22
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.
Captain Totty asked: ‘How came you to take particular notice of Leech?’—‘I can’t say: I looked in with a view to see who was in there, and I saw Jackson, Foster, Forester and Thomas Leech.’
Steward John Jones also gave the court a detailed description of the events on ‘the night the business took place’, and was asked:
‘Do you know anything of Mason?’
‘I don’t recollect seeing him but once and then he looked very ill, I supposed him to be so, or uneasy in his mind, and he said “John, I am very ill indeed”.’
The minutes of the trial then recorded: ‘Prosecution on the part of the Crown here closed and the court cleared for a few minutes: when opened some dissatisfactory remarks were made by Thos. Leech not at all relevant to his unhappy case; they are therefore not here inserted.’
Mason then made his defence, saying he was in the foretop when the men ‘cheered and said the ship was their own’, and that he was afraid to come down. When he at last came down he was told by one of the ringleaders to do his duty as usual or he ‘should go overboard’.
Leech then asked that Mr Southcott be called again. This was done, and Leech asked: ‘What time was I in your cabin on the night of the 21st September?’—‘Between 10 and 11, soon after the mutiny took place, and at different times during the night.’
It was a curious question to ask, and Leech said nothing more. The court was then cleared while the five captains considered their verdict. Their findings can have caused Leech no surprise: he was guilty on all the charges, and was to be hanged. As far as Mason was concerned, in their opinion, ‘there doth not appear there is any particular blame imputable to William Mason’, and he was acquitted.
The last official reference to that enigmatic man Leech was in Admiral Harvey’s letter to the Admiralty on May 13, reporting the trial and verdicts: ‘I therefore immediately issued a warrant for the execution of the said Thomas Leech, and he was executed pursuant thereto the 3rd on board His Majesty’s ship Alfred.’
The Alfred then sailed from Fort Royal, taking Southcott, Casey and all but the four Marines back to England. Admiral Harvey told the Admiralty that ‘Conceiving that more of the mutineers may be apprehended in this country, I have detained the Sergeant, Corporal and the two private Marines on board the Prince of Wales [his flagship] in order to appear as evidences, should that desirable event happen…’
The gun signalling Leech’s execution was fired on board the Alfred at Fort Royal on Wednesday, May 3, 1798, and on the following Saturday, four more men from the Hermione faced a court martial nine hundred miles away at Cape Nicolas Mole.
After leaving La Guaira, John Brown, the Scottish-born maintopman, had eventually signed on as a member of the crew of a British merchantman which was later boarded by a British privateer, the Benson. As soon as the privateer’s captain discovered Brown had served in the Hermione he took him into Kingston, Jamaica, no doubt having his eye on the rewards being offered for such men.
There Brown was taken before one of the town’s justices of the peace, Mr William Savage, and far from denying that he had ever served in the Hermione he made a voluntary confession. This, duly signed and witnessed, was then sent to Sir Hyde Parker and, despite the information gained from the court martial of Montell, Elliott and the other two mutineers six weeks earlier, proved to be the most detailed description of the mutiny the Admiral had read, since he had not yet received a copy of the minutes of the Leech court martial from Admiral Harvey or a report from the loyal officers.
The confession could not have reached Sir Hyde at a better moment, since he had already had three more former Hermiones under arrest for some time. They were William Benives, William Herd and John Hill, who had arrived in Port Morant Bay, Tamaica, in a cartel ship which they claimed they had seized. It has been impossible to prove whether or not their claim was true. Certainly it made no difference to Sir Hyde’s attitude: he was determined to court martial them, but until Brown’s confession arrived he had been unable to do so because he did not have a witness for the prosecution. The reason was that when John Mason (the prosecution witness at the Montell trial) was questioned about the three new prisoners he said he knew nothing at all about their activities, except that they had been on board at the time. Nor could he give any further information about the latest prisoner, John Brown.
On reading Brown’s confession Sir Hyde realized that here was a man who knew a great deal: he was able to confirm in detail much of the evidence already given at the first trial and, what was more interesting, Brown mentioned John Mason (the witness whose evidence had already hanged the four men), saying that he understood Mason was one of several men ‘who declared his resolution to take the ship but not to kill the officers’. The Admiral realized that the only way he could bring Benives, Herd and Hill to trial was to let Brown turn King’s Evidence, and since Mason knew nothing of Brown’s activities, clearly Brown was not a ringleader and would also be a more reliable prosecution witness in future trials.
Captain Bowen presided over the court martial on board the Carnatic, and whereas in the previous trials the prosecution witness, Mason, had not been among the accused, this time Brown was charged with the other three men, although it was clearly understood he would be allowed to turn King’s Evidence.
When the trial began on May 5th the Deputy Judge-Advocate read out Brown’s confession and the six captains forming the court found it a fascinating document, since it described David Forester’s climb up the mainstay and Brown’s visit to the fo’c’sle, followed by a complete account of the sentry McNeil rushing up to the quarterdeck to warn Lt Foreshaw; the orders the Lieutenant gave and the reactions of Turner and the man at the wheel. He named several of the murderers and added that Midshipman Wiltshire had told him he ‘knew of the mutiny two or three days before it broke out, and he went up in the foretop to hide when it broke out’. Brown finished his confession with a list of the twenty-five men he considered were ‘principal mutineers’.
After the Hermone’s former Master’s Mate, John Forbes, was called in to give evidence of Brown’s character, the court announced that it had taken into consideration Brown’s voluntary confession; that he had not changed his name (the other three had adopted aliases), nor ‘entered into the service of either the French or Spanish’; and the good character given him by Forbes. Because of these factors ‘and the more clearly to bring to light the atrocious deeds committed,’ the court ‘unanimously thought proper to admit the said John Brown as King’s Evidence’.
With that formality over the real trial began, and John Brown himself was called. After identifying the three accused men he was asked if any of them took an active part in the mutiny.
‘No, I don’t know that William Benives or John Hill took an active part; but I know that William Herd did.’
‘Relate what you know about William Herd.’—‘I know that he broke into the Captain’s cabin.’
Had he seen Benives or Hill on deck after the mutiny?—‘I saw Benives walking on the forecastle, with the lad who was leading him. being blind at the time.’
The court then asked him a series of questions for which he had obviously been prepared and were no doubt intended to forestall any awkward questions from the Admiralty about the confession written by Montell just before he was hanged: particularly that the Frenchman D’Orlanie and Elliott—who had already been executed—were innocent.
‘Did you ever hear who were the people that broke into the cabin and murdered the captain?’—‘I know that Joe Montell was one of them.’
‘Do you know of anyone else?’—‘John Elliott.’
‘Do you know if Peter Delaney, or Pierre D’Orlanie, was one of them?’—‘I can’t recollect.’
‘What became of the Boatswain?’—‘He was thrown overboard.’
‘Where was the Surgeon murdered?’—‘They took him out of the gunroom and threw him overboard,’ said Brown, adding that Sansum had been alive at the time and that ‘I did not hear that any were killed before they were thrown overboard’.
With Brown’s evidence for the prosecution ended, William Herd questioned him. ‘Did you ever see me going into the Captain’s cabin?’—‘No, I did not.’
‘Did you see me with a cutlass or any other weapon in my hand?’—‘No, I never did.’
The President then asked: ‘How came you to know that Herd was one of the men that broke into the Captain’s cabin?’—‘I heard people say so on the quarterdeck next day.’
Herd, in his defence, said he was below at the time of the mutiny and the next thing he heard was that the Third Lieutenant (Foreshaw) had been thrown overboard. Then ‘I went upon the forecastle and sat down, and stayed there until daylight, and then I was ordered up to the foretopmast head to set the royal… I received orders to go to the wheel and stayed my two hours… And I declare most solemnly that I had no hand in murdering or throwing overboard the officers; nor did I see any other person do so.’
Benives and Hill, in their defence statements, described how after eventually receiving a pass from the Spanish authorities to go to Curaçao, ‘We went on board a cartel at Curaçao bound for Guadeloupe, ask the prisoners with ourselves, took her from the Spaniard and carried her into Port Morant Bay, Jamaica’.
The court did not question them on this point yet it was a vital one in deciding whether the men were genuinely trying to get back to British territory: Port Morant Bay was more than one thousand miles from Guadeloupe. The fact—if it was a fact—that they had seized the cartel and carried her into a British port a thousand miles from her destination should have been strong evidence in their favour. The truth of the matter must have been known to Sir Hyde Parker, even if not to the court.
Certainly it had no effect on the verdict: although Brown said in his evidence that Benives was blind at the time of the mutiny, all three were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged and their bodies ‘to be hung in chains upon gibbets…’
Herd, an Irishman, was certainly guilty of mutiny: he received a watch in the share-out of the valuables, and he consulted with the other leaders in the cabin. Benives was innocent of mutiny—but, like Hill, he had later been ordered by the Spanish authorities to work on board the Hermione. He claimed that at first they refused and stayed on shore for two days, ‘Till hunger obliged us to board’. From what is known of conditions at Puerto Cabello and La Guaira at that time, the story rings true. The third man, Hill, received silver at the share-out, which indicates he was guilty.
Five days after their shipmate Thomas Leech was executed on board the Alfred at Fort Royal, the yellow flag was hoisted on board the Carnatic at Cape Nicolas Mole, and the three men were hanged.