On the 1st of June, in the early morning, one of these tenders—the Princess Augusta, Lieut. Sax commander—fell in, off Portland Bill, with the Britannia, a Leghorn trader of considerable force. In response to a shot fired as an intimation that she was expected to lay-to and receive a gang on board, the master, hailing, desired permission to retain his crew intact till he should have passed that dangerous piece of navigation known as the Race. To this reasonable request Sax acceded and the ship held on her course, closely followed by the tender. By the time the Race was passed, however, the merchant-man's crew had come to a resolution. They should not be pressed by "such a pimping vessel" as the Princess Augusta. Accordingly, they first deprived the master of the command, and then, when again hailed by the tender, "swore they would lose their lives sooner than bring too." The Channel at this time swarmed with tenders, and to Sax's hint that they might just as well give in then and there as be pressed later on, they replied with defiant huzzas and the discharge of one of their maindeck guns. The tender was immediately laid alongside, but on the gang's attempting to board they encountered a resistance so fierce that Sax, thinking to bring the infuriated crew to their senses, ordered his people to fire upon them. Ralph Sturdy and John Debusk, armed with harpoons, and John Wilson, who had requisitioned the cook's spit as a weapon, fell dead before that volley. The rest, submitting without further ado, were at once confined below.
Now, three questions of moment are raised by this accident: What became of the ship? what was done with the dead men? and what punishment was meted out to the lieutenant and his gang? The crew once secured under hatches, the safety of the ship became of course the first consideration. It was assured by a simple expedient. The gang remained on board and worked the vessel into Portsmouth harbour, where, after her hands had been taken out—Rodney the receiver—"men in lieu" were put on board, as explained in our chapter on pressing afloat, and with this make-shift crew she was navigated to her destination, in this instance the port of London.
As persons killed at sea, the three sailors who lay dead on the ship's deck did not come within the jurisdiction of the coroner. That official's cognisance of such matters extended only to high-water mark when the tide was at flood, or to low-water mark when it was at ebb. Beyond those limits, seawards, all acts of violence done in great ships, and resulting in mayhem or the death of a man, fell within the sole purview and jurisdiction of the Station Admiral, who on this occasion happened to be Sir Edward Hawke, commander of the White Squadron at Portsmouth. Now Sir Edward was not less keenly alive to the importance of keeping such cases hidden from the public eye than were the Lords Commissioners. Hence he immediately gave orders that the bodies of the dead men should be taken "without St. Helens" and there committed to the deep. Instead of going to feed the Navy, the three sailors thus went to feed the fishes, and another stain on the service was washed out with a commendable absence of publicity and fuss.
There still remained the lieutenant and his gang to be dealt with and brought to what, by another singular perversion of terms, was called justice. On shore, notwithstanding the lenient view taken of such accidents, an indictment of manslaughter, if not of murder, would have assuredly followed the offence; and though in the circumstances it is doubtful whether any jury would have found the culprits guilty of the capital crime, yet the alternative verdict, with its consequent imprisonment and disgrace, held out anything but a rosy prospect to the young officer who had still his second "swab" to win. That was where the advantage of accidents at sea came in. On shore the judiciary, however kindly disposed to the naval service, were painfully disinterested. At sea the scales of justice were held, none too meticulously, by brother officers who had the service at heart. Under the judicious direction of Admiral Osborn, who in the meantime had succeeded Sir Edward Hawke in the Portsmouth command, Lieut. Sax and his gang were consequently called upon to face no ordeal more terrible than an "inquiry into their proceedings and behaviour." Needless to say, they were unanimously exonerated, the court holding that the discharge of their duty fully justified them in the discharge of their muskets. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 5925—Minutes at a Court-Martial held on board H.M.S. Prince George at Portsmouth, 14 Nov. 1755. Precedent for the procedure in this case is found in Admiralty Records 7. 298—Law Officers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. 27.] When such disagreeable accidents had to be investigated, the disagreeable business was done—to purloin an apt phrase of Coke's—"without prying into them with eagles' eyes."
But it is time to leave the trail of blood and turn to a more agreeable phase of pressing.
CHAPTER IX. — THE GANG AT PLAY.
The reasons assigned for the pressing of men who ought never to have made the acquaintance of the warrant or the hanger were often as far-fetched as they are amusing. "You have no right to press a person of my distinction!" warmly protested an individual of the superior type when pounced upon by the gang. "Lor love yer! that's the wery reason we're a-pressin' of your worship," replied the grinning minions of the service. "We've such a set of black-guards aboard the tender yonder, we wants a toff like you to learn 'em manners."
The quixotic idea of inculcating manners by means of the press infected others besides the gangsman. In a Navy whose officers not only plumed themselves on representing the ne plus ultra of etiquette, but demanded that all who approached them should do so without sin either of omission or commission, the idea was universal. Pride of service and pride of self entered into its composition in about equal proportions; hence the sailing-master who neglected to salute the flag, or who through ignorance, crass stupidity, or malice aforethought flew prohibited colours, was no more liable to be taught an exemplary lesson than the bum-boatman who sauced the officer of the watch when detected in the act of smuggling spirits or women into one of His Majesty's ships.