There remain in the deeds of Watt and Kerr the bones of as strange and sad a story as has ever been told, of a record of cruelty and suffering on an almost heroic scale.
GEORGE BLAKE: Down to the Sea.
EVER ON THE OUTLOOK as I am for fresh grist for my criminous mill, I have frequently had occasion to deplore the increasing scarcity of suitable provision for my requirements. All the old famous trials have already been consumed, and not a few out-of-the-way cases have furnished curious and, I trust, profitable material. But, criminally speaking, the current supply is disappointing.
The modern murderer may execute a capable and satisfactory job, yet, when it comes to the trial, he invariably pleads insanity, and thus, so far as concerns his neck, gets away with it. Divers eminent alienists enter the witness-box, and testify—on such grounds as that in infancy he bit his nurse, in childhood pinched his little playmates’ toys, in youth specialized in sundry sorts of devilry, in short, was what is popularly known as a bad hat—that, scientifically considered, he is irresponsible for his acts. So, instead of being well and truly hanged as in the good old days, he is sent into retreat for a period vaguely described as “His Majesty’s Pleasure,” while it becomes the public’s privilege to defray the expense of his maintenance for an indefinite number of years—John Watson Laurie, the Arran murderer, lived at his country’s cost for forty.
I confess that as a layman (and a taxpayer) I never can see why, if a murderer be conscious of the nature and quality of his act, and knows that what he does is wrong and punishable, he should not be held responsible for its consequences and suffer accordingly. But the subtile science of psychiatry has disposed of these antiquated forthright methods, and the murderer is now accounted the victim of his peculiar complex, and so ought to be pitied rather than punished. Two such cases, occurring in recent years, I have in mind. I attended both trials, and was struck by the strange similarities presented by the circumstances of the respective crimes, the unexpected and unusual course of the judicial proceedings, and their inconclusive and (as I venture to think) unsatisfactory results. These were, in order of date, the King’s Park tragedy of 1934 and the Murrayfield murder of 1938. Each related to the slaying of an unfortunate girl by a young married man, who had been subject, from time to time, to alleged fits, and, while admittedly sane, was by the medical experts for the Crown held to enjoy the benefit of what they termed “diminished responsibility,” and so escaped the last dread penalty of his hideous crime.
Later I am going to give an account of these remarkable cases, but that with which we are now concerned is happily free from such recondite complications, being a plain tale of brutality, practised upon hapless boys by two ship’s-officers, whose only complex was a lust of cruelty. Had these nefarious mariners flourished in our own more enlightened days, doubtless their sadistic savagery would have been attributed to “emotional instability” or “altered consciousness,” and they would have put to sea again with flying colours.
I
On 7th April, 1868, the wooden sailing-ship Arran, a vessel of 1063 tons register, sailed from the port of Greenock, on the Clyde, for Quebec. Her master was Robert Watt, 28 years of age, a native of Saltcoats in Ayrshire. The mate was James Kerr, 31 years of age, who hailed from Loch Ranza in the Isle of Arran. He was, incidentally, the captain’s brother-in-law. The ship’s company numbered 24, including the officers. The cargo consisted of coal and oakum, in view of the subsequent happenings an appropriate lading. Captain Watt is described as a weak but not naturally ill-disposed commander, whose milder disposition was dominated by the coarse, unfeeling character of his ferocious mate and kinsman. It is not without significance that each of these marine monsters was fully bearded.
When the Arran was well out at sea, and just as the carpenter was about to batten down the hatches for the voyage, there emerged from divers hiding-places in the ship’s bowels seven young stowaways, surely a record for unauthorized passengers of tender years. The boys belonged to Greenock, came of poor but respectable parents, and were in varying states of destitution and distress. Their names and ages were as follows: Hugh M‘Ewan, 11; John Paul, 11; Hugh M‘Ginnes, 11; Peter Currie, 12; James Bryson, 16; David Brand, 16; and Bernard Reilly, 22. What induced these unfortunate children to secrete themselves in the Arran’s hold does not appear. Reilly proposed to emigrate in search of work. Little Paul and M‘Ewan were chums ashore, and probably acted in concert; the others seem to have adventured each on his own. “Please, sir,” explained one of the infants, when interrogated by the captain, “we want to be sailors!” It was the second day of the voyage, the ship was leaving the Irish Channel, and it was too late to put back. But as the Arran was amply provisioned for four months, the anticipated length of the voyage out and home, including detentions, she could afford to feed the fugitives, and the bigger boys could work for their keep. The rations authorized by the captain were, in the circumstances, adequate: 5 lb. of beef per day, and 14 oz. of coffee, 7 oz. of tea and 5 lb. of sugar per week.
The ship running into heavy weather, the young stowaways suffered grievously from sea-sickness, and the mate, observing that some of them vomited pieces of meat, ordered the steward to stop all beef supplies, adding that “he was going to give them the ground of their stomachs before they got any more”! Presently the rations were by his command reduced to biscuits, which were doled out in such quantities as the good pleasure of the mate permitted: some days they got one biscuit each, sometimes one biscuit among four boys. But for the humanity of the cook, who furnished them with surreptitious scraps, they hardly had escaped death by famine. Further, some of them had scarcely any clothes and were barefooted; M‘Ewan was a delicate child and spat blood; so that as the weather worsened their plight became truly pitiable. But pity was an item not included in the Arran’s manifest.
It chanced that the boy Bryson was dirty in his person and habits, averse from work, and given to petty pilferings of biscuits, meal, and currants to satisfy his craving for food. A letter, written from Quebec on 10th June, 1868, by a member of the crew to his people in Greenock, gives a graphic account of the hellish conditions to which these poor lads were subjected:
The boys were thinly clad, and were not able to stand the severe cold. The men could hardly stand it, let alone them. Two of the little ones had their bare feet, and as we were going so far to the northward amongst hail, frost, snow, and raining continually, none of them would keep on deck to work. As soon as the mate missed them, he went with a rope’s end in hand and ordered them out, and as they came out gave them a walloping, and pretty often very severely. The captain never interfered with the mate and them till one good day the hatches were all opened, and the crew, on going to shift some oakum and coils of rope where the stowaways slept, found them all besmeared with filth. Then he gave them a thrashing, and made all hands clean it up. It would take too long to tell you how they were used, so I will give you the end of them. . . .
What that end was we shall see in the sequel. Meanwhile the full fury of the mate’s ferocity was directed upon young Bryson, who afterwards was to give the Court the horrid particulars of his ill-treatment. I think it better to let the witnesses tell their own story, rather than to summarize it in narrative form. One gets from the actual words of the victims so much more vivid an impression of their incredible sufferings. But to enable you to appreciate their evidence I must indicate the course of that disastrous voyage, and the happenings that led to the subsequent trial of the captain and the mate before the High Court of Justiciary, when they were placed at the bar to answer for their. crimes.
The flogging and the starving continued until, on 10th May, the Arran, which for some days had encountered packs of floating ice, became firmly embedded in an icefield in St. George’s Bay, on the coast of Newfoundland, and her voyage was for the time suspended. Then, after further outrages upon the famished boys, for foraging for food in the temporary absence of their persecutors—who had gone for a stroll upon the frozen deep—there occurred that unparalleled act of cruelty which renders the case of the Arran stowaways unique in our criminal annals. The deed is succinctly set forth in a dozen words by the writer of the letter already quoted:
The stowaways got a biscuit apiece, and were ordered to go ashore.
Land was not visible to the naked eye, but the captain alleged that he could see it by means of his spyglass. “There were,” he assured the boys, “houses and people dwelling in them not so far away.” Alternatively, they could make for another vessel, the Myrtle, also embedded in the ice, a mile or two from where the Arran lay fast—this at least was true—and might there obtain food. They must leave the ship, as he, the master, had not provisions enough to carry them all to Quebec. The distance between the Arran and the coast was by the crew variously estimated as from 8 to 20 miles. The mate, taking a rosier view of the boys’ prospects, put it at 5.
Picture to yourself, good reader, the situation of these hapless youngsters, ragged, barefooted, starving, and further reduced by long-continued ill-usage. The piercing cold of that dark northern clime, the wide white waste of the icefield, stretching as far as the eye could reach to the invisible horizon—and four of them were children of 11 and 12! Not even the fertile and resourceful invention of modern Nazi specialists in barbarism could contrive a more devilish act of cruelty. The wonder is that any of the victims survived to tell the tale, and that only two perished under the dreadful ordeal.
The letter before referred to caused great consternation in Greenock, where the relatives of the missing boys, who knew not what had become of them, were horrified and furious to learn of their ill-treatment. The whole community, we are told, spoke of nothing but “the boys on the ice,” and wrath was kept warm for the return of the Arran to her home port, when a reckoning could be had with the perpetrators of the alleged atrocity. When, on the evening of Thursday, 30th July, the ship came up the Clyde and neared the quay, those aboard could see that a hostile crowd awaited her arrival. No sooner was she moored than several men leaped on board to take summary vengeance on the two officers, who, apprised of their intention, prudently sought safety in the cabin. The police were sent for to protect them from the popular fury, but the crowd was not dispersed till 11 o’clock that night.
Next day the captain and the mate were taken before the Sheriff, charged with assault, and with “cruelly and maliciously compelling one or more of Her Majesty’s lieges to leave a ship while said ship was embedded in ice at a considerable distance from land, to the imminent risk and serious and permanent injury of their persons.” It was not then known to the authorities that two of the children had died as the result of the accused’s inhuman action. Both men were committed for trial, bail being refused. Meanwhile the Procurator-Fiscal had telegraphed to the police at St. John’s, Newfoundland, from whom he learned that five of the boys had reached the shore, that four were still at St. George’s Bay, that Bernard Reilly, the eldest, was gone to seek work at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and that little Hugh M‘Ewan and Hugh M‘Ginnes (each aged 11) had lost their lives on the ice. As the result of this information the prisoners were further charged with murder, but this count was afterwards dropped, and the charge reduced to assault, cruel and barbarous usage, and the “innominate offence” of compelling the boys to leave the ship to the danger of their lives.
The return of the survivors to their home port was achieved under conditions very different from those of the outward voyage. The boys were taken by the authorities in a schooner to St. John’s, where they embarked in the brigantine Hannah and Bennie, belonging to no less important a personage than the Provost of Greenock and Member of Parliament for that Burgh, which they reached in comfort and safety on 1st October, six months from the fatal hour when they adventured upon the Arran. It was the local Fast Day; and the welcome given them by the crowds awaiting their arrival was something more cordial than that (in the dreadful journalistic phrase) “extended” to their oppressors, then lying in jail to abide the consequences of their crimes.
II
The trial took place in the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, before the Lord Justice-Clerk (George Patton) and a jury, and occupied three days: 23rd, 24th, and 25th November, 1868. The Lord Advocate (Edward Strathearn Gordon), the Solicitor-General (John Millar), and Mr. W. E. Gloag, Advocate-Depute (the future Lord Kincairney), conducted the prosecution; Mr. George Young, Q.C. (afterwards Lord Young), and Mr. Charles Scott, advocate, appeared for Captain Watt; the Dean of Faculty (James Moncrieff, later Lord Justice-Clerk) and Mr. Robert Maclean, advocate, for Kerr the mate.1 After long debate upon the relevancy of the indictment, objections to the so-called “innominate” charge were repelled, and the trial proceeded.
The first of the boy-witnesses called was James Bryson (16). He told how he and his companions had boarded the Arran at Greenock, and hid in the hold and other parts of the ship. They remained concealed for a day and a night, without food or water. He saw the carpenter battening down the hatches; they [witness and Brand] were down in the hold. Brand knocked up and the hatchway was again opened. Brand and himself were seized with sickness, which lasted 3 or 4 days. He remembered the Arran coming in sight of ice at Newfoundland. He had been scrubbed and flogged before then. It was with the lead line that he was flogged. “The mate flogged me when I was sitting on one of the hatches. I was made to take off my jacket, waistcoat, and shirt, leaving only my semmit on. The coil was about ½-inch thick. The mate flogged me for about 3 minutes. The blows were very painful. I cried out in consequence of the pain I was suffering. When I was screaming, the master of the vessel came forward. The mate made me strip off the rest of my clothing. I was then made to lie down on the deck. Both the master and mate were present. Robert Hunter (one of the crew) was ordered to draw water in a bucket; he threw it about me as he was ordered. Several bucketfuls of water were thrown on me. The weather was very cold at the time. It was salt water that was thrown about me. The captain then scrubbed me with a hair broom all over my body. The process occasioned me great pain. The mate then took the broom up and scrubbed me harder than the captain. I made frequent attempts to rise during the operation of scrubbing. When the captain was scrubbing, the mate was standing over me with a rope in his hand, with which he threatened to strike me if I attempted to run away. After the mate had scrubbed me, he handed the broom to Brand and told him to scrub me with it. I could not say whether my body was marked in any way by the scrubbing, or whether the skin was broken. I felt pain during the scrubbing, but not afterwards. After the scrubbing was finished I was made to wash my clothes. I was ordered to the forecastle by the mate. I was naked at the time. When I had been there about an hour my coat and semmit were returned. I suffered very much from exposure. My body had not been dried in any way.” The ill-usage continued throughout the voyage.
When the ship reached the icefield, and the captain and mate went “ashore” for a walk, the famished boys started to look for food. “Brand and I went into the cabin to get something to eat. Brand secured some biscuits, and on coming up he told me he had a pocketful and that there was no one there. I went down to get some but could find none. I took some currants out of a keg, because I could get nothing else. I was hungry at the time. I took about a fistful of currants and returned to my work of scraping the deck. The mate was coming up the vessel’s side when he saw me coming out of the cabin. He ordered my hands to be tied, and Brand and I were searched. The mate gave the order. Nothing was found on Brand. My pocket was cut on the outside and the currants ‘kepped’ in a saucer. The captain ordered the currants to be given to the other boys. I was afterwards stripped naked by order of the mate. The captain was present all the time and saw what took place. The mate placed my head on the deck, seized my legs, and held them up to his breast while the captain flogged me. He gave me 15 to 20 lashes. The ship at this time was surrounded by ice, but was not frozen in. I was ordered by the mate to help the boy Currie to scrub the deck when I was stark naked. I was so engaged for about 10 minutes. After sweeping the deck, the mate sent me to the house in the forecastle, where I remained for about quarter of an hour, when I was called out and my semmit was returned to me. I was then placed on the hatch and the mate told me to tell him all that I had done in my life.”
Well might Master Bryson have cried aloud with the Psalmist, “The plowers plowed upon my back: and made long furrows.”
It will simplify matters if we now hear the other evidence regarding the floggings of Bryson, before we come to the more atrocious episode of the boys being driven from the ship.
David Brand (16) deponed: “I was present when Bryson was flogged. The weather was cold, but I do not think it was freezing. Bryson was very dirty and it was on that account that he was scrubbed. I scrubbed him by order of the mate. It was a hard broom that I scrubbed him with. I was so engaged for about 10 minutes. The mate did not interfere with me while I was brushing him. I stopped when I thought he was clean. 3 or 4 pails of water were thrown upon Bryson, who was crying out during the operation. The mate flogged him after he had been scrubbed. The flogging was continued for about 2 minutes. There were about 30 blows given during that time. I saw marks on his person after the flogging was over. The captain was present during the flogging, but said or did nothing. I saw blood on Bryson’s back after the flogging was over. He remained naked after the flogging. I stole some biscuits and a piece of beef out of the cabin to eat. Bryson went in afterwards and took some currants. He was seen by the mate, who ordered him to be searched. The captain afterwards flogged him for about 2 or 3 minutes. The lead line was used to flog Bryson. The captain held him with one hand and flogged him with the other. The mate flogged him after the captain was done. The captain said he would make them go on the ice presently. Hugh M‘Ginnes asked the captain what he would do on the ice with his bare feet. The captain replied that it would be as well for him to die on the ice as in the ship, as he would get no more food there. Paul was crying bitterly. He cried out ‘Oh, my fingers!’ I do not know why he cried that out. Paul was the last one that went on to the ice. None of us got any breakfast that morning. We went away from the ship without tasting any food. Some biscuits were thrown overboard after we left the ship—one biscuit to each.” This generous dole was in response to the boys’ piteous appeal not to be sent empty away.
John Paul (11) deponed: “I went on board the Arran the day she sailed. I hid myself in the fo’castle-head and remained hidden all night. The tug was away before I came out. I was poorly clad when I went on board. I had no shoes on and had no clothes except those I was wearing. I took no clothes or provisions with me. There were other stowaways on board. M‘Ginnes was clad the same as myself. No shoes were supplied to me on board. I got canvas to make trousers, but it was taken from me again some days after, before I left the ship. It was taken back because I could not get them made. I remember Bryson being scrubbed some days before we left the ship. He was scrubbed with a ‘kyar’ broom—a hard broom with which they swept the decks. When we were going to be put on the ice I hid myself. I was brought forward, and asked the mate to keep me on board. He said he would have nothing to do with it. When on the rails I was struck by the captain with a belaying-pin, because I would not go on the ice. I was the last to leave the ship. I had had 2 or 3 pieces of biscuit for breakfast that morning and some biscuits were thrown from the ship after me.”
Only two of the boys—Reilly and Bryson—were willing to tempt fortune on the ice; the former because he was anxious to get a job ashore, and the latter because for him nothing worse could happen than he had suffered on the ship. Reilly told him the captain said he could see houses on the land through his glass, and Bryson said if that were so he would go too. Brand refused to go over the side, so the captain caught him by the collar of his coat and forced him into the bows. Little Paul had hidden himself in the forecastle. “The captain went in and brought him out,” continues Bryson. “Paul went crying to the mate, asking him to keep him on board. He [the mate] said he would have nothing to do with putting us ashore on the ice. He saw what was going on. The Captain followed Paul and told him to go forward. M‘Ewan, who was hiding in the galley, began to cry. The captain said to him that he might as well die on the ice as in the vessel, as he would get no meat on board till he got to Quebec. Brand and I heard this. We then all went down on to the ice. Reilly went first; I went down from the rails; Paul, M‘Ewan, and M‘Ginnes came down. Currie remained on board; he had not been asked to go.1 M‘Ewan and M‘Ginnes were crying in the ship and while they were getting over, and they continued crying when they got on to the ice. Paul had on a blue coat; he had no shoes. M‘Ginnes had bare feet too, and his clothes were all ragged and torn. M‘Ewan had boots, and was better clothed than any of us. When we went over the ship’s side we had no provisions with us. After we got out on the ice there was one biscuit apiece thrown to us by the mate’s order. It was between 8 and 9 in the morning, and clear daylight.”
Before following the further fortunes of the castaways we may note two points: first the attitude of the mate. This ruffian had been unceasing in his cruelties to the children throughout the voyage, and it is probable that the plan to drive them from the ship originated in his morbid ferocity; but, as we have seen, he took no active part in this, leaving the captain to carry out the final and most fiendish outrage. Why? Doubtless, in view of the possible consequences of the inhuman deed, he wished, ostensibly, to have no hand in it, so that he might hold himself free from innocent blood. The second is even more amazing: the behaviour of the 22 members of the crew, who looked on, and did nothing to prevent the outrage. They were afterwards to admit that they all “thought it too dangerous to put the boys off,” but maintained that it was none of their business; it was not for them to interfere with the captain. Their previous indifference to the brutalities practised upon the lad Bryson is referable (vide Mr. George Blake’s essay on the case aftermentioned) to “the sea-customs of the period.” But surely this is an anachronism; here we are far from the days of Smollett and of Captain Marryat. Be that as it may, let Master Bryson resume his tale.
“We did not see how far the land was distant; we saw a black haze, but nothing else. I thought I might as well die on the ice as on board the vessel. We were 12 hours on the ice that day. We found the journey very dangerous. We had gone about 10 or 11 miles before we met with danger; it was near the shore. The ice had been pretty good, but there it was all broken. I fell into the water up to the neck while jumping from one piece of ice to another. We all fell into crevices at various times. We got out the best way we could, each had just to scramble for himself. M‘Ewan fell in once and I pulled him out; he fell in a second time and scrambled out himself; the third time he went down and never came up, the ice closed over him. It was hopeless to attempt to save him. . . . Some hours after this happened M‘Ginnes sat down on a piece of ice and said he could go no farther. We urged him to come along with us, and said if he did not he knew what would become of him: he would be frozen. He appeared exhausted. No attempt was made to assist him; we had enough to do to assist ourselves, going all day across the ice barefooted. Our clothes were frozen upon us by this time. He [M‘Ginnes] had nothing on but his ragged frozen clothes. He was ‘greeting.’ We heard his cries a long way behind us although we could not see him. . . . The captain told us where the Myrtle was lying, and said that when we got to her we would get food. He pointed in the direction, telling us to keep by the stern of the Arran. We went 300 yards in that direction, and then we thought it better to make for the nearest point of land. We never saw the Myrtle all day. We were within sight of the Arran when we changed our course.”
The end of the icefield was reached that night; they saw the land and houses, but between them and the shore there was a stretch of open water. Bryson, Brand, and Reilly severally tried to ferry across, each on a piece of ice, paddling with a batten and bits of wood they had brought from the ship. The distance was about a mile. A woman saw them from the shore, and a boat came out and picked them up. “The sun was just going down at the time we were rescued.”
What more dreadful picture was ever painted than this of the one child trapped by the floating ice, perishing in the icy water, and the other left “greeting” on the ice to be slowly frozen to death?
The cross-examination by Mr. Young was mainly directed to these shocking episodes. “When M‘Ewan fell in the third time,” said Bryson, “it was about midday. The others were about 100 yards ahead of me at the time; I then ran on. I do not know why none of the rest looked round any more than I did. I looked no more after M‘Ewan. M‘Ginnes sat down, tired, about 5 miles from the shore. I never stopped; I left him sitting ‘greeting.’ I heard him for about 100 yards off, I dare say—for about ten minutes; the ice was bad, and we could not go extra fast at that time.” They told the people on shore that M‘Ewan and M‘Ginnes had been left behind. Nothing more was heard of them while the boys remained at St. George’s Bay.
David Brand and John Paul corroborated in all respects the story told by Bryson as to what happened, from the time of their leaving the ship until their rescue by the boat. “M‘Ewan fell in oftener than any of us,” said Brand; “he was the youngest, and weakly and feeble. There was some soft ice at the place which closed over him; I never heard or saw any more of him.” As regards the abandonment of M‘Ginnes: “The ice was so bad we could not carry him, he could not walk, and we could get no assistance. He appeared to be exhausted; his bare feet were much swollen. He had very little clothes on; his trousers were very ragged and you could see his skin through them.” Both boys were unshaken by cross-examination, little Paul quaintly saying, in reply to Mr. Young: “The reason I ran away from Greenock was for a pleasure sail. I was comfortable at home. I lived with my mother, but did not tell her I was going. I took the Arran to go in because she was a good ship. I did not know the captain.”
Of the members of the crew examined, most sought to minimize the cruelty with which the stowaways were treated throughout the voyage; but none could deny the brutalities to which Bryson was subjected, nor the compelling of the children to leave the ship. “Three of the little boys were unwilling to go,” said George Henry. “They began to cry when they were asked to go by the mate, and continued to do so when they went away.” By a juryman—“Why did you not interfere when you thought the boys were going to be placed in such danger?—I had no right to interfere with my master and mate; I was a servant.” “If the master or mate had been going to murder the boys, would you have interfered?—There was a chance of their reaching the shore, and some of them did reach it.” “Did you ever expect to see them again?—I cannot say whether I did or not.” “Did you think they would be drowned?—It was very uncertain to think anything.”
William Salton, the ship’s-cook, stated that when Reilly told him he was going ashore with Bryson, witness said he would be a fool to do so, because of the danger. “He said he would rather go than stand the abuse.” Witness saw the little boys leave the ship, “ordered by the captain and mate to go.” Had they remained on board there was plenty of provisions to last till they reached Quebec.
Mrs. Agnes M‘Ginnes deponed to her son leaving her and stowing away on board the Arran; that he was 11 years of age in April last, and that she had never since heard of him. Mrs. M‘Ewan deponed in like manner regarding her son, who also was 11 years of age in April last; that he was not a strong boy, and that she had heard nothing of him since, except that he had perished.
The Crown case closed with the reading of the accused‘s declarations. The captain declared that he “invited” the boys to leave the ship and have a run on the ice. “I pointed out to them houses on the shore, and said to them they might have a fine run ashore”! Being interrogated if he forced or compelled the boys to leave the ship, he declared: “I cannot say that I did so; but I, of course, told them to go.” He made no inquiries on shore with a view to ascertaining their fate, and did not know what became of them after leaving the ship.
The mate declared that he never caused Bryson to be scrubbed with a hard brush, neither did he ever assault him, or strike him with a rope. He did not force or compel the boys to leave the ship. No inquiry was made as to what became of them.
III
The first witness for the defence was Peter Currie (12), the boy who had enjoyed the exceptional favour of the mate. He told how he saw his companions leave the ship. “He heard the mate say he would wager any man on board £20 they would be back to their dinner.” Cross-examined by the Solicitor-General—The boys slid down by a rope; the captain “assisted” them on to the rail. “They were ‘greeting’ all the time; when they were sliding down, and while they were going away. The captain ordered them to go. I saw one biscuit each thrown to them when they were on the ice. That was all they got. I saw them at breakfast at 8 o’clock; they got half a biscuit. That was all they had since 12 o’clock, dinner-time, the day before.” M‘Ewan was a weakly boy; witness had seen him spitting blood. M‘Ginnes’s health was “middling good.” He and Paul were barefooted when they left the ship.
Two members of the crew, M‘Lean and Thomson, respectively steward and boatswain, deponed that the captain was a kind, quiet man, who seldom interfered with the discipline of the ship: “The mate took everything to do with that.” One of them admitted, in cross-examination, “I thought it possible for a man to reach the land on the ice, but not for boys so clad. It was not my place to interfere.” The chaplain of the Seaman’s Friend Society, Greenock, also gave the captain the highest possible character. He was so well-disposed, especially to boys, “that it was generally believed they liked to stowaway with him on that account”! The parish minister of Ardrossan and four of his parishioners also testified to the many virtues of this exemplary skipper.
The accused James Kerr (the mate), having been again at the request of his counsel interrogated on the libel (indictment), pleaded guilty of assault as libelled, and the Solicitor-General accepted the plea.
IV
The Solicitor-General, in presenting the case for the prosecution, said the evidence which had been given during the trial seemed to him so clear and conclusive that he felt it his duty to ask for a verdict finding the master of the Arran guilty of the crime of which he was accused. The mate, who pleaded not guilty in the first instance, had subsequently withdrawn that plea and pleaded guilty to the charge of assault set forth in the libel. He (the Solicitor-General) felt that it was not inconsistent with his duty to accept that plea, and he had therefore withdrawn the charge of culpable homicide in the case of the mate. Although his own personal feelings would lead him to say that he could consistently take the same course with regard to the master as he had been enabled to take with reference to the mate, he felt that the evidence against the master was too strong to warrant such procedure. The case was one of considerable importance. The powers of the master of a vessel were necessarily large, and might be used either for good or evil; and it was just because these large powers might be misused by the men to whom they were entrusted that the jury ought not to shrink from the strict performance of their duty, because it was only by the proper discharge of the functions imposed upon them that the law could be vindicated, and the weak and helpless protected against the strong. The jury had heard the whole of the evidence that had been adduced in this painful case, and it was for them to say whether that evidence had not conclusively established the guilt of the master.
The learned Solicitor-General then went through the main points of the evidence, calling the attention of the jury to the several acts of cruelty, which he submitted were abundantly established. He remarked that, in considering the case against the master of the Arran, the jury would have to determine three minor points: first, whether there was any compulsion used in putting the boys on the ice, or whether they left the ship of their own free will; second, what was the amount of danger attending the journey over the ice, assuming that it was compulsorily taken; and third, what were the consequences that might have been reasonably expected to ensue from a journey undertaken in such circumstances. There could be little doubt, from the evidence the jury had listened to, that the boys were compelled to leave the ship, and that they did not voluntarily quit the vessel on so perilous a journey as that which they had to take; that the journey was one which was full of danger to those who were forced to take it; and with regard to the probable consequences of the act so perpetrated, what other results could have been anticipated than those which were proved to have happened? The whole of the evidence pointed clearly to the fact that the child who sank in the water, the child who was left to perish upon the ice, and the surviving boys who were more or less injured by the exposure and fatigue they were compelled to undergo, owed their deaths and injuries to the culpable conduct of the master of the Arran, by whose orders they were forcibly expelled from that vessel. Indeed, it seemed impossible that the jury could arrive at any other conclusion than that the master had been guilty of the crime of culpable homicide.
With regard to the master’s previous good character, he was undoubtedly entitled to all the benefit which that character could give him; but at the same time the jury must not allow this consideration to overbalance the facts that had been proved in evidence.
Mr. Young, in addressing the jury on behalf of the prisoners, said, although he could not regard the case otherwise than as a serious one, he had not been prepared for the long, solemn, and he might almost say pompous address to which he had just listened. The case was undoubtedly of a nature which was calculated to excite considerable public interest, and a charge such as that which had been preferred against the prisoners was sure to arouse a certain amount of popular indignation. But whatever might be the feeling out of doors, it was for the jury to determine the case upon its own proper merits, and he had no doubt that they would succeed in arriving at a just and satisfactory verdict. In order to do this, they would have to sift the whole of the evidence; and he asked them, was it reasonable to suppose that two and twenty grown men, who formed the crew of the ship in which the boys were stowed away, would have allowed the stowaway lads to be compulsorily sent adrift under circumstances which, in their belief, must have been likely to lead to their destruction? It was obvious to his mind that those men did not regard what had taken place when the boys left the vessel in the light in which, for the purpose of the present prosecution, it had been represented.
The assaults which had been charged against the prisoners were the least serious part of the case, and required but few observations. The jury should remember the position in which the master was placed with regard to the stowaways. It was obvious that lads like those who had concealed themselves on board the Arran belonged to the very worst class; and although they might not all of them be guilty of theft on board, they at any rate forced the master to provide them with food which was not intended for their consumption. It could hardly be expected that such characters should be sumptuously fed by those upon whom they forced themselves. Neither was it reasonable to suppose that a part of the equipment of a merchant vessel should consist of clothing for stowaway boys. As to the lad Bryson, it was proved that he had contracted exceedingly dirty habits; and that this being the case, it hardly seemed unreasonable that he should be washed—not with a gentle hand, like an infant, but in such a way that the operation should be a lesson to him, and teach him for the future to be more cleanly in his person. That Bryson should also have been flogged was by no means a surprising circumstance when his conduct was taken into consideration; and the jury should recollect it was not alleged that he had been injured by the punishment.
Coming to the most cerious part of the case—the sending of the boys on shore—he (the learned counsel) confessed that he could not approve of the course pursued by the master on that occasion; but it was quite another thing to say that the master was guilty of the crime which was charged against him in the indictment. The charge had not been proved by the evidence. The actual state of the matter was this: a few days before the act which led to the more serious charge, the boys had been put upon the ice for the purpose of giving them a fright, and they were afterwards called back and taken on board the vessel again. Subsequently Reilly and Bryson seemed to have entered into an agreement to go ashore, and asked the smaller boys to join them. If the bigger lads were willing to make the attempt, it was hardly right, so far at least as they were concerned, that the captain should be held responsible for permitting them to do it. But the captain was of opinion that the attempt was fraught with some danger; and although he permitted, and probably undoubtedly pressed, the little boys to go along with the bigger ones, he was at the same time under the impression that the boys would return to the ship so soon as they saw the peril attending the journey over the ice. It was not true that the captain had, as was alleged in the libel, dragged the boys from the vessel. That he had permitted them to leave it was not itself a reprehensible act, but he had told the boys they were to return; and after they had left the ship, when he suggested to the mate that the boys should be called back again, the mate replied that they were sure to be back to dinner.
With regard to the charge of culpable homicide, he (counsel) contended that there was no reliable evidence that either M‘Ewan or M‘Ginnes had perished in that way. With regard to M‘Ewan, the only evidence as to his death was that he had plumped into the water and was lost sight of for three seconds by his companion, who then ran on to join the boys in front, and only looked to see whether M‘Ewan had got out of the water. It would surprise no one if both M‘Ewan and M‘Ginnes were to turn up alive and well.
Mr. Young concluded by saying that such things had happened over and over again; and it had been laid down by a learned judge as a broad general rule, that it was not safe for a jury to find the death of a person unless the body was found.
The Lord Justice-Clerk then summed up. His Lordship said that the jury had heard the learned counsel for the prosecution and the defence, and it lay with them to arrive at a just conclusion. In coming to that conclusion they would require to keep in view, and be regulated by, the evidence alone. The main question which the jury would have to consider was whether the prisoners had been reckless and indifferent to human life. They must satisfy themselves whether both the boys were dead. The law said that clear evidence must be adduced as to the death.
The boy M‘Ewan was the first to leave the ship for the purpose of making his way ashore. Paul and he fell into the water together. He had a struggle to keep himself clear of M‘Ewan, and he saw M‘Ewan‘s face sinking for ever under the ice. Brand said that M‘Ewan, in trying to jump from one piece of ice to another, had fallen into the water, when the ice closed over him, and that he was seen no more. The evidence differed there. But the question which the jury would have to decide was whether that was evidence of the drowning of the boy. They could not exact from the public prosecutor the production of the boys‘ bodies. The question was whether they were left in any reasonable doubt that the boy was drowned. If they considered it a conclusive fact that he might have escaped, it would be an element in the case.
They had next to consider the case of the boy M‘Ginnes, whose death arose from positive exhaustion and inability to move onward to the point which he wished to reach. He was left there by his companions, who were endeavouring to effect their own escape. The jury must judge whether he also escaped or was at present alive. They would bear in mind that the boys set out on a perilous journey.
Was it, then, the fault of the pannel that these boys lost their lives? Was he free from culpability or not? Were the two boys-neither of whom was then 12 years of age-forcibly driven out of the ship against their will by the prisoner at the bar? His Lordship considered that they were compelled to leave the ship by reason of threats, and by the exhibition to one or other of them of physical force. These unfortunate children could not act according to their own desires or inclinations-a very small share of compulsion on the part of a man in authority was sufficient to make them do things against their will. Bryson, Brand, and Paul deponed that they were compelled to leave the ship. Doubtless they were told that Currie was sent to the mate to announce their intention of leaving the vessel, and that M‘Ewan was a party to that arrangement. Bryson said that he was not; he said-“Reilly and I were willing to go.”But so far as the testimony of Bryson was concerned, M‘Ewan was not willing. Brand was of the same impression, and so was Paul. His Lordship thought that the jury had an overwhelming mass of evidence before them to the effect that these boys did not desire to leave the ship, but were forced to do so. He did not believe that the boys had been induced to leave the vessel to play and then return. Bryson and the others had given positive evidence to say that the captain had forced the boys to leave, declaring that they had better die on the ice than on board the ship.
After going over the evidence of Brand and Paul, his Lordship said it proved that force was exercised by the captain towards the boys to make them leave the vessel. His Lordship proceeded to comment on the indifference shewn by the captain as to the fate of the boys. Two witnesses had deponed that the captain said, loud enough for the boys to hear him, that if they found the road difficult, they were to return; but it had been proved that none of the boys ever heard such an expression made use of. But assuming the expression to have been used, was it a situation for boys of 11 years of age to be put in by the captain?
After reviewing the evidence as to the flogging and scrubbing of the lad Bryson, his Lordship said that, if the jury believed that death had been occasioned by the captain‘s authority or instrumentality, they would come to the conclusion as to his guilt. His Lordship concluded by saying that the case was a very important one-the first of the kind that had come before the tribunals of that Court. It was perfectly right that the matter should have been investigated; and he had no doubt but that the jury would give a decision in accordance with the facts of the case.
The jury retired at twenty minutes to three o‘clock, and after an absence of thirty-five minutes returned to Court with the following verdict: “On the two charges of assault the jury are unanimously of opinion that the captain is not guilty; that he is guilty of the charge of culpable homicide; that he is guilty of compelling the boys to leave a British ship; but that, on account of his previous good character, they recommend him to the leniency of the Court”! The jury found the mate guilty of assault, according to his own confession.
The Dean of Faculty then addressed the Court in mitigation of the sentence of the mate, arguing it was impossible to maintain discipline on board a ship unless there was the power of chastisement in the hands of the superior officer. He pointed out that Bryson was not in the slightest degree injured, except for a time, and concluded by reminding the Court that his client had been four months in prison.
Mr. Charles Scott said that he had intended to address the Court in behalf of his client (the captain), but after the recommendation of the jury he would not do so.
The Lord Justice-Clerk then sentenced Kerr, the mate, to four months‘ imprisonment, and Watt, the captain, to eighteen months‘ imprisonment.
This result was received by the audience with loud hisses, and we who read the tale today would doubtless wish to associate ourselves with that expression of indignation at the astounding lightness of the sentences, which manifestly fail, in the Mikado’s famous phrase, “to let the punishment fit the crime.”
V
For the subsequent history of the survivors and their persecutors I am indebted to the valuable account of the facts furnished by Mr. John Donald of Greenock, in his entertaining volume entitled: The Stowaways and Other Sketches: True Tales of the Sea (Perth: 1928). “Reilly,” the author tells us, “went to Halifax, N.S.; Bryson emigrated with his father and family to America, where James obtained employment as a street-car conductor; Peter Currie died of consumption about two years after he came home; John Paul became a foreman riveter and removed to Itchen, Southampton, where he died some years ago; David Brand proceeded to Townsville, North Queensland, where he founded the flourishing engineering firm of Brand, Dryborough & Burns, and died suddenly and unexpectedly in the month of November, 1897. . . .
“Soon after leaving prison, both Watt and Kerr quickly got to sea again as master and mate respectively-in different vessels, of course. The former is said to have died at Pensacola, a year or two after his release; but Kerr served for many years as a shipmaster before retiring to rest ashore. He died over twenty years ago.”
Those sufficiently interested in this strange story are recommended to consult Mr. George Blake‘s brilliant study of the case: “Stowaways of the Arran,” in his engaging epic of the Clyde, Down to the Sea (London: 1937), by which blessed volume my attention was first directed to the subject. “So they passed into the night, one and all,” he finely concludes, “and beyond that question we would all have asked of them-if, above the rumble of the Philadelphia streetcars, over the clangour of iron on iron, or through the beat of the Coral Sea they did not sometimes hear, and with terror, the cry of a child greetin’ on the ice of the North Atlantic?”
Note.—THE BOYS IN THE MINCH
History is apt to repeat itself. Since re-telling this old tragedy of the sea I have attended a recent trial which, in ruthless disregard for human life, presents some similar features. On 4th October, 1938, two Grimsby trawlers, Buckingham and Carisbiooke, were anchored in Bayble Bay, near Stornoway, in the Isle of Lewis. They were sheltering from a north-west gale which had blown hard all night. The weather, even in the bay, was boisterous, with an off-shore wind and a rough sea. In the dusk of the evening five lads, whose ages ranged from 15 to 22, put off from the village of Upper Bayble to beg for fish—a common practice of the islanders. They went out in a 10-foot rowing-boat, which normally required four oars, though they took but two, with which they rowed in turns. The boat was sharp-pointed at bow and stern and had then no rudder. The boys made for the Buckingham as the nearer ship, but before they reached her she weighed anchor and stood out to sea. So they decided to try the Carisbrooke, which lay farther out, half a mile or so from the shore. With difficulty they got alongside, breaking two thole pins, used as rowlocks, in the process, and, having got alongside the trawler, fastened their boat by her painter. Almost immediately the boat broke adrift, so the skipper had reluctantly to take up his anchor and manoeuvre his ship to recover it. When this was done it was found that one of the oars was lost. Another was provided, also a bit of a soap box and a knife to make new thole pins. Now this unnecessary trouble and delay, just as he was about to leave for the fishing-grounds, was very grievous to the skipper. Four times, in terms at once forcible and foul, he ordered the boys into the boat, but they were afraid to go. It was now dark, and to row back in the teeth of wind and sea would be both difficult and hazardous. The skipper, they said, might as well throw them overboard-it was “murder.” Finally, they asked him to tow them in; a rope was passed from the ship to the boat, the boys embarked and the towing began, the trawler’s engines running dead slow. While the vessel was turning towards the shore all went well, but no sooner did she straighten out upon her course than the men in charge of the rope saw that the boat was in imminent danger of being swamped. The mate shouted to the engine-room: “Ease it down, or else you’ll lose the boat!” and was going to the wheel-house to warn the skipper when someone cried out: “The boat’s gone!” The trawler’s lights were switched on, and after a search the boat was found, water-logged, with the youngest boy clinging to her. The rest were seen no more, and their bodies were never recovered.
The skipper, F. G. Thomsett, was charged with the culpable homicide (manslaughter) of the four lads in the High Court at Edinburgh on 15th February, 1939, before the Lord Justice-Clerk (Lord Aitchison) and a jury. The young survivor told his piteous story, and every member of the crew examined bore witness to the manifest peril of the venture, and said that not one of them would have entered the boat under the conditions on which the boys were compelled to do. They described the skipper as “mad” with anger. The accused stated that his own ship being in danger he had no time to bother about the boat, and it never occurred to him to take the boys inshore to sheltered water instead of leaving them to take their chance. His attitude was that he did not invite them aboard, and they might get back as best they could. The jury, having considered their verdict for 15 minutes, found the accused guilty, and the judge sentenced him to 8 months’ imprisonment. A factor in his condemnation was the very different behaviour of the skipper of the Buckingham, to which that afternoon another boatful of boys had put out. Not only did that more humane master give the earlier “customers” fish, but he towed their boat alongside until he saw them safely ashore. The appearance and demeanour of the two men in the witness-box afforded a significant contrast, which, doubtless, was not lost upon the jury.
Footnotes
1 The best report of the proceedings will be found in the Scotsman of 24th, 25th, and 26th November, 1868. The official report is contained in Couper’s Justiciary Reports, vol. i. pp. 123-168.
1 Peter Currie (12) had been throughout exempt from the cruelties of the mate, who was a friend of the child’s father. Doubtless he escaped his companions’ fate by reason of the mate’s influence with the captain. He survived to bear witness for the defence at the trial.