by Dudley Pope
The rest of the story is best told in Williams’s own words (he refers to himself as ‘your petitioner’): ‘On his arrival at Liverpol Mr Fourshaw [Foreshaw], father of Lt Fourshaw who was thrown overboard at the time of the insurrection, called on him to make an inquiry respecting his son, and to whom he faithfully related every part of the said transaction that came to his knowledge, likewise that as his [Williams’s] leg was not yet perfectly whole he wished to go to an hospital for chirurgical assistance before he delivered himself up to the law, which he intended to do as soon as he was pronounced out of danger and fit to undergo the rigour of confinement, which met with Mr Fourshaw’s approbation, and on the day following your petitioner went into hospital, where he remained five days, when he delivered himself up to the Mayor [of Liverpool], who then confined me to prison and wrote to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to acquaint them therewith.
‘Their Lordships in a short time afterwards sent an order to the Mayor to send him hither [Portsmouth] to stand his trial…’
The latest surviving muster book of the Hermione was of course the one ending July 7, 1797, and the names of anyone joining (or leaving, as Fulga’s case showed) the ship after July 7 would be entered in a new book which the mutineers destroyed. John Williams was impressed on July 8, and knew about this. He continued: ‘Your petitioner begs leave to observe that as he never was on board of any of His Majesty’s ships before and consequently unknown to any of His Majesty’s officers, and likewise as no person in Europe ever knew of his ever being on board the Hermione he might, if guilty, easily elude justice, but being innocent, indeed incapable of taking the least share in the said horrid conspiracy and insurrection, he thought it a duty he owed to God and his country to come home with all possible expediency, and by throwing himself under the protection of the law and giving a faithful account of what came to his knowledge, to clear himself in the most satisfactory manner…
‘… That your petitioner hath a wife and three sons, all children, at Liverpool, whose sole dependence is under God on the fruit of his industry and through his being confined reduced to great pecuniary and mental distress from which nothing but his being brought to a speedy trial can extricate them…’
The third accused man was Richard Redman, the former Success who had murdered the Boatswain and spent the rest of the night of the mutiny with the man’s widow. With the fourth of the men charged, James Perrett, the tearful butcher, Redman had left La Guaira in a Spanish ship bound for Vigo, in northern Spain. The ship had successfully evaded the British warships in the Caribbean and crossed the Atlantic before, on June 22, 1798, only a few miles from her destination, the British frigate Aurora came in sight. Within a short while the Spaniards hauled down their colours and when the frigate’s captain, Henry Digby, sent across a boarding party, John Perrett promptly gave himself up and pointed out Redman as another former Hermione.
The witnesses against the five men (it is not known how Slushing was captured) included Mr Southcott, (who had been given a very poor appointment, that of Master’s Mate in the 74-gun Magnificent), Midshipman Casey, the Carpenter, Richard Price, and Steward Jones. The trial itself lasted three days and the evidence they gave was detailed. Richard Redman heard Mr Southcott describe how the former quartermaster’s mate had hit him over the head with a handspike—and later given him wine and water to drink. Casey said he had seen Redman brandishing a white-hilted sword and Steward Jones told how Redman had made him get liquor from the Captain’s store-room. He described how he had heard Redman, Nash and Farrel arguing whether or not to kill the Doctor and Purser. Later, he said, he heard Redman ‘Swear by the Holy Ghost that the Boatswain should go with the rest…’ and that then ‘Redman remained in the cabin with the Boatswain’s wife, and I saw him no more that night’.
John Williams was glad to hear Mr Southcott say that he had been ill with bad feet at the time of the mutiny, and Richard Price confirmed that he had been lame. But Jacob Fulga was the most relieved of all, because Southcott testified that he ‘was in the Adventure with me and was sent to the Hermione about the same time I went to her. He behaved very well until the ship was hove down at Cape Nicolas Mole and there deserted and was not on board the Hermione at the time the mutiny took place.’ Fulga was lucky that he had not been brought to trial in the West Indies, since the prosecution witnesses there, Brown and Mason, might not have known that he had ‘run’.
Midshipman Casey declared that he had not seen James Perrett active in the mutiny, and Price in evidence said that Perrett had come to him afterwards crying, saying he had a wife and family in England and that ‘he was sorry for what had happened’. Steward Jones also said he ‘saw him frequently crying’. However, as mentioned earlier, Southcott had different views about the Hermione’s former butcher', saying that Perrett acted as a steward after the mutiny, ‘giving things out’, and he ‘always appeared very cheerful, speaking very disrespectfully of the officers who were killed, saying what big rogues they were’.
No one had a good word to say for the fifth accused man, John Slushing: although Southcott had not seen him during the mutiny, he appeared to be very active afterwards and ‘in the confidence of the mutineers’, while Price declared ‘he seemed to be cheerful with the rest of the ship’s company, drinking as they did’. The sharp-eyed Jones saw him frequently in the company of two men ‘who were the chief ringleaders in the murder of the officers’, and heard his name called when the Captain’s silver and money was being shared out.
When the time came for the men to make their defence, Slushing declared he was down below asleep at the time of the mutiny, and by the time he got on deck ‘the murders had been done and the ship taken’. James Perrett claimed he was ‘as innocent as a child unborn’, and pointed out that in addition to giving himself up to the lieutenant from the Aurora, he had also told him that Redman was on board.
Richard Redman had written his defence, as befitted a man with a claim to ‘some learning’, and he read it out to the court. The document, preserved in the minutes, is as bizarre as it is revealing, and started off with a long dissertation on his affection for Captain Pigot—how he had joined the Success and had been quickly promoted. ‘So far Captain Pigot befriended me with whome I could sail the world round with…’ When Captain Pigot transferred to the Hermione and included Redman’s name among those he wanted to take with him, ‘with gratitude I couldn’t deny him with any properity [sic] for he behaved to me very kindly…’
Redman (whose spelling has been retained) described differences between the Hermiones and the former Successes over the question of Pigot’s favouritism. ‘There was a continual murmuring among the Hermoins ships company concerning his followers and the usuage they had before Captain Pigot came on board.’ Granting a day’s leave for the former Successes to spend prize money resulted in the Hermiones being ‘Charegrined or disatisfied by granting favours to them that came with Captain Pigot’.
He had been the lookout on the starboard bow at the time of the mutiny, he said, and the first he knew of it was when he heard men shouting ‘The ship is ours’ and seeing them come on to the quarterdeck. ‘I was stopt by some of the mutineers making some dreadful expressions, and knowing I had some learning to do as they ordered me…’ Later he heard a noise below and found the mutineers were ‘haveing [heaving] the Boatswan before them, a great many in number. I went to them and said in the name of God what do you main to coramitt murder, with that some of the most desperate mad answers we think you will go the same way if you do not keep a silent tongue…’
His reason for going to Vigo later in the Spanish ship, he explained, was that ‘if she got there to leave her and go to Lisbon and to give myself up to the English Council’ [Consul].
The court did not take long to reach a verdict: Redman and Slushing were sentenced to death, and Williams, Perrett and Fulga were acquitted.
Among the minutes of the court martial is an inventory of all of Captain Pigot’s silver and valuables, and, alt
hough not signed, it was probably drawn up by his former steward, John Jones. There is also a list of the names of five men who received watches, and those who received sixteen dollars, or silver. On it is written: ‘Theys is the peple that received the property of the Capston Head, September the 24th 1797.’
One of the captains forming the court was Sir Edward Pellew, later Lord Exmouth, attending his only Hermione trial. His biographer refers to the fact—mentioning only one mutineer—that the man’s crimes were aggravated since Pigot had ‘brought him up from a boy and treated him with much kindness and confidence’, and writes: ‘The court being cleared, Sir Edward proposed that sentence should be executed immediately. The circumstances of the case demanded, in his opinion, unusual severity, which might be expected to have good effect upon the Fleet; while there was every reason to conclude, from the prisoner’s demeanour before them, that if delay were allowed, he would meet his fate with hardihood which would destroy the value of the example.’
This presumably refers to Redman, though he was only one of two sentenced to death. The biographer continues: ‘The court at first questioned their power to execute without the warrant of the Admiralty, but this was quickly settled by reference to the Act of Parliament.
‘The president then declared he could not make the order. “Look here,” said he, giving to Sir Edward his hand, trembling violently and bathed in cold perspiration. “I see it and I respect your feelings,” replied Sir Edward, “but I am sure that such an example is wanted, and I must press the point.”
‘“Well,” he replied, “if it be the unanimous opinion of the court, it shall be done.” It was agreed to, and the prisoner was called. Though sure that he must be condemned, he entered with a bold front; but when he was informed that he would be executed in one hour, he rolled on the deck in an agony. “What! Gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “hang me directly! Will you not allow me a few days—a little time—to make my peace with God?”
‘The whole Fleet,’ continued the biographer, ‘was appalled when the close of the court-martial was announced to them by the signal for execution; and at the end of the allotted hour, the wretched criminal was brought up to undergo his sentence.’
The next Hermione to be caught was James Barnett, the youngster who had pounded salt at Macuto and then gone to Cumaná with the two Holfords and James Bell in an open boat to work on board the Spanish xebec. From there Barnett had gone on alone to the nearby port of Barcelona and joined a Danish ship. Eventually he ended up as a member of the crew of the American schooner Polly which, after going to Green Island, Jamaica, cleared for Boston.
However the frigate Maidstone, commanded by Captain Ross Donelly, was patrolling the Strait of Florida, through which the Polly had to pass. Donelly was regularly stopping all neutral ships—particularly American—to search them for British seamen, and when he ordered the Polly to heave-to Barnett was one of the three men taken off by the boarding party.
Barnett was ‘read in’, and the Maidstone continued her cruise, leaving the Polly to continue her voyage to Boston. During the next two or three weeks the Maidstone took several more men from various neutral ships and then returned to Port Royal. Donelly later reported to Sir Hyde Parker that having ‘taken some unprotected men out of different American vessels, and having reason to suppose that some of them were mutineers late belonging to His Majesty’s ship Hermione, I applied to Captain Dobson [commanding the Queen, in which John Mason, John Brown and the two Holfords were serving] to send on board the ship I command the proper persons to ascertain whether they were so or not.’
That evening Lt Charles Boyce of the Queen took Brown, Mason and the elder Holford across to the Maidstone to see the men. By the time they arrived on board it was dark, and the newly-pressed men were lined up. In the light of candles, the three men walked along the line, and John Holford picked out Barnett—who was using the alias John Barton—saying he was a former Hermione. However Brown and Mason both said they did not recognize him.
Barnett was put under arrest and the three men returned to the Queen where Lt Boyce questioned them again. ‘Holford still said he knew him. I asked him what name the prisoner went by on board the Hermione: he replied “John [sic] Barnett”. Brown and Mason knew there was a person of that name but did not recollect him sufficiently to identify him’.
Three days later James Barnett was tried on board the Hannibal, and both Mason and Brown in evidence stuck to their story until Mason eventually admitted that ‘I have seen the prisoner before, but do not recollect where’, and Brown said, ‘He looks to me that I have seen him several times, but where I cannot recollect’.
Holford, therefore, was the only witness against Barnett; but although the prosecution’s whole case against Barnett rested on him, Holford’s evidence was favourable. He described how they had been together at La Guaira, and how eventually they had gone together to Cumaná in an open boat.
‘Did you at any time of the mutiny or afterwards see the prisoner take an active part in it?’ asked the court. Holford said, ‘No, I did not’.
‘Did he ever express himself to you in any manner upon the subject?’—‘I heard him say that he was sorry for what happened, and was weary in his mind about it, as he could not venture with safety home, not knowing the consequence of what might happen if he was taken.’
‘Did the ringleaders point out, by any violent conduct, those that did not incline to obey their order?’
‘I heard several voices in the course of the night saying that every man belonging to the ship… should attend to their stations, or otherwise they must put up with the consequences that might follow.’
After several more questions, the court asked, ‘Were the men you call salters forced by the Spaniards to work, or was it voluntarily?
‘Being in necessity they were obliged to work for a livelihood,’ replied Holford. ‘All the work I saw the prisoner do was pounding salt.’
‘Had he given himself up as a prisoner, would he have been supported by the Spanish Government?’—‘I believe so, the same as the other prisoners.’
‘Was that generally known among the Hermione’s men?’—‘No,’ said Holford.
Barnett was then called upon to make his defence. After describing how he had kept out of the way during the mutiny, he said that in La Guaira and later at Puerto Cabello, ‘without money, which was taken from me during the night, I was driven to great distress, and had it not been for the kindness of Holford I must have starved’.
He concluded with a description of his wanderings from when he left Holford at Cumaná until he joined the American schooner Polly ‘and out of which I was pressed by an officer of the Maidstone’.
The court decided that the charge—deserting to the enemy by running away with the Hermione, and murder—were proved, and sentenced him to death; but ‘in consideration of his youth and inexperience at the time, being then only fifteen years of age,’ the court recommended him to mercy. They explained to Sir Hyde that having found him guilty the Articles of War did not leave it ‘in the power of the court to pronounce any other sentence’.
Sir Hyde noted in his journal, ‘Ordered the Provost Marshal to keep him in custody ‘till the King’s Pleasure is known’. The pardon eventually arrived on November 23, four months to the day after the trial.
An entry that Sir Hyde made in his journal on August 4, a few days after the reference to Barnett, showed that even though nearly two years had passed since the Hermione mutiny, there was still a danger in the West Indies of the crews mutinying and seizing their ships. ‘Ordered Captain Smith… to assemble a court martial to try Timothy Donavan, Edmund Lawler and Hans Peters, belonging to the Volage, for forming a conspiracy, with an intent to murder the captain and officers when at sea and delivering the ship into the hands of the enemy.’
By now twenty-four former Hermiones had been tried, excluding the officers and Fulga; but apart from Thomas Leech and Richard Redman, the main leaders had so far escaped the Royal Navy’s net.
However, one of the most important was at last cornered, and the full weight of Britain’s diplomatic influence was working to bring him to trial.
25
THE US PRESIDENT HELPS
* * *
ON FEBRUARY 20, 1799, a youth dressed in seaman’s clothes went up to the house of Mr Benjamin Moodie, in Charleston, South Carolina, and told the servant who answered the door that he had some information for Mr Moodie, who was one of the two British Consuls General in America (the other, Mr Phineas Bond, lived in Philadelphia).
When he was taken to the Consul the youth introduced himself as William Portlock, an American subject born at Portsmouth, Virginia, and a seaman serving in the American schooner Tanner’s Delight, which had arrived at Charleston three weeks earlier.
There was another man serving before the mast in the Tanner’s Delight, he said, who answered to the name of Nathan Robbins, but he was sure he was one of the mutineers from the Hermione. This man had long black hair, a dark complexion and a scar on one of his lips.
Portlock described how the Tanner’s Delight had been in the port of Santo Domingo the previous Christmas when some of the crew of a French privateer had come on board. Robbins and the privateersmen had started drinking together and Robbins had told them, in Portlock’s hearing, that he had been the Boatswain’s Mate of the Hermione when she was taken into a Spanish port. After that, added Portlock, when Robbins was drunk he would sometimes mention the name of the Hermione and say ‘Bad luck to her!’ and shake his fist.
Mr Moodie had, of course, been sent descriptions of some of the leaders of the mutiny by Sir Hyde Parker some months earlier, and he read through them. Portlock’s description seemed to fit a certain Thomas Nash—‘an Irishman, one of the forecastlemen, about five feet ten inches high, long black hair, remarkably hairy about the breast, arms etc.… entered on board an American or Spanish trading schooner’.
