Just after eight o’clock on the morning of 9 January 1822, three carriages left Edinburgh City Council Chambers. They made their way down the Royal Mile and across the North Bridge to the Bridewell, the city’s main jail, at the foot of Calton Hill.
In the first carriage were the Lord Provost and his main officials, resplendent in their civic robes and white gloves. They were holding their ceremonial halberds (long-handled ‘hook-and-bill’ axes) which denoted their status as Sergeants-at-Arms, the defenders of the city. The second carriage conveyed lesser officials and Father Wallace, a Roman Catholic priest. The third carriage was reserved for the presiding minister, the Reverend Campbell, and James Porteous, the chaplain to the jail.
The great gates of the prison were already open in anticipation of their arrival. In the courtyard was a small black open cart with the two condemned pirates: the 36-year-old Swede Peter Heaman of Karlskrona, and the 24-year-old Frenchman François Gautier of Le Havre. They were manacled and seated with their backs to the driver. Surrounding the cart on which this pathetic pair sat, dressed as they were in their crumpled and faded brown jackets and sailor’s white trousers, was a phalanx of police on foot. The mounted troops of the 3rd Dragoons flanked each side.
Crowds had gathered on the high open ground of Calton Hill that overlooked the jail. From there they had a grandstand view of the departure of the solemn procession which took the two men the mile and a quarter to Leith Sands and the gallows. As they turned the corner at Waterloo Place on to the top of Leith Walk, Heaman became aware of the jeering crowds lining the pavements. Most were women and children, so he felt compelled to stand up and make little nervous bows to them as he trundled past. Gautier, according to the observing reporter of the Edinburgh Evening Courant, sat in a daze throughout, utterly consumed by his own thoughts.
At the bottom of the Walk, the Vice-Admiral of Scotland and dignitaries from the port of Leith were waiting to join the procession on its final leg down Constitution Street and on to the Naval Yard. On the open sands, fifty yards out from the north-western corner of this yard, was the gibbet on a raised platform. Awaiting his charges was Thomas Williams, the much-employed city executioner. The Courant’s reporter reckoned that, by then, in excess of forty thousand onlookers had gathered for the grim spectacle.
As Williams went about his business preparing his clients, the Reverend Campbell led the singing of the 51st Psalm. The reporter remarked that the two condemned men appeared to join in. Campbell then read out a solemn statement from the Swede admitting his guilt, thanking those responsible for his fair trial and warning all those assembled of the dangers of straying from the path of righteous living. After prayers, the Frenchman spoke only to ask for God’s mercy and, after briefly shaking hands with his old sailing partner, drop’t the signal to the hangman. The trapdoor, a recent innovation introduced by the notorious Deacon Brodie, fell open beneath them and the great bell of the South Leith Church struck the first chime of a slow and solitary toll.
After they had been pronounced dead, their bodies were cut down. To deter the scavengers in the mob, the dragoons were detailed to accompany the corpses back up to the Old Town and Dr Munro’s anatomy classroom at the University for dissection as pursuant to their sentence.
The members of Edinburgh’s Establishment who had attended were greatly relieved. With such a tumultuous gathering, things could have so easily got out of hand, but owing to the excellent manner in which everything was arranged, not the slighted accident happened. There was also all-round satisfaction with the way the culprits had gone to their death decent, resigned and penitent under the firm guidance of the ministers and the priest.
Heaman and Gautier had been found guilty and hanged for piratically seizing the brig Jane of Gibraltar on her voyage from Gibraltar to Brazil, freighted with 38,180 Spanish dollars … [in doing so] murdering Thomas Johnson, the master and James Paterson, a seaman on the night of 6 June 1821.
The Jane was a small ‘Aphrodite’ brig of around 100 tons burthen. She was owned by a Jewish merchant, Moses Levy of Gibraltar. Her master was the well-respected Thomas Johnson, who had brought with him to his new command Andrew Camelier, a 17-year-old Maltese cabin boy and star witness at the trial in Edinburgh.
The other six crewmen were all new signings who had recently been paid off at Gibraltar from the Araquebassa. Peter Heaman was appointed mate and François Gautier the cook. Of the four deck hands, three were Scots: James Paterson, Robert Strachan and Peter Smith (the last two lads from Montrose). The remaining crewman was a Portuguese sailor, Joanna Dhura, sailing under the name ‘John Hard’. Apart from Captain Johnson, only Heaman had any knowledge of the higher art of navigation.
Two days after ‘smoking’ (fumigating) the Jane, the cargo manifest was completed with the stowing of eight barrels containing tens of thousands of Spanish ‘hard’ silver coins. These were destined for Portuguese merchants in Bahia and St Salvador in Brazil. The rest of the cargo was made up of the natural bounty of Iberia; thirty pipes of sweet oil; ninety-eight barrels of beeswax; fifteen bags of aniseed; along with thirty-four bundles of duty-stamped paper. Only the master and the mate knew the contents of the eight barrels delivered on board on the last afternoon before sailing. Hanging in the captain’s tiny cabin space were seven muskets and one pistol. These were the captain’s only defence against pirate attack or insurrection by the crew.
The Jane cleared out of Gibraltar on 18 May. By the evening of 6 June she was in mid-Atlantic, five sailing days west of the Canaries and making good progress in fine weather and a light wind. At eight o’clock the three-man watch changed. On this occasion the captain took his turn on the relief watch with Strachan and Dhura. At midnight this watch duly changed, with the new watch-leader Heaman accompanied by Paterson and Gautier (who was replacing Smith, who was confined to his hammock with a badly-gashed foot). This was the opportunity for which the mate and the cook had been waiting.
Captain Johnson retired to his diminutive stern berth and fell asleep. He remained fully dressed, for he had received a series of warnings from Strachan that the crew knew about the special cargo and that a plot was afoot to take the vessel.
What happened next varies greatly between two versions: one given by the ordinary seamen held together in a cell of Edinburgh’s Old Tolbooth; and that of the mate and the cook held in a separate cell. Both groups had adequate time to perfect their story as they were incarcerated for four months before the trial.
The only witness to the double murder was Camelier, the cabin boy. Around two o’clock in the morning he was asleep in his bunk close to the captain’s when he was suddenly awakened by a shot fired at very close range. In his fright he instantly scrambled up on deck. There he witnessed Heaman repeatedly bludgeoning Paterson with the butt of a musket as the stricken Scot cried: Murder, murder, God Almighty save my soul, for I am murdered now!
As Paterson’s lifeless body rolled under the stowed ship’s boat, Captain Johnson staggered up from his cabin crying What is this? What is this? Blood was streaming from the right side of his head. The cook sprang on the captain and knocked him to the deck with his musket butt, and the mate joined in, raining blows on the prostrate master. Heaman then rushed to the forecastle hatch and cried down, All hands on deck to shorten sail!
At this point the testimonies of the other three crewmen make their contribution to the chain of events that followed. Dhura appeared first from the fore-hatch and was allowed past, but Strachan was threatened by Heaman with an axe and driven back down to rejoin Smith below. The hatch was then slammed shut on them. On deck and in fear of their lives, Dhura and Camelier were forced to help the cook dispose of the two bodies overboard. Paterson’s body was weighed down with an iron piece of an old anchor whilst some stones from the ballast were tied to the legs of the captain. As the captain was pushed over, he let out a moan before disappearing into the dark sea. The terrified cabin boy, now reduced to tears, pleaded with Heaman for his life. After a moment’s silence Heaman told him to go forward and stay there.
The seizure of the Jane had taken the two new pirates less than six minutes. To ensure their control and ability to sail the brig the two other crewmen had to be mastered. To achieve this, the mate nailed down the fore-hatch and had a tarpaulin tightly fitted over it. The cabin boy was told to mix up some flour and water. The mate used this paste to seal round the tarpaulin edges. The mate then went below and bored two holes through the bulkhead into the forecastle. He then lit a smoke bomb made from tar and barrel staves and shoved it hard against the holes.
For two nights and a day the entombed Strachan and Smith endured this ordeal in total darkness. On the second day they were brought up and tied to the studsail boom on the deck and were offered some food, water and money if they would take the brig’s small oared boat and leave. This they refused to do as they were in the middle of the ocean; and so they were forced under hatches again.
On the third morning, Dhura begged Heaman to let them up before they died. As the two groped their way up the two armed pirates were waiting for them. Gautier simply said: You go in the sea! The two sailors begged for their lives and said they would turn pirate if spared. Heaman made them swear on and then kiss a Bible that the cook held out. They swore never to tell what had happened on the Jane and agreed to assist in the navigation of the brig from here on. That concluded, they were set to cleaning the blood-splattered decks.
The cabin boy was assigned the revolting task of cleaning out the captain’s bunk. From his description of what he saw, it is plain that Gautier had discharged his pistol point blank against the sleeping master’s head, using a pillow to avoid a flash burn. He went on to relate that the cook was later much amused to pick up from the deck the flattened musket ball that had fallen out of the captain’s head wound when he had finally been rolled over the side.
The forced sailors all testified that Captain Johnson had been a quiet and good-tempered master who had done nothing to incite or deserve such a death. Indeed, he had even taken the time to treat the cook’s bound-up arm with camphor when he first came aboard at Gibraltar.
Heaman’s plan was to land the hoard of silver coins on a remote beach – somewhere in France, Ireland or Scotland. The Jane would be then be scuttled. The brig was subsequently set on a course due north. For the next four weeks the crew were made to sleep on deck under an awning, with one of the pirates always on watch. During the day, the crew were put to making bags out of some old thin canvas into which the silver coins were decanted from the barrels with a tin pint mug. These were then concealed behind the bulkheads and between the vessel’s side and panels. The incriminating marked barrels were destroyed. Heaman and Gautier also took care to burn the brig’s manifest, registration and logbook. The captain’s personal papers were thrown overboard, tied to muskets which were surplus to the mate’s and the cook’s requirements.
To implicate the forced men and buy their co-operation, the pirates promised them a share in the loot once they were all safely ashore. The crew were then rehearsed in their new guise as the crew of the American brig Rover, bound for Archangel from New York. This ruse was used successfully during one close encounter with another vessel during their passage north. As they approached Ireland the weather turned cold and the crew were allowed to sleep below decks.
Landfall was made off Sligo, Northern Ireland on 18 July. Three days later the Jane put into Vatersay Bay opposite the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides. There the mate, dressed in the dead captain’s green coat, rowed ashore with a considerable amount of sweet oil and beeswax broached from the cargo. Calling himself ‘Captain Rogers of New York’ he quickly engaged a local young merchant, Neil McNeil, with a deal to exchange his wares for a large open fishing boat that could step a sail. This deal was struck over dinner at McNeil’s father’s house, after which the mate returned. His purchase was delivered the same day and hoisted onto the deck of the Jane. The pirates now had the means to effect their plan to get ashore with the loot unnoticed.
The mate had gleaned from his hosts over dinner that an armed Revenue cutter was cruising the area through which he intended to return to the Vatersay anchorage that very night. So forewarned, Heaman immediately ordered the Jane northwards. The crew was informed that if stopped by the cutter, their story was that pirates had boarded and killed the captain and the helmsman. Indeed, at the first sight of the cutter they were commanded to throw their best clothes overboard so as to make it look as if they had been robbed and left destitute.
Heaman’s new plan was to round Cape Wrath and scuttle the Jane off ‘Johnny Groat’s’ House. Sailing past the town of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, however, he decided not to risk being boarded and to execute his plan a day early. Off Tolsta Head, some ten miles up the coast, he ordered the fishing boat lowered and brought alongside. As the money sacks were being loaded, Smith, Dhura and the cabin boy were sent below with tools to drill holes and stove in the planking of the hull to scuttle the Jane. This they did with the greatest trepidation, fearing that Heaman would shut the hatches on them and leave them to go down with the brig.
By nine of the evening, as the daylight started to fade, the Jane was settling low in the sea. The water pouring in had already risen above the level of the cabin floor. All six crewmen hastened onto the fishing boat, already overloaded with the sheer weight of the money sacks and their sea chests. As they tried to cast off, the unattended brig began to go about on her own, threatening to run down the wallowing fishing boat before they could get under way.
To save the situation, Heaman leapt back on board the brig and reset her top square sail to stand her off on the opposite reach before screambling back to the fishing boat. As the Jane made off for the rocky headland and her wrecking, they stepped the sail on the fishing boat and finally got under way.
Their intention was to cross the treacherous North Minch that separates the Outer Hebrides from the mainland of Scotland. This passage – twenty-odd miles as the crow flies – is one of the most dangerous in British waters, being highly exposed to the erratic weather patterns of the North Atlantic. They were not long set on their chosen course when the sea got up and the waves began to broach over the sides of the overloaded boat. Unable to go on without courting disaster, they turned back towards Lewis.
During that night the rising wind and fierce tide swept the boat twelve miles back down the coast from Tolsta Head, past Broad Bay and round Chicken Head. It was with some difficulty that they worked the boat behind this headland and into the comparative shelter of the open bay at Swordale.
It was past noon when they attempted to beach the boat. In the high running surf the fishing boat overset on the large stones that made up most of this shoreline. This ended all immediate prospect of putting back out to sea.
Using the overturned boat and sail as a shelter they set up camp on the open beach. Heaman and Gautier were now desperate men, as their discovery would only be a matter of time. The town of Stornoway was only a few miles away and there were farms in the immediate vicinity. In broad daylight, they frantically started to bury the money-bags in various holes along the beach. A few were kept back and hidden in the floor of each of the sea chests. Their intention was probably to return at some future date to retrieve the main body of the loot.
First on the scene was the 60-year-old local farmer, John Murray, who was soon joined by his inquisitive neighbours. Their news of strangers on the beach quickly got back to the agents of government in Stornoway. Late that night four armed boatmen of the Customs Service turned up to make enquiries. They first suspected that they were smugglers from a lugger which had been seen skulking offshore.
Close behind them arrived their superior, the Surveyor of Customs, Roderick McIver, accompanied by his son. Heaman was ready for them with his latest story. This was that he was ‘George Sadwell’, the mate of the Betsy of New York. He claimed that this brig, owned by his father, had been lost off Barra Head days before. He had since quarrelled with his stranded captain as to what to do next and had gone off with one of the long-boats with these five crewmen to get help.
He might have got away with it had not the customs officers rummaged in the sea chests and found the bags of Spanish silver dollars. McIver, unaware of the fortune buried under the rocks of the beach, was highly suspicious and decided to go back to Stornoway and check his shipwreck story. He later recalled that as he tried to take down notes it rained so fast that the names were obliterated as soon as written. He left two of his boatmen in charge of the suspects.
He had only gone a hundred yards from the beach when he was waylaid by the cabin boy who blurted out his story of piracy and murder in his broken English. McIver quickly led him away and out of sight of the encampment. They only stopped when they were safely on top of the cliff that overlooked the beach. There McIver heard the whole gruesome story while he watched Gautier and Heaman frantically search for the lad below.
His first act was to send back his other two boatmen with the explicit order that they were to keep all the country people (the local spectators) close to hand in case the pirates tried to escape or attempted to enlist their help to relaunch their boat. If so, they were instructed to stave in its sides. Reaching the hamlet of Swordale he arranged for some local men to reinforce those standing guard on the beach.
By midnight he was back in Stornoway where the cabin boy spilled out the location of the concealed silver hoard – in the folds of hammocks and buried in holes on the shore. McIver finally grasped just how desperate these men were and what they had to lose. His first action was to send his son straight back with a large armed posse to secure all those at the encampment as prisoners.
At first light McIver returned with his clerk and the laborious business of recovering and recording the hidden caches got under way. All in all, just over 31,000 coins were recovered, leaving 7,000 unaccounted for against the insurer’s copy of the cargo manifest.
Heaman and Gautier had, understandably, a different story to tell – this time, of an irate Captain Johnson who had shot Paterson in a fit of rage over his incompetence at the helm which had cost him a spar. In the struggle that ensued to overpower the master, Gautier’s arm was broken and Johnson accidentally killed. They blamed the other crew members for the decision to steal the coins and the Montrose men in particular for the choice of landing in Scotland. The Prosecutor for the High Court of Admiralty, Alexander Kydd, rejected their version and moved on to that of the ordinary seamen. So acquitted, they then became the main witnesses for the prosecution.
On 26 November 1821, the trial of the mate and cook for the crimes of Piracy & Murder began at the Tolbooth. From the outset there was a language barrier to be overcome. Gautier claimed to speak only French fluently, the witness Dhura only Portuguese and the main witness from Stornoway, John Murray, only Gaelic – not fully understanding English. Interpreters were found in Edinburgh, after which the case proceeded quickly.
The fifteen-man jury found against the accused. A condemned man, Gautier wrote home to his Spanish wife that he was ill and in hospital, while it was rumoured that Heaman’s only verbal request was that his mother never be told of his crime and tragic end.
This was to be the last trial and hanging of pirates in Scotland. After 1830 the High Court of Admiralty of Scotland ceased to exist. Common Law proceedings relating to incidents in Scottish waters now came under the jurisdiction of the Scottish High Court of Judiciary. All matters relating to International Maritime Law were, henceforth, deemed the exclusive business of the High Court of Admiralty of Great Britain sitting in London.