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Mutiny and Desertion

The two principal forms of shipboard disobedience in the age of sail were mutiny and desertion. Both were capital in the Royal Navy under the articles of 1661; after 1700 a merchant crew's seizure of its ship was piracy in itself.

Also writtenMutiny; Desertion; Running away with a ship; Revolt in the ship; Shipboard disobedience

Mutiny was the collective refusal of lawful command aboard a ship; desertion was the quitting of a ship and her voyage without leave. The age kept four things apart that popular writing runs together: naval mutiny, naval desertion, the seizure of a merchantman by her own crew, and a seaman's walking away in a colonial port, each with its own statute and penalty.

The naval code of 1661

The navy was governed by the articles enacted at the Restoration, 13 Cha. II st. 1 c. 9. Article 19 made it capital to utter words of sedition or mutiny, or to endeavour a mutinous assembly, "upon any pretence whatsoever". Article 17 was as flat: deserting the service, or enticing another man to run, was death. Article 15 set the same penalty on discouraging a commanded service "by pretence of Arreares of Wages". A death sentence in the Narrow Seas awaited the Lord High Admiral's leave under article 34, "except in case of mutiny".1

The Act nowhere requires those articles to be read aloud to a company, and no surviving account of these years has the familiar scene of the articles read at divisions.

Merchant crews stood outside it

The articles bound persons in or belonging to the fleet or in the King's pay. A Bristol snow was neither, so discipline aboard a merchantman rested on the master's authority, the contract of hire and, failing those, the criminal side of the Admiralty; the risings here came before Admiralty sessions, not courts martial. No general code of merchant discipline bound the seaman himself before 1729, when 2 Geo. II c. 36 brought in wage contracts, fines and the house of correction.2

Mutiny as completed piracy

"An Act for the more effectuall Suppressions of Piracy", 11 and 12 Will. III c. 7, commenced on 16 November 1699. It adjudged a pirate, felon and robber any commander, master, seaman or mariner who betrayed his trust and piratically ran away with his ship or yielded her to a pirate, and any man who confined his master or made or endeavoured to make a revolt. The Crown thereafter did not have to prove a robbery to hang a mutineer. It had to prove the seizure.3

Sir Charles Hedges, charging the grand jury at the Old Bailey on 31 October 1696, had already held that where "the Mariners of any Ship shall violently dispossess the Master, and afterwards carry away the Ship it self", feloniously and within the Lord Admiral's jurisdiction, "this is also Robbery and Piracy".4

The trials of Henry Every's men show what that was worth. On 19 October 1696 a London jury acquitted six of them of robbing the Ganj-i-Sawai (the Gunsway), a verdict Holt called "a dishonour to the Justice of the Nation". A second jury, on 31 October, convicted them for the mutiny itself, the taking of the ship from Captain Charles Gibson off A Coruna. Two conflicts stand: the indictment lays that night on 30 May 1694 where later writers give 7 May, and popular accounts have Gibson drunk where the bench said he lay sick of a fever.5

How a rising was done

Three risings reached print, and what follows describes those three, not a pattern: the Charles the Second, 1694; the George galley, 1724; the Elizabeth, 1726. Two began in a grievance about wages or provisions, spoken to somebody other than the captain; aboard the Elizabeth the stated motive was the cruelty of the master and mate. At A Coruna the men first sought discharge into the King's ships, and rose only when refused. Each was carried by a minority at night, and turned on the arms. Each disposed of the master differently: Gibson was put ashore alive, Oliver Ferneau killed, Captain John Green drowned in the Fly rising. At A Coruna those who would not go were offered a boat, and the offer, or its absence, became the central fact at trial. Each ended in a new name.

The forced man and the rule that answered him

Every rising that came to trial produced the same plea: I was forced. Holt's answer reversed the burden of proof. "When a Ship is run away with, and People are aboard that Ship so run away with, that proves their Consent, unless they can produce Evidence to the contrary." The offer of a boat destroyed the plea, and the share list finished it. The rule was a presumption: at Boston in July 1726, twelve of sixteen tried were acquitted.6

Desertion, and the books that do not survive

Parliament stated the connection. Section 7 of the Piracy Act of 1721, legislating against desertion in the plantations, called it "the chief occasion of their turning pirates", and capped a seaman's wages payable abroad at one moiety. Desertion was entered in the muster book, ADM 36, and the pay book, ADM 33, and for the ships that hunted pirates the musters are missing: the Swallow's run only to May 1708 and resume in January 1726. See naval logbooks and journals.7

Risings inside pirate companies

A pirate company met the same problem in its own way, and a removal by vote was arguably no mutiny in law, there being no lawful authority aboard to overthrow: Benjamin Hornigold was removed by the vote of his own men, and Thomas Anstis is said to have left Roberts's squadron by night on 18 April 1721. Fly's company was destroyed by the forced men it had taken.

The law here is strong and the practice thin. No rate or count for either offence between 1690 and 1725 has been found, nor any case in which a naval mutineer or deserter of these years was punished in fact rather than by statute. The three risings above are the three that produced print, the standing bias of trial evidence. Thomas Anstis's departure from Roberts's squadron on 18 April 1721 rests on a single account, in the General History. The Admiralty courts martial papers, read against the pay books in ADM 33, would settle the numbers.

What the evidence does not settle

Date of the Every rising

  • The Every mutiny date is not settled: 30 May or 7 MayConfirmed

Captain Gibson's departure

  • The manner of Captain Gibson's departure is unresolved

The 1724 George galley rising

  • The ship and place of the George galley rising conflict

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Under the articles enacted in 1661, which governed the Royal Navy throughout this archive's period, mutiny and desertion were both capital: article 19 forbade any person in or belonging to the fleet to utter words of sedition or mutiny or to make or endeavour to make mutinous assemblies "upon any pretence whatsoever" on pain of death, article 17 imposed death for deserting the service or enticing another man to run, article 15 imposed death for stopping or discouraging a commanded service "by pretence of Arreares of Wages", and under article 34 a death sentence passed within the Narrow Seas could not be executed without the leave of the Lord High Admiral, "except in case of mutiny". Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Statute text: An Act for the Establishing Articles and Orders for the regulateing and better Government of His Majesties Navies Ships of Warr & Forces by Sea, 13 Cha. II st. 1 c. 9, as enacted, articles 15, 17, 19 and 34
  2. Merchant crews stood outside the naval articles, which bound only persons in or belonging to the fleet, so that discipline aboard a merchantman rested on the master's authority, on the contract of hire and on the criminal side of the Admiralty, and the merchant risings in this archive came before Admiralty sessions and special courts of Admiralty rather than courts martial; no general statutory code of merchant discipline bound the seaman himself before the Act of 2 Geo. II c. 36, passed in 1729, which introduced written wage contracts, fines and the house of correction. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Statute texts: Navy Act 1661, 13 Cha. II st. 1 c. 9; Merchant Seamen Act 1728, 2 Geo. II c. 36
  3. The piracy Act of 1700, "An Act for the more effectuall Suppressions of Piracy", 11 and 12 Will. III c. 7, which commenced on 16 November 1699 and was assented to on 11 April 1700, made the seizure of a ship a completed piracy in itself, adjudging a pirate, felon and robber any commander, master, seaman or mariner who betrayed his trust and piratically ran away with his ship or yielded her up voluntarily to a pirate, and equally any man who laid violent hands on his commander so as to hinder him from fighting in the ship's defence, confined his master, or made or endeavoured to make a revolt in the ship. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Statute text: William III, 1698-9: An Act for the more effectuall Suppressions of Piracy, Statutes of the Realm vol. 7, pp. 590 to 594
  4. Sir Charles Hedges, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, charging the grand jury at the Old Bailey on 31 October 1696, had already defined piracy so as to include the mutinous seizure without any further act, holding that if "the Mariners of any Ship shall violently dispossess the Master, and afterwards carry away the Ship it self, or any of the Goods, or Tackle, Apparel, or Furniture, with a felonious Intention" in any place within the Lord Admiral's jurisdiction, "this is also Robbery and Piracy". Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, printed for John Everingham, London 1696, Wing T2252, ESTC R38357
  5. A London jury acquitted six of Henry Every's men on 19 October 1696 of the robbery of the Gunsway, a verdict Lord Chief Justice Holt afterwards called in open court "a dishonour to the Justice of the Nation", and a second jury at the sessions of 31 October 1696 convicted the same men for the mutiny itself, the piratical taking of the Charles the Second from Captain Charles Gibson about three leagues off A Coruna; the indictment lays that rising on 30 May 1694 where later writers give 7 May 1694, and popular accounts have Gibson drunk where Mr Justice Turton stated in court that the captain lay sick of a fever, neither conflict being resolved. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson and others, London 1696
  6. The courts answered the forced-man plea with an evidential presumption stated by Holt in 1696, that "When a Ship is run away with, and People are aboard that Ship so run away with, that proves their Consent, unless they can produce Evidence to the contrary", the mutineers' offer of a boat to the unwilling and the taking of a share being treated as destroying the plea; the presumption was not applied mechanically thereafter, and at the special court of Admiralty at Boston in July 1726 twelve of the sixteen persons tried were acquitted. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet and printed colonial trial: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson and others, London 1696; the printed Boston trial of Fly's company, July 1726
  7. Section 7 of the Piracy Act of 1721, 8 Geo. I c. 24, legislated against seamen deserting merchant ships abroad in the plantations as "the chief occasion of their turning pirates" and forbade any master or owner to pay a seaman beyond the seas more than one moiety of the wages due, but the scale of desertion cannot be recovered: it was recorded in the muster books of ADM 36 and the pay books of ADM 33 rather than in the captain's log, and for the ships that hunted pirates in these years those musters do not survive, the Swallow's running only to May 1708 and resuming in January 1726. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Statute text and archival catalogue evidence: Piracy Act 1721, 8 Geo. I c. 24, section 7; The National Archives catalogue entries for the musters in ADM 36 and pay books in ADM 33