a judgment based on the way he had treated them since he had joined the ship five months previously. Had he been just and reasonable, trying to be fair despite Pigot’s harshness? Or had he taken the easiest course and toadied to a sadistic captain? Had he hazed and bullied just one man? For it only needed that man to speak out now. All this was being put in the balance, and in addition there was the danger that just one man, soberer or more intelligent than the rest, would point a finger and say that if Southcott was allowed to return alive to British soil, he would be the witness that would hang any mutineer who fell into British hands; that with Southcott, Casey, Searle or Price living, none of the mutineers would know a moment’s peace for the rest of his life.
But no one pointed a finger—an omission which would in time leave several of them dangling by their necks from the yardarms of various of His Majesty’s ships: instead, to Southcott’s surprise, ‘a great part of them held their hands up’, and, what is more, ‘They gave three cheers and I was ordered below and carried into the Captain’s cabin and confined there’.
The ‘principal ringleaders’ whom he describes as having saved his life were not identified, except for Redman, other than being the ship’s former petty officers; but they probably included Nash, Jay and Elliot.
The reprieve included Casey, the Gunner and the Carpenter. Casey was taken to the Captain’s cabin, given a chair and made to sit between two guns on the starboard side, while Southcott was put in another chair on the larboard side. Both men were told they could talk to each other on condition they spoke loudly enough for the guar
ds to hear; but private conversation was forbidden. They would be allowed to walk about the deck for exercise in due course, but for this they would be separated and escorted by their guards. The Gunner and the Carpenter were confined in their own cabins with sentries on the door.
What these four men saw during their walks on deck gives a good picture of how the mutineers of the Hermione spent the first few hours of what they regarded as their new-found liberty. Southcott, for example, saw Marine John Pearce, who had spent the forenoon drinking, heave into the sea his red, blue and white uniform, complete with pipeclayed cross-belts and gaiters, consigning it to the deep with a string of equally colourful oaths.
Carpenter Price came across John Williams, a lame member of the Gunner’s crew, sitting on a gun, and noticed he could not walk and ‘seemed very low spirited’. Before the Hermione had sailed from the Mole Williams had given the Carpenter some money for safe-keeping, and now Price took the opportunity of returning it, ‘for which he thanked me’.
James Perrett, the ship’s butcher, saw Price and, ignoring the guards, ‘came up to me crying, saying he had a wife and family in England, and that he was sorry for what had happened’. Perrett seems to have been prone to tears because Steward Jones also reported seeing him crying the same day. ‘I often saw him crying when the people have ordered him to kill the stock and when he was at work at it.’ However, Southcott saw him in a different light, both metaphorically and in reality. He ‘used to come into the cabin with the lantern every night… He always appeared very cheerful, speaking very disrespectfully of the officers who were killed, saying what big rogues they were.’
Apart from Perrett, only two men spoke to any of the four officers regretting the mutiny, and they were George Blakeney Chapman, who came from Derby, and William Carter, who talked with Price. Nevertheless, certain individuals had not regarded themselves as mutineers right from the beginning, and among them were Sgt Plaice, Steward Jones, John Holford, the Captain’s cook, and the ship’s cook, William Moncrieff, the man from Orkney who had served longest in the Hermione.
While taking exercise, Casey sometimes came in for abuse from the mutineers, particularly James Bell, the Scot from the Success. ‘Bell frequently abused me,’ said Casey, ‘calling me “Puppy”, and other things, and he was stopped by some of the other mutineers.’
A few of the leading mutineers—who were by now calling themselves ‘lieutenants’—frequently spoke to Casey, and nearly always on the same topic: they ‘pressed me to enter the Spanish service, assuring me that on my doing so they would get me either lieutenant or captain of a frigate, saying they were certain I should never return to England’.
This offer, obviously made with the best motives, is one of the clearest indications of the basic naïveté of the mutineers: an insight into the simple way in which they saw their problems and the solutions.
17
THE OATH OF SECRECY
* * *
STEWARD JONES had been mindful of Nash’s instructions the previous night that next day he was to ‘attend the gentlemen and get dinner’, which was the midday meal. He had told Perrett, the tearful and reluctant butcher, to kill a goat, and Holford, the former Captain’s cook, had prepared it.
But the violent debate over whether or not Southcott, Casey and the other two men should be killed, had delayed the meal. Finally three leading mutineers—James Farrel, Bell, and John Elliot—who were now styling themselves ‘lieutenants’, decided that Jones should serve their meal on the quarterdeck under the awning.
They also decided to invite—perhaps order would be a more appropriate word—Mr Southcott to join them. He was brought up and seated at their table for a meal of fried goat’s meat. He was not a willing guest—perhaps he found it a bizarre experience to be dining a few feet from where, an hour earlier, his hosts had called for a show of hands to decide whether he lived or died. Questioned about the meal later he declared, ‘I was forced upon to eat with them’.
In the afternoon all the men on board were ordered aft again: the surgeon’s mate, Lawrence Cronin, had been busy once more with pen and paper. He had realized that most of the mutineers when they reached La Guaira would eventually go to sea again in Spanish or neutral ships, either to earn a living or because they wanted to get to America. With more than 150 men scattering to the four winds, the main danger of any of them being captured by the British and hanged as mutineers would come from them gossiping, bragging in their cups, or informing on each other. The British Government was certain to offer large cash rewards for information leading to arrests. To ensure the identity of the mutineers stayed a secret forever, Cronin had drawn up a special oath which he proposed administering to every man in the ship.
It may seem strange that he should expect men to keep an oath who had just mutinied, committed a series of extremely brutal murders, and were adding treason to the list; but his reasoning was perfectly sound. The British seaman of the period might be reckless with his money on shore—if he was given the chance; it might be impossible to leave liquor within his reach and expect him to stay sober; he might under pressure admit to having a wife in more than one port. He was, however, extremely superstitious and, more important, usually set great store by an oath. Once he took it, he generally regarded it as absolutely binding.
With the ship’s company assembled on the quarterdeck (South-cott, Casey, Price and Searle were also brought up to take part) Cronin administered his oath: they had to swear ‘Not to know one another in any part of the globe, man or boy, if they should meet, nor call each other by their former names’, and they had to declare ‘This is my oath and obligation, so help me God’.
The maintopman John Brown noticed that ‘some were willing and some were not’, but it made no difference: everyone had to take it. To make sure of the four officers, Cronin administered the oath to each of them separately, and Southcott later declared he had no option because they said they would save his life only if he promised ‘not to discover the mutiny at any part of the world’. They did not realize that in law an oath taken under duress was not binding; not worth the breath expended in reciting it.
As night fell, with the Hermione’s bow wave creaming up in the darkness and her sails bellying, the mutineers relaxed once more: the wind was still north, and southward lay the Spanish Main: with a fair wind they were steering, so they thought, for liberty. Astern lay the sadistic oppression of men like Pigot: also behind them—so Cronin no doubt persuaded them—was the tyranny of a corrupt monarchy apparently in the last stages of decay. As a Republican he had probably described the freedom that was to be theirs—while the ship sailed for asylum in La Guaira, an outport belonging to a nation which made no pretence of being democratic and was ridden and ruined by a highly-centralized, corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy presided over by His Most Christian Majesty Carlos IV, who had, in all but title, abdicated his absolute powers to Manuel Godoy, a man more than suspected of being the Queen’s lover and who basked under the absurd title of Prince of Peace.
But for the moment the mutineers could dream: free of the threat of the cat-o’-nine-tails, and with gallons of free wine and rum at hand and no discipline, there was plenty of time to drink and brag. Freedom and potent liquor transmuted their sordid and vicious murders into glorious blows which they had struck for liberty.
There were plenty of men to brag, and much for them to brag about. Young James Allen was proud of the ring he had stolen from his late master, Lt Douglas, and of the boots he had acquired. He related to anyone who would listen how he ‘had a chop’ at Lt Douglas, and how he had found him hiding under the Marine officer’s cot. The boy Hayes boasted how he had had his master, the Surgeon, put to death. The foretopman James Duncan who had claimed that he was lame, said in Southcott’s hearing that, ‘If the buggers were living—meaning the officers—that he should never have had his toe well’.
The mutineers finally decided to liven up the evening with some music, and Steward Jones was the man they wanted to
provide it. ‘They ordered me up to play the flute for them, that they might dance on the quarterdeck,’ he reported later.
He sat on the capstan and while his nimble fingers picked out their favourite tunes he watched the dancers and the drinkers and stored up their names and activities in his memory. There was John Watson, for instance, one of the Gunner’s crew, who had claimed to be blind at night. Jones noted that now Watson was ‘dancing with the people, very much in liquor.… He seemed to me to be always stupid with liquor.’ Southcott was able to explain Watson’s apparently miraculous cure because he heard him say ‘I was not blind then: they [the officers] thought I was blind, but they were mistaken’.
Southcott added that ‘He spoke it to let me know that nothing was the matter with him at the time. Some of the mutineers made answer that the mutiny had cured the blind and the lame: nobody was blind at that time: they were all well.’
Another man cheerful and drinking his fill was William Crawley, who had killed Midshipman Smith—described as ‘a little boy’ by Steward Jones when telling how he heard Crawley ‘make his brags about it several times’.
So the mutineers danced, sang and drank the night away. They were men of little or no education, and most of them completely unsophisticated and naïve. They thought they had achieved their liberation, little realizing that most of them would live the rest of their days in terror of a tap on the shoulder, a knock on the door, or the sight of a familiar face in a strange ship or in a strange street. Yet a tap on the shoulder, or a familiar face, was to bring many of them the ‘one-gun salute’ signalling an execution as long as ten years later.
