Read The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty Online
Authors: Caroline Alexander
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Great Britain, #Military, #Naval
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (35 page)
BOOK: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
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But the full range of Graham’s talents can be appreciated only by a glance at what he would go on to accomplish in the years immediately ahead. During the later part of the “great mutiny” of 1797—the politically radicalized sailors’ strike at the Nore—Aaron Graham would serve the Admiralty as a spy. He would also for several seasons be a manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, serving the statesman and playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan in the same able manner in which he had served the Newfoundland governors.
And it would be in this latter managerial capacity that he would form an important friendship with a young, exceptionally pretty actress of no particular professional standing named Harriet Mellon. When Miss Mellon, who was in her twenties, caught the eye of the banker Thomas Coutts, age seventy, married, and said to be the richest man in England, it was Aaron Graham who was entrusted with their clandestine correspondence.
Graham, then, was not only exceptionally clever; he was also a great student of human character. He was the person whom a certain kind of gentleman—a gentleman in a bit of a pickle—might seek out, and upon whose knowing, discreet, confidential advice and actions he could rely. He was exactly the kind of knowledgeable guide Pasley had been seeking. Francis Const might be a very good barrister, but Aaron Graham knew not only law but what people—especially in naval circles—thought about the law. Const was an aspiring amateur writer, and can be credited with a number of “epilogues” and “prologues” to presumably lost or never published plays and he kept literary company—including that of Richard Sheridan. Aaron Graham managed men like Sheridan, read their weaknesses, knew their finances, and told them what they could and could not safely do.
Graham volunteered his services in late August, and immediately got to work. On the mild, fair evening of September 5, Pasley stumped over to Const’s chambers in the Middle Temple, off Fleet Street, to meet with Const and Graham. Whatever was discussed between the three men at this night session apparently shed new, promising light upon the entire proceedings. “I shall say Nothing of what I expect the Result may be but at present Appearances are favorable,” Pasley wrote to Nessy the following day, in a complete reversal of his earlier cautions against undue optimism. He had now seen Graham’s fabled skills at work, and could not refrain from praising this “intimate & very particular Friend.”
“I have every Reason to think you may look forward with pleasing Hopes,” Pasley wrote to Peter with the same new exuberance. “I refer you to my Friend Mr. Graham for Information.”
Of great significance was the fact that Graham had already met with most of the evidences prior to this important meeting. It is noteworthy that when Graham would do his undercover work during the Nore crisis, he was willing to pay for information. From his wide experience of human nature—with sailors, with the range of questionable types passing through his hands in his capacity as a police magistrate, with gentlemen in straitened circumstances—it is a safe bet that Graham knew how to work the witnesses better than had Commander in Chief Pasley.
Meanwhile, in Portsmouth, Lord Hood had his hands full. The day on which Pasley had held his meeting with Peter’s new counsel had seen a lot of activity around the harbor. The
Scourge,
a sloop coming to Spithead with a small capture in tow, had sent a boat to shore that had foundered in rough water. Some of the boat’s party were picked up after floating for nearly seven hours; but two midshipmen spotted earlier clinging to wreckage had slipped beneath the water and been lost.
Scourge,
a sloop coming to Spithead with a small capture in tow, had sent a boat to shore that had foundered in rough water. Some of the boat’s party were picked up after floating for nearly seven hours; but two midshipmen spotted earlier clinging to wreckage had slipped beneath the water and been lost.
On this same day, Lord Hood began to focus on the practical logistics of the trial. He conferred with the captains and all were in agreement with him that “it will be extremely inconvenient” to assemble anywhere other than Portsmouth Harbour. At the same time, anticipating a larger than average crowd, “as Counsel are to attend from London,” he suggested to the Admiralty that they use one of the three-decked ships in ordinary, or out of commission, laid up near the dockyard. Finally a bar of some kind needed to be erected in the ship for the prisoners.
On the purely legal front, Hood also asked the Admiralty’s counsel for a decision whether the mutineers were to be tried separately, as he understood they wished, or as a group. He personally was of the opinion that they should be tried together, “the whole being involved in one criminal act.” This issue was still pending.
The Admiralty had already made other legal determinations concerning the
Bounty
affair, such as whether the prisoners’ alleged offense amounted to an act of piracy under common law. The precedents for this offense—such as Captain Kidd’s theft of a ship—had, however, been found to pertain to “ships belonging to private owners.” Consequently the Admiralty’s counsel concluded that “the proper way of proceeding in this Case will be by a Court Martial according to the Articles of War.” The main changes were clear enough under Article XIX: “If any Person in or belonging to the Fleet shall make or endeavour to make any mutinous Assembly upon any Pretence whatsoever, every Person offending herein, and being convicted thereof by the Sentence of the Court-martial, shall suffer Death.”
Bounty
affair, such as whether the prisoners’ alleged offense amounted to an act of piracy under common law. The precedents for this offense—such as Captain Kidd’s theft of a ship—had, however, been found to pertain to “ships belonging to private owners.” Consequently the Admiralty’s counsel concluded that “the proper way of proceeding in this Case will be by a Court Martial according to the Articles of War.” The main changes were clear enough under Article XIX: “If any Person in or belonging to the Fleet shall make or endeavour to make any mutinous Assembly upon any Pretence whatsoever, every Person offending herein, and being convicted thereof by the Sentence of the Court-martial, shall suffer Death.”
Hood himself, distracted by his many responsibilities as commander in chief of the port, was also for personal reasons not in a particularly happy mood. He had recently applied for and lost the prestigious position of Vice Admiral of England, for which he had been in competition with his younger brother. The Right Honorable Samuel, Lord Hood, had been born the son of a clergyman and a gentleman’s daughter of humble means. Both he and his brother, Alexander, Lord Bridport, had gone to sea and achieved enormous distinction. Following a steady, solid career pursued since his first naval service at age sixteen, Hood had, in 1778, been appointed commissioner of Portsmouth Dockyard, “an honourable and lucrative position,” as one biographer recorded, and one greatly aided by the fact that he had married the daughter of a mayor of Portsmouth. This and his simultaneous appointment as governor of the royal naval academy at the age of fifty-three were seen as the graceful winding down of his active service. Two years later, however, to the astonishment of many, Hood was promoted to rear admiral and sent out at the head of a squadron to reinforce Admiral Sir George Rodney in the West Indies. It was in this second wind of his career that he gained the most distinction, and in 1782, following a series of decisive actions against the French, he had been created Baron Hood of Catherington.
Despite this solid, satisfying advancement, despite the prizes, honors and titles achieved, Lord Hood was a bitter and disappointed man. As recently as June, he had written his distinguished brother Lord Bridport (whom he addressed as “Sir Alexander”) a letter rehashing his grievances of years past as well as more recent, familial hurts. His surrender of a hard-won seat in Parliament to accommodate the Admiralty in 1788—all of four years before—had been particularly harmful; by this, he told his brother, “I am beggar’d and thereby broken hearted.” This was something of a smoke screen for his real cause of grief—namely, that his brother, this same “Sir Alexander,” had put his name forward for the position his own heart was set upon, Vice Admiral of England.
“Whether you will have it is more than I can tell but this I know, that I shall not or anything else,” Samuel told his brother, bitterly, of the contested position. “I believe there never was a man, who had lent himself to an administration, with that zeal & attention I have done, that was ever so neglected.”
Lord Hood was now sixty-seven years of age, on the cusp of the final tier of his career. Either some final flurry of advancements would catapult him into the legion of true naval immortals—or he would die as another vaguely important career officer. His long thin face, tight lips and introspective, disappointed eyes betrayed the fact that it was the latter he expected. Only days before the court-martial commenced, he would learn both that he had not received the appointment he had applied for and that his brother had been advanced, if not to Vice Admiral—that coveted position had gone to Lord Howe—to Rear Admiral of England.
Beyond the Portsmouth ramparts, out beyond the shelter of the harbor and the anchorage, there were other causes for grave concern. Across the Channel in France, the revolutionary politics of
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
had swung wildly out of control. The Bastille had fallen to the mob in 1789 and the King and Queen were currently imprisoned and under imminent threat of ignoble and brutal deaths. Only a month before, in August 1792, the Tuileries had been stormed and the King’s Swiss Guard massacred. By September stories of the massacre of aristocrats were filling the London papers. The Countess of Chèvre and her five young children had been mutilated and then butchered; the Countess of Perignon and her two daughters had been stripped naked, covered with oil and roasted alive in the Place Dauphin while France’s new
citoyens
danced and cheered. Like the aristocrats, churchmen were a favorite target and some three hundred terrified priests had recently escaped across the Channel, washing up in Portsmouth. Where this all might end was impossible to fathom; Prime Minister Pitt was struggling to maintain peace, but Englishmen were also advised to keep an eye “on certain coffee-houses in Jermyn-street and about the Haymarket,” an area alleged to be the haunt of French sympathizers and spies. These circumstances were of first importance to those captains gathered in Portsmouth from their recent cruises. At the end of the day, their business was war. And at this unsettled time, they may have had difficulty extending keen interest to the faraway and famously peaceable South Seas, where two of His Majesty’s ships under Captain William Bligh were now searching again for breadfruit.
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
had swung wildly out of control. The Bastille had fallen to the mob in 1789 and the King and Queen were currently imprisoned and under imminent threat of ignoble and brutal deaths. Only a month before, in August 1792, the Tuileries had been stormed and the King’s Swiss Guard massacred. By September stories of the massacre of aristocrats were filling the London papers. The Countess of Chèvre and her five young children had been mutilated and then butchered; the Countess of Perignon and her two daughters had been stripped naked, covered with oil and roasted alive in the Place Dauphin while France’s new
citoyens
danced and cheered. Like the aristocrats, churchmen were a favorite target and some three hundred terrified priests had recently escaped across the Channel, washing up in Portsmouth. Where this all might end was impossible to fathom; Prime Minister Pitt was struggling to maintain peace, but Englishmen were also advised to keep an eye “on certain coffee-houses in Jermyn-street and about the Haymarket,” an area alleged to be the haunt of French sympathizers and spies. These circumstances were of first importance to those captains gathered in Portsmouth from their recent cruises. At the end of the day, their business was war. And at this unsettled time, they may have had difficulty extending keen interest to the faraway and famously peaceable South Seas, where two of His Majesty’s ships under Captain William Bligh were now searching again for breadfruit.
“[O]ne useful lesson offers itself to mankind,” the
Times
was to opine on the very day the court-martial commenced: “Revere your Laws.”
Times
was to opine on the very day the court-martial commenced: “Revere your Laws.”
On September 8, Peter at last met Aaron Graham. The following day, a Sunday, Graham returned to the
Hector
with Const and, with Captain Montagu’s permission, conferred privately with his client. As had Pasley’s, Peter’s spirits soared as a result of his
tête-à-tête
with Graham: “I have something to say that will give you pleasure tho’ my Trial is not yet over,” Peter wrote to his mother two days later, informing her of his meeting with Mr. Graham. “[F]rom what Information I had the Happiness to receive I have every reason, as may you my Dear Mother, to look forward with the most pleasing Hopes of———I need not———indeed I should not say much to you. . . .” Like his sister, however, Peter could never resist the chance for a piece of verse, and he now affixed to his letter as tactless a couplet as ever a mother received:
Hector
with Const and, with Captain Montagu’s permission, conferred privately with his client. As had Pasley’s, Peter’s spirits soared as a result of his
tête-à-tête
with Graham: “I have something to say that will give you pleasure tho’ my Trial is not yet over,” Peter wrote to his mother two days later, informing her of his meeting with Mr. Graham. “[F]rom what Information I had the Happiness to receive I have every reason, as may you my Dear Mother, to look forward with the most pleasing Hopes of———I need not———indeed I should not say much to you. . . .” Like his sister, however, Peter could never resist the chance for a piece of verse, and he now affixed to his letter as tactless a couplet as ever a mother received:
The awful Day of Trial now draws nigh
When I shall see another Day—or—Die!
“[T]ell my sisters to
set taught
the
Topping
-
lifts
of their Hearts from an Assurance that with God’s Assistance all will yet
end well
!” he concluded on a more jocular note.
set taught
the
Topping
-
lifts
of their Hearts from an Assurance that with God’s Assistance all will yet
end well
!” he concluded on a more jocular note.
For her part Nessy, knowing that the usual delays in the mail packet could mean that the family might hear nothing of Peter’s fate until some time after verdict had been rendered, had already sent her final good wishes. As if binding her brother with protective spells and incantations, Nessy offered Peter her blessing, her prayers, and consigned him to the care of all the powers in heaven: “May that Almighty providence whose tender Care has hitherto preserved you be still your powerful protector—may he instill into the Hearts of your Judges every sentiment of justice, Generosity, & Compassion—May Hope, Innocence, & Integrity, be your firm Support—& Liberty, Glory, & Honor your just Reward—May all good Angels guard you from even the Appearance of Danger, & may you at length be restored to us. . . .”
While Peter and his family had prepared for the trial with all the considerable means at their disposal, the other prisoners also took what measures they could. Confined together in the gun room, every man would have been aware of Peter’s resources, the emissaries, the letters and words of advice from visiting officers and relatives, the visits from Delafons, Const, Beardsworth and finally Aaron Graham. If they had not known before this time, they had surely learned by now that when the stakes were high one did not sit idle and trust to the impartial law of His Majesty’s appointed judges, nor look to Providence.
James Morrison, boatswain’s mate, and Thomas Burkett, able seaman, had both received letters bearing testimony to their good character from officers under whom they had formerly served. Captain Stirling represented that he could “perfectly recollect” Morrison’s “sobriety and attention to his duty” while on the sloop
Termagant,
back in 1782; more to the point, he had always “paid due respect to his superiors.” Commander John Doling recalled that Burkett had behaved with such “sobriety and attention to his duty” that he had been “confidentially considered” when, in 1786, they had both served on the
Hector,
that same ship on which Burkett was now confined; the
Hector,
then as now, had never left Portsmouth Harbour. It is probable that other prisoners made similar unsuccessful attempts to establish their “characters”; a lot would have depended on pure chance—a captain at sea, for example, could not be reached. Moreover, the most recent former service could only have been in 1787, just before the
Bounty
sailed: how many able seamen could count on being remembered five years after the fact from a crew of hundreds?
Termagant,
back in 1782; more to the point, he had always “paid due respect to his superiors.” Commander John Doling recalled that Burkett had behaved with such “sobriety and attention to his duty” that he had been “confidentially considered” when, in 1786, they had both served on the
Hector,
that same ship on which Burkett was now confined; the
Hector,
then as now, had never left Portsmouth Harbour. It is probable that other prisoners made similar unsuccessful attempts to establish their “characters”; a lot would have depended on pure chance—a captain at sea, for example, could not be reached. Moreover, the most recent former service could only have been in 1787, just before the
Bounty
sailed: how many able seamen could count on being remembered five years after the fact from a crew of hundreds?
BOOK: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
6.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
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