Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2) / or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850

by Thomas Hart Benton

THE ALLEGED MUTINY, AND THE EXECUTIONS (AS THEY WERE CALLED) ON BOARD THE UNITED STATES MAN-OF-WAR, SOMERS.

In the beginning of this year the public mind was suddenly astounded and horrified, at the news of a mutiny on board a national ship-of-war, with a view to convert it into a pirate, and at the same time excited to admiration and gratitude at the terrible energy with which the commander of the ship had suppressed it—hanging three of the ringleaders on the spot without trial, bringing home twelve others in irons—and restraining the rest by the undaunted front which the officers assumed, and the complete readiness in which they held themselves to face a revolt. It was a season of profound peace, and the astounding news was like claps of thunder in a clear sky. It was an unprecedented event in our navy, where it had been the pride and glory of the seamen to stand by their captain and their ship to the last man, and to die exultingly to save either. Unlike almost all mutinies, it was not a revolt against oppression, real or imagined, and limited to the seizure of the ship and the death or expulsion of the officers, but a vast scheme of maritime depredation, in which the man-of-war, converted into a piratical cruiser, was to roam the seas in quest of blood and plunder, preying upon the commerce of all nations—robbing property, slaughtering men, and violating women. A son of a cabinet minister, and himself an officer, was at the head of the appalling design; and his name and rank lent it a new aspect of danger. Every aggravation seemed to attend it, and the horrifying intelligence came out in a way to magnify its terrors, and to startle the imagination as well as to overpower the judgment. The vessel was the bearer of her own news, and arriving on the coast, took a reserve and mystery which lent a terrific force to what leaked out. She stopped off the harbor of New York, and remained outside two days, severely interdicting all communication with the shore. A simple notice of her return was all that was made public. An officer from the vessel, related to the commander, proceeded to Washington city—giving out fearful intimations as he went along—and bearing a sealed report to the Secretary of the Navy. The contents of that report went direct into the government official paper, and thence flew resounding through the land. It was the official and authentic report of the fearful mutiny. The news being spread from the official source, and the public mind prepared for his reception, the commander brought his vessel into port—landed: and landed in such a way as to increase the awe and terror inspired by his narrative. He went direct, in solemn procession, at the head of his crew to the nearest church, and returned thanks to God for a great deliverance. Taken by surprise, the public mind delivered itself up to joy and gratitude for a marvellous escape, applauding the energy which had saved a national ship from mutiny, and the commerce of nations from piratical depredation. The current was all on one side. Nothing appeared to weaken its force, or stop its course. The dead who had been hanged, and sent to the bottom of the sea, could send up no voice: the twelve ironed prisoners on the deck of the vessel, were silent as the dead: the officers and men at large actors in what had taken place, could only confirm the commander's official report. That report, not one word of which would be heard in a court of justice, was received as full evidence at the great tribunal of public opinion. The reported confessions which it contained (though the weakest of all testimony in the eye of the law, and utterly repulsed when obtained by force, terror or seduction), were received by the masses as incontestable evidence of guilt.

The vessel on which all this took place was the United States man-of-war, Somers—her commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, Esq., with a crew of 120 all told, 96 of which were apprentice boys under age. She had gone out on one of those holiday excursions which are now the resource of schools to make seamen. She had crossed the Atlantic and was returning to the United States by way of the West Indies, when this fearful mutiny was discovered. It was communicated by the purser's steward to the purser—by him to the first lieutenant—by him to the commander: and the incredulous manner in which he received it is established by two competent witnesses—the lieutenant who gave it to him, and the commander himself: and it is due to each to give the account of this reception in his own words: and first the lieutenant shall speak:

"I reported the thing (the intended mutiny) to the commander immediately. He took it very coolly, said the vessel was in a good state of discipline, and expressed his doubts as to the truth of the report."

This is the testimony of the lieutenant before the court-martial which afterwards sat upon the case, and two points are to be noted in it—first, that the commander did not believe it; and, secondly, that he declared the vessel to be in a good state of discipline: which was equivalent to saying, there was no danger, even if the information was true. Now for the commander's account of the same scene, taken from his official report:

"Such was the purport of the information laid before me by Lieut. Gansevoort, and although he was evidently impressed with the reality of the project, yet it seemed to me so monstrous, so improbable, that I could not forbear treating it with ridicule. I was under the impression that Mr. Spencer had been reading piratical stories, and had amused himself with Mr. Wales"—(the informer).

Ridicule was the only answer which the commander deemed due to the information, and in that he was justified by the nature of the information itself. A purser's steward (his name Wales) had told the lieutenant that midshipman Spencer had called him into a safe place the night before, and asked him right off—"Do you fear death? do you fear a dead man? are you afraid to kill a man?"—and getting satisfactory answers to these questions, he immediately unfolded to him his plan of capturing the ship, with a list of four certain and ten doubtful associates, and eighteen nolens volens assistants to be forced into the business; and then roaming the sea with her as a pirate, first calling at the Isle of Pines (Cuba) for confederates. It was a ridiculous scheme, both as to the force which was to take the ship, and her employment as a buccaneer—the state of the ocean and of navigation being such at that time as to leave a sea-rover, pursued as he would be by the fleets of all nations, without a sea to sail in, without a coast to land on, without a rock or corner to hide in. The whole conception was an impossibility, and the abruptness of its communication to Wales was evidence of the design to joke him. As such it appeared to the commander at the time. It was at 10 o'clock in the morning of the 26th of November, 1842, approaching the West Indies from the coast of Africa, that this information was given by the lieutenant to the commander. Both agree in their account of the ridicule with which it was received; but the commander, after the deaths of the implicated, and when making out his official report to the Secretary of the Navy, forgot to add what he said to the lieutenant—that the vessel was in a good state of discipline—equivalent to saying it could not be taken. Further, he not only forgot to add what he said, but remembered to say the contrary: and on his trial undertook to prove that the state of the ship was bad, and had been so for weeks; and even since they left the coast of Africa. In this omission to report to the Secretary a fact so material, as he had remarked it to his lieutenant, and afterwards proving the contrary on his trial, there is room for a pregnant reflection which will suggest itself to every thinking mind—still more when the silence of the log-book upon this "bad" state of the crew, corresponds with the commander's account that it was good. But, take the two accounts in what they agree, and it is seen that at 10 o'clock in the morning Lieutenant Gansevoort's whole report of the conspiracy and mutiny, as derived from the purser's steward (Wales) was received with ridicule—as the romance of a boy who had been reading piratical stories, and was amusing himself with the steward—a landsman, of whom the commander gives a bad account as having bought a double quantity of brandy—twice as much as his orders justified, before leaving New York;—and afterwards stealing it on the voyage. By five o'clock in the evening of the same day, and without hearing any thing additional, the commander became fully impressed with the truth of the whole story, awfully impressed with the danger of the vessel, and fully resolved upon a course of terrible energy to prevent the success of the impending mutiny. Of this great and sudden change in his convictions it becomes the right of the commander to give his own account of its inducing causes: and here they are, taken from his official report:

"In the course of the day, Lieut. Gansevoort informed me that Mr. Spencer had been in the wardroom examining a chart of the West Indies, and had asked the assistant surgeon some questions about the Isle of Pines, and the latter had informed him that it was a place much frequented by pirates, and drily asked if he had any acquaintances there.—He passed the day rather sullenly in one corner of the steerage, as was his usual custom, engaged in examining a small piece of paper, and writing upon it with his pencil, and occasionally finding relaxation in working with a penknife at the tail of a devilfish, one of which he had formed into a sliding ring for his cravat. Lieut. Gansevoort also made an excuse of duty to follow him to the foretop, where he found him engaged in having some love device tattooed on his arm by Benjamin F. Green, ordinary seaman, and apprentice. Lieut. Gansevoort also learned that he had been endeavoring for some days to ascertain the rate of the chronometer, by applying to Mid. Rodgers, to whom it was unknown, and who referred him to the master. He had been seen in secret and nightly conferences with the boatswain's mate, S. Cromwell, and seaman Elisha Small. I also heard that he had given money to several of the crew; to Elisha Small on the twelfth of September, the day before our departure from New York; the same day on which, in reply to Commodore Perry's injunctions to reformation, he had made the most solemn promises of amendment; to Samuel Cromwell on the passage to Madeira; that he had been in the habit of distributing tobacco extensively among the apprentices, in defiance of the orders of the navy department, and of my own often reiterated; that he had corrupted the ward-room steward, caused him to steal brandy from the ward-room mess, which he, Mr. Spencer, had drunk himself, occasionally getting drunk when removed from observation, and had also administered to several of the crew; that, finally, he was in the habit of amusing the crew by making music with his jaw. He had the faculty of throwing his jaw out of joint, and by contact of the bones, playing with accuracy and elegance a variety of airs. Servile in his intercourse with me, when among the crew he loaded me with blasphemous vituperation, and proclaimed that it would be a pleasing task to roll me overboard off the round-house. He had some time before drawn a brig with a black flag, and asked one of the midshipmen what he thought of it; he had repeatedly asserted in the early part of the cruise, that the brig might easily be taken; he had quite recently examined the hand of midshipman Rodgers, told his fortune, and predicted for him a speedy and violent death."

Surely the historian, as well as the poet may say: To the jealous mind, trifles light as air are confirmations strong as proofs from holy writ. Here are fourteen causes of suspected mutiny enumerated, part of which causes are eminently meritorious in a young naval officer, as those of studying the chart of the West Indies (whither the vessel was going), and that of learning the rate of the chronometer; another part of which is insignificant, as giving tobacco to the apprentice boys, and giving money to two of the seamen; others again would show a different passion from that of piracy, as having love devices tattooed on his arm; others again would bespeak the lassitude of idleness, as whittling at the tail of a devilfish, and making a ring for his cravat, and drawing a brig with a black flag; others again would indicate playfulness and humor, as examining the palm of young Rodgers' hand, and telling his fortune, which fortune, of course, was to be startling, as a sudden and violent death, albeit this young Rodgers was his favorite, and the only one he asked to see when he was about to be hung up—(a favor which was denied him); others again are contradicted by previous statements, as, that Spencer corrupted the purser's steward and made him steal brandy, the commander having before reported that steward for the offence of purchasing a double quantity of brandy before he left New York—a circumstance which implied a sufficient inclination to use the extra supply he had laid in (of which he had the custody), without being corrupted by Spencer to steal it; others of these causes again were natural, and incidental to Spencer's social condition in the vessel, as that of talking with the seamen, he being objected to by his four roommates (who were the commander's relations and connections), and considered one too many in their room, and as such attempted to be removed to another ship by the commander himself; another, that occasionally he got drunk when removed from observation, a fault rather too common (even when in the presence of observation) to stand for evidence of a design to commit mutiny on board a man-of-war; another, that blasphemous vituperation of the commander which, although it might be abusive, could neither be blasphemous (which only applies to the abuse of God), nor a sign of a design upon the vessel, but only of contempt for the commander; finally, as in that marvellous fine music with the jaw out of joint, playing with skill and accuracy a variety of elegant airs by the contaction of the luxated ends of the bones. Taken as true, and this musical habit might indicate an innocency of disposition. But it is ridiculously false, and impossible, and as such ridiculous impossibility it was spared the mention even of contempt during the whole court-martial proceedings. Still it was one of the facts gravely communicated to the Secretary of the Navy as one of the means used by Spencer to seduce the crew. While ridicule, contempt and scorn are the only proper replies to such absurd presumptions of guilt, there were two of them presented in such a way as to admit of an inquiry into their truth, namely, the fortune-telling and the chronometer: Midshipman Rodgers testified before the court that this fortune-telling was a steerage amusement, and that he was to die, not only suddenly and violently, but also a gambler; and that as for the examination of the chronometer, it was with a view to a bet between himself and Rodgers as to the time that the vessel would get to St. Thomas—the bet on Spencer's side, being on eight days. Yet, the diseased mind of the commander could see nothing in those little incidents, but proof of a design to kill Rodgers (with the rest) before the ship got to St. Thomas, and afterwards to run to the Isle of Pines. Preposterous as these fourteen reasons were, they were conclusive with the commander, who forthwith acted upon them, and made the arrest of Spencer.

"At evening quarters I ordered through my clerk, O. H. Perry, doing the duty also of midshipman and aid, all the officers to lay aft on the quarter deck, excepting the midshipman stationed on the forecastle. The master was ordered to take the wheel, and those of the crew stationed abaft sent to the mainmast. I approached Mr. Spencer, and said to him, 'I learn, Mr. Spencer, that you aspire to the command of the Somers.' With a deferential, but unmoved and gently smiling expression, he replied, 'Oh no, sir.' 'Did you not tell Mr. Wales, sir, that you had a project to kill the commander, the officers, and a considerable portion of the crew of this vessel, and to convert her into a pirate?' 'I may have told him so, sir, but it was in a joke.' 'You admit then that you told him so?' 'Yes, sir, but in joke!' 'This, sir, is joking on a forbidden subject—this joke may cost you your life!'"

This was the answer of innocence: guilt would have denied every thing. Here all the words are admitted, with a promptitude and frankness that shows they were felt to be what they purported—the mere admission of a joke. The captain's reply shows that the life of the young man was already determined upon. It was certainly a punishable joke—a joke upon a forbidden subject: but how punishable? certainly among the minor offences in the navy, offences prejudicial to discipline; and to be expiated by arrest, trial, condemnation for breach of discipline, and sentence to reprimand, suspension; or some such punishment for inconsiderate offences. But, no. The commander replies upon the spot, 'this joke may cost you your life:' and in that he was prophetic, being the fulfiller of his own prophecy. The informer Wales had reported a criminal paper to be in the neckcloth of the young man: the next movement of the commander was to get possession of that paper: and of that attempt he gives this account:

"'Be pleased to remove your neckhandkerchief.' It was removed and opened, but nothing was found in it. I asked him what he had done with a paper containing an account of his project which he had told Mr. Wales was in the back of his neckhandkerchief. 'It is a paper containing my day's work; and I have destroyed it.' 'It is a singular place to keep day's work in.' 'It is a convenient one,' he replied, with an air of deference and blandness."

Balked in finding this confirmation of guilt, the commander yet proceeded with his design, and thus describes the arrest:

"I said to him, 'You must have been aware that you could only have compassed your designs by passing over my dead body, and after that the bodies of all the officers. You had given yourself a great deal to do. It will be necessary for me to confine you.' I turned to Lieutenant Gansevoort and said, 'Arrest Mr. Spencer, and put him in double irons.' Mr. Gansevoort stepped forward, and took his sword; he was ordered to sit down in the stern port, double ironed, and as an additional security handcuffed. I directed Lieut. Gansevoort to watch over his security, to order him to be put to instant death if he was detected speaking to, or holding intelligence in any way, with any of the crew. He was himself made aware of the nature of these orders. I also directed Lieut. Gansevoort to see that he had every comfort which his safe keeping would admit of. In confiding this task to Lieut. Gansevoort, his kindness and humanity gave me the assurance that it would be zealously attended to; and throughout the period of Mr. Spencer's confinement, Lieut. Gansevoort, whilst watching his person with an eagle eye, and ready at any moment to take his life should he forfeit that condition of silence on which his safety depended, attended to all his wants, covered him with his own grego when squalls of rain were passing over, and ministered in every way to his comfort with the tenderness of a woman."

Double-ironed—handcuffed—bagged (for he was also tied up in a bag), lying under the sun in a tropical clime, and drenched with squalls of rain—silent—instant death for a word or a sign—Lieutenant Gansevoort, armed to the teeth, standing over him, and watching, with "eagle eye," for the sound or motion which was to be the forfeit of life: for six days and nights, his irons examined every half hour to see that all were tight and safe, was this boy (of less than nineteen) thus confined; only to be roused from it in a way that will be told. But the lieutenant could not stand to his arduous watch during the whole of that time. His eagle eye could not resist winking and shutting during all that time. He needed relief—and had it—and in the person of one who showed that he had a stomach for the business—Wales, the informer: who, finding himself elevated from the care of pea-jackets, molasses, and tobacco, to the rank of sentinel over a United States officer, improved upon the lessons which his superiors had taught him, and stood ready, a cocked revolver in hand, to shoot, not only the prisoners (for by this time there were three), for a thoughtless word or motion, but also to shoot any of the crew that should make a suspicious sign:—such as putting the hand to the chin, or touching a handspike within forty feet of the said Mr. Wales. Hear him, as he swears before the court-martial:

"I was officer in charge of the prisoners: we were holy-stoning the decks. I noticed those men who missed their muster kept congregating round the stern of the launch, and kept talking in a secret manner. I noticed them making signs to the prisoners by putting their hands up to their chins: Cromwell was lying on the starboard arm-chest: he rose up in his bed. I told him if I saw any more signs passing between them I should put him to death: my orders were to that effect. He laid down in his bed. I then went to the stern of the launch, found Wilson, and a number of small holy-stones collected there, and was endeavoring to pull a gun handspike from the stern of the launch: what his intentions were I don't know. I cocked a pistol, and ordered him to the lee-gangway to draw water. I told him if I saw him pulling at the handspike I should blow his brains out."

This comes from Mr. Wales himself, not from the commander's report, where this handspike-incident is made to play a great part; thus:

"Several times during the night there were symptoms of an intention to strike some blow. Mr. Wales detected Charles A. Wilson attempting to draw out a handspike from under the launch, with an evident purpose of felling him; and when Mr. Wales cocked his pistol and approached, he could only offer some lame excuse for his presence there. I felt more anxious than I had yet done, and remained continually on deck."

Here is a discrepancy. Wales swears before the court that he did not know what Wilson's intentions were in pulling at the handspike: the captain, who did not see the pulling, reports to the Secretary of the Navy that it was done with the evident intent of felling Wales! while Wales himself, before the court-martial, not only testified to his ignorance of any motive for that act, but admitted upon cross-examination, that the handspike was not drawn at all—only attempted! and that he himself was forty feet from Wilson at the time! (but, more of this handspike hereafter.) Still the impression upon the commander's mind was awful. He felt more anxious than ever: he could not rest: he kept continually on deck. Armed to the teeth he watched, listened, interrogated, and patrolled incessantly. Surely the man's crazy terrors would excite compassion were it not for the deeds he committed under their influence.—But the paper that was to have been found in Spencer's cravat, and was not found there: it was found elsewhere, and the commander in his report gives this account of it:

"On searching the locker of Mr. Spencer, a small razor-case was found, which he had recently drawn, with a razor in it, from the purser. Instead of the razor, the case was found to contain a small paper, rolled in another; on the inner one were strange characters, which proved to be Greek, with which Mr. Spencer was familiar. It fortunately happened that there was another midshipman on board the Somers who knew Greek—one whose Greek, and every thing else that he possessed, was wholly devoted to his country. The Greek characters, converted by midshipman Henry Rodgers into our own, exhibited well known names among the crew. The certain—the doubtful—those who were to be kept whether they would or not—arranged in separate rows; those who were to do the work of murder in the various apartments, to take the wheel, to open the arm-chests."

The paper had about thirty names upon it: four under the head of "certain:" ten under that of doubtful, and the remainder under the head of nolens volens—which was construed by the Latinists on board to signify men who were to be made to join in the mutiny whether they would or not: and these nolens volens who were to be forced were more numerous than those who were to force them. Eighteen unwilling men to be forced into mutiny and piracy by four willing and ten uncertain; and of the four willing, one of them the informer himself! and another not in the ship! and a third Spencer! leaving but one under Spencer to do the work. The names of all were spelt with the Greek alphabet. Of course these nolens volens men could not have been counted in any way among the mutineers; yet they were always counted to make up the thirty, as, of less than that number it would not have been seemly for a man-of-war to have been afraid; yet some of these were brought home in irons. The ten marked doubtful should not have been held to be guilty upon any principle of human justice—the humanity of the law always giving the benefit of the doubt to the suspected criminal. This brings the inquiry to the four "certain:" and of these four, it turned out that one of them (Andrews) was a personage not in the vessel! Another was the veritable Mr. Wales himself! who was the informer, and the most determined opposer of the mutiny—leaving but two (Spencer and McKinley) to do the work of murder in the various departments: and of this McKinley it will eventually be seen with what justice his name was there. The names of Small and Cromwell, both of whom were hung with Spencer, were neither of them in this certain list—nor that of Cromwell in any: in fact, there was nothing against him, and Small was only included in Wales's information. So that the "certain" mutineers were reduced to two, both of whom were in irons, and bagged, and five others out of the doubtful and nolens volens classes. There was no evidence to show that this was Spencer's razor-case: it was new, and like the rest obtained from the purser. There was no evidence how it got into Spencer's locker: Wales and Gansevoort were the finders. There was no evidence that a single man whose name was in the list, knew it to be there. Justice would have required these points to have been proven; but with respect to the writing upon this paper it was readily avowed by Spencer to be his—an avowal accompanied by a declaration of its joking character, which the law would require to go with it always, but which was disregarded.

Small and Cromwell were not arrested with Spencer, but afterwards, and not upon accusations, but upon their looks and attitudes, and accident to the sky-sail-mast, which will be noted at the proper time. The first point is to show the arrestation upon looks and motions; and of that the commander gave this account in the official report:

"The following day being Sunday, the crew were inspected at quarters, ten o'clock. I took my station abaft with the intention of particularly observing Cromwell and Small. The third, or master's division, to which they both belonged, always mustered at morning quarters upon the after part of the quarter deck, in continuation of the line formed by the crews of the guns. The persons of both were faultlessly clean. They were determined that their appearance in this respect should provoke no reproof. Cromwell stood up to his full stature, his muscles braced, his battle-axe grasped resolutely, his cheek pale, but his eye fixed as if indifferently at the other side. He had a determined and dangerous air. Small made a very different figure. His appearance was ghastly; he shifted his weight from side to side, and his battle-axe passed from one hand to the other; his eye wandered irresolutely, but never towards mine. I attributed his conduct to fear; I have since been led to believe that the business upon which he had entered was repugnant to his nature, though the love of money and of rum had been too strong for his fidelity."

Here were two men adjudged guilty of mutiny and piracy upon their looks, and attitude, and these diametrically opposed in each case. One had a dangerous air—the other a ghastly air. One looked resolute—the other irresolute. One held his battle-axe firmly griped—the other shifted his from hand to hand. One stood up steadily on both legs—the other shifted his weight uneasily from leg to leg. In one point only did they agree—in that of faultless cleanliness: a coincidence which the commander's judgment converted into evidence of guilt, as being proof of a determination that, so far as clean clothes went, there should be no cause for judging them pirates: a conclusion to the benefit of which the whole crew would be entitled, as they were proved on the court-martial to be all "faultlessly clean" at this Sunday inspection—as they always were at such inspection—as the regulations required them to be—and for a fault in which any one of them would have been punished. Yet upon these looks, and attitudes, suspicions were excited, which, added to the incident of a mast broken by the blundering order of the commander's nephew, caused the arrest and death of two citizens.

After the crew had been inspected, divine service was performed, the crew attending before the time, and behaving well; and the commander again availed himself of the occasion to examine the countenances of the men; and, happily, without finding any thing to give him distrust. He thus describes the scene:

"After quarters the church was rigged. The crew mustered up with their prayer-books, and took their seats without waiting for all hands to be called, and considerably before five bells, or half-past ten—the usual time of divine service. The first lieutenant reported all ready, and asked me if he should call all hands to muster. I told him to wait for the accustomed hour. Five bells were at length struck, and all hands called to muster. The crew were unusually attentive, and the responses more than commonly audible. The muster succeeded, and I examined very carefully the countenances of the crew, without discovering any thing that gave me distrust."

This Sunday then (Nov. 27th) being the first Sunday, and the first day after the arrest of Spencer, had passed half by without any thing discoverable to excite distrust, except the cleanliness, the looks, and the attitudes of Small and Cromwell at the morning inspection. At the second ordeal, that of the church service, the whole crew came out well, and all seemed to be safe and right up to this time—being twenty-four hours after the arrest of Spencer—the event which was expected to rouse his accomplices to some outbreak for his rescue. But that critical day was not destined to pass away without an event which confirmed all the suspicions of the commander, and even indicated the particular criminals. Before the sun had gone down, this event occurred; and as it became the turning point in the case, and the point of departure in the subsequent tragic work, the commander shall have the benefit of telling it himself:

"In the afternoon, the wind having moderated, skysails and royal studding-sails were set. In going large I had always been very particular to have no strain upon the light braces leading forward, as the tendency of such a strain was to carry away the light yards and masts. Whilst Ward M. Gagely, one of the best and most skilful of our apprentices, was yet on the main royal yard, after setting the main skysail, a sudden jerk of the weather main royal brace given by Small and another, whose name I have not discovered, carried the topgallant-mast away in the sheeve hole, sending forward the royal mast with royal skysail, royal studding sail, main-topgallant staysail, and the head of the gaff topsail. Gagely was on the royal yard. I scarcely dared to look on the booms or in the larboard gangways where he should have fallen. For a minute I was in intense agony: in the next I saw the shadow of the boy through the topgallant sail, rising rapidly towards the topgallant yard, which still remained at the mast head. Presently he rose to view, descended on the after side to the topgallant-mast cap, and began to examine with coolness to see what was first to be done to clear the wreck. I did not dream at the time that the carrying away of this mast was the work of treachery—but I knew that it was an occasion of this sort, the loss of a boy overboard, or an accident to a spar, creating confusion and interrupting the regularity of duty, which was likely to be taken advantage of by the conspirators were they still bent on the prosecution of their enterprise."

The commander did not dream at the time of treachery: did not dream of it when he saw the mast fall: and well he might not, for he had given the order himself to set the skysails, the ship running "large" at the time, i. e. with a favorable wind, and when a slight press of sail might carry away the elevated, light, and unsupported mast which carried the skysail. He did not dream of treachery when he saw it fall under an order which himself had given: but quickly he had that dream, and he must tell himself how it came to him; thus:

"To my astonishment, all those who were most conspicuously named in the programme of Mr. Spencer, no matter in what part of the vessel they might be stationed, mustered at the main-top masthead—whether animated by some new-born zeal in the service of their country, or collected there for the purpose of conspiring, it was not easy to decide. The coincidence confirmed the existence of a dangerous conspiracy, suspended, yet perhaps not abandoned."

This is the way the dream began, in astonishment at seeing all those most conspicuously nominated in the razor-case paper, rush to the scene of the disaster. Now, for the misfortune of this paragraph, it came to be proved before the court-martial, and after the men were dead, that the majority of those who ran forward were not named in the paper at all! and especially that one of the two was not upon it who were presently seized as guilty, and whose haste to perform a duty was the passport to death. The crew ran to the place. This would seem to be the most natural conduct imaginable. They ran to the place where the mast and boy were expected to fall. They flew to the place at which the commander, in his intense agony, did not dare to look. This haste to such a place was proof of guilt, take it either way, either as animated by some new-born zeal to hide past defection, or to collect for a conspiracy. The commander finds it hard to decide between these two purposes; but take which he might, it was confirmation of a dangerous conspiracy, and of its suspension, not abandonment. The sudden running to the place was the proof of the conspiracy: the jerk which Small, and another whose name has never yet been discovered, gave to the weather main royal brace, pointed out the two eminently guilty. What put the seal upon the confirmation of all this guilt was the strange and stealthy glances which Spencer, in his irons, and his head then out of the bag (for the heads were left out in the day time) cast at it. Hear him:

"The eye of Mr. Spencer travelled perpetually to the masthead, and cast thither many of those strange and stealthy glances which I had before noticed."

The commander nowhere tells when and how he had previously seen these sinister glances—certainly not before the revelations of Wales, as, up to that time, he was anxious before the court-martial to show that Spencer was kindly regarded by him. But the glances. What more natural than for Spencer to look at such a startling scene! a boy falling in the wreck of a broken mast, and tumbling shrouds, from fifty feet high: and look he did—a fair and honest look, his eyes steadfastly fixed upon it, as proved by the commander's own witnesses on the court-martial—especially midshipman Hays—who testified to the fixed and steady look; and this in answer to a question from the commander tending to get a confirmation of his own report. Nor did any one whatever see those strange and furtive glances which the commander beheld. Now to the breaking of the mast. This incident was reviewed at the time by two competent judges—Mr. Fenimore Cooper, the naval historian, and himself an ex-naval officer, and Captain William Sturgis of Boston, one of the best navigators that Boston ever bred (and she has bred as good as the world ever saw). They deemed the breaking of that slender, elevated, unbraced mast the natural result of the order which the commander gave to set the skysail, going as the vessel then was. She was in the trade-winds, running into West Indies from the coast of Africa, and running "large," as the mariners express it; that is to say, with the wind so crossing her course as to come strong upon her beam or quarter, and send her well before it. With such a wind, these experienced seamen say that the order which the commander gave might well break that mast. It would increase the press of sail on that delicate and exposed mast, able to bear but little at the best, and often breaking without a perceptible increase of pressure upon it. But the order which he gave was not the one given to the men. He gave his order to his relation, Mr. O. H. Perry, to have a small pull on one brace; instead of that the order given to the men was, to haul, that is, pull hard, on another; which was directly contrary to the order he had received—one slacking, the other increasing the press of sail. Under that order the men with alacrity threw their whole weight on the wrong brace; and the mast cracked, reeled, and fell immediately. The commander himself saw all this—saw the fault his nephew had committed—sent for him—reproved him in the face of the crew—told him it was his fault—the effect of his inattention. All this was fully proved before the court-martial. Perry's own testimony admitted it. Thus—questioned by the judge advocate: "After the mast was carried away were you sent for by the commander?" Answer: "Yes, sir." "Who came for you?" A. "I don't recollect the person." "Was it not McKee?" A. "I don't recollect." "What then occurred between you and the commander?" A. "He asked me why I did not attend to my duties better? and said I must do it better in future." "What was the commander alluding to?" A. "To my not attending to the brace at the time they were hauling on it." "Did he say to you, 'this is all your fault, sir?' or words to that effect?" A. "I don't recollect." "What reply did you make the commander?" A. "I did not make any. I said, I think, that I understood the order to haul on the brace." There was also something else proved there, which, like the other, was not reported in the commander's account of that portentous event, which was the immediate cause of a new and terrible line of conduct. First, there is no mention on the log-book of this rush of the men aft: secondly, there is no mention in it of any suspected design to carry away this topgallant mast. The commander was seeing when he wrote his report what the keeper of the log-book did not see at the time it should have happened. And this point is here dismissed with the remark that, in this case (the men coming fast to the work) was the sign of guilt: in other cases, coming slow was the same sign: so that, fast or slow, from the time Wales made his revelation, to the time of hanging, all motions, however opposite to each other, were equally signs of the same guilt. The account of this incident being given, the report proceeds:

"The wreck being cleared, supper was piped down before sending up the new mast. After supper the same persons mustered again at the mast head, and the topgallant mast was fidded, the light yards crossed, and the sails set. By this time it was dark, and quarters had been unavoidably dispensed with: still I thought, under all the circumstances, that it was scarcely safe to leave Cromwell at large during the night. The night was the season of danger. After consulting Lieutenant Gansevoort, I determined to arrest Cromwell. The moment he reached the deck, an officer was sent to leeward to guard the lee-rigging; and the main stays were also thought of, though not watched. As his voice was heard in the top, descending the rigging, I met him at the foot of Jacob's ladder, surrounded by the officers, guided him aft to the quarter-deck, and caused him to sit down. On questioning him as to the secret conversation he had held the night before with Mr. Spencer, he denied its being he. He said; 'It was not me, sir, it was Small!' Cromwell was the tallest man on board, and Small the shortest. Cromwell was immediately ironed; and Small, then pointed out by an associate to increased suspicion, was also sent for, interrogated, and ironed. Increased vigilance was now enjoined upon all the officers; henceforward, all were perpetually armed. Either myself, or the first lieutenant was always on deck; and, generally, both of us were."

Two more were now arrested, and in giving an account of these arrests, as of all others (fifteen in the whole), the commander forgets to tell that the arrested persons were bagged, as well as double-ironed and handcuffed, and their irons ordered to be examined every half hour day and night—a ceremony which much interfered with sleep and rest. And now for the circumstances which occasioned these arrests: and first of Cromwell. There are but two points mentioned; first, "under all the circumstances." These have been mentioned, and comprise his looks and attitudes at the morning inspection, and his haste in getting to the scene of the wreck when the mast fell. The next was his answer to the question upon his secret conversation with Spencer the night before. This "night before," seems to be a sad blunder in point of time. Spencer was in irons on the larboard arm-chest at that time, a guard over him, and holding his life from minute to minute by the tenure of silence, the absence of signs, and the absence of understanding looks with any person. It does not seem possible that he could have held a conversation, secret or public, with any person during that night, or after his arrest until his death; nor is any such any where else averred: and it is a stupid contradiction in itself. If it was secret, it could not be known: if it was open, both the parties would have been shot instantly. Upon its stupid contradiction, as well as upon time, the story is falsified. Besides this blunder and extreme improbability, there is other evidence from the commander himself, to make it quite sure that nobody could have talked with Spencer that night. The men were in the hammocks, and the ship doubly guarded, and the officers patrolling the deck with pistols and cutlasses. Of this, the report says: "That night the officers of the watch were armed with cutlasses and pistols, and the rounds of both decks made frequently, to see that the crew were in their hammocks, and that there were no suspicious collections of individuals about the deck." Under these circumstances, it would seem impossible that the previous night's conversation could have been held by any person with Mr. Spencer. Next, supposing there was a secret conversation. It might have been innocent or idle; for its subject is not intimated; and its secret nature precludes all knowledge of it. So much for Cromwell: now for Small. His case stands thus: "Pointed out by an associate to increased suspicion." Here association in guilt is assumed; a mode of getting at the facts he wanted, almost invariable with the commander, Mackenzie. Well, the answer of Cromwell, "It was not me, it was Small!" would prove no guilt if it was true; but it is impossible to have been true. But this was only cause of "increased" suspicion: so that there was suspicion before; and all the causes of this had been detailed in the official report. First, there were the causes arising at inspection that morning—faultless cleanliness, shifting his battle-axe from one hand to the other, resting alternately on the legs, and a ghastly look—to wit: a ghostly look. He was interrogated: the report does not say about what: nor does it intimate the character of the answers. But there were persons present who heard the questions and the answers, and who told both to the court-martial. The questions were as to the conversation with Spencer, which Wales reported; and the answers were, yes—that he had foolish conversations with Spencer, but no mutiny. Still there was a stumbling block in the way of arresting Small. His name was nowhere made out as certain by Spencer. This was a balk: but there was the name of a man in the list who was not in the vessel: and this circumstance of a man too few, suggested an idea that there should be a transaction between these names; and the man on the list who had no place in the ship, should give place to him who had a place in the ship, and no place on the list: so Small was assumed to be Andrews; and by that he was arrested, though proved to be Small by all testimony—that of his mother inclusive.

The three prisoners were bagged, and how that process was performed upon them, they did not live to tell: but others who had undergone the same investment, did: and from them the operation will be learnt. With the arrest of these two, the business of Sunday closed; and Monday opened with much flogging of boys, and a speech from the commander, of which he gives an abstract, and also displays its capital effects:

"The effect of this (speech of the 28th) upon the crew was various: it filled many with horror at the idea of what they had escaped from: it inspired others with terror at dangers awaiting them from their connection with the conspiracy. The thoughts of returning to that home, and those friends from whom it had been intended to cut them off for ever, caused many of them to weep. I now considered the crew tranquillized and the vessel safe."

Now, whether this description of the emotions excited by the captain's oratory, be reality or fancy, it is still good for one thing: it is good for evidence against himself! good evidence, at the bar of all courts, and at the high tribunal of public opinion. It shows that the captain, only two days before the hanging, was perfect master of his ship—that the crew was tranquillized, and the vessel safe! and all by the effect of his oratory: and consequently, that he had a power within himself by which he could control the men, and mould them into the emotions which he pleased. The 28th day came. The commander had much flogging done, and again made a speech, but not of such potency as the other. He stopped Spencer's tobacco, and reports that, "the day after it was stopped, his spirits gave way entirely. He remained the whole day with his face buried in the gregoe and when it was raised, it was bathed in tears." So passed the 28th. "On the 29th (continues the report) all hands were again called to witness punishment," and the commander made another speech. But the whole crew was far from being tranquillized. During the night seditious cries were heard. Signs of disaffection multiplied. The commander felt more uneasy than he had ever done before. The most seriously implicated collected in knots. They conferred together in low tones, hushing up, or changing the subject when an officer approached. Some of the petty officers had been sounded by the first lieutenant, and found to be true to their colors: they were under the impression that the vessel was yet far from being safe—that there were many still at liberty that ought to be confined—that an outbreak, having for its object the rescue of the prisoners, was seriously contemplated. Several times during the night there were symptoms of an intention to strike some blow. Such are a specimen of the circumstances grouped together under vague and intangible generalities with which the day of the 29th is ushered in, all tending to one point, the danger of a rescue, and the necessity for more arrests. Of these generalities, only one was of a character to be got hold of before the court-martial, and it will take a face, under the process of judicial examination of witnesses, very different from that which it wore in the report. After these generalities, applying to the mass of the crew, come special accusations against four seamen—Wilson, Green, McKee, McKinley: and of these special accusations, a few were got hold of by the judge advocate on the court-martial. Thus:

1. The handspike sign.—"Mr. Wales detected Charles A. Wilson attempting to draw out a handspike from under the launch, with an evident purpose of felling him; and when Wales cocked his pistol, and approached, he could only offer some lame excuse for his presence there."

This is the amount of the handspike portent, as reported to the Secretary of the Navy among the signs which indicated the immediate danger of the rising and the rescue. This Wales, of course, was a witness for the commander, and on being put on the stand, delivered his testimony in a continued narrative, covering the whole case. In that narrative, he thus introduces the handspike incident:

"I then went to the stern of the launch, found Wilson had a number of small holystones collected there, and was endeavoring to pull a gun handspike from the stern of the launch: what his intentions were I don't know. I cocked a pistol, and ordered him in the gangway to draw water. I told him if I saw him pulling on the handspike, I should blow his brains out."

"I then went to the stern," &c. This period of time of going to the stern of the launch, was immediately after this Wales had detected persons making signs to the prisoners by putting their hands to their chins, and when he told Cromwell if he saw any more signs between them he should put him to death. It was instantly after this detection and threat, and of course at a time when this purser's steward was in a good mood to see signs and kill, that he had this vision of the handspike: but he happens to swear that he does not know with what intent the attempt to pull it out was made. Far from seeing, as the commander did when he wrote the report, that the design to fell him was evident, he does not know what the design was at all; but he gives us a glimpse at the inside of his own heart, when he swears that he would blow out the brains of Wilson if he saw him again attempting to pull out the handspike, when he did not know what it was for. Here is a murderous design attributed to Wilson on an incident with Wales, in which Wales himself saw no design of any kind; and thus, upon his direct examination, and in the narrative of his testimony, he convicts the commander of a cruel and groundless misstatement. But proceed to the cross-examination: the judge advocate required him to tell the distance between himself and Wilson when the handspike was being pulled by Wilson? He answered forty feet, more or less! and so this witness who had gone to the stern of the launch, was forty feet from that stern when he got there.

2. Missing their muster.—"McKinley, Green, and others, missed their musters. Others of the implicated also missed their musters. I could not contemplate this growth of disaffection without serious uneasiness. Where was this thing to end? Each new arrest of prisoners seemed to bring a fresh set of conspirators forward to occupy the first place."

The point of this is the missing the musters; and of these the men themselves give this account, in reply to questions from the judge advocate:

"It was after the arrest (of Spencer), me and McKee (it is McKinley speaks) turned in and out with one another when the watch was called: we made a bargain in the first of the cruise to wake one another up when the watches were called. I came up on deck, awaked by the noise of relieving guards, 15 minutes too late, and asked McKee why he did not call me? He told me that the officer would not let him stir: that they were ordered to lie down on the deck, and when he lay down he fell asleep, and did not wake up: that was why I missed my muster, being used to be waked up by one another."

Such is the natural account, veracious upon its face, which McKinley gives for missing, by 15 minutes, his midnight muster, and which the commander characterized as a lame excuse, followed by immediate punishment, and a confirmed suspicion of mutiny and piracy. All the others who missed musters had their excuses, true on their face, good in their nature, and only varying as arising from the different conditions of the men at the time.

3. The African knife sign.—"In his sail-bag (Wilson's) was found an African knife of an extraordinary shape—short, and gradually expanding in breadth, sharp on both sides. It was of no use for any honest purpose. It was only fit to kill. It had been secretly sharpened, by his own confession, the day before with a file to a perfect edge."

The history of this knife, as brought out before the court-martial was this (McKinley, the witness):

"I was ashore on the coast of Africa—I believe it was at Monrovia that I went ashore, I having no knife at the time. I went ashore there, and saw one of the natives with a knife. I spoke to Mr. Heiskill (the purser) about buying it for me. He sent me aboard the brig (Somers) with some things in the second cutter. When I came back Warner had bought the knife I looked at, and Mr. Heiskill bought an African dirk instead of that, and gave it to me. I came on board with the knife, and wore it for two or three days. Wilson saw it, and said he wanted to buy it as a curiosity to take to New York. I would not let him have it then. I went up on the topgallant yard, and it nearly threw me off. It caught in some of the rigging. When I came down, I told Wilson he might have it for one dollar. He promised to give a dollar out of the first grog money, or the first dollar he could get."

So much for this secret and formidable weapon in the history of its introduction to the ship—coming through the purser Heiskill, one of the supporters of Commander Mackenzie in all the affairs of these hangings—given as a present to McKinley, a cot-boy, i. e. who made up the cots for the officers, who had been a waiter at Howard's Hotel (N. Y.), and who was a favorite in the ship's crew. As for the uses to which it could only be put—no honest use, and only fit to kill—it was proved to be in current use as a knife, cutting holes in hammocks, shifting their numbers, &c.

4. The battle-axe alarm.—"He had begun also to sharpen his battle-axe with the same assistant (the file): one part of it he had brought to an edge."

The proof was the knife and the battle-axe were publicly sharpened as often as needed, and that battle-axes, like all other arms, were required to be kept in perfect order; and that, sharp and shining was their desired condition. Every specified sign of guilt was cleared up before the court-martial—one only excepted; and the mention of that was equally eschewed by each party. It was the sign of music from the luxated jaw! Both parties refrained from alluding to that sign on the trial—one side from shame, the other from pity. Yet it was gravely reported to the Secretary of the Navy as fact, and as a means of seducing the crew. Returning to generalities, the informer Wales, presents himself prominently on this day—this 29th of November, memorable for its resolves; and groups a picture which was to justify all that was to be done in two days more, and of which the initiation and preliminary steps were then taken.

"The crew still continued very much dissatisfied, grumbling the whole time. The master-at-arms was sick at the time, and I attended to his duties, and had charge of the berth deck. Their manner was so insulting that I had to bring three or four up for punishment (with the cat-and-nine-tails.) The dissatisfaction continued to increase (this was the 30th I think), and continued till the execution took place, when I noticed a marked change in their manner: those who were the most unruly and insolent were the first to run and obey an order: they seemed to anticipate an order."—"Before that, an order had to be given two or three times before it was executed, and when they did execute it, they would go growling along, as though they did not care whether it was done or not. They went slow."

This swearing of Wales tallies with the report of the commander in bringing the mutiny up to the bursting point on the 29th of November. That was a point necessary to be reached, as it will be seen hereafter, and to be reached on that day. There was one other point necessary to be made out, and that was, the mutiny was to break forth before they arrived at the island of St. Thomas, as at that place the mutineers could be landed, or transhipped, and so the whole thing evaporate. They were now within less than four days of that island. Spencer had bet just before they would be there in eight days—a bet which seemed to say that he had no thought of preventing her from arriving there. But it was now necessary to have the mutiny to take place before they got to that island: and this essential point was established by Wales, by an addition to his previous testimony fixing that point. This addition to his testimony caused an inquiry to be put to him by the judge advocate before the court: "When did you first swear that Mr. Spencer told you that the mutiny would break out shortly before your arrival at St. Thomas?" Answer: "At the examination of officers, and of men by the officers. I forget what day, but I think it was on the 30th of November." This was corroborated in the view of the commander by the fortune-telling of the young Rodgers' fate—to die suddenly, i.e. in the mutiny before they got to St. Thomas, without adding the remainder of the prediction, that he was to die a gambler; and without adding the essential fact, that Spencer had a bet that she would arrive there by a given day.

On the 30th day of November, at nine o'clock in the morning, a letter was delivered by the commander to Lieutenant Gansevoort, Surgeon Leecock and Purser Heiskill, and four midshipmen, stating the dangers of the ship, and calling upon them to enlighten the commander with their opinion as to what should be done with Spencer, Small and Cromwell. The letter was not addressed to any of the acting midshipmen, the reason why being thus stated: "Though they had done men's duty in the late transaction, they were still boys: their opinion could add but little force to that of the other officers: it would have been hard, at their early age, to call upon them to say whether three of their fellow-creatures should live or die." So reasoned the commander with respect to the acting midshipmen. It would seem that the same reasoning should have excused the four midshipmen on whom this hard task was imposed. The letter was delivered at 9 o'clock in the morning: the nominated officers met in (what was called) a council: and proceeded immediately to take, what they called testimony, to be able to give the required opinion. Thirteen seamen were examined, under oath—an extra-judicial oath of no validity in law, and themselves punishable at common law for administering it: and this testimony written down in pencil on loose and separate slips of paper—the three persons whose lives were to be passed upon, having no knowledge of what was going on. Purser Heiskill being asked on the court-martial, why, on so important occasion pen and ink was not used, answered, he did not know—"that there were no lawyers there:" as if lawyers were necessary to have pen and ink used. The whole thirteen, headed by Wales, swore to a pattern: and such swearing was certainly never heard before, not even in the smallest magistrate's court, and where the value of a cow and calf was at stake: hearsays, beliefs, opinions; preposterous conclusions from innocent or frivolous actions: gratuitous assumptions of any fact wanted: and total disregard of every maxim which would govern the admissibility of evidence. Thus:

Henry King: "Believed the vessel was in danger of being taken by them: thinks Cromwell the head man: thinks they have been engaged in it ever since they left New York: thinks if they could get adrift, there would be danger of the vessel being taken: thinks Spencer, Small, Cromwell and Wilson were the leaders: thinks if Golderman and Sullivan could get a party among the crew now that they would release the prisoners and take the vessel, and that they are not to be trusted."—Charles Stewart: "Have seen Cromwell and Spencer talking together often—talking low: don't think the vessel safe with these prisoners on board: this is my deliberate opinion from what I've heard King, the gunner's mate, say (that is) that he had heard the boys say that there were spies about: I think the prisoners have friends on board who would release them if they got a chance. I can't give my opinion as to Cromwell's character: I have seen him at the galley getting a cup of coffee now and then."—Charles Rogers: "I believe Spencer gave Cromwell 15 dollars on the passage to Madeira—Cromwell showed it to me and said Spencer had given it to him. If we get into hard weather I think it will be hard to look out for all the prisoners: I believe if there are any concerned in the plot, it would not be safe to go on our coast in cold or bad weather with the prisoners: I think they would rise and take the vessel: I think if Cromwell, Small, and Spencer were disposed of, our lives would be much safer. Cromwell and Small understand navigation: these two are the only ones among the prisoners capable of taking charge of the vessel."—Andrew Anderson: "Have seen Spencer and Cromwell often speaking together on the forecastle, in a private way: never took much notice: I think it's plain proof they were plotting to take this vessel out of the hands of her officers: from the first night Spencer was confined, and from what I heard from my shipmates, I suspected that they were plotting to take the vessel: I think they are safe from here to Saint Thomas (West Indies), but from thence home I think there is great danger on account of the kind of weather on the coast, and squalls."—Oliver B. Browning: "I would not like to be on board the brig if he (Cromwell) was at large: I do not bear him any ill will: I do not know that he bears me any ill will: I do not think it safe to have Cromwell, Spencer and Small on board: I believe that if the men were at their stations taking care of the vessel in bad weather, or any other time when they could get a chance, they would try and capture the vessel if they could get a chance: to tell you God Almighty's truth, I believe some of the cooks about the galley, I think they are the main backers."—H. M. Garty: "Believes Spencer, Small and Cromwell were determined on taking the brig: he supposes to turn pirates or retake slavers: on or about the 11th of October heard Spencer say the brig could be taken with six men: I think there are some persons at large who would voluntarily assist the prisoners if they had an opportunity: thinks if the prisoners were at large the brig would certainly be in great danger: thinks there are persons adrift yet who would, if any opportunity offered, rescue the prisoners: thinks the vessel would be safer if Cromwell, Spencer, and Small were put to death."—George W. Warner: "Have seen Cromwell and Spencer sitting together frequently: have heard Spencer ask Cromwell what sort of a slaver this vessel would make? he replied, he thought she would make a nice slaver: have no doubt he had joined Spencer in the project of taking this vessel: thinks Cromwell would have taken the vessel to the north west coast: Cromwell was in a slaver and taken a year since at Cuba: has seen Spencer give Cromwell cigars: thinks Cromwell deserves to be hung: thinks he is the most dangerous man in the ship: if I had my way I would hang him."—Van Velson: "A good while since Spencer said he would like to have a ship to go to the north-west coast: Cromwell and him was thick: should think Cromwell meant to join Spencer to take this vessel: Spencer thought he could raise money to get a ship. My reason for thinking that Cromwell meant to join Spencer in taking this vessel, is because I have frequently seen them in close conversation."

The drift of all this swearing was to show that the men ought not only to be put to death, but immediately, to prevent a rescue, and before they got to St. Thomas, and to make an excuse for not bringing them to the United States, pleading the difficulty to guard them in bad weather on the coast of the United States. (Among the persons examined, and one of those who "thinks the vessel would be safer if Cromwell, Spencer, and Small were put to death," was one Garty—Sergeant Michael H. Garty—who will be especially noticed hereafter.) The examination of these persons, though commenced immediately on receiving the commander's letter, was not finished until nine o'clock of the next morning, December the first; and then upon the pressing application of Gansevoort (who was absent much of the time), and telling the council that the commander was waiting for it. The answer was soon prepared, and delivered, declaring Spencer, Cromwell, and Small to be guilty of mutiny according to the evidence which had come to their knowledge, and that they were leagued with others still at large; and then goes on to say—"We are convinced that it would be impossible to carry them to the United States, and that the safety of the public property, the lives of ourselves, and of those committed to our charge, require that (giving them sufficient time to prepare) they should be put to death in a manner best calculated to make a beneficial impression upon the disaffected." And this recommendation was signed by the whole seven to whom the commander's letter had been addressed—among them two names illustrious in the annals of our navy. The heart grieves over that view, but draws a veil over the names, and absolves the boys from the guilt of the transaction. We know the power of the quarter deck. The midshipman must be born a Cato, or a Macon (and such men are only born once in ages) to be able to stand up against the irresistible will of that deck. History refuses to see these boys as agents in the transaction. Mackenzie, Gansevoort, Leecock and Heiskill, are the persons with whom she deals.

The narrative, thus far following the commander's report, is here suspended for the purpose of bringing in some circumstances not related in that report, and which came out before the court-martial; and the relation of which is due to the truth of history. 1. That the three persons whose lives were thus passed upon were, during this whole time, lying on the deck in their multiplied irons, and tied up in strong tarpaulin bags, wholly unconscious of any proceeding against them, and free from fear of death, as they had been made to understand by the commander that they were to be brought home to the United States for trial; and who reported that to have been his first intention. 2. While this examination was going on, and during the first day of it, Gansevoort (the head of the council) went to Spencer (telling him nothing of his object), for the purpose of getting proofs of his guilt, to be used against him whereof he got none; and thus tells his errand in answer to a question before the court-martial: "I am under the impression it was the 30th (of November), for the purpose of his proving more clearly his guilt. I took him the paper (razor-case paper), that he might translate it so I could understand it. My object was to obtain from him an acknowledgment of his guilt." 3. That it had been agreed among the upper officers two days before that, if any more prisoners were made, the three first taken should suffer immediate death on account of the impossibility of guarding more than they had. This dire conclusion came out upon question and answer, from one of the midshipmen who was in the council. "Had you any discussion on the 28th of November, as to putting the three prisoners to death?" Answer: "I don't recollect what day Gansevoort asked me my opinion, if it became necessary to make more prisoners, if we should be able to guard them? I told him no." "Did you then give it as your opinion that Cromwell, Small, and Spencer should be put to death?" Answer: "Yes, sir." Four more officers of the council were ascertained to have been similarly consulted at the same time, and to have answered in the same way: so that the deaths of the three men were resolved upon two days before the council was established to examine witnesses, and enlighten the commander with their opinions. 4. That it had been resolved that, if more prisoners were taken, the three already in the bags must be put to death; and, accordingly, while the council was sitting, and in the evening of their session, and before they had reported an opinion, four more arrests were made: so that the condition became absolute upon which the three were to die before the council had finished their examination.

This is, perhaps, the first instance in the annals of military or naval courts, in which the commander fixed a condition on which prisoners were to be put to death—which condition was to be an act of his own, unknown to the prisoners, but known to the court, and agreed to be acted upon before it was done: and which was done and acted upon!

These are four essential circumstances, overlooked by the commander in his report, but brought out upon interrogatories before the court. The new arrests are duly reported by the commander. They were: Wilson, Green, McKinley, McKee. The commander tells how the arrests were made. "These individuals were made to sit down as they were taken, and when they were ironed, I walked deliberately round the battery, followed by the first lieutenant; and we made together a very careful inspection of the crew. Those who (though known to be very guilty) were considered to be the least dangerous, were called out and interrogated: care was taken not to awaken the suspicions of such as from courage and energy were really formidable, unless it were intended to arrest them. Our prisoners now amounted to seven, filling up the quarter deck, and rendering it very difficult to keep them from communicating with each other, interfering essentially with the management of the vessel." This is the commander's account of the new arrests, but he omits to add that he bagged them as fast as taken and ironed; and as that bagging was an investment which all the prisoners underwent, and an unusual and picturesque (though ugly) feature in the transaction, an account will be given of it in the person of one of the four, which will stand for all. It is McKinley who gives it, and who was bagged quite home to New York, and became qualified, to give his experience of these tarpaulin sacks, both in the hot region of the tropics and the cold blasts of the New York latitude in the dead of winter. Question by the judge advocate: "When were you put in the bags?" Answer: "After the examination and before we got to St. Thomas." "How were the bags put on you?" Answer: "They were laid on deck, and we got into them as well as we could, feet foremost." "Was your bag ever put over your head?" Answer: "Yes, sir. The first night it was tied over my head." "Who was the person who superintended, and did it?" Answer; "Sergeant Garty was always there when we were put into the bags. I could not see. I could not say who tied it over my head. He (Garty) was there then." "Did you complain of it?" Answer: "After a while the bag got very hot. Whoever was the officer I don't know. I told him I was smothering. I could not breathe. He came back with the order that I could not have it untied. I turned myself round as well as I could, and got my mouth to the opening of the bag, and staid so till morning." Question by a member of the court: "Did you find the bag comfortable when not tied over your head?" Answer: "No, sir. It was warm weather: it was uncomfortable. On the coast (of the United States in December) they would get full of rain water, nearly up to my knees." Catching at this idea of comfort in irons and a bag, Commander Mackenzie undertook to prove them so; and put a leading question, to get an affirmative answer to his own assertion that this bagging was done for the "comfort" of the prisoners—a new conception, for which he seemed to be entirely indebted to this hint from one of the court. The mode of McKinley's arrest, also gives an insight into the manner in which that act was performed on board a United States man-of-war; and is thus described by McKinley himself. To the question, when he was arrested, and how, he answers: "On the 30th of November, at morning quarters I was arrested. The commander put Wilson into irons. When he was put in irons the commander cried, 'Send McKinley aft.' I went aft. The commander and Gansevoort held pistols at my head, and told me to sit down. Mr. Gansevoort told King, the gunner, to stand by to knock out their brains if they should make a false motion. I was put in irons then. He ordered Green and McKee aft: he put them in irons also. Mr. Gansevoort ordered me to get on all fours, and creep round to the larboard side, as I could not walk." And that is the way it was done!

The three men were thus doomed to death, without trial, without hearing, without knowledge of what was going on against them; and without a hint of what had been done. One of the officiating officers who had sat in the council, being asked before the court if any suggestion, or motion, was made to apprise the prisoners of what was going on, and give them a hearing, answered that there was not. When Governor Wall was on trial at the Old Bailey for causing the death of a soldier twenty years before at Goree, in Africa, for imputed mutiny, he plead the sentence of a drum-head court-martial for his justification. The evidence proved that the men so tried (and there were just three of them) were not before that court, and had no knowledge of its proceedings, though on the ground some forty feet distant—about as far off as were the three prisoners on board the Somers, with the difference that the British soldiers could see the court (which was only a little council of officers); while the American prisoners could not see their judges. This sort of a court which tried people without hearing them, struck the British judges; and when the witness (a foot soldier) told how he saw the Governor speaking to the officers, and saw them speaking to one another for a minute or two, and then turning to the Governor, who ordered the man to be called out of the ranks to be tied on a cannon for punishment: when the witness told that, the Lord Chief Baron McDonald called out—"Repeat that." The witness repeated it. Then the Chief Baron inquired into the constitution of these drum-head courts, and to know if it was their course to try soldiers without hearing them: and put a question to that effect to the witness. Surprised at the question, the soldier, instead of answering it direct, yes or no, looked up at the judge, and said: "My Lord, I thought an Englishman had that privilege every where." And so thought the judge, who charged the jury, accordingly, and that even if there was a mutiny; and so thought the jury, who immediately brought in a verdict for murder; and so thought the King (George III.), who refused to pardon the Governor, or to respite him for longer than eight days, or to remit the anatomization of his dead body. There was law then in England against the oppressors of the humble, and judges to execute it, and a king to back them.

The narrative will now be resumed at the point at which it was suspended, and Commander Mackenzie's official report will still be followed for the order of the incidents, and his account of them.

It was nine o'clock on the morning of the first of December, that Gansevoort went into the ward-room to hurry the completion of the letter which the council of officers was drawing up, and which, under the stimulating remark that the commander was waiting for it, was soon ready. Purser Heiskill, who had been the pencil scribe of the proceedings, carried the letter, and read it to the commander. In what manner he received it, himself will tell:

"I at once concurred in the justice of their opinion, and in the necessity of carrying its recommendation into immediate effect. There were two others of the conspirators almost as guilty, so far as the intention was concerned, as the three ringleaders who had been first confined, and to whose cases the attention of the officers had been invited. But they could be kept in confinement without extreme danger to the ultimate safety of the vessel. The three chief conspirators alone were capable of navigating and sailing her. By their removal the motive to a rescue, a capture, and a carrying out of their original design of piracy was at once taken away. Their lives were justly forfeited to the country which they had betrayed; and the interests of that country and the honor and security of its flag required that the sacrifice, however painful, should be made. In the necessities of my position I found my law, and in them also I must trust to find my justification."

The promptitude of this concurrence precludes the possibility of deliberation, for which there was no necessity, as the deaths had been resolved upon two days before the council met, and as Gansevoort communicated with the commander the whole time. There was no need for deliberation, and there was none; and the rapidity of the advancing events proves there was no time for it. And in this haste one of the true reasons for hanging Small and Cromwell broke forth. They were the only two of all the accused (Spencer excepted) who could sail or navigate a vessel! and a mutiny to take a ship, and run her as a roving pirate, without any one but the chief to sail and navigate her, would have been a solecism too gross even for the silliest apprehension. Mr. M. C. Perry admitted upon his cross-examination that this knowledge was "one of the small reasons" for hanging them—meaning among the lesser reasons. Besides, three at least, may have been deemed necessary to make a mutiny. Governor Wall took that number; and riots, routs, and unlawful assemblies require it: so that in having three for a mutiny, the commander was taking the lowest number which parity of cases, though of infinitely lower degree, would allow. The report goes on to show the commander's preparations for the sacrifice; which preparations, from his own showing, took place before the assembling of the council, and in which he showed his skill and acumen.

"I had for a day or two been disposed to arm the petty officers. On this subject alone the first lieutenant differed from me in opinion, influenced in some degree by the opinions of some of the petty officers themselves, who thought that in the peculiar state of the vessel the commander and officers could not tell whom to trust, and therefore had better trust no one. I had made up my own mind, reasoning more from the probabilities of the case than from my knowledge of their characters, which was necessarily less intimate than that of the first lieutenant, that they could be trusted, and determined to arm them. I directed the first lieutenant to muster them on the quarter deck, to issue to each a cutlass, pistol and cartridge-box, and to report to me when they were armed. I then addressed them as follows: 'My lads! you are to look to me—to obey my orders, and to see my orders obeyed! Go forward!'"

This paragraph shows that the arming of the petty officers for the crisis of the hangings had been meditated for a day or two—that it had been the subject of consultation with the lieutenant, and also of him with some of the petty officers; and it was doubtless on this occasion that he took the opinions of the officers (as proved on the court-martial trial) on the subject of hanging the three prisoners immediately if any more arrests were made. The commander and his lieutenant differed on the question of arming these petty officers—the only instance of a difference of opinion between them: but the commander's calculation of probabilities led him to overrule the lieutenant—to make up his own mind in favor of arming: and to have it done. The command at the conclusion is eminently concise, and precise, and entirely military; and the ending words remind us of the French infantry charging command: "En avant, mes enfans!" in English—"Forward, my children."

The reception of the council recommendation, and the order for carrying it into effect, were simultaneous: and carried into effect it was with horrible rapidity, and to the utmost letter—all except in one particular—which forms a dreadful exception. The council had given the recommendation with the Christian reservation of allowing the doomed and helpless victims "sufficient time to prepare"—meaning, of course, preparation for appearance at the throne of God. That reservation was disregarded. Immediate execution was the word! and the annunciation of the death decree, and the order for putting it in force, were both made known to the prisoners in the same moment, and in the midst of the awful preparations for death.

"I gave orders to make immediate preparation for hanging the three principal criminals at the mainyard arms. All hands were now called to witness the punishment. The afterguard and idlers of both watches were mustered on the quarterdeck at the whip (the halter) intended for Mr. Spencer: forecastle-men and foretop-men at that of Cromwell, to whose corruption they had been chiefly exposed. The maintop of both watches, at that intended for Small who, for a month, had filled the situation of captain of the maintop. The officers were stationed about the decks, according to the watch bill I had made out the night before, and the petty officers were similarly distributed, with orders to cut down whoever should let go the whip (the rope) with even one hand; or fail to haul on (pull at the rope) when ordered."

Here it is unwittingly told that the guard stations at the hangings were all made out the night before.

For the information of the unlearned in nautical language, it may be told that what is called the whip at sea, is not an instrument of flagellation, but of elevation—a small tackle with a single rope, used to hoist light bodies; and so called from one of the meanings of the word whip, used as a verb, then signifying to snatch up suddenly. It is to be hoped that the sailors appointed to haul on this tackle had been made acquainted (though the commander's report does not say so) with the penalty which awaited them if they failed to pull at the word, or let go, even with one hand. The considerate arrangement for hanging each one at the spot of his imputed worst conduct, and under an appropriate watch, shows there had been deliberation on that part of the subject—deliberation which requires time—and for which there was no time after the reception of the council's answer; and which the report itself, so far as the watch is concerned, shows was made out the night before. The report continues:

"The ensign and pennant being bent on, and ready for hoisting, I now put on my full uniform, and proceeded to execute the most painful duty that has ever devolved on an American commander—that of announcing to the criminals their fate."

It has been before seen that these victims had no knowledge of the proceedings against them, while the seven officers were examining, in a room below, the thirteen seamen whose answers to questions (or rather, whose thoughts) were to justify the fate which was now to be announced to them. They had no knowledge of it at the time, nor afterwards, until standing in the midst of the completed arrangements for their immediate death. They were brought into the presence of death before they knew that any proceedings had been had against them, and while under the belief, authorized by the commander himself, that they were to be brought home for trial. Their fate was staring them in the face before they knew it had been doomed. The full uniform of a commander in the American navy had been put on for the occasion, with what view is not expressed; and, in this imposing costume,—feathers and chapeau, gold lace and embroidery, sword and epaulettes—the commander proceeded to announce their fate to men in irons—double irons on the legs, and iron cuffs on the hands—and surrounded by guards to cut them down on the least attempt to avoid the gallows which stood before them. In what terms this annunciation, or rather, these annunciations (for there was a separate address to each victim, and each address adapted to its subject) were made, the captain himself will tell.

"I informed Mr. Spencer that when he had been about to take my life, and to dishonor me as an officer when in the execution of my rightful duty, without cause of offence to him, on speculation, it had been his intention to remove me suddenly from the world, in the darkness of the night, without a moment to utter one murmur of affection to my wife and children—one prayer for their welfare. His life was now forfeited to his country; and the necessities of the case growing out of his corruption of the crew, compelled me to take it. I would not, however, imitate his intended example. If there yet remained one feeling true to nature, it should be gratified. If he had any word to send to his parents, it should be recorded, and faithfully delivered. Ten minutes should be granted him for this purpose; and Midshipman Egbert Thompson was called to note the time, and inform me when the ten minutes had elapsed."

Subsequent events require this appeal to Spencer, and promise to him, to be noted. He is invoked, in the name of Nature, to speak to his parents, and his words promised delivery. History will have to deal with that invocation, and promise.

This is the autographic account of the annunciation to Spencer; and if there is a parallel to it in Christendom, this writer has yet to learn the instance. The vilest malefactors, convicts of the greatest crimes, are allowed an interval for themselves when standing between time and eternity; and during that time they are left, undisturbed, to their own thoughts. Even pirates allow that much to vanquished and subdued men. The ship had religious exercises upon it, and had multiplied their performance since the mutiny had been discovered. The commander was a devout attendant at these exercises, and harangued the crew morally and piously daily, and in this crisis twice or thrice a day. He might have been of some consolation to the desolate youth in this supreme moment. He might have spoken to him some words of pity and of hope: he might at least have refrained from reproaches: he might have omitted the comparison in which he assumed to himself such a superiority over Spencer in the manner of taking life. It was the Pharisee that thanked God he was not like other men, nor like that Publican. But the Pharisee did not take the Publican's life, nor charge him with crimes. Besides, the comparison was not true, admitting that Spencer intended to kill him in his sleep. There is no difference of time between one minute and ten minutes in the business of killing; and the most sudden death—a bullet through the heart in sleep—would be mercy compared to the ten minutes' reprieve allowed Spencer: and that time taken up (as the event proved) in harassing the mind, enraging the feelings, and in destroying the character of the young man before he destroyed his body. It is to be hoped that the greater part of what the commander says he said to Spencer, was not said: it would be less discreditable to make a false report in such cases than to have said what was alleged; and there were so many errors in the commander's report that disbelief of it becomes easy, and even obligatory. It is often variant or improbable in itself, and sometimes impossible; and almost entirely contradicted by the testimony. In the vital—really vital—case of holding the watch, he is contradicted. He says Midshipman Thompson was called to note the time, and to report its expiration. Mr. O. H. Perry swore in the court that the order was given to him—that he reported it—and that the commander said, "very well." This was clear and positive: but Mr. Thompson was examined to the same point, and testified thus: That he heard him (the commander) say something about ten minutes—that he told Mr. Perry, he thinks, to note the time—that Perry and himself both noted it—thinks he reported it—don't recollect what the commander said—is under an impression he said "very good." So that Mr. Perry was called to note the time, and did it, and reported it, and did not know that Thompson had done it. To the question, "What did Mr. Thompson say when he came back from reporting the time?" the answer is: "I did not know that he reported it." At best, Mr. Thompson was a volunteer in the business, and too indifferent to it to know what he did. Mr. O. H. Perry is the one that had the order, and did the duty. Now it is quite immaterial which had the order: but it is very material that the commander should remember the true man.—The manner in which the young man received this dreadful intelligence, is thus reported:

"This intimation quite overpowered him. He fell upon his knees, and said he was not fit to die."

"Was not fit to die!" that is to say, was not in a condition to appear before his God. The quick perishing of the body was not the thought that came to his mind, but the perishing of his soul, and his sudden appearance before his Maker, unpurged of the sins of this life. Virtue was not dead in the heart which could forget itself and the world in that dread moment, and only think of his fitness to appear at the throne of Heaven. Deeply affecting as this expression was—am not fit to die—it was still more so as actually spoken, and truly stated by competent witnesses before the court. "When he told him he was to die in ten minutes, Spencer told him he was not fit to die—that he wished to live longer to get ready. The commander said, I know you are not, but I cannot help it."—A remark which was wicked in telling him he knew he was not fit to die, and false, in saying he could not help it. So far from not being able to help it, he was the only man that could prevent the preparation for fitness. The answer then was, an exclamation of unfitness to die, and a wish to live longer to get ready. But what can be thought of the heart which was dead to such an appeal? and which, in return, could occupy itself with reproaches to the desolate sinner; and could deliver exhortations to the trembling fleeting shadow that was before him, to study looks and attitudes, and set an example of decorous dying to his two companions in death? for that was the conduct of Mackenzie: and here is his account of it:

"I repeated to him his own catechism, and begged him at least to let the officer set to the men he had corrupted and seduced, the example of dying with decorum."

"The men whom he had corrupted and seduced,"—outrageous words, and which the commander says, "immediately restored him to entire self-possession." But they did not turn away his heart from the only thing that occupied his mind—that of fitting himself, as well as he could, to appear before his God. He commenced praying with great fervor, and begging from Heaven that mercy for his soul which was denied on earth to his body.

The commander then went off to make the same annunciation to the other two victims, and returning when the ten minutes was about half out—when the boy had but five minutes to live, as he was made to believe—he soon made apparent the true reason which all this sudden announcement of death in ten minutes was in reality intended for. It was to get confessions! it was to make up a record against him! to excite him against Small and Cromwell! to take advantage of terror and resentment to get something from him for justification in taking his life! and in that work he spent near two hours, making up a record against himself of revolting atrocity, aggravated and made still worse by the evidence before the court. The first movement was to make him believe that Cromwell and Small had informed upon him, and thus induce him to break out upon them, or to confess, or to throw the blame upon the others. He says:

"I returned to Mr. Spencer. I explained to him how Cromwell had made use of him. I told him that remarks had been made about the two, and not very flattering to him, and which he might not care to hear; and which showed the relative share ascribed to each of them in the contemplated transaction. He expressed great anxiety to hear what was said."

It is to be borne in mind that Spencer was in prayer, with but five minutes to go upon, when Mackenzie interrupts him with an intimation of what Small and Cromwell had said of him, and piques his curiosity to learn it by adding, "which he might not care to hear"—artfully exciting his curiosity to know what it was. The desire thus excited, he goes on to tell him that one had called him a damn fool, and the other had considered him Cromwell's tool: thus:

"One had told the first lieutenant: 'In my opinion, sir, you have the damned fool on the larboard arm-chest, and the damned villain on the starboard.' And another had remarked, that after the vessel should have been captured by Spencer, Cromwell might allow him to live, provided he made himself useful; he would probably make him his secretary."

Spencer was on the larboard arm-chest; Cromwell on the starboard: so that Small was the speaker, and the damned fool applied to Spencer, and the damned villain to Cromwell: and Spencer, who had all along been the chief, was now to be treated as an instrument, only escaping with his life if successful in taking the vessel, and, that upon condition of making himself useful; and then to have no higher post on the pirate than that of Cromwell's secretary. This was a hint to Spencer to turn States' evidence against Cromwell, and throw the whole blame on him. The commander continues, still addressing himself to Spencer—

"I think this would not have suited your temper."

This remark, inquisitively made, and evidently to draw out something against Cromwell, failed of its object. It drew no remark from Spencer; it merely acted upon his looks and spirit, according to the commander—who proceeds in this strain:

"This effectually aroused him, and his countenance assumed a demoniacal expression. He said no more of the innocence of Cromwell. Subsequent circumstances too surely confirmed his admission of his guilt. He might perhaps have wished to save him, in fulfilment of some mutual oath."

This passage requires some explanation. Spencer had always declared his total ignorance of Cromwell, and of his visionary schemes: he repeated it earnestly as Mackenzie turned off to go and announce his fate to him. Having enraged him against the man, he says he now said no more about Cromwell's innocence; and catching up that silence as an admission of his guilt, he quotes it as such; but remembering how often Spencer had absolved him from all knowledge even of his foolish joking, he supposes he wished to save him—in fulfilment of some mutual oath. This imagined cause for saving him is shamefully gratuitous, unwarranted by a word from any delator, not inferrible from any premises, and atrociously wicked. In fact this whole story after the commander returned from Small and Cromwell, is without warrant from any thing tangible. Mackenzie got it from Gansevoort; and Gansevoort got one half from one, and the other half from another, without telling which, or when—and it was provably not then; and considering the atrocity of such a communication to Spencer at such time, it is certainly less infamous to the captain and lieutenant to consider it a falsehood of their own invention, to accomplish their own design. Mackenzie's telling it, however, was infernal. The commander then goes on with a batch of gratuitous assumptions, which shows he had no limit in such assumptions but in his capacity at invention. Hear them!

"He (Spencer) more probably hoped that he might yet get possession of the vessel, and carry out the scheme of murder and outrage matured between them. It was in Cromwell that he had apparently trusted, in fulfilment of some agreement for a rescue; and he eloquently plead to Lieutenant Gansevoort when Cromwell was ironed, for his release, as altogether ignorant of his designs, and innocent. He had endeavored to make of Elisha Andrews appearing on the list of the "certain," an alias for Small, though his name as Small appeared also in the list of those to effect the murder in the cabin, by falsely asserting that Small was a feigned name, when he had evidence in a letter addressed by Small's mother to him that Small was her name as well as his."

Assumptions without foundations, inferences without premises, beliefs without knowledge, thoughts without knowing why, suspicions without reasons—are all a species of inventions but little removed from direct falsehood, and leaves the person who indulges in them without credit for any thing he may say. This was pre-eminently the case with the commander Slidell Mackenzie, and with all his informers; and here is a fine specimen of it in himself. First: the presumed probability that Spencer yet hoped to get possession of the vessel, and carry out the scheme of murder and piracy which he had matured. What a presumption in such a case! the case of men, ironed, bagged and helpless,—standing under the gallows in the midst of armed men to shoot and stab for a motion or a sign—and a presumption, not only without a shadow to rest upon, but contradicted by the entire current of all that was sworn—even by Garty and Wales. "Fulfilment of secret agreement for rescue." Secret! Yes! very secret indeed! There was not a man on board the vessel that ever heard such a word as rescue pronounced until after the arrests! The crazy misgivings of a terrified imagination could alone have invented such a scheme of rescue. The name of Small was a sad stumbling block in the road to his sacrifice, as that of Andrews to the truth of the razor case paper. One was not in the list, and the other was not in the ship: and all these forced assumptions were to reconcile these contradictions; and so the idea of an alias dictus was fallen upon, though no one had ever heard Small called Edward Andrews, and his mother, in her letter, gave her own name as her son's, as Small. Having now succeeded in getting Spencer enraged against his two companions in death, the commander takes himself to his real work—that of getting confessions—or getting up something which could be recorded as confessions, under the pretext of writing to his father and mother: and to obtain which all this refined aggravation of the terrors of death had been contrived. But here recourse must be had to the testimony before the court to supply details on which the report is silent, or erroneous, and in which what was omitted must be brought forward to be able to get at the truth. McKinley swears that he was six or eight feet from Spencer when the commander asked him if he wished to write. Spencer answered that he did. An apprentice named Dunn was then ordered to fetch paper and campstool out of the cabin. Spencer took the pen in his hand, and said—"I cannot write." "The commander spoke to him in a low tone. I do not know what he then said. I saw the commander writing. Whether Mr. Spencer asked him to write for him or not, I can't say."—Mr. Oliver H. Perry swears: "Saw the commander order Dunn to bring him paper and ink: saw the commander write: was four or five feet from him while writing: heard no part of the conversation between the commander and Spencer: was writing ten or fifteen minutes."—Other witnesses guess at the time as high as half an hour. The essential parts of this testimony, are—first, That Spencer's hands were ironed, and that he could not write: secondly, that the commander, instead of releasing his hands, took the pen and wrote himself: thirdly, that he carried on all his conversation with Spencer in so low a voice that those within four or five feet of him (and in the deathlike stillness which then prevailed, and the breathless anxiety of every one) heard not a word of what passed between them! neither what Mackenzie said to Spencer, nor Spencer said to him. Now the report of the commander is silent upon this lowness of tone which could not be heard four or five feet—silent upon the handcuffs of Spencer—silent upon the answer of Spencer that he could not write; and for which he substituted on the court-martial the answer that he "declined to write"—a substitution which gave rise to a conversation between the judge advocate and Mackenzie, which the judge advocate reported to the court in writing; and which all felt to be a false substitution both upon the testimony, and the facts of the case. A man in iron handcuffs cannot write! but it was necessary to show him "declining" in order to give him a recording secretary! And it is silent upon the great fact that he sat on the arm-chest with Spencer, and whispering so low that not a human being could hear what passed: and, consequently, that Mackenzie chose that he himself should be the recording secretary on that occasion, and that no one could know whether the record was true or false. The declaration in the report that Spencer read what was written down, and agreed to it, will be attended to hereafter. The point at present is the secrecy, and the fact that the man the most interested in the world in getting confessions from Spencer, was the recorder of these confessions, without a witness! without even Wales, Gansevoort, Garty; or any one of his familiars. For the rest, it becomes a fair question, which every person can solve for themselves, whether it is possible for two persons to talk so low to one another for, from a quarter to half an hour, in such profound stillness, and amidst so much excited expectation, and no one in arm's length able to hear one word. If this is deemed impossible, it may be a reasonable belief that nothing material was said between them—that Mackenzie wrote without dictation from Spencer; and wrote what the necessity of his condition required—confessions to supply the place of total want of proof—admissions of guilt—acknowledgments that he deserved to die—begging forgiveness. And so large a part of what he reported was proved to be false, that this reasonable belief of a fabricated dialogue becomes almost a certainty.

The commander, now become sole witness of Spencer's last words—words spoken if at all—after his time on earth was out—after the announcement in his presence that the ten minutes were out—and hearing the commander's response to the notification, "Very well:" this commander thus proceeds with his report: "I asked him if he had no message to send to his friends? He answered none that they would wish to receive. When urged still further to send some words of consolation in so great an affliction, he said, 'Tell them I die wishing them every blessing and happiness. I deserve death for this and many other crimes—there are few crimes I have not committed. I feel sincerely penitent, and my only fear of death is that my repentance may come too late.'"—This is what the commander reports to the Secretary of the Navy, and which no human witness could gainsay, because no human being was allowed to witness what was said at the time; but there is another kind of testimony, independent of human eyes and ears, and furnished by the evil-doer himself, often in the very effort to conceal his guilt, and more convincing than the oath of any witness, and which fate, or accident, often brings to light for the relief of the innocent and the confusion of the guilty. And so it was in this case with Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie. That original record made out upon inaudible whispers on the camp-stool! It still existed—and was produced in court—and here is the part which corresponds (should correspond) with this quoted part of the report; and constituting the first part of the confession: "When asked if he had any message to send: none that they would wish to receive. Afterwards, that you die wishing them every blessing and happiness; deserved death for this and other sins; that you felt sincerely penitent, and only fear of death was that your repentance might be too late."—Compared together, and it is seen that the words "other sins," in the third sentence, is changed into "many other crimes,"—words of revoltingly different import—going beyond what the occasion required—and evidently substituted as an introduction to the further gratuitous confession: "There are few crimes which I have not committed." Great consolation in this for those parents for whom the record was made, and who never saw it except as promulgated through the public press. In any court of justice the entire report would be discredited upon this view of flagrant and wicked falsifications. For the rest, there is proof that the first sentence is a fabrication. It is to be recollected that this inquiry as to Spencer's wishes to communicate with his parents was made publicly, and before the pen, ink and paper was sent for, and that the answer was the inducement to send for those writing materials. That public answer was heard by those around, and was thus proved before the court-martial—McKinley the witness: "The commander asked him if he wished to write? Mr. Spencer said he did. The commander ordered Dunn to fetch paper and campstool out of the cabin. Spencer took the pen in his hand—he said, 'I cannot write.' The commander spoke to him in a low tone: I do not know what he then said. I saw the commander writing." This testimony contradicts the made-up report, in showing that Spencer was asked to write himself, instead of sending a message: that the declaration, "nothing that they would wish to hear," is a fabricated addition to what he did say—and that he was prevented from writing, not from disinclination and declining, as the commander attempted to make out, but because upon trial—after taking the pen in his hand—he could not with his handcuffs on. Certainly this was understood beforehand. Men do not write in iron handcuffs. They were left on to permit the commander to become his secretary, and to send a message for him: which message he never sent! the promise to do so being a mere contrivance to get a chance of writing for the Secretary of the Navy, and the public.

The official report continues: "I asked him if there was any one he had injured, to whom he could yet make reparation—any one suffering obloquy for crimes which he had committed. He made no answer; but soon after continued: 'I have wronged many persons, but chiefly my parents.' He said 'this will kill my poor mother.' I was not before aware that he had a mother." The corresponding sentences in the original, run thus: "Many that he had wronged, but did not know how reparation could be made to them. Your parents most wronged ... himself by saying he had entertained same idea in John Adams and Potomac, but had not ripened into.... Do you not think that such a mania should ... certainly. Objected to manner of death." The dots in place of words indicate the places where the writing was illegible. The remarkable variations between the report and the original in these sentences is, that the original leaves out all those crimes which he had committed, and which were bringing obloquy upon others, and to which he made no answer, but shows that he did make answer as to having wronged persons, and that answer was, that he did not know how reparation could be made. There is no mention of mother in this part of the original—it comes in long after. Then the John Adams and the Potomac, which are here mentioned in the twelfth line of the original, only appear in the fifty-sixth in the report—and the long gap filled up with things not in the original—and the word "idea," as attributed to Spencer, substituted by "mania."

The report continues (and here it is told once for all, that the quotations both from the report and the original, of which it should be a copy, follow each in its place in consecutive order, leaving no gap between each quoted part and what preceded it): "when recovered from the pain of this announcement (the effect upon his mother), I asked him if it would not have been still more dreadful had he succeeded in his attempt, murdered the officers and the greater part of the crew of the vessel, and run that career of crime which, with so much satisfaction he had marked out for himself: he replied after a pause; 'I do not know what would have become of me if I had succeeded.' I told him Cromwell would soon have made way with him, and McKinley would probably have cleared the whole of them from his path." The corresponding part of the original runs thus: "Objected to manner of death: requested to be shot. Could not make any distinction between him and those he had seduced. Justifiable desire at first to.... The last words he had to say, and hoped they would be believed, that Cromwell was innocent ... Cromwell. Admitted it was just that no distinction should be made."—This is the consecutive part in the original, beginning in utter variance with what should be its counterpart—hardly touching the same points—leaving out all the cruel reproaches which the official report heaps upon Spencer—ending with the introduction of Cromwell, but without the innocence which the original contains, with the substitution of Cromwell's destruction of him, and with the addition of McKinley's destruction of them all, and ultimate attainment of the chief place in that long career of piracy which was to be ran—and ran in that state of the world in which no pirate could live at all. What was actually said about Cromwell's innocence by Spencer and by McKinley as coming from Cromwell "to stir up the devil between them," as the historian Cooper remarked, was said before this writing commenced! said when Mackenzie returned from announcing the ten minutes lease of life to him and Small! which Mackenzie himself had reported in a previous part of his report, before the writing materials were sent for: and now, strange enough, introduced again in an after place, but with such alterations and additions as barely to leave their identity discoverable.

The official report proceeds: "'I fear,' said he, 'this may injure my father.' I told him it was too late to think of that—that had he succeeded in his wishes it would have injured his father much more—that had it been possible to have taken him home as I intended to do, it was not in nature that his father should not have interfered to save him—that for those who have friends or money in America there was no punishment for the worst of crimes—that though this had nothing to do with my determination, which had been forced upon me in spite of every effort I had made to avert it, I, on this account the less regretted the dilemma in which I was placed: it would injure his father a great deal more if he got home alive, should he be condemned and yet escape. The best and only service which he could do his father was to die."—Now from the original, beginning at the end of the last quotation: "Asked that his face might be covered. Granted. When he found that his repentance might not be in season, I referred him to the story of the penitent thief. Tried to find it. Could not. Read the Bible, the prayer-book. Did not know what would have become of him if he had succeeded. Makes no objection to death, but objects to time. Reasons—God would understand of him offences ... many crimes. Dies, praying God to bless and preserve.... I am afraid this will injure my father."—The quotation from the report opens with apprehended fear of injury to his father: it concludes with commending him to die, as the only service he could render that parent: and the whole is taken up with that topic, and crowned with the assertion that, for those who have friends or money in America there is no punishment for the worst of crimes—a sweeping reproach upon the American judiciary; and, however unfounded in his broad denunciation, may he not himself have counted on the benefit of the laxity of justice which he denounced? and—more—did he not receive it? The rest of the paragraph is only remarkable for the declaration of the intention to have brought his prisoners home, and of the change, of which intention they had no notice until placed in the presence of the completed preparations for death, and told they had but ten minutes, by the watch, to live.—Turning to the original of this paragraph, and it will be seen that it opens with preparations for death—goes on in the same spirit—barely mentions his father—and ends with his death—"dies praying God to bless and preserve".... This is evidently the termination of the whole scene. It carries him through the last preparations, and ends his life—sees him die praying to God. Now does the report give any of these circumstances? None. Does the report stop there? It does not. Does it go on? Yes: two hundred and thirty lines further. And the original record go on further? Yes: sixty lines further—which was just double the distance it had come. Here was a puzzle. The man to be talking double as much after his death as before it. This solecism required a solution—and received it before the court-martial: and the solution was that this double quantity was written after hanging—how long, not stated—but after it. Before the court Mackenzie delivered in a written and sworn statement, that his record embracing what was taken down from the lips of Spencer finished at the sentence—"I am afraid this will injure my father:" and that the remainder was written shortly afterwards. Now the part written before the death was thirty-three lines: the part written shortly after it, is above fifty. This solecism explained, another difficulty immediately arises. The commander reported that, "he (Spencer) read over what he (Mackenzie) had written down," and agreed to it all, with one exception—which was corrected. Now he could not have read the fifty odd lines which were written after his death. (All the lines here mentioned are the short ones in the double column pages of the published, "Official Proceedings of the Naval Court Martial.)" These fifty odd lines could not have been read by Spencer. That is certain. The previous thirty-three it is morally certain he never read. They are in some places illegible—in others unintelligible; and are printed in the official report with blanks because there were parts which could not be read. No witness says they were read by Spencer.

The additional fifty odd lines, expanded by additions and variations into about two hundred in the official report, requires but a brief notice, parts of it being amplifications and aggravations of what had been previously noted, and additional insults to Spencer; with an accumulation of acknowledgments of guilt, of willingness to die, of obligations to the commander, and entreaties for his forgiveness. One part of the reported scene was even more than usually inhuman. Spencer said to him: "But are you not going too far? are you not too fast? does the law entirely justify you?" To this the commander represents himself as replying: "That he (Spencer) had not consulted him in his arrangements—that his opinion could not be an unprejudiced one—that I had consulted all his brother officers, his messmates included, except the boys; and I placed before him their opinion. He stated that it was just—that he deserved death," For the honor of human nature it is to be hoped that Mackenzie reports himself falsely here—which is probable, both on its face, and because it is not in the original record. The commander says that he begged for one hour to prepare himself for death, saying the time is so short, asking if there was time for repentance, and if he could be changed so soon (from sin to grace). To the request for the hour, the commander says no answer was given: to the other parts he reminded him of the thief on the cross, who was pardoned by our Saviour, and that for the rest, God would understand the difficulties of his situation and be merciful. The commander also represents himself as recapitulating to Spencer the arts he had used to seduce the crew. The commander says upwards of an hour elapsed before the hanging: he might have said two hours: for the doom of the prisoners was announced at about eleven, and they were hung at one. But no part of this delay was for their benefit, as he would make believe, but for his own, to get confessions under the agonies of terror. No part of it—not even the whole ten minutes—was allowed to Spencer to make his peace with God; but continually interrupted, questioned, outraged, inflamed against his companions in death, he had his devotions broken in upon, and himself deprived of one peaceful moment to commune with God.

The report of the confessions is false upon its face: it is also invalidated by other matter within itself, showing that Mackenzie had two opposite ways of speaking of the same person, and of the same incident, before and after the design upon Spencer's life. I speak of the attempt, and of the reasons given for it, to get the young man transferred to another vessel before sailing from New York. According to the account given first of these reasons, and at the time, the desire to get him out of the Somers was entirely occasioned by the crowded state of the midshipmen's room—seven, where only five could be accommodated. Thus:

"When we were on the eve of sailing, two midshipmen who had been with me before, and in whom I had confidence, joined the vessel. This carried to seven, the number to occupy a space capable of accommodating only five. I had heard that Mr. Spencer had expressed a willingness to be transferred from the Somers to the Grampus. I directed Lieut. Gansevoort to say to him that if he would apply to Commodore Perry to detach him (there was no time to communicate with the Navy Department), I would second the application. He made the application; I seconded it, earnestly urging that it should be granted on the score of the comfort of the young officers. The commodore declined detaching Mr. Spencer, but offered to detach midshipman Henry Rodgers, who had been last ordered. I could not consent to part with Midshipman Rodgers, whom I knew to be a seaman, an officer, a gentleman; a young man of high attainments within his profession and beyond it. The Somers sailed with seven in her steerage. They could not all sit together round the table. The two oldest and most useful had no lockers to put their clothes in, and have slept during the cruise on the steerage deck, the camp-stools, the booms, in the tops, or in the quarter boats."

Nothing can be clearer than this statement. It was to relieve the steerage room where the young midshipmen congregated, that the transfer of Spencer was requested; and this was after Captain Mackenzie had been informed that the young man had been dismissed from the Brazilian squadron, for drunkenness. "And this fact," he said, "made me very desirous of his removal from the vessel, chiefly on account of the young men who were to mess and be associated with him, the rather that two of them were connected with me by blood and two by marriage; and all four intrusted to my especial care." After the deaths he wrote of the same incident in these words:

"The circumstance of Mr. Spencer's being the son of a high officer of the government, by enhancing his baseness in my estimation, made me more desirous to be rid of him. On this point I beg that I may not be misunderstood. I revere authority. I recognize, in the exercise of its higher functions in this free country, the evidences of genius, intelligence, and virtue; but I have no respect for the base son of an honored father; on the contrary, I consider that he who, by misconduct sullies the lustre of an honorable name, is more culpable than the unfriended individual whose disgrace falls only on himself. I wish, however, to have nothing to do with baseness in any shape; the navy is not the place for it. On these accounts I readily sought the first opportunity of getting rid of Mr. Spencer."

Here the word base, as applicable to the young Spencer, occurs three times in a brief paragraph, and this baseness is given as the reason for wishing to get the young man, not out of the ship, but out of the navy! And this sentiment was so strong, that reverence for Spencer's father could not control it. He could have nothing to do with baseness. The navy is not the place for it. Now all this was written after the young man was dead, and when it was necessary to make out a case of justification for putting him, not out of the ship, nor even out of the navy, but out of the world. This was an altered state of the case, and the captain's report accommodated itself to this alteration. The reasons now given go to the baseness of the young man: those which existed at the time, went to the comfort of the four midshipmen, connected by blood and alliance with the captain, and committed to his special care:—as if all in the ship were not committed to his special care, and that by the laws of the land—and without preference to relations. The captain even goes into an account of his own high moral feelings at the time, and disregard of persons high in power, in showing that he then acted upon a sense of Spencer's baseness, maugre the reverence he had for his father and his cabinet position. Every body sees that these are contradictions—that all this talk about baseness is after-talk—that all these fine sentiments are of subsequent conception: in fact, that the first reasons were those of the time, before he expected to put the young man to death, and the next after he had done it! and when the deed exacted a justification, and that at any cost of invention and fabrication. The two accounts are sufficient to establish one of those errors of fact which the law considers as discrediting a witness in all that he says. But it is not all the proof of erroneous statement which the double relation of this incident affords: there is another, equally flagrant. The captain, in his after account, repulses association with baseness, that is with Spencer, in any shape: his elaborate report superabounds with expressions of the regard with which he had treated him during the voyage, and even exacts acknowledgment of his kindness while endeavoring to torture out of him confessions of guilt.

The case of Spencer was now over: the cases of Small and Cromwell were briefly despatched. The commander contrived to make the three victims meet in a narrow way going to the sacrifice, all manacled and hobbling along, helped along, for they could not walk, by persons appointed to that duty. Gansevoort helped Spencer—a place to which he had entitled himself by the zeal with which he had pursued him. The object of the meeting was seen in the use that was made of it. It was to have a scene of crimination and recrimination between the prisoners, in which mutual accusations were to help out the miserable testimony and the imputed confessions. They are all made to stop together. Spencer is made to ask the pardon of Small for having seduced him: Small is made to answer, and with a look of horror—"No, by God!" an answer very little in keeping with the lowly and Christian character of Small, and rebutted by ample negative testimony: for this took place after the secret whispering was over, and in the presence of many. Even Gansevoort, in giving a minute account of this interview, reports nothing like it, nor any thing on which it could be founded. Small really seems to have been a gentle and mild man, imbued with kind and pious feelings, and no part of his conduct corresponds with the brutal answer to Spencer attributed to him. When asked if he had any message to send, he answered, "I have nobody to care for me but a poor old mother, and I had rather she did not know how I died." In his Bible was found a letter from his mother, filled with affectionate expressions. In that letter the mother had rejoiced that her son was contented and happy, as he had informed her; upon which the commander maliciously remarked, in his report, "that was before his acquaintance with Spencer." There was nothing against him, but in the story of the informer, Wales. He instantly admitted his "foolish conversations" with Spencer when arrested, but said it was no mutiny. When standing under the ship gallows (yard-arm) he began a speech to his shipmates, declaring his innocence, saying "I am no pirate: I never murdered any body!" At these words Mackenzie sung out to Gansevoort, "Is that right?" meaning, ought he to be allowed to speak so? He was soon stopped, and Gansevoort swears he said "he deserved his punishment." Cromwell protested his innocence to the last, and with evident truth. When arrested, he declared he knew nothing about the mutiny, and the commander told him he was to be carried home with Spencer to be tried; to which he answered, "I assure you I know nothing about it." His name was not on the razor-case paper. Spencer had declared his ignorance of all his talk, when the commander commenced his efforts, under the ten minutes' reprieve, to get confessions, and when Spencer said to him, as he turned off to go to Small and Cromwell with the ten minutes' news—the first they heard of it: "As these are the last words I have to say, I trust they will be believed: Cromwell is innocent." When told his doom, he (Cromwell) exclaimed, "God of the Universe look down upon me; I am innocent! Tell my wife—tell Lieutenant Morris I die innocent!" The last time that Mackenzie had spoken to him before was to tell him he would be carried to the United States for trial. The meeting of the three victims was crowned by reporting them, not only as confessing, and admitting the justice of their deaths, but even praising it, as to the honor of the flag, and—penitently begging pardon and forgiveness from the commander and his lieutenant!—and they mercifully granting the pardon and forgiveness! The original record says there were no "hangmen" on board the ship: but that made no balk. The death signal, and command, were given by the commander and his lieutenant—the former firing the signal gun himself—the other singing out "whip!" at which word the three wretched men went up with a violent jerk to the yard-arm. There is something unintelligible about Cromwell in the last words of this original "record." It says: "S. Small stept up. Cromwell overboard, rose dipping to yard-arm." Upon which the editor remarks: "The above paper of Commander Mackenzie is so illegible, as not to be correctly written" (copied). Yet it was this paper that Spencer is officially reported to have read while waiting to be jerked up, and to have agreed to its correctness—and near two-thirds of which were not written until after his death!

The men were dead, and died innocent, as history will tell and show. Why such conduct towards them—not only the killing, but the cruel aggravations? The historian Cooper, in solving this question, says that such was the obliquity of intellect shown by Mackenzie in the whole affair, that no analysis of his motives can be made on any consistent principle of human action. This writer looks upon personal resentment as having been the cause of the deaths, and terror, and a desire to create terror, the cause of the aggravations. Both Spencer and Cromwell had indulged in language which must have been peculiarly offensive to a man of the commander's temperament, and opinion of himself—an author, an orator, a fine officer. They habitually spoke of him before the crew, as "the old humbug—the old fool;" graceless epithets, plentifully garnished with the prefix of "damned;" and which were so reported to the captain (after the discovery of the mutiny—never before) as to appear to him to be "blasphemous vituperation." This is the only tangible cause for hanging Spencer and Cromwell, and as for poor Small, it would seem that his knowledge of navigation, and the necessity of having three mutineers, decided his fate: for his name is on neither of the three lists (though on the distribution list), and he frankly told the commander of Spencer's foolish conversations—always adding, it was no mutiny. These are the only tangible, or visible causes for putting the men to death. The reason for doing it at the time it was done, was for fear of losing the excuse to do it. The vessel was within a day and a half of St. Thomas, where she was ordered to go—within less time of many other islands to which she might go—in a place to meet vessels at any time, one of which she saw nearly in her course, and would not go to it. The excuse for not going to these near islands, or joining the vessel seen, was that it was disgraceful to a man-of-war to seek protection from foreigners! as if it was more honorable to murder than to take such protection. But the excuse was proved to be false; for it was admitted the vessel seen was too far off to know her national character: therefore, she was not avoided as a foreigner, but for fear she might be American. The same of the islands: American vessels were sure to be at them, and therefore these islands were not gone to. It was therefore indispensable to do the work before they got to St. Thomas, and all the machinery of new arrests, and rescue was to justify that consummation. And as for not being able to carry the ship to St. Thomas, with an obedient crew of 100 men, it was a story not to be told in a service where Lieutenant John Rodgers and Midshipman Porter, with 11 men, conducted a French frigate with 173 French prisoners, three days and nights, into safe port.

The three men having hung until they ceased to give signs of life, and still hanging up, the crew were piped down to dinner, and to hear a speech from the commander, and to celebrate divine service—of which several performances the commander gives this account in his official report:

"The crew were now piped down from witnessing punishment, and all hands called to cheer ship. I gave the order, 'stand by to give three hearty cheers for the flag of our country!' Never were three heartier cheers given. In that electric moment I do not doubt that the patriotism of even the worst of the conspirators for an instant broke forth. I felt that I was once more completely commander of the vessel which had been entrusted to me; equal to do with her whatever the honor of my country might require. The crew were now piped down and piped to dinner. I noticed with pain that many of the boys, as they looked to the yard-arm, indulged in laughter and derision."

He also gives an impressive account of the religious service which was performed, the punctuality and devotion with which it was attended, and the appropriate prayer—that of thanks to God for deliverance from a great danger—with which it was concluded.

"The service was then read, the responses audibly and devoutly made by the officers and crew, and the bodies consigned to the deep. This service was closed with that prayer so appropriate to our situation, appointed to be read in our ships of war, 'Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of enemies; that we may be a safeguard to the United States of America, and a security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the inhabitants of our land may in peace and quietude serve thee our God; and that we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of our land, with the fruits of our labor, with a thankful remembrance of thy mercies, to praise and glorify thy holy name through Jesus Christ our Lord.'"

This religious celebration concluded, and the prayer read, the commander indulges in a remark upon their escape from a danger plotted before the ship left the United States, as unfeeling, inhuman and impious at the time, as it was afterwards proved to be false and wicked. After the arrest of Spencer, the delators discovered that he had meditated these crimes before he left the United States, and had let his intention become known at a house in the Bowery at New York. In reference to that early inception of the plot, now just found out by the commander, he thus remarks:

"In reading this (prayer) and in recollecting the uses to which the Somers had been destined, as I now find, before she quitted the waters of the United States, I could not but humbly hope that divine sanction would not be wanting to the deed of that day."

Here it is assumed for certain that piratical uses were intended for the vessel by Spencer before he left New York; and upon that assumption the favor of Heaven was humbly hoped for in looking down upon the deed of that day. Now what should be the look of Heaven if all this early plotting should be a false imputation—a mere invention—as it was proved to be. Before the court-martial it was proved that the sailor boarding-house remark about this danger to the Somers, was made by another person, and before Spencer joined the vessel—and from which vessel the commander knew he had endeavored to get transferred to the Grampus, after he had come into her—the commander himself being the organ of his wishes. Foiled before the court in attaching this boarding-house remark to Spencer, the delators before the court undertook to fasten it upon Cromwell: there again the same fate befell them: the remark was proved to have been made by a man of the name of Phelps, and before Cromwell had joined the vessel: and so ended this last false and foul insinuation in his report.

The commander then made a speech, whereof he incorporates a synopsis in his report; and of which, with its capital effects upon the crew, he gives this account:

"The crew were now ordered aft, and I addressed them from the trunk, on which I was standing. I called their attention first to the fate of the unfortunate young man, whose ill-regulated ambition, directed to the most infamous ends, had been the exciting cause of the tragedy they had just witnessed. I spoke of his honored parents, of his distinguished father, whose talents and character had raised him to one of the highest stations in the land, to be one of the six appointed counsellors of the representative of our national sovereignty. I spoke of the distinguished social position to which this young man had been born; of the advantages of every sort that attended the outset of his career, and of the professional honors to which a long, steady, and faithful perseverance in the course of duty might ultimately have raised him. After a few months' service at sea, most wretchedly employed, so for as the acquisition of professional knowledge was concerned, he had aspired to supplant me in a command which I had only reached after nearly 30 years of faithful servitude; and for what object I had already explained to them. I told them that their future fortunes were in their own control: they had advantages of every sort and in an eminent degree for the attainment of professional knowledge. The situations of warrant officers and of masters in the navy were open to them. They might rise to commands in the merchant service, to respectability, to competence, and to fortune; but they must advance regularly, and step by step; every step to be sure, must be guided by truth, honor, and fidelity. I called their attention to Cromwell's case. He must have received an excellent education, his handwriting was even elegant. But he had also fallen through brutish sensuality and the greedy thirst for gold."

But there was another speech on the Sunday following, of which the commander furnishes no report, but of which some parts were remembered by hearers—as thus by McKee:—(the judge advocate having put the question to him whether he had heard the commander's addresses to the crew after the execution). Answer: "I heard him on the Sunday after the execution: he read Mr. Spencer's letters: he said he was satisfied the young man had been lying to him for half an hour before his death." Another witness swore to the same words, with the addition, "that he died with a lie in his mouth." Another witness (Green) gives a further view into this letter-reading, and affords a glimpse of the object of such a piece of brutality. In answer to the same question, if he heard the commander's speech the Sunday after the execution? He answered, "Yes, sir. I heard him read over Mr. Spencer's letter, and pass a good many remarks on it. He said that Cromwell had been very cruel to the boys: that he had called him aft, and spoke to him about it several times. To the question, Did he say any thing of Mr. Spencer? he answered—"Yes, sir. He said he left his friends, lost all his clothes, and shipped in a whaling vessel." To the question whether any thing was said about Mr. Spencer's truth or falsehood? he answered: "I heard the commander say, this young man died with a lie in his mouth; but do not know whether he meant Mr. Spencer, or some one else." It is certain the commander was making a base use of these letters, as he makes no mention of them any where, and they seem to have been used solely to excite the crew against Cromwell and Spencer.

In finding the mother's letter in Small's bible, the captain finds occasion to make two innuendos against the dead Spencer, then still hanging up. He says:

"She expressed the joy with which she had learned from him that he was so happy on board the Somers (at that time Mr. Spencer had not joined her); that no grog was served on board of her. Within the folds of this sacred volume he had preserved a copy of verses taken from the Sailor's Magazine, enforcing the value of the bible to seamen. I read these verses to the crew. Small had evidently valued his bible, but could not resist temptation."

This happiness of Small is discriminated from his acquaintance with Spencer: it was before the time that Spencer joined the ship! as if his misery began from that time! when it only commenced from the time he was seized and ironed for mutiny. Then the temptation which he could not resist, innuendo, tempted by Spencer—of which there was not even a tangible hearsay, and no temptation necessary. Poor Small was an habitual drunkard, and drank all that he could get—his only fault, as it seems. But this bible of Small's gave occasion to another speech, and moral and religious harangue, of which the captain gave a report, too long to be noticed here except for its characteristics, and which go to elucidate the temper and state of mind in which things were done:

"I urged upon the youthful sailors to cherish their bibles with a more entire love than Small had done; to value their prayer books also; they would find in them a prayer for every necessity, however great; a medicine for every ailment of the mind. I endeavored to call to their recollection the terror with which the three malefactors had found themselves suddenly called to enter the presence of an offended God. No one who had witnessed that scene could for a moment believe even in the existence of such a feeling as honest Atheism: a disbelief in the existence of a God. They should also remember that scene. They should also remember that Mr. Spencer, in his last moments, had said that 'he had wronged many people, but chiefly his parents.' From these two circumstances they might draw two useful lessons: a lesson of filial piety, and of piety toward God. With these two principles for their guides they could never go astray."

This speech was concluded with giving cheers to God, not by actual shouting, but by singing the hundredth psalm, and cheering again—all for deliverance from the hands of the pirates. Thus:

"In conclusion, I told them that they had shown that they could give cheers for their country; they should now give cheers to their God, for they would do this when they sung praises to his name. The colors were now hoisted, and above the American ensign, the only banner to which it may give place, the banner of the cross. The hundredth psalm was now sung by all the officers and crew. After which, the usual service followed; when it was over, I could not avoid contrasting the spectacle presented on that day by the Somers, with what it would have been in pirates' hands."

During all this time the four other men in irons sat manacled behind the captain, and he exults in telling the fine effects of his speaking on these "deeply guilty," as well as upon all the rest of the ship's crew.

"But on this subject I forbear to enlarge. I would not have described the scene at all, so different from the ordinary topics of an official communication, but for the unwonted circumstances in which we were placed, and the marked effect which it produced on the ship's company, even on those deeply guilty members of it who sat manacled behind me, and that it was considered to have done much towards restoring the allegiance of the crew."

Of these deeply guilty, swelled to twelve before the ship got home, three appeared before the court-martial, and gave in their experience of that day's work. McKee, the first one, testifies that he had so little suspicion of what was going on, that, when he saw the commander come upon deck in full uniform, he supposed that some ship was seen, and that it was the intention to visit or speak her. To the question, what passed between yourself and the commander, after the execution? he answered: "He said he could find nothing against any of the four that were then in irons—if he had found any proof our fate would have been the same; and if he could find any excuse for not taking them home in irons, he would do so. I understood him to mean he would release them from their irons." Green, another of them, in answer to the question whether the commander spoke to him after hanging, answered—"Yes, sir. He said he could not find any thing against us; if he could, our fate would have been the same as the other three. He asked me if I was satisfied with it?" McKinley was the third, and to the same question, whether the commander spoke to him on the day of the executions? he answered—"He did while the men were hanging at the yard arm, but not before. He came to me, and said, 'McKinley, did you hear what I said to those other young men?' I told him, 'No, sir.' 'Well,' said he, 'it is the general opinion of the officers that you are a pretty good boy, but I shall have to take you home in irons, to see what the Secretary of the Navy can do for you.' He said: 'In risking your life for other persons (or something to that effect) is all that saves you.' He left me then, and I spoke to Mr. Gansevoort—I asked him if he thought the commander thought I was guilty of any thing of the kind. He said: 'No, I assure you if he did, he would have strung you up.'" Wilson, the fourth of the arrested, was not examined before the court; but the evidence of three of them, with McKenzie's refusal to proceed against them in New York, and the attempt to tamper with one of them, is proof enough that he had no accusation against these four men: that they were arrested to fulfil the condition on which the first three were to be hanged, and to be brought home in irons with eight others, to keep up the idea of mutiny.

The report having finished the history of the mutiny—its detection, suppression, execution of the ringleaders, and seizure of the rest (twelve in all) to be brought home in bags and irons—goes on, like a military report after a great victory, to point out for the notice and favor of the government, the different officers and men who had distinguished themselves in the affair, and to demand suitable rewards for each one according to his station and merits. This concluding part opened thus:

"In closing this report, a pleasing, yet solemn duty devolves upon me, which I feel unable adequately to fulfil—to do justice to the noble conduct of every one of the officers of the Somers, from the first lieutenant to the commander's clerk, who has also, since her equipment, performed the duty of midshipman. Throughout the whole duration of the difficulties in which we have been involved, their conduct has been courageous, determined, calm, self-possessed—animated and upheld always by a lofty and chivalrous patriotism, perpetually armed by day and by night, waking and sleeping, with pistols often cocked for hours together."

The commander, after this general encomium, brings forward the distinguished, one by one, beginning of course with his first lieutenant:

"I cannot forbear to speak particularly of Lieutenant Gansevoort. Next to me in rank on board the Somers, he was my equal in every respect to protect and defend her. The perfect harmony of our opinions, and of our views of what should be done, on each new development of the dangers which menaced the integrity of command, gave us a unity of action that added materially to our strength. Never since the existence of our navy has a commanding officer been more ably and zealously seconded by his lieutenant."

Leaving out every thing minor, and dependent upon the oaths of others, there are some things sworn to by Gansevoort himself which derogate from his chivalrous patriotism. First, going round to the officers who were to sit in council upon the three prisoners, and taking their agreement to execute the three on hand if more arrests were made. Secondly, encouraging and making those arrests on which the lives of the three depended. Thirdly, going out of the council to obtain from Spencer further proofs of his guilt—Spencer not knowing for what purpose he was thus interrogated. Fourthly, his calmness and self-possession were shown in the fire of his pistol while assisting to arrest Cromwell, and in that consternation inspired in him at the running towards where he was of a cluster of the apprentice boys, scampering on to avoid the boatswain's colt—a slender cord to whip them over the clothes, like a switch. Midshipman Rodgers had gone aft, or forward, as the case may be, to drive a parcel of these boys to their duty, taking the boatswain along to apply his colt to all the hindmost. Of course the boys scampered briskly to escape the colt. The lieutenant heard them coming—thought they were the mutineers—sung out, God! they are coming—levelled his revolver, and was only prevented from giving them the contents of the six barrels, had they not sung out "It is me—it is me;" for that is what the witnesses stated. But the richness of the scene can only be fully seen from the lieutenant's own account of it, which he gave before the court with evident self-satisfaction: "The commander and myself were standing on the larboard side of the quarter deck, at the after end of the trunk: we were in conversation: it was dark at the time. I heard an unusual noise—a rushing aft toward the quarter deck; I said to the commander, 'God! I believe they are coming.' I had one of Colt's pistols, which I immediately drew and cocked: the commander said his pistols were below. I jumped on the trunk, and ran forward to meet them. As I was going along I sung out to them not to come aft. I told them I would blow the first man's brains out who would put his foot on the quarter deck. I held my pistol pointed at the tallest man that I saw in the starboard gangway, and I think Mr. Rodgers sung out to me, that he was sending the men aft to the mast rope. I then told them they must have no such unusual movements on board the vessel: what they did, they must do in their usual manner: they knew the state of the vessel, and might get their brains blown out before they were aware of it. Some other short remarks, I do not recollect at this time what they were, and ordered them to come aft and man the mast rope: to move quietly." To finish this view of Mr. Gansevoort's self-possession, and the value of his "beliefs," it is only necessary to know that, besides letting off his pistol when Cromwell was arrested, he swore before the court that, "I had an idea that he (Cromwell) meant to take me overboard with him," when they shook hands under the gallows yard arm, and under that idea, "turned my arm to get clear of his grasp."

The two non-combatants, purser Heiskill and assistant surgeon Leecock, come in for high applause, although for the low business of watching the crew and guarding the prisoners. The report thus brings them forward:

"Where all, without exception, have behaved admirably, it might seem invidious to particularize: yet I cannot refrain calling your attention to the noble conduct of purser H. W. Heiskill, and passed assistant surgeon Leecock, for the services which they so freely yielded beyond the sphere of their immediate duties."

The only specification of this noble conduct, and of these services beyond their proper sphere, which is given in the report, is contained in this sentence:

"Both he and Mr. Heiskill cheerfully obeyed my orders to go perpetually armed, to keep a regular watch, to guard the prisoners: the worst weather could not drive them from their posts, or draw from their lips a murmur."

To these specifications of noble conduct, and extra service, might have been added those of eaves-dropping and delation—capacity to find the same symptoms of guilt in opposite words and acts—sitting in council to judge three men whom they had agreed with Gansevoort two days before to hang if necessary to make more arrests, and which arrests, four in number, were made with their concurrence and full approbation. Finally, he might have told that this Heiskill was a link in the chain of the revelation of the mutinous and piratical plot. He was the purser of whom Wales was the steward, and to whom Wales revealed the plot—he then revealing to Gansevoort—and Gansevoort to Mackenzie. It was, then, through his subordinate (and who was then stealing his liquor) and himself that the plot was detected.

A general presentation of government thanks to all the officers, is next requested by the lieutenant:

"I respectfully request that the thanks of the Navy Department may be presented to all the officers of the Somers, for their exertions in the critical situation in which she has been placed. It is true they have but performed their duty, but they have performed it with fidelity and zeal."

The purser's steward, Wales, is then specially and encomiastically presented, and a specific high reward solicited for him:

"I respectfully submit, that Mr. J. W. Wales, by his coolness, his presence of mind, and his fidelity, has rendered to the American navy a memorable service. I had a trifling difficulty with him, not discreditable to his character, on the previous cruise to Porto Rico—on that account he was sought out, and tampered with. But he was honest, patriotic, humane; he resisted temptation, was faithful to his flag, and was instrumental in saving it from dishonor. A pursership in the navy, or a handsome pecuniary reward, would after all be an inconsiderable recompense, compared with the magnitude of his services."

Of this individual the commander had previously reported a contrivance to make a mistake in doubling the allowed quantity of brandy carried out on the cruise, saying: "By accident, as it was thought at the time, but subsequent developments would rather go to prove by design, he (Wales) had contrived to make a mistake, and the supply of brandy was ordered from two different groceries; thus doubling the quantity intended to be taken." Of this double supply of brandy thus contrived to be taken out, the commander reports Wales for continual "stealing" of it—always adding that he was seduced into these "thefts" by Spencer. Being a temperance man, the commander eschews the use of this brandy on board, except furtively for the corruption of the crew by Spencer through the seduction of the steward: thus: "None of the brandy was used in the mess, and all of it is still on board except what was stolen by the steward at the request of Mr. Spencer, and drank by him, and those he endeavored to corrupt." By his own story this Wales comes under the terms of Lord Hale's idea of a "desperate villain"—a fellow who joins in a crime, gets the confidence of accomplices, then informs upon them, gets them hanged, and receives a reward. This was the conduct of Wales upon his own showing: and of such informers the pious and mild Lord Hale judicially declared his abhorrence—held their swearing unworthy of credit unless corroborated—said that they had done more mischief in getting innocent people punished than they had ever done good in bringing criminals to justice. Upon this view of his conduct, then, this Wales comes under the legal idea of a desperate villain. Legal presumptions would leave him in this category but the steward and the commander have not left it there. They have lifted a corner of the curtain which conceals an unmentionable transaction, to which these two persons were parties—which was heard of, but not understood by the crew—which was hugger-muggered into a settlement between them about the time of Spencer's arrest, though originating the preceding cruise—which neither would explain—which no one could name—and of which Heiskill, the intermediate between his steward and the commander, could know nothing except that it was of a "delicate nature," and that it had been settled between them. The first hint of this mysterious transaction was in the commander's report—in his proud commendation of this steward for a pursership in the United States Navy—and evidently to rehabilitate his witness, and to get a new lick at Spencer. The hint runs thus: "I had a trifling difficulty, not discreditable to his character, on the previous cruise to Porto Rico." On the trial the purser Heiskill was interrogated as to the nature of this difficulty between his subordinate and his superior. To the question—"Did he know any thing, and what, about a misunderstanding between the steward and the commander at Porto Rico?" he answered, "he knew there was a misunderstanding, which Wales told him was explained to the satisfaction of the commander." To the further question, "Was it of a delicate nature?" the answer was, "yes, sir." To the further question, as to the time when this misunderstanding was settled? the purser answered: "I do not know—some time since, I believe." Asked if it was before the arrest? he answers: "I think Mr. Wales spoke of this matter before the arrest." Pressed to tell, if it was shortly before the arrest, the purser would neither give a long nor a short time, but ignored the inquiry with the declaration, "I won't pretend to fix upon a time." Wales himself interrogated before the court, as to the fact of this misunderstanding, and also as to what it was? admitted the fact, but refused its disclosure. His answer, as it stands in the official report of the trial is: "I had a difficulty, but decline to explain it." And the obliging court submitted to the contempt of this answer.

Left without information in a case so mysterious, and denied explanation from those who could give it, history can only deal with the facts as known, and with the inferences fairly resulting from them; and, therefore, can only say, that there was an old affair between the commander and the purser's steward, originating in a previous voyage, and settled in this one, and settled before the arrest of midshipman Spencer; and secondly, that the affair was of so delicate a nature as to avoid explanation from either party. Now the word "delicate" in this connection, implies something which cannot be discussed without danger—something which will not bear handling, or exposure—and in which silence and reserve are the only escapes from a detection worse than any suspicion. And thus stands before history the informer upon the young Spencer—the thief of brandies, the desperate villain according to Lord Hale's classification, and the culprit of unmentionable crime, according to his own implied admission. Yet this man is recommended for a pursership in the United States navy, or a handsome pecuniary reward; while any court in Christendom would have committed him for perjury, on his own showing, in his swearing before the court-martial.

Sergeant Michael H. Garty is then brought forward; thus:

"Of the conduct of Sergeant Michael H. Garty (of the marines) I will only say it was worthy of the noble corps to which he has the honor to belong. Confined to his hammock by a malady which threatened to be dangerous, at the moment when the conspiracy was discovered, he rose upon his feet a well man. Throughout the whole period, from the day of Mr. Spencer's arrest to the day after our arrival, and until the removal of the mutineers, his conduct was calm, steady, and soldierlike. But when his duty was done, and health was no longer indispensable to its performance, his malady returned upon him, and he is still in his hammock. In view of this fine conduct, I respectfully recommend that Sergeant Garty be promoted to a second lieutenancy in the marine corps. Should I pass without dishonor through the ordeal which probably awaits me, and attain in due time to the command of a vessel entitled to a marine officer, I ask no better fortune than to have the services of Sergeant Garty in that capacity."

Now here is something like a miracle. A bedridden man to rise up a well man the moment his country needed his services, and to remain a well man to the last moment those services required, and then to fall down a bedridden man again. Such a miracle implies a divine interposition which could only be bottomed on a full knowledge of the intended crime, and a special care to prevent it. It is quite improbable in itself, and its verity entirely marred by answers of this sergeant to certain questions before the court-martial. Thus: "When were you on the sick list in the last cruise?" Answer: "I was twice on the list: the last time about two days." Now these two days must be that hammock confinement from the return of the malady which immediately ensued on the removal of the mutineers (the twelve from the Somers to the North Carolina guardship at New York), and which seemed as chronic and permanent as it was before the arrest. Questioned further, whether he "remained in his hammock the evening of Spencer's arrest?" the answer is, "Yes, sir: I was in and out of it all that night." So that the rising up a well man does not seem to have been so instantaneous as the commander's report would imply. The sergeant gives no account of this malady which confined him to his hammock in the marvellous way the commander reports. He never mentioned it until it was dragged out of him on cross-examination. He was on the sick list. That does not imply bedridden. Men are put on the sick list for a slight indisposition: in fact, to save them from sickness. Truth is, this Garty seems to have been one of the class of which every service contains some specimens—scamps who have a pain, and get on the sick list when duty runs hard; and who have no pain, and get on the well list, as soon as there is something pleasant to do. In this case the sergeant seems to have had a pleasant occupation from the alacrity with which he fulfilled it, and from the happy relief which it procured him from his malady as long as it lasted. That occupation was superintendent of the bagging business. It was he who attended to the wearing and fitting of the bags—seeing that they were punctually put on when a prisoner was made, tightly tied over the head of nights, and snugly drawn round the neck during the day. To this was added eavesdropping and delating, and swearing before all the courts, and in this style before the council of officers: "Thinks there are some persons at large that would voluntarily assist the prisoners if they had an opportunity."—"Thinks if the prisoners were at large the brig would certainly be in great danger."—"Thinks there are persons adrift yet, who, if opportunity offered, would rescue the prisoners."—"Thinks the vessel would be safer if Cromwell, Spencer, and Small were put to death."—"Thinks Cromwell a desperate fellow."—"Thinks their object (that of Cromwell and Spencer), in taking slavers, would be to convert them to their own use, and not to suppress the slave trade." All this was swearing like a sensible witness, who knew what was wanted, and would furnish it. It covered all the desired points. More arrests were wanted at that time to justify the hanging of the prisoners on hand: he thinks more arrests ought to be made. The fear of a rescue was wanted: he thinks there will be a rescue attempted. The execution of the prisoners is wanted: he thinks the vessel would be safer if they were all three put to death. And it was for these noble services—bagging prisoners, eavesdropping, delating, swearing to what was wanted—that this sergeant had his marvellous rise-up from a hammock, and was now recommended for an officer of marines. History repulses the marvel which the commander reports. A kind Providence may interpose for the safety of men and ships, but not through an agent who is to bag and suffocate innocent men—to eaves-drop and delate—to swear in all places, and just what was wanted—all by thoughts, and without any thing to bottom a thought upon. Certainly this Sergeant Garty, from his stomach for swearing, must have something in common, besides nativity, with Mr. Jemmy O'Brien; and, from his alacrity and diligence in taking care of prisoners, would seem to have come from the school of the famous Major Sirr, of Irish rebellion memory.

Mr. O. H. Perry, the commander's clerk and nephew, the same whose blunder in giving the order about the mast, occasioned it to break; and, in breaking, to become a sign of the plotting, mutiny, and piracy; and the same that held the watch to mark the ten minutes that Spencer was to live: this young gentleman was not forgotten, but came in liberally for praise and spoil—the spoil of the young man whose messmate he had been, against whom he had testified, and whose minutes he had counted, and proclaimed when out:

"If I shall be deemed by the Navy Department to have had any merit in preserving the Somers from those treasonable toils by which she had been surrounded since and before her departure from the United States, I respectfully request that it may accrue without reservation for my nephew O. H. Perry, now clerk on board the Somers, and that his name may be placed on the register in the name left vacant by the treason of Mr. Spencer. I think, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, an act of Congress, if necessary, might be obtained to authorize the appointment."

All these recommendations for reward and promotion, bespeak an obliquity of mental vision, equivalent to an aberration of the mind; and this last one, obliquitous as any, superadds an extinction of the moral sense in demanding the spoil of the slain for the reward of a nephew who had promoted the death of which he was claiming the benefit. The request was revolting! and, what is equally revolting, it was granted. But worse still. An act of Congress at that time forbid the appointment of more midshipmen, of which there were then too many, unless to fill vacancies: hence the request of the commander, that his nephew's name may take the place in the Navy Register of the name left vacant by the "treason" of Mr. Spencer!

The commander, through all his witnesses, had multiplied proofs on the attempts of Spencer to corrupt the crew by largesses lavished upon them—such as tobacco, segars, nuts, sixpences thrown among the boys, and two bank-notes given to Cromwell on the coast of Africa to send home to his wife before the bank failed. Now what were the temptations on the other side? What the inducements to the witnesses and actors in this foul business to swear up to the mark which Mackenzie's acquittal and their promotion required? The remarks of Mr. Fenimore Cooper, the historian, here present themselves as those of an experienced man speaking with knowledge of the subject, and acquaintance with human nature:

"While on this point we will show the extent of the temptations that were thus inconsiderately placed before the minds of these men—what preferment they had reason to hope would be accorded to them should Mackenzie's conduct be approved, viz.: Garty, from the ranks, to be an officer, with twenty-five dollars per month, and fifty cents per diem rations: and the prospect of promotion. Wales, from purser's steward, at eighteen dollars a month, to quarter-deck rank, and fifteen hundred dollars per annum. Browning, Collins, and Stewart, petty officers, at nineteen dollars a month, to be boatswains, with seven hundred dollars per annum. King, Anderson, and Rogers, petty officers, at nineteen dollars a month, to be gunners, at seven hundred dollars per annum. Dickinson, petty officer, at nineteen dollars a month, to be carpenter, with seven hundred dollars per annum."

Such was the list of temptations placed before the witnesses by Commander Mackenzie, and which it is not in human nature to suppose were without their influence on most of the persons to whom they were addressed.

The commander could not close his list of recommendations for reward without saying something of himself. He asked for nothing specifically, but expected approbation, and looked forward to regular promotion, while gratified at the promotions which his subordinates should receive, and which would redound to his own honor. He did not ask for a court of inquiry, or a court-martial, but seemed to apprehend, and to deprecate them. The Secretary of the Navy immediately ordered a court of inquiry—a court of three officers to report upon the facts of the case, and to give their opinion. There was no propriety in this proceeding. The facts were admitted, and the law fixed their character. Three prisoners had been hanged without trial, and the law holds that to be murder until reduced by a judicial trial to a lower degree of offence—to manslaughter, excusable, or justifiable homicide. The finding of the court was strongly in favor of the commander; and unless this finding and opinion were disapproved by the President, no further military proceeding should be had—no court-martial ordered—the object of the inquiry being to ascertain whether there was necessity for one. The necessity being negatived, and that opinion approved by the President, there was no military rule of action which could go on to a court-martial: to the general astonishment such a court was immediately ordered—and assembled with such precipitation that the judge advocate was in no condition to go on with the trial; and, up to the third day of its sitting, was without the means of proceeding with the prosecution; and for his justification in not being able to go on, and in asking some delay, the judge advocate, Wm. H. Norris, Esq., of Baltimore, submitted to the court this statement in writing:

"The judge advocate states to the court that he has not been furnished by the department, as yet, with any list of witnesses on the part of the government: that he has had no opportunity of conversing with any of the witnesses, of whose names he is even entirely ignorant except by rumor in respect to a few of them; and that, therefore, he would need time to prepare the case by conversation with the officers and crew of the brig Somers, before he can commence the case on the part of the government. The judge advocate has issued two subpœnas, duces tecum, for the record in the case of the court of inquiry into the alleged mutiny, which have not yet been returned, and by which record he could have been notified of the witnesses and facts to constitute the case of the government."

The judge advocate then begged a delay, which was granted, until eleven o'clock the next day. Here then was a precipitation, unheard of in judicial proceedings, and wholly incompatible with the idea of any real prosecution. The cause of this precipitancy becomes a matter of public inquiry, as the public interest requires the administration of justice to be fair and impartial. The cause of it then was this: The widow of Cromwell, to whom he had sent his last dying message, that he was innocent, undertook to have Mackenzie prosecuted before the civil tribunals for the murder of her husband. She made three attempts, all in vain. One judge, to whom an application for a warrant was made, declined to grant it, on the ground that he was too much occupied with other matters to attend to that case—giving a written answer to that effect. A commissioner of the United States, appointed to issue warrants in all criminal cases, refused one in this case, because, as he alleged, he had no authority to act in a military case. The attempt was then made in the United States district court, New York, to get the Grand Jury to find an indictment: the court instructed the jury that it was not competent for a civil tribunal to interfere with matters which were depending before a naval tribunal: in consequence of which instruction the bill was ignored. Upon this instruction of the court the historian, Cooper, well remarks: "That after examining the subject at some length, we are of opinion that the case belonged exclusively to the civil tribunals." Here, then, is the reason why Mackenzie was run so precipitately before the court-martial. It was to shelter him by an acquittal there: and so apprehensive was he of being got hold of by some civil tribunal, before the court-martial could be organized, that he passed the intervening days between the two courts "in a bailiwick where the ordinary criminal process could not reach him."—(Cooper's Review of the Trial.) When the trial actually came on, the judge advocate was about as bad off as he was the first day. He had a list of witnesses. They were Mackenzie's officers—and refused to converse with him on the nature of their testimony. He stated their refusal to the court—declared himself without knowledge to conduct the case—and likened himself to a new comer in a house, having a bunch of keys given to him, without information of the lock to which each belonged—so that he must try every lock with every key before he could find out the right one.

The hurried assemblage of the court being shown, its composition becomes a fair subject of inquiry. The record shows that three officers were excused from serving on their own application after being detailed as members of the court; and the information of the day made known that another was excused before he was officially detailed. The same history of the day informs that these four avoided the service because they had opinions against the accused. That was all right in them. Mackenzie was entitled to an impartial trial, although he allowed his victims no trial at all. But how was it on the other side? any one excused there for opinions in favor of the accused? None! and history said there were members on the court strongly in favor of him—as the proceedings on the trial too visibly prove. Engaged in the case without a knowledge of it, the judge advocate confined himself to the testimony of one witness, merely proving the hanging without trial; and then left the field to the accused. It was occupied in great force—a great number of witnesses, all the reports of Mackenzie himself, all the statements before the council of officers—all sorts of illegal, irrelevant, impertinent or frivolous testimony—every thing that could be found against the dead since their death, in addition to all before—assumption or assertion of any fact or inference wanted—questions put not only leading to the answer wanted, but affirming the fact wanted—all the persons served as witnesses who had been agents or instruments in the murders—Mackenzie himself submitting his own statements before the court: such was the trial! and the issue was conformable to such a farrago of illegalities, absurdities, frivolities, impertinences and wickednesses. He was acquitted; but in the lowest form of acquittal known to court-martial proceedings. "Not proven," was the equivocal mode of saying "not guilty:" three members of the court were in favor of conviction for murder. The finding was barely permitted to stand by the President. To approve, or disprove court-martial proceedings is the regular course: the President did neither. The official promulgation of the proceedings wound up with this unusual and equivocal sanction: "As these charges involved the life of the accused, and as the finding is in his favor, he is entitled to the benefit of it, as in the analogous case of a verdict of not guilty before a civil court, and there is no power which can constitutionally deprive him of that benefit. The finding, therefore, is simply confirmed, and carried into effect without any expression of approbation or disapprobation on the part of the President: no such expression being necessary." No acquittal could be of lower order, or less honorable. The trial continued two months; and that long time was chiefly monopolized by the defence, which became in fact a trial of the dead—who, having no trial while alive, had an ample one of sixty days after their deaths. Of course they were convicted—the dead and the absent being always in the wrong. At the commencement of the trial, two eminent counsel of New York—Messrs. Benjamin F. Butler and Charles O'Connor, Esqs.,—applied to the court at the instance of the father of the young Spencer to be allowed to sit by, and put questions approved by the court; and offer suggestions and comments on the testimony when it was concluded. This request was entered on the minutes, and refused. So that at the long post mortem trial which was given to the boy after his death, the father was not allowed to ask one question in favor of his son.

And here two remarks require to be made—first, as to that faithful promise of the Commander Mackenzie to send to his parents the dying message of the young Spencer: not a word was ever sent! all was sent to the Navy Department and the newspapers! and the "faithful promise," and the moving appeal to the "feelings of nature," turn out to have been a mere device to get a chance to make a report to the Secretary of the Navy of confessions to justify the previous condemnation and the pre-determined hanging. Secondly: That the Secretary despatched a man-of-war immediately on the return of Mackenzie to the Isle of Pines, to capture the confederate pirates (according to Wales's testimony), who were waiting there for the young Spencer and the Somers. A bootless errand. The island was found, and the pines; but no pirates! nor news of any for near twenty years! Thus failed the indispensable point in the whole piratical plot: but without balking in the least degree the raging current of universal belief.

The trial of Mackenzie being over, and he acquitted, the trial of the rest of the implicated crew—the twelve mutineers in irons—would naturally come on; and the court remained in session for that purpose. The Secretary of the Navy had written to the judge advocate to proceed against such of them as he thought proper: the judge advocate referred that question to Mackenzie, giving him the option to choose any one he pleased to carry on the prosecutions. He chose Theodore Sedgwick, Esq., who had been his own counsel on his trial. Mackenzie was acquitted on the 28th of March: the court remained in session until the 1st of April: the judge advocate heard nothing from Mackenzie with respect to the prosecutions. On that day Mackenzie not being present, he was sent for. He was not to be found! and the provost marshal ascertained that he had gone to his residence in the country, thirty miles off. This was an abandonment of the prosecutions, and in a very unmilitary way—by running away from them, and saying nothing to any body. The court was then dissolved—the prisoners released—and the innocence of the twelve stood confessed by the recreancy of their fugitive prosecutor. It was a confession of the innocence of Spencer, Small, and Cromwell; for he was tried for the three murders together. The trial of Mackenzie had been their acquittal in the eyes of persons accustomed to analyze evidence, and to detect perjuries in made-up stories. But the masses could form no such analysis. With them the confessions were conclusive, though invalidated by contradictions, and obtained, if obtained at all, under a refinement of terror and oppression which has no parallel on the deck of a pirate. When has such a machinery of terror been contrived to shock and torture a helpless victim? Sudden annunciation of death in the midst of preparations to take life: ten minutes allowed to live, and these ten minutes taken up with interruptions. An imp of darkness in the shape of a naval officer in full uniform, squat down at his side, writing and whispering; and evidently making out a tale which was to murder the character in order to justify the murder of the body. Commander Mackenzie had once lived a year in Spain, and wrote a book upon its manners and customs, as a "Young American." He must have read of the manner in which confessions were obtained in the dungeons of the Inquisition. If he had, he showed himself an apt scholar; if not, he showed a genius for the business from which the familiars of the Holy Office might have taken instruction.

Spencer's real design was clearly deducible even from the tenors of the vile swearing against him. He meant to quit the navy when he returned to New York, obtain a vessel in some way, and go to the northwest coast of America—to lead some wild life there; but not piratical, as there is neither prey nor shelter for pirates in that quarter. This he was often saying to the crew, and to this his list of names referred—mixed up with foolish and even vicious talk about piracy. His first and his last answer was the same—that it was all a joke. The answer of Small was the same when he was arrested; and it was well brought out by the judge advocate in incessant questions during the two months' trial, that there was not a single soul of the crew, except Wales, that ever heard Spencer mention one word about mutiny! and not one, inclusive of Wales, that ever heard one man of the vessel speak of a rescue of the prisoners. Remaining long in command of the vessel as Mackenzie did, and with all his power to punish or reward, and allowed as he was to bring forward all that he was able to find since the deaths of the men, yet he could not find one man to swear to these essential points; so that in a crew steeped in mutiny, there was not a soul that had heard of it! in a crew determined upon a rescue of prisoners, there was not one that ever heard the word pronounced. The state of the brig, after the arrests, was that of crazy cowardice and insane suspicion on the part of the officers—of alarm and consternation on the part of the crew. Armed with revolvers, cutlasses and swords, the officers prowled through the vessel, ready to shoot any one that gave them a fright—the weapon generally cocked for instant work. Besides the officers, low wretches, as Wales and Garty, were armed in the same way, with the same summary power over the lives and deaths of the crew. The vessel was turned into a laboratory of spies, informers, eavesdroppers and delators. Every word, look, sign, movement, on the part of the crew, was equally a proof of guilt. If the men were quick about their duty, it was to cover up their guilt: if slow, it was to defy the officers. If they talked loud, it was insolence: if low, it was plotting. If collected in knots, it was to be ready to make a rush at the vessel: if keeping single and silent, it was because, knowing their guilt, they feigned aversion to escape suspicion. Belief was all that was wanted from any delator. Belief, without a circumstance to found it upon, and even contrary to circumstances, was accepted as full legal evidence. Arrests were multiplied, to excite terror, and to justify murder. The awe-stricken crew, consisting four-fifths of apprentice boys, was paralyzed into dead silence and abject submission. Every arrest was made without a murmur. The prisoners were ironed and bagged as mere animals. No one could show pity, much less friendship. No one could extend a comfort, much less give assistance. Armed sentries stood over them, day and night, to shoot both parties for the slightest sign of intelligence—and always to shoot the prisoner first. What Paris was in the last days of the Reign of Terror, the United States brig Somers was during the terrible week from the arrest to the hanging of Spencer.

Analogous to the case of Commander Mackenzie was that of Lieutenant Colonel Wall, of the British service, Governor of Goree on the coast of Africa—the circumstances quite parallel, and where they differ, the difference in favor of Wall—but the conclusion widely different. Governor Wall fancied there was a mutiny in the garrison, the one half (of 150) engaged in it, and one Armstrong and two others, leaders in it. He ordered the "long roll" to be beat—which brings the men, without arms, into line on the parade. He conversed a few minutes with the officers, out of hearing of the men, then ordered the line to form circle, a cannon to be placed in the middle of it, the three men tied upon it, and receive 800 blows each with an inch thick rope. It was not his intent to kill them, and the surgeon of the garrison, as in all cases of severe punishment, was ordered to attend, and observe it: which he did, saying nothing: the three men died within a week. This was in the year 1782. Wall came home—was arrested (by the civil authority), broke custody and fled—was gone twenty years, and seized again by the civil authority on his return to England. The trial took place at the Old Bailey, and the prisoner easily proved up a complete case of mutiny, seventy or eighty men, assembled in open day before the governor's quarters, defying authority, clamoring for supposed rights, and cursing and damning. The full case was sworn up, and by many witnesses; but the attorney-general, Sir Edward Law (afterwards Lord Ellenborough), and the solicitor-general, Mr. Percival (afterwards First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer), easily took the made-up stories to pieces, and left the governor nakedly exposed, a false accuser of the dead, after having been the foul murderer of the innocent. It was to no purpose that he plead, that the punishment was not intended to kill: it was answered that it was sufficient that it was likely to kill, and did kill. To no purpose that he proved by the surgeon that he stood by, as the regulations required, to judge the punishment, and said nothing: the eminent counsel proved upon him, out of his own mouth, that he was a young booby, too silly to know the difference between a cat-o'-nine-tails, which cut the skin, and an inch rope, which bruised to the vitals. The Lord Chief Baron McDonald, charged the jury that if there was no mutiny, it was murder; and if there was mutiny, and no trial, it was murder. On this latter point, he said to the jury: "If you are of opinion that there was a mutiny, you are then to consider the degree of it, and whether there was as much attention paid to the interest of the person accused as the circumstances of the case would admit, by properly advising him, and giving him an opportunity of justifying himself if he could." The governor was only tried in one case, found guilty, hanged within eight days, and his body, like that of any other murderer, delivered up to the surgeons for dissection—the King on application, first for pardon, then for longer respite, and last for remission of the anatomization, refusing any favor, upon the ground that it was worse than any common murder—being done by a man in authority, far from the eye of the government, on helpless people subject to his power, and whom he was bound to protect, and to defend from oppression. It is a case—a common one in England since the judges became independent of the crown—which does honor to British administration of justice: and, if any one wishes to view the extremes of judicial exhibitions—legality, regularity, impartiality, knowledge of the law, promptitude on one hand, and the reverse of it all on the other—let them look at the proceedings of the one-day trial of Governor Wall before a British civil court, and the two months' trial of Commander Mackenzie before an American naval court-martial. But the comparison would not be entirely fair. Courts-martial, both of army and navy, since the trial of Admiral Byng in England to Commodore Porter, Commander Mackenzie, and Lieutenant-colonel Frémont in the United States, have been machines in the hands of the government (where it took an interest in the event), to acquit, or convict: and has rarely disappointed the intention. Cooper proposes, in view of the unfitness of the military courts for judicial investigation, that they be stripped of all jurisdiction in such cases: and his opinion strongly addresses itself to the legislative authority.

Commander Mackenzie had been acquitted by the authorities: he had been complimented by a body of eminent merchants: he had been applauded by the press: he had been encomiastically reviewed in a high literary periodical. The loud public voice was for him: but there was a small inward monitor, whose still and sinister whisperings went cutting through the soul. The acquitted and applauded man withdrew to a lonely retreat, oppressed with gloom and melancholly, visible only to a few, and was only roused from his depression to give signs of a diseased mind. It was five years after the event, and during the war with Mexico. The administration had conceived the idea of procuring peace through the instrumentality of Santa Anna—then an exile at Havana; and who was to be returned to his country upon some arrangement of the American government. This writer going to see the President (Mr. Polk) some day about this time, mentioned to him a visit from Commander Slidell Mackenzie to this exiled chief. The President was startled, and asked how this came to be known to me. I told him I read it in the Spanish newspapers. He said it was all a profound secret, confined to his cabinet. The case was this: a secret mission to Santa Anna was resolved upon: and the facile Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, dominated by the representative Slidell (brother to the commander), accepted this brother for the place. Now the views of the two parties were diametrically opposite. One wanted secrecy—the other notoriety. Restoration of Santa Anna to his country, upon an agreement, and without being seen in the transaction, was the object of the government; and that required secrecy: removal from under a cloud, restoration to public view, rehabilitation by some mark of public distinction, was the object of the Slidells; and that required notoriety: and the game being in their hands, they played it accordingly. Arriving at Havana, the secret minister put on the full uniform of an American naval officer, entered an open volante, and driving through the principal streets at high noon, proceeded to the suburban residence of the exiled dictator. Admitted to a private interview (for he spoke Spanish, learnt in Spain), the plumed and decorated officer made known his secret business. Santa Anna was amazed, but not disconcerted. He saw the folly and the danger of the proceeding, eschewed blunt overture, and got rid of his queer visitor in the shortest time, and the civilest phrases which Spanish decorum would admit. The repelled minister gone, Santa Anna called back his secretary, exclaiming as he entered—"Porque el Presidente me ha enviado este tonto?" (Why has the President sent me this fool?) It was not until afterwards, and through the instrumentality of a sounder head, that the mode of the dictator's return was arranged: and the folly which Mackenzie exhibited on this occasion was of a piece with his crazy and preposterous conceptions on board the Somers.

Fourteen years have elapsed since this tragedy of the Somers. The chief in that black and bloody drama (unless Wales is to be considered the master-spirit, and the commander and lieutenant only his instruments) has gone to his long account. Some others, concerned with him, have passed away. The vessel itself, bearing a name illustrious in the navy annals, has gone to the bottom of the sea—foundering—and going down with all on board; the circling waves closing over the heads of the doomed mass, and hiding all from the light of Heaven before they were dead. And the mind of seamen, prone to belief in portents, prodigies, signs and judgments, refer the hapless fate of the vessel to the innocent blood which had been shed upon her.

History feels it to be a debt of duty to examine this transaction to the bottom, and to judge it closely—not with a view to affect individuals, but to relieve national character from a foul imputation. It was the crime of individuals: it was made national. The protection of the government, the lenity of the court, the evasions of the judiciary, and the general approving voice, made a nation's offence out of the conduct of some individuals, and brought reproach upon the American name. All Christendom recoiled with horror from the atrocious deed: all friends to America beheld with grief and amazement the national assumption of such a crime. Cotemporary with the event, and its close observer, the writer of this View finds confirmed now, upon the fullest examination, the severe judgment which he formed upon it at the time.

The naval historian, Fenimore Cooper (who himself had been a naval officer), wrote a clear exposure of all the delusion, falsehood, and wickedness of this imputed mutiny, and of the mockery of the court-martial trial of Mackenzie: but unavailing in the then condition of the public mind, and impotent against the vast machinery of the public press which was brought to bear on the dead. From that publication, and the official record of the trial, this view of the transaction is made up.

---

[CHAPTER CXXIV.]