Dudley Pope, author of the Ramage series, has written an absorbing history of the most bloody mutiny to occur in the English navy . His Majesty's frigates during the late 18th century were crammed with men. It was an unusual captain who managed to keep the men reasonably content and safe under such circumstances. The Hermione, a very small ship, carried 170 at the time of her crew's mutiny against Captain Pigot. Even though the normal complement was 220 for such a small warship, that was a lot of men, and it meant many duties on the foretops had to be shared. Pigot was an extraordinarily cruel captain at a time when cruelty was commonplace.
Hugh Pigot had led a charmed life. His father was an Admiral of the Blue, and Hugh's first experience as a midshipman was on a ship used as flagship by his father. For obvious reasons at a time when connections meant everything, Hugh was not treated in the rough-and-tumble manner a normal midshipman would have been. He had the best of everything and no chance to learn "assurance and tolerance." His promotions were hurried along and when appointed post captain he had had only twelve
weeks of command experience.
Flogging with a cat-o'-nine tails (nine two-foot lengths of rope attached to a handle) was the most common form of punishment to maintain discipline. A few lashes could reduce a man's back to bloody ruins and until 1790 Admiralty rules forbade more than twelve, a regulation that was ignore d. Experiments done with replicas have shown that one or two strokes with the lash could easily break a 1 x2 board, and in 1781 three men died within twenty-four hours of being flogged. For mutinous behavior a man could be flogged around the fleet, i.e., taken to each ship to receive twelve lashes; the total might be 300, leading to almost certain death. Punishments on shore were equally harsh, hanging being th e retribution for over two hundred different offenses, but 0 n shore some oversight was available. At sea no one could take exception to the captain's orders. Pigot flogged everyone except his favorites over and over again.
The mutiny was successful, but only in the sense that the captain and most of the officers were killed or thrown overboard. The ship was sailed to a Spanish port where it remained for several years, moored in a sea of red tape, the Spanish being unable to decide what to do with the men and vessel. The ship was eventually recaptured during a daring raid into the Spanish harbor. About thirty of the mutineers were captured and hung. It is extraordinary how Pope has managed to reconstruct the events using contemporary documents to recreate a rather dismal period of British history.
