The Black Ship

by Dudley Pope

  The Consul at once took Portlock along to Charleston’s Federal Clerk, Mr Thomas Hall, and had him swear an affidavit in which he repeated all he knew about the man Robbins, who at that very moment was at work on board the Tanner’s Delight, unaware that the British were close on his heels.

  Armed with the affidavit, which Portlock had signed in the Federal Clerk’s presence with a cross, Mr Moodie went along to the chambers of His Honour Judge Thomas Bee, of the Federal Court of the District of South Carolina, asking that Robbins should be detained, pending a writ of habeas corpus, on suspicion of having been concerned in the Hermione mutiny. Judge Bee agreed and the bewildered Thomas Nash—for he was indeed the man using the name Robbins—found himself seized on board the Tanner’s Delight and taken on shore to be lodged in Charleston’s jail, with irons on his arms and legs.

  The Consul General then wrote to the British Minister in Washington, Mr Robert Liston—the man who had been so upset with Captain Pigot over the affair of Mr Jesup—enclosing a copy of Portlock’s affidavit and describing what he had done so far. He also wrote to Sir Hyde Parker at Port Royal, asking that someone be sent up to Charleston as soon as possible to identify the man in jail. Sir Hyde dispatched John Forbes, the former Master’s Mate in the Hermione, who had by now been promoted to lieutenant.

  Lt Forbes arrived at Charleston from Port Royal on April 17 and went to see ‘Robbins’ in jail. He had no difficulty in identifying him as Nash, and next day Forbes appeared before Judge Bee to swear an affidavit that the man calling himself Nathan Robbins ‘in the jail of this district’ was really Thomas Nash, whom he had known while serving in the Hermione and who was ‘one of the principals in the… acts of murder and piracy, whose conduct… has become known to this deponent by depositions made, and testimonials given, in courts martial, where some of the crew have been tried’.

  Judge Bee also received a letter from the Secretary of State in Washington telling him that the British Minister had made an application to President John Adams for the delivery of the prisoner under Article 27, (details of which are given in Notes, page 351) and, said the Secretary of State, ‘The President advises and requests you to deliver him up’.

  By now, however, a certain Mr Abraham Sasportas had become involved. Mr Sasportas had earlier been the ‘Commercial agent for the Republic of France’ at Charleston, and he had had an extremely profitable time while French ships had been able to sell their prizes at Charleston—a privilege which in recent years had not been open to them.

  Mr Sasportas later claimed in a letter published in a Charleston newspaper called Timothy’s that he had heard of Nathan Robbins only by chance: he had been drawn to serve as a grand juror for the district of Charleston, and the jury were requested by the court to visit Charleston jail ‘in order to make a report to the state of the same.’

  ‘In the exercise of this duty,’ wrote Mr Sasportas, ‘I saw Robbins confined in irons, who communicated to me the cause of his committal, and his defence to the charge, viz. that of his being an American citizen, impressed by the English.

  ‘From his relation [i.e. account] and his certificate of citizenship then shown to me, I was induced to employ counsel on his behalf, in order that his innocence or guilt might be established by an appeal to the laws of the country.’

  Nor did Mr Sasportas lie when he said that Nash had a certificate of citizenship in the name of Robbins: it appeared to be perfectly genuine, dated May 20, 1795, and signed by ‘John Keefe, public notary in the City of New York’, saying that he testified that Robbins ‘personally appeared before me, and being by me duly sworn, according to the law, deposed that he is a citizen of the United States of America… whereof in attestation being required, I have granted this under my notarial firm and seal’.

  All this seemed convincing enough—especially to someone who did not know that an entry in the muster book of the Hermione showed that when Thomas Nash had joined the ship on December 21, 1792, he had given his age as twenty-five and his place of birth as Waterford, in Ireland, receiving a bounty of £3 after taking the oath of allegiance to the King. And on May 20, 1795, when he was supposed to have personally appeared’ as ‘Robbins’ before Mr Keefe in New York, he was in fact on board the Hermione which was then at anchor in Lamentin Bay, Port au Prince, where, as Captain Wilkinson noted in his log, she ‘observed and attacked a battery of several guns, received many shots from enemy…’

  Nash was allowed out of jail in order to swear an affidavit before the Federal Clerk in which he claimed he was ‘a native of Connecticut and born in Danbury in that state; that he has never changed his obedience to his native country, and that about two years ago he was pressed from on board the brig Betsey of New York, commanded by Captain White, and bound for St Nichola [sic] Mole, by the crew of the British frigate Hermione… and was detained there contrary to his will in service of the British nation, until the said vessel was captured by those of her crew… and that he gave no assistance in such capture’.

  Nash’s reference to the brig Betsey gives a clue to how he might have obtained the certificate which had—no doubt quite legally—been issued to someone who actually was, or claimed to be, Robbins: on August 12, 1795, three months after the certificate was issued by Mr Keefe, Simon Markus, an Italian, was ‘read in’ on board the Hermione after being pressed from the American brig Betsey. That probably accounts for the Betsey part of the story. But how, it might be asked, did Nash know about Danbury, Connecticut? He must have known enough about Connecticut’s rolling, typically English countryside to risk being questioned by someone who did. And how did he acquire the name of Robbins? Again the Hermione’s muster book gives the clue—the six names immediately preceding Markus’s are of Americans pressed on July 4, 1795, from the American schooner Two Brothers. Among them was Benjamin Brewster, a Connecticut man: he came from Preston, some ninety-six miles from Danbury, and he served with Nash in the Hermione for nearly two years before being freed as an American citizen. (See page 90.) Nash had plenty of time to learn about Connecticut; and he might well have bought the certificate of citizenship from any of the six men from the Two Brothers.

  However, Mr Abraham Sasportas knew nothing of all this, and from his point of view the seaman in Charleston jail seemed quite genuinely to be Nathan Robbins, a citizen of the United States, and now in trouble with those damnable Britishers who were always kidnapping American seamen. For that reason, quite sufficient in itself, and perhaps because of his sympathies, commercial and otherwise, for the French, Mr Sasportas hired a lawyer to look after the seaman’s case.

  In addition, someone else was beginning to interest himself in the affairs of Nathan Robbins; Colonel Alexander Moultrie, a lawyer, who had already been consulted about Nash’s affairs. He wrote later in a letter to Mr Moodie that he first gave his opinion ‘that such was the prevailing influence of opinions and sentiments of those in power, that every effort [to save Nash] would be in vain.’ He added that ‘Matters rested thus for some days, till the day before Robbins was tried. I was then accidentally informed in conversation with a friend, that Robbins was an American; I was struck and alarmed to think I had deserted him. I immediately went to Mr Ker [a lawyer] and desired him to prepare himself for the argument [i.e. prepare a brief] next morning. I went home and considered the case, and met Mr Ker in court the next day.

  ‘I had never yet seen Robbins, nor had I ever any intercourse with him, till he was pointed out to me, and I went up and spoke to him in court the day of his trial; nor had I till then ever seen one of his papers. On my coming into court, one of the first things I did, I asked the Clerk for the papers, and amongst them found Robbins’s certificate of nativity and citizenship; I examined it and found it had every mark of authenticity, no erasure or obliteration…’ (It was not until several weeks later that anyone thought to check the records at Danbury, Connecticut. When this was done, apparently at the behest of the British Consul, the result was two announcements in a Connecticut newspaper. The first, head
ed ‘Danbury, September 16, 1799’, said ‘We, the subscribers, select men of the town of Danbury, in the state of Connecticut, certify that we have always been inhabitants of the said town, and are from forty-five to fifty-seven years of age, and have never known an inhabitant of this town by the name of Jonathan or Nathan Robbins, and that there has not been, nor now is, any family known by the name of Robbins within the limits of the town. Signed Eli Mygott, Eben. Benedict, Justus Barnum, Benjamin Hichcok [sic]’.

  (The second announcement said: ‘The subscriber, late Clerk for the town of Danbury… certifies that he kept the two records for twenty-five years, viz from the year 1771 until the year 1796: that he is now fifty-six years of age, and that he never knew any person by the name of Robbins, born or residing in the said town of Danbury during that term of twenty-five years, before or since.—Major Taylor.’)

  Neither Mr Sasportas nor Colonel Moultrie appears to be telling the whole truth. Sasportas later wrote, in a letter to Timothy’s, that ‘I was induced to employ counsel on his [Nash’s] behalf’. Moultrie was the counsel but in his letter to the British Consul, the Colonel denied having anything to do with the former French agent, and implied he was working without payment.

  Judge Bee had set the hearing for July 25, and as far as Mr Moodie knew it was to be a straightforward and unopposed plea of habeas corpus. He later wrote to Judge Bee that he then ‘met a barrister, Mr Ker, who mentioned his intention to oppose the delivery of the prisoner, under the idea of his being a citizen of the United States of America; on this I expressed some surprise that a person should at so late a day interest himself on behalf of the prisoner, particularly as His Majesty’s cutter Sprightly had been here a very short time before for the purpose of carrying him off…’

  When the case opened Judge Bee was presented with the two affidavits on which Mr Moodie’s plea of habeas corpus was based—one by the seaman William Portlock and the other by Lt Forbes. The letter from the Secretary of State to the Judge, referring to the British Minister’s application for extradition and mentioning the President’s request to hand over Nash, was then shown to the counsel for both sides.

  Mr Ker, opposing the British, produced Nash’s certificate of citizenship, in the name of Robbins, and the affidavit he had sworn saying that he was a native of Danbury. Mr Ker then claimed that as far as extradition was concerned, a British ship—in this case the Hermione—was not ‘territory’. However, since Article 27 of the treaty between Britain and America referred to ‘within the jurisdiction of either’, and Britain certainly had jurisdiction over her warships, his argument failed.

  Judge Bee finally ruled that Nash should be delivered up to the British. He was taken back to jail, and when Lt Robert Jump, commanding the Sprightly officially claimed him, Nash was sent down to the quay on Judge Bee’s order. Mr Moodie later visited the cutter so that he could confirm that Nash was the man under confinement.

  The Sprightly had no sooner sailed than a violent campaign broke out in American newspapers, which were already printing protests at what they called the ‘handing over of an American citizen’. In Charleston itself Timothy’s published many letters and articles, a few of which were inspired and in some cases written by Mr Sasportas, and suitable replies from Mr Moodie.

  In life Hugh Pigot had been responsible for an uproar in the American press over the Jesup affair; and even his death was now provoking another equally wordy battle in newspapers all over the country.

  Less than thirteen years after Nash was put on board HMS Sprightly at Charleston, Britain and America were at war, and one of the main causes was that American seamen were allegedly pressed into British warships. Thomas Nash provides a good example of how misunderstandings and bitterness could arise. How could a man possess a genuine certificate proving he was an American called Robbins when he was in fact an Irishman named Nash, identified by several of his shipmates under oath as someone who, on the date the certificate was issued in New York, was in a ship bombarding the French?

  Disagreements were inevitable, but four important factors must be understood and remembered. The first affected the emotional approach of the Americans. The War of Independence had ended only sixteen years earlier and was fresh in most people’s minds. During that war, Royalist France had helped the colonists by land and sea in their revolt; and when they gained their independence after eight years of warfare, and at a cost of £15 million, they were suitably grateful. The British, having lost half a continent, and with £115 million added to the national debt, naturally took a different view.

  The second factor was a legalistic one. The British Government’s attitude was that a man born a British subject remained British: he could not change his responsibilities simply by going to another country and living there. This was particularly true in wartime, when British subjects were needed to man ships and serve in the Army. A Briton could not in effect sign a separate peace with the enemy by adopting the nationality of a neutral country. The situation was different, of course, when a colony revolted and achieved its own independence. But nevertheless at that time there was not an American subject over the age of twenty-three (apart from immigrants) who had not been born a British subject.

  The third factor—and one which weighed heavily with the British Government—was the ease with which a legal document ‘proving’ its owner to be an American subject could be obtained by fraudulent means. This led to the British Government and the Royal Navy adopting, at times, a rather cynical attitude towards such documents.

  Before describing the actual methods used, there is the fourth factor to consider, and it is linked to the first. Britain at that time was fighting for her very life. The France of Louis XVI which had helped the American colonists gain their freedom had disappeared in a welter of blood on the day mobs stormed the Bastille. But America was slow to realize that the new France of the Revolution was, in the name of liberty, in fact trying to enslave Europe; that far from liberating each newly-occupied nation’s people, it would by judicial use of armies, terror and tax-collectors, reduce them to military, moral and economic submission.

  In 1799 Britain stood isolated and alone in the war against France and Spain, although the latter’s heart was not in the battle. Facing a great Continental nation which, by comparison, had limitless manpower, Britain could fight back effectively only at sea. To do this she needed ships and even more desperately men: men to sail the ships of the Royal Navy and by controlling the sea keep some semblance of freedom in the world—the freedom which, ironically, allowed Captain Pigot’s treatment of Mr Jesup to cause such a furore in Whitehall, without any prompting from the United States Government.

  Bearing in mind the then current attitude of the United States Government towards Britain and France; the British Government’s attitude towards nationality; and the actual, as opposed to the professed, aims of the new Revolutionary France, it remains only to point out some of the other factors which, though less important, added their abrasive quota to the friction between Britain and the United States.

  The American mercantile marine at that time was flourishing (British imports from the USA between 1793–1801, for example, were £14,500,000, compared with £8,800,000 for the previous nine years), and it welcomed British seamen, who naturally leapt at the opportunity of serving in neutral ships where pay was much higher, discipline considerably less rigid, and conditions and food comparatively luxurious. In addition, they signed on for a particular voyage and were paid off in hard cash at the end of it.

  Nor did America want only prime seamen: she was a new and rapidly expanding nation who also needed more citizens, so she not unnaturally put few difficulties in the way of British seamen becoming—or passing themselves off as—American subjects.

  The United States Government’s safeguard for its own seamen was a Protection. This was in effect the forerunner of the identity card and consisted of a document issued under ‘An Act for the Relief and Protection of American Seamen’. This gave its possessor’s name,
age, birthplace and a general physical description, and was issued by the collector of Customs at an American port, or an American consul abroad. To obtain one, a man had only to make a sworn declaration giving his name, age and place of birth, and produce another American citizen to back up his claim. He took his declaration—in effect a certificate of citizenship—and his sponsor to the collector of Customs or a consul, who then issued the Protection without more ado, since the requirements of law had been met. At a time when few official records were kept, a vast number of people were illiterate, and communications were bad, no collector would or could check whether the declaration was true: indeed, the law did not require him to, since the declaration had already been sworn before a notary public. Clearly it was not difficult to obtain a Protection which, as far as the United States Government was concerned, put him under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. An American ‘birthplace’ was not hard to acquire—an American shipmate could give him enough details of a town or village to enable him to answer a few perfunctory questions. The same shipmate would sponsor him when he appeared before the collector of Customs. Even the most honest of collectors and consuls had to accept much on trust: in such a young country men’s accents or the ability to speak the language properly was no test; and not unnaturally they probably preferred issuing a Protection in a doubtful case rather than risk refusing one to a man who might be genuine.

  In addition there was a good sale for genuine Protections, since nothing prevented a man obtaining a new Protection in every United States port with a collector of Customs, and from the consul in each foreign port he visited. The physical description written in the Protection was generally sufficiently vague to make it easily transferable.