by Dudley Pope
Promptly at 9 a.m. on the 19th a yellow flag was run up at the mizen peak of the York and a gun fired. Boats came across from all the other warships. ‘Nothing could be more distressing to Mr Scott than the necessity of being present’, wrote his biographers. ‘He described it as awful. The firing of the signal gun—the smoke rising to conceal the death struggles—and, as it cleared off, the lifeless bodies swinging from the yardarms.’
Soon the bodies were lowered and taken on shore, where hastily erected gibbets were waiting in a conspicuous spot—well in sight of every ship that entered the anchorage. The bodies were slung from the gibbets in chains, so that the skeletons long remained to be a grim warning to would-be mutineers.
Later that day a document was handed to Sir Hyde: Joseph Montell had left a confession, written an hour before he was hanged. In it he admitted—according to a report which Sir Hyde sent to the Admiralty—that ‘he was a principal, and [also] the principal in the massacre of the officers in that ship’. It went on to say that he and three other men (whom he named as Bell, Draytenham and Farrel), obtained a bucket of rum and then, with ‘about four or five or six more’ went into the Gunroom in the darkness ‘and were the murderers of those in command’. Having then gone forward again, they later ‘burst a second time into the Gunroom and fully completed the murder’. In the confession Montell admitted hitting the First Lieutenant on the head with an axe; and then later replying to Captain Pigot, who cried out for mercy, ‘You have shown no mercy yourself, and therefore deserve none’, after which he ‘ran him through with a bayonet or a musquet’.
But the last paragraph was the most interesting: ‘He believed that Elliott, the Quartermaster of the Hermione… saved the life of the Master of the Hermione, standing sentry over him sick in his berth the whole transaction, and that Delaney [D’Orlanie] who was executed with him suffered innocently.’
Next morning the four seamen of the Renommée were brought to trial, and by nightfall the sentences had been pronounced—three were to be hanged and one was jailed for three months.
With the information about the Hermione mutiny supplied by John Mason and Joseph Montell Sir Hyde could write a second and more specific letter to the Spanish authorities. Instead of addressing it to the Captain-General, he again wrote it to the Governor of La Guaira.
‘Providence having put me in possession of five of the pirates and murderers of His Britannic Majesty’s late Ship Hermione, whose confession before their execution has furnished me with the names of most of the principal actors and murderers in that horrid transaction,’ he said, he was now writing ‘not only from a supposition you must have by this time received instructions from your Court,’ but also because His Excellency ‘must also be convinced of the impropriety which all Europe must view the politicks [sic] of the Court of Spain in protecting the persons of pirates and declared murderers from that exemplary punishment which it is the general interest of all nations to bring such atrocious villains to; and I am still surprised that a nation so marked in history for its national honor [sic] and justice should have adopted the contrary line of proceedings in confining the five officers that escaped the massacre, and allowing the perpetrators of these bloody acts to be at large, and even giving them rewards.’
He concluded that ‘I do therefore, Sir, once more demand of Your Excellency in the name of His Britannic Majesty the bodies of these men marked in the enclosed list, as principals in the piracy and murder… as also… those gentlemen named as lately officers, and that Your Excellency will deliver them up to the officer charged with this dispatch.’
Sir Hyde’s demand was certainly written with a full charge of indignation, but unfortunately it went off with only a slight fizzle when it reached La Guaira. The reason was that on April 4, four days before Sir Hyde had dictated it, Captain Ricketts had again arrived off La Guaira in the Magicienne and, apparently acting on his own initiative (no orders appear among Sir Hyde’s papers), sent his First Lieutenant on shore under a flag of truce with a letter which Ricketts had written to the Governor, claiming ‘the murderers of Captain Pigot and his officers’, adding that he would ‘return within three days for an answer’.
The Captain-General’s reply was sent to the Governor to await Rickett’s return. It said that ‘The Most Excellent Sir Hyde Parker’ had previously written demanding the men and claiming they had murdered their captain and part of the ship’s company, ‘the which was unknown at the time of the said frigate’s being received’. The King had approved of the reception of the men, but no reply had yet been received from Madrid in answer to Sir Hyde’s demand. At the time he first heard from Sir Hyde, Carbonell said, he had replied that he would communicate ‘with punctuality and despatch the resolution of the King my master’, and ‘when it comes to hand I will forward it to His Excellency with the least possible loss of time’.
The Magicienne was due to return for the reply on April 7 but did not appear until the 23rd, and when her First Lieutenant, John Maples, came on shore once again under a flag of truce he did not ask for it: instead he delivered Sir Hyde’s letter dated April 8, based on Mason’s deposition.
This was at once taken to Don Carbonell, who read it with some irritation, judging from his reply. He said he had answered Sir Hyde’s previous demand by saying that as soon as he heard from Madrid he would write again. ‘I am at a loss to know,’ he wrote primly, ‘whether or no this said answer has reached the hands of Your Excellency.’
Now Sir Hyde had demanded ‘some individuals… as being officers and others as being principally guilty in the murders said to have been committed on board that ship. In reply I am to inform you that those in the enclosed list considered at their own request as prisoners of war were sent with others not belonging to the said frigate on the 30th March to be exchanged at the island of Granada.’
As far as Sir Hyde’s other points were concerned, Carbonell declared that ‘Equivocal information has been given Your Excellency that some of the officers… had been imprisoned and others of the crew left at liberty and had had rewards given them. When I understood some disagreement had arisen amongst some of them I quartered them separately, which cannot be called putting them in prison; and I ordered money to be given to those who were naked in order that they might clothe themselves and relieve their wants, the which can with no little reason be called rewards.’ The list he enclosed gave the names of Southcott and the othe loyal men.
The next letter Sir Hyde Parker wrote to a governor was as forthrightly phrased as the others. However, this time the recipient was a Dutchman, not a Spaniard—Herr Johan Rudolph Lausser, the Governor of the island of Curaçao. ‘Having received information that Your Excellency with great propriety to the interests of all maritime nations has secured in confinement three of the pirates and murderers that were a part of His Britannic Majesty’s late Ship Hermione, and trusting that Your Excellency’s sentiments coincide with the general policy of making exemplary examples of those atrocious villains, I have sent His Britannic Majesty’s ship the Magicienne to demand in the King my Master’s name, the bodies of these three pirates.’
But poor Herr Lausser had done no such thing as put anyone in jail. ‘Some time ago some English sailors arrived here from La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, all provided with proper passports from the generals of those places… in order to be employed in the garrison service here,’ he replied, ‘yet on an assumption that these men might have participated in the piratical seizure of His Britannic Majesty’s ship the Hermione I was not willing to receive them, and therefore immediately ordered them to quit the island. However, as I did not know for an absolute certainty that they were the crew of the Hermione they were not arrested or detained.’
22
SOUTHCOTTS REVENGE
* * *
THE NEWS of the Hermione mutiny had spread quickly through the Caribbean, and six weeks before Ricketts arrived in the Magicienne with Sir Hyde’s second letter the crew of another British ship had mutinied and sailed into La
Guaira. This time they were not seamen of the Royal Navy seeking freedom from the press-gangs and cat-o’-nine-tails; instead they were privateersmen, the toughest and most ruthless men afloat, little more than pirates with a licence, and they had quarrelled over the division of their spoils.
The ship was the 18-gun schooner Kitty Sean, whose crew of forty-three had been commanded by Captain George Ponsonby. Based at the island of Tortola, east of Puerto Rico, the schooner’s men were on a share-of-the-profits basis. This was usual, and one of the reasons why privateersmen fought more desperately than most, since their reward was usually proportional to their courage and daring.
The Kitty Sean had been cruising off Cape Codera, sixty miles east of La Guaira, when they sighted a Spanish sloop which had left that port a few hours earlier loaded with a cargo of goods belonging to Don Jacinto Gutierres. They captured the sloop without difficulty: the trouble began after the prize had been secured when, as Don Carbonell later reported to the Prince of Peace, some of the crew ‘had differences with the captain over the division of the cargo. Also they complained of the captain’s maltreatment and cruelty.’
Half the crew sided with the captain but the others, headed by the boatswain and master’s mate, mutinied and made prisoners of Captain Ponsonby and the loyal men. With the Kitty Sean and her prize in their possession they decided to make for La Guaira, following in the wake of the Hermione.
Describing their arrival in his report, Carbonell wrote: ‘It seems that news of the welcome that the crew of the Royal Navy frigate Hermione received has encouraged other ships to surrender themselves. On the 9th [of March] an English privateer schooner came in sight of La Guaira.…
‘Two of her sailors, named Arturo Andersol [Arthur Anderson] and Juan [John] Stapleton came into the port in a boat as spokesmen and told the Governor that they would hand over their ship on condition that the crew would be free to go to North America, and that each of them would be given a reward based on the value of the Kiteyschean [sic]’. The ship, wrote Don Carbonell, ‘is as new and has very good sailing qualities, and can be valued at nine or ten thousand pesos’.
The Governor, he continued, ‘accepted the proposal, made her anchor in the harbour, disembarked the British crew, put on board a Spanish crew and informed me immediately.
‘Straight away I called the council which I have set up to deal with matters of this nature, and it was agreed to bring all the crew to this capital to find out the details of the whole episode and make our decisions accordingly.’
Having first discovered that the mutiny had been caused by the quarrel over Don Jacinto Gutierres’s cargo, the council decided that the mutineers should be rewarded. The boatswain, master’s mate, Anderson and Stapleton would each get eighty pesos, while each of the rest of the mutineers would get fifty pesos. They would be sent ‘with the greatest expedition to North America or any other friendly or neutral colony’.
The Kitty Sean would be employed in privateering and had been sent to Puerto Cabello to provision and man her before resuming her former activities, only this time under the Spanish flag. ‘I have no doubt that she will be useful because of her excellent sailing qualities,’ Don Carbonell assured the Prince.
Don Carbonell had struck a good bargain. He estimated that half the privateer’s crew of forty-three had mutinied, so that not more than twenty-five were conspirators. Since the four ringleaders each received eighty pesos and the remainder fifty, the Captain-General had, for an outlay of approximately 1,370 pesos in rewards. obtained a ship which he valued at nine or ten thousand pesos.
On March 30 the Hermione’s Master, Mr Southcott, with Midshipman Casey and the other eight loyal men (including Sergeant Plaice and three Marines whom the Spanish finally agreed could be prisoners) were marched down to the quay at La Guaira under guard and put on board the schooner La Bonita, commanded by Don Augustin Santana. The loyal men from the Kitty Sean, headed by Captain George Ponsonby, joined them and Don Pedro, de Arguniedo came on board: they were all to be taken to the British island of Grenada to be exchanged, and Arguniedo was travelling with them to supervise the whole operation.
La Bonita sailed the same day, and as soon as she arrived in Grenada the Britons were exchanged for an equivalent number of Spaniards, and the schooner returned to La Guaira. Southcott and his men sailed at once in a British ship for Martinique, where Rear-Admiral Henry Harvey had his headquarters at Fort Royal (now Fort de France). They reached there on April 11 to find they could not have arrived at a more appropriate place at a more opportune time.
Admiral Harvey already had under lock and key two men who were suspected of being mutineers from the Hermione: they had been found on board a ship which the frigate L’Aimable had intercepted, and since her commanding officer was suspicious, he sent them both to Martinique.
When Southcott arrived and identified the two men as mutineers, Admiral Harvey’s first idea had been to send them both to England for trial, since they could travel in the same ship as Southcott and the rest of the officers. However, questioning the officers soon revealed that one of the two men under arrest had played a very active part in the mutiny and, as Harvey explained to the Admiralty later, ‘judging an execution might be necessary’, he ordered the trial to be held at once in Fort Royal. An execution in the West Indies would have a greater deterrent effect, he considered, than one in England.
Southcott and the other nine loyal Hermiones were closely questioned so that the case could be prepared against the two prisoners. Finally Admiral Harvey sent orders to Captain Thomas Totty, commanding the Alfred, to preside over the court martial, which was set for May Day, (and was to be the only one in which all ten men who had insisted on giving themselves up as prisoners of war gave evidence).
It was perhaps appropriate that one of the two men on trial should be that strange and contradictory figure Thomas Leech, the former deserter once forgiven and always favoured by Captain Pigot, who showed his gratitude by helping to murder him. The other accused man was William Mason, a foretopman who had joined the Hermione more than a year before the mutiny. Mason, then thirty-two years old, came from Whitehaven, the Cumberland seaport under the shadow of Scafell Pike and Skiddaw. (He should not be confused with John Mason, the Carpenter’s Mate.)
On May Day there were the usual preliminaries to begin the trial, and then the first witness, Mr Southcott, was called in, took the oath and identified the two prisoners.
‘Relate to the court any circumstances you know relative to the conduct of the prisoners on that occasion,’ ordered Captain Totty.
The thoughts going through the minds of Leech and Southcott must have had much in common: perhaps they both recalled Lawrence Cronin’s impassioned plea that all the officers should be killed. For Leech there was the bitter knowledge that although in a matter of a few bloody hours he had—with the aid of rum and a tomahawk—transformed himself from a humble ordinary seaman to a leading mutineer and ‘lieutenant’ of a frigate, he was once again in manacles, facing yet another court martial. For Southcott, however, this must have been the opportunity he dreamed of during the hazardous voyage to La Guaira, when hourly the men were screaming for his life. It was an opportunity he did not waste: in less then 250 words, in which he did not stress the constant danger to his own life, he hanged Leech as effectively as if he tightened the noose with his own hands.
‘Soon after the mutiny took place,’ he said, ‘which was between 10 and 11 at night, Thomas Leech came into my cabin with arms, and he told me I should not be hurt by the ship’s company.… The next day some of the mutineers brought me on deck and after that I saw Thomas Leech one of the principal officers of the mutineers.… During the passage to La Guaira [he was] on the quarterdeck as an officer.… Going into La Guaira he was officer of the watch and he went on shore… to settle the business for the ship’s company.…’
Asked what he knew about William Mason, Southcott said, ‘Nothing particular; it was his watch when the mutiny happened’. He added that ‘
the whole ship’s company seemed unanimous’.
Mr Searle, the Gunner, was the next witness. His evidence was similar to Southcott’s, and he observed that ‘I heard Thomas Leech frequently give orders from the quarterdeck for things to be done forward’.
Was Leech a ringleader? ‘He appeared to me by his carrying on the duty to be more active than other men,’ said Searle, but he did not remember seeing Mason.
Richard Price, the Carpenter, gave the same damning evidence against Leech, and Midshipman Casey told the court that he considered Leech a ringleader, but knew nothing about Mason’s role.
William Moncrieff, the frigate’s former cook, followed Casey to the witness chair, and his evidence was as vague as the taste of the burgoo he used to serve to the Hermiones. His accent (he came from Orkney) obviously had Mr Briggs, the judge-advocate, in difficulties as he wrote down the evidence, particularly when it came to spelling names. However when Sergeant Plaice marched briskly in, smart in his regimentals, the atmosphere once more became businesslike. After the usual preliminary questions, he was asked if Leech ‘was a ringleader in the business’, and ‘had some considerable influence with the ship’s company?’
‘Yes,’ declared Plaice, ‘I think he was one of the chief men, and was obeyed as such. He was sitting at the [Captain’s] cabin table as an officer when I was sent for to know where I wished to go, what my name [i.e. alias] should be, and so on.’
The three other Marines then told their story. Private McNeil, the man who had been wounded while standing sentry at Captain Pigot’s door, described how he had returned to the cabin to see several of the mutineers at work murdering the Captain. ‘I saw the Captain on the larboard side, leaning against the gun with his shirt all torn and his body all over blood.’ Among the men in the cabin he saw Leech, he added.
