THE BOAST of heraldry (and interest) had secured Hugh Pigot’s promotion to captain, and he had made full use of the pomp of power for his own cruel ends. Inheritance and prize money had given him wealth; but now his inevitable hour was fast approaching, spurred on by the cat-o’-nine-tails and the starter. The reason, seemingly a strange one when set against the floggings and furious threats which put men in terror of their lives, was that discipline no longer existed in the Hermione.
The fault was entirely Pigot’s. For months he had imposed a harsh, brutal and erratic discipline which finally defeated its own purpose because eventually it inhibited the men’s response to it, as all over-strict discipline is bound to, in the same way that a man trapped in a snowdrift is swiftly numbed by Nature so that he does not feel the cold.
The Hermiones, basically the same men who had served under Wilkinson, were clearly no worse than those in any other British warship; certainly not as bad as those that Otway found in the Ceres. The offences the Hermiones committed under Wilkinson were, apart from the usual desertions, quite minor; and there is no evidence that they became worse under Pigot, But, because of the type of discipline he imposed, and the resentment his behaviour engendered, the pattern changed.
The conclusion is inescapable: the occasional minor and monotonously similar offences—drunkenness and quarrelling, for example—committed by some of the Hermiones were infinitely less harmful to the King’s service than the brutalizing effect of Pigot’s continually harsh punishment and bullying manner. Terrorized men fumble and forget—the untied reef point in the Casey episode proves that—or they hurry and fall, as in the case of the mizentopmen.
Therefore in the Hermione discipline had been destroyed by the man charged with enforcing it, while at the same time the men were labouring under the stress of the climate, disease, and the cruise itself, now in its fifth week. Almost continuous sail-handling was a great strain on men already debilitated by the lack of fresh food, and even the slightest attack of scurvy left them breathless after the least exertion. A rain squall meant more than reefing and an entry in the log; it meant soaking clothes and bedding—with what spare gear the men had sodden by water dripping through the seams of the deck planking, which opened up in the heat of the sun and made the lower deck more fetid than usual.
Under a good captain who cared for his men, the stress of climate, disease and constant hard work was bearable; but with a harsh, thoughtless captain it was not. A hot, sultry day, when the sun and humidity were stifling, was for a contented man simply a quirk of the weather. To an oppressed seaman it was an intolerable burden, sapping his energy and destroying his spirit.
By drawing on all the relevant contemporary official and private documents which could be traced, it has been possible to study and, where space allowed, relate Hugh Pigot’s activities up to September 20, 1797, the day the mizentopmen fell to their deaths. His actions, often described in his own words from letters and the questions and answers at courts martial and the Jesup inquiry, have already revealed much of his personality. The statistics and incontrovertible evidence of the floggings in the Success point to him using the cat-o’-nine-tails as much to satisfy his sadistic instincts as to administer justice. But it is more important to understand why he flogged so much than to know how many lashes he ordered.
As he took the last impetuous, headlong steps towards his own destruction, it is possible to make an appraisal of his character, but before doing so it must be emphasized again that Pigot was far from being just a brutal captain: with two others, he was the worst in the Royal Navy’s recorded history.
Brought up as a child in a family with a tradition of command and authority, Hugh had inherited more than his share of arrogance and autocratic behaviour from his uncle George, who was probably a hero to the young boy. Lord Pigot had been in England from the time Hugh was born until he was six, and much of the time had been spent at Patshull. The comparison between the boy’s mild-mannered father and the forceful, blustering and arrogant uncle must have been very marked.
By entering the Navy under his father’s wing we have seen that Hugh was at first shielded from the harsher side of a life which had a tradition of undeviating discipline and often equally harsh overtones of bullying and petty despotism. The boy found, when he first boarded the Jupiter, that seamen old enough to be his father had to touch their hats to him; at a very impressionable age he realized there were virtually no limits to his behaviour; that he personally was someone set apart from the rest. He discovered there were very few limits to the exercise of power by anyone in authority. He could, by a wave of his hand, bring a grey-haired seaman running. The lowly boatswain’s mates, under a slack or harsh captain, could bruise seamen with their starters without reason or reprimand. In turn, lieutenants could haze and harry the boatswain’s mates, while the captain could bully them all. Obviously not many captains were bullies; indeed, the percentage was small. But the Articles of War and the customs of the service gave each of them the opportunity: like a sword in its scabbard, the weapon was always there when required.
So, for all his formative years, Hugh Pigot was in a privileged position, watching (but not understanding or learning) how men wielded power, often without restraint, or with only the restraint an individual placed on himself. Soon—all too soon—he was himself wielding power; power lawfully placed in his hands by the Articles of War and backed by the whole strength and majesty of the State: power which increased in scope with every promotion.
Only thirteen years after first going to sea at the age of twelve, Pigot was commanding a frigate with the power of life and death over a nominal ship’s company of 215 men. He had more crude, naked power over any one of his seamen than the King over his whole nation: the King could not order any man to be given even one lash, let alone a dozen; he could only reprieve, not condemn. Every commanding officer was an offending seaman’s prosecutor, defender, judge and jury and, thanks to the all-embracing thirty-sixth Article of War, the so-called ‘Captain’s Cloak’, lawmaker as well.
Anyone given such power needed to exercise considerable judgment, humanity and restraint; justice indeed had to be tempered with mercy. Since he was dealing with men for the most part simple, uneducated and superstitious, he should have more than a touch of father and confessor in him.
Most of the captains in the Navy fulfilled this role; but in Hugh Pigot the King had a bad bargain. Due certainly to his early environment at sea, and to his own basic personality, the youth and later the man had come to believe that he need never brook even the slightest hint of denial, contradiction or suggestion from a subordinate; that there were no limits to the methods he used.
While he was serving under Sir Hyde Parker he was quite correct in this assumption: almost all the official documents concerning Pigot’s service still survive, and apart from the Jesup case there is not even a hint that he had ever been criticized, advised or warned that his methods were cruel, unnecessary or dangerous. Since most of the time he commanded a frigate he came under Sir Hyde, that worthy must bear some responsibility: under him, Pigot had in fact been able to bully his crew and even flog two men to death without comment. In fact Sir Hyde approved of Pigot’s harsh methods—a letter proving this will be quoted later. For Sir Hyde, a United Irishman sworn to bloody revolution lurked behind every grumbling sailor who spoke with a brogue; if the man had an English accent then he was a member of the London Corresponding Society and therefore just as dangerous.
So far we have been concerned only with the way Pigot treated his own crew. But when, behaving more like an irresponsible drunkard than the captain of one of His Majesty’s ships of war, he actually ordered the American master of a United States’ ship to be flogged with a rope’s end, what was the result? Did his Commander-in-Chief at once demand an explanation, institute an inquiry, express any surprise or criticism? No—Sir Hyde did not bother to mention it in the daily journal that he was by law required to keep, nor in his dispatches. And when brought to account for his actions—on the direct orders of the Secretary of State—Pigot was once again in a privileged position: on Sir Hyde’s orders only Pigot’s witnesses were called.
Even by the custom of the service Pigot should have faced a court martial or a court of inquiry over the Ceres going aground; but he avoided it. The court’s verdict in the trial of Lt Harris, and the report of the Jesup inquiry, are the nearest things to criticism that Pigot was forced to endure.
Criticism: that word held at least one key to Pigot’s personality, because criticism (however oblique, and whether actual, implied, or as in the Casey episode, completely unintentional) was anathema to him. Much of Pigot’s behaviour appears to have been caused by the fact that within him, to be thrust away and denied whenever it tried to come to the surface, was a half-conscious recognition of his own inadequacy and inexperience; as if he realized, deep down, that in truth he was no leader; that the men did not respond to him spontaneously, obediently and loyally as they did to captains he knew were natural leaders.
His misgivings were probably justified: the influence which obtained him command of a sloop at the age of twenty-two had failed to give him confidence and ability. Nor did he have time to gain either before getting command of a 32-gun frigate a few weeks later.
To compensate for his own misgivings he seemed determined that his ship must appear the smartest in the Fleet: thus every manoeuvre had to be carried out as if the Admiral was watching, although he did not realize that flashy methods used while getting under way at the Mole might not be the best when a dangerous squall hit the ship in the open sea. Speed and blind, unquestioning obedience: these qualities he demanded from his officers and men, because they compensated for the inadequacies of his leadership. Making the common error of confusing speed with efficiency, and terrorized obedience with loyalty, he produced a ship which was not an effective fighting machine, though neither he nor Sir Hyde were intelligent enough to realize it. Real leaders produced seamen who were efficient, and speed was an automatic by-product; who were loyal because they were properly led, and were blindly obedient because of absolute trust in their leaders.
Yet since he was surrounded by brother captains who were both experienced and natural leaders, Pigot’s own pride probably instilled in him a fear that he might appear weak or vacillating, undignified or undecided—shortcomings which he knew were unheard of in real leaders.
This fear almost certainly added to the rigidity of his mind: once he had decided on a course of action he could not change it: he pursued it to the bitter end, regardless of whether it was right or wrong. Making ill-judged and impulsive decisions and sticking to them rigidly, without a moment’s thought of their effect on the future, meant he lived in the eternal ‘now’; he acted his part for today without realizing that there must inevitably be a tomorrow, a time of judgment, and of reckoning. So far in his career there had been no tomorrow; no judgment of any cruel, stupid or ill-considered action.
It was almost certainly a part of his sense of his own inadequacy that led to him becoming obsessed with the minutiae of discipline; so small-minded that he investigated the most trifling alleged failure of duty with an obsessive and terrifying thoroughness more usual in the Inquisition and the Star Chamber. The neglected reefpoint, for example, which had led to the flogging and (apparent) ruin of Casey. Forgetting the original trifling cause, Pigot became obsessed with the overriding need to humiliate Casey, and distorted and inflated the situation into a public trial of strength between himself and the youth. It is equally significant that he thought that such a demonstration of his power was necessary. But this was the ‘now’; he did not consider the ‘tomorrow’, when Casey’s career would be ruined over a trifle. (And it was a trifle: there were more than two dozen reefpoints per row in a topsail: leaving one untied would not damage the sail.)
By similar obsessive processes, Pigot had his favourites and his scapegoats, men against whom he had festering grudges. There is little doubt that Boatswain Harrington’s downfall began originally because Pigot disliked him. In any ship the boatswain was usually the most skilled all-round seaman on board. Did Pigot fear unspoken criticism or contempt from such a man because of his own lack of experience? Did he need to provoke, and then break two of them, to prove himself?
It seems certain that the departure of Lt Harris on June 17 removed the last restraint on Pigot. Up to then, Harris appears to have been a buffer between the men and Pigot. But after June 17 the events moved swiftly to their bloody climax, with Pigot utterly incapable of appreciating the dull anger and resentment, the bewilderment and fear that his ill-considered excesses and inconsistent punishments aroused.
The last vestige of discipline vanished in the Hermione as the three mizentopmen fell to their deaths: at that moment the crew seem to have realized that Pigot had no regrets or scruples in sacrificing men’s lives. And their reaction was the primitive ‘kill or be killed’ response of the jungle: a response which society had, by its taboos, laws and culture, managed to train most of its members to renounce by offering them other means of obtaining equity and fair play.
However, in the Hermione the months of brutal treatment and injustice were strengthening the men’s natural and deep-rooted instinct of self-preservation and, no doubt fed by revolutionary talk, it was becoming powerful and urgent; more than strong enough to submerge the tradition and habit of submissiveness to an apparently superior being.
On Pigot’s behalf it can be argued that many of the men serving in the Navy at this time were lazy, idle, truculent, resentful of unpleasant conditions afloat and bad food. Those who had been pressed hated their loss of liberty. Yet, unlike Otway when he joined the Ceres, Pigot never once complained of the quality of his ship’s company; and he inherited the ship from a captain who enforced a strict discipline. In any ship at that time a proportion of the men were thoroughly bad characters; but the vast majority of captains trained up highly efficient crews without constantly using the cat-o’-nine-tails. If other captains could handle their men without incessant flogging, why could not Pigot? There seems to be only one conclusion: the fault lay in Pigot, not in his crew.
However, we must not make the mistake of judging Pigot by today’s standards, but by those of his contemporaries. Since it was his methods of punishment which give grounds for criticism, we can take a brief look at what was happening across the Atlantic in England on September 20 and 21, 1797, the day the mizentopmen were killed and the day the maintopmen were flogged.
On the 20th at the Old Bailey in London, Robert Arnold was charged with ‘burglariously breaking and entering’ a house and stealing ‘a cloth cloak and other articles’, and was sentenced to death. Sarah Warwick, found guilty the same day of ‘privately stealing in the shop of Edward Evans a piece of printed calico’, was also sentenced to death. Although Britain was at that moment fighting to free the world of tyranny, few Britons would have been shocked at these two sentences (which were carried out), for they were typical of those passed nearly every day that courts were in session.
Naval law was in fact considerably more lenient in practice than civil law, although its liberality may have been due to the Admiralty knowing that a man hanging by his neck from the yardarm meant the ship lost a seaman. The crimes for which the Articles of War prescribed the maximum sentence of death fell mainly into the categories of treason, mutiny, desertion and cowardice in the face of the enemy. By comparison, on September 21 at the Old Bailey Samuel Philips was found guilty of stealing ‘a flock bed and several articles’, and was publicly hanged a few days later.
In the Hermione on September 21 at 10.30 a.m., just half an hour before all hands were called aft to witness punishment, the Diligence hoisted the signal for a strange sail in sight to the north-west. It would have been better if her lookouts had not seen it. The wind was easterly and light, and Pigot at once ordered ‘general chase’. Both ships bore away in pursuit although, unless the wind increased, it would take several hours to catch up.
Promptly at 11 a.m. Thomas Jay and Thomas Nash went through the ship ordering the men aft to witness punishment, and McDonald, the Master-at-Arms, who had been given a list containing the names of more than a dozen maintopmen, marched his charges up on deck, where they were stripped and flogged at the capstan for their tardiness and murmurings the previous evening.
Midshipman Casey, recording the episode, wrote, ‘A very severe punishment [underlined in the original] of several men, I believe twelve or fourteen, took place in the usual way, at the public place of punishment’.
While the men were being flogged, the frigate and brig continued to chase the strange sail, which appeared to be a schooner privateer. As the wind went round to the north it put them farther to leeward, and they tacked at 2.30 p.m., and again at 6 p.m., by which time the privateer was still well up to windward, bearing north-east. With night coming on Pigot knew his chances of catching her were slender: she had the choice of working out northwards through the Mona Passage, or doubling back southwards, passing them in the darkness. But deciding he would be more likely to intercept her if he split his force, Pigot signalled to the Diligence that she was to stand away on a different tack at 8.30 p.m.
With their guns loaded and run out in readiness, the two warships worked their way to windward in the light breeze, and Thursday, September 21, drew to a close. In the Hermione as twilight gave way to darkness the officer of the watch ordered the lookouts down to the deck from the mastheads. At 8 p.m. the boatswain’s mates piped ‘Down hammocks’ and the men collected them from the nettings along the top of the bulwarks and took them below to sling in their allotted positions. Lanterns were issued by the purser’s steward’s assistant; the watch was changed, the bells rung and the hour and half-hour glasses turned. Soon afterwards the boatswain’s mates piped ‘Ship’s company’s fire and lights out’: the only lights allowed in the ship now were in the gunroom (they had to be doused at 10 p.m.), those beside each sentry, and the dim light in the binnacles illuminating the compass.
At 10.15 p.m., when all the off-watch men and the day workers should have been asleep, Captain Pigot went to see Southcott. The Master was still in charge of navigation, even though he had been in his cot all day after being badly bruised by the falling boy. The sentry stood to attention as Pigot walked into the gunroom—which was full of the sweet, nauseous yellow fever smell of Lt McIntosh—and entered Southcott’s cabin. He explained that the two ships were still chasing the privateer and he had told the Diligence, which had been four miles away to the west-north-west at 8 p.m., to stand away on the other tack at 8.30 p.m. She had done this and was now out of sight. Pigot then gave Southcott the usual routine night orders—he was to be called if the weather changed or if they sighted another ship, and in any case at daylight.
Pigot then walked back up to his cabin on the deck above and the sentry at the door, Private Andrew McNeil, stood to attention as he passed. In the cabin his steward, John Jones, helped him undress and gave him his long nightshirt to put on. Jones slept in a hammock just outside the cabin door, within a few feet of where McNeil stood on guard.
On the deck below the Captain’s cook, John Holford, was already asleep on top of the armourer’s chest outside the gunroom door, and nearby his young son was also sleeping. In their cabins forward of the gunroom the Captain’s clerk, the Gunner, Carpenter, and Boatswain Martin and his wife, slept soundly. Near Martin’s cabin Midshipman Casey was in his hammock. Midshipman Smith was sleeping in the midshipmen’s berth, but if anyone had looked for Midshipman Wiltshire in his hammock—for that was where he was supposed to be—they would have found it empty.
Opening off the gunroom, the Surgeon and the First Lieutenant occupied two cabins on the starboard side, while the third was empty—its owner, Foreshaw, was on watch. On the larboard side, the Purser, Master and Second Lieutenant were sleeping, while in the fourth cabin Lt McIntosh was dying, with Sergeant Plaice still keeping vigil.
Forward of the gunroom and only a few feet from Casey’s hammock, the sentry at the porter cask was James Duncan, the foretopman with a bad foot; and nearby James Perrett, the ship’s butcher, was snoring in his hammock.
Up on the quarterdeck, his eyes straining in the darkness for a sight of the privateer they were chasing, was Lt Foreshaw, the officer of the watch, and with him was William Turner, the Master’s Mate. At the wheel, watching the dimly-lit compass and the luffs of the sails, was Thomas Osborn. Between the aftermost carronades on the larboard side, acting as a lookout, was James Barnett, one of the maintopmen who had been flogged that morning; and the lookout on the other side was one of the afterguard, James Irwin from Limerick. At the forward end of the quarterdeck a Marine sentry, Private Robert Newbold, guarded the water cask—for water was strictly rationed, although a daily allowance was left in the scuttle butt so that the men could occasionally refresh themselves.
In each of the tops there were men on watch ready to reef or set more sail: John Brown, a young Scot, was in the maintop with George Walker, a former jailbird. In the foretop, in addition to the men on watch, was Midshipman Wiltshire, who was bent on keeping out of the way after hearing certain rumours.
To the casual onlooker—and to the officer of the watch, Lt Foreshaw—everything appeared in order: every twenty minutes the lookouts answered the Lieutenant’s hail by calling out that all was well. But they were wrong, or lying, for the inevitable hour of Hugh Pigot had at last arrived.