I Suspect There's More To This Story...

[csadn]

Reading _The Ships of Trafalgar_, by Peter Goodwin; happened across this account of the history of HMS _Naiad_ (p. 138):

"1810: Now under the command of captain Henry Hill, _Naiad_ suffered stain on her career; on 26 and 27 March, a court martial was held on board _Salvador del Mundo_ (112) anchored in the Hamoaze. On trial were seven petty officers and seamen from _Naiad_ charged with inciting mutiny by urging the ship's company to sign a bill requesting not to tail under captain Hill because of his autocratic treatment of the crew. Found guilty, John Campbell, Henry, Page, and Thomas Passmore, each captains of the forecastle, were sentenced to death by hanging. The remainder were to be flogged round the fleet: Robert Cuddeford, carpenter's crew, 150 lashes; Thomas Norman, seaman, 100 lashes; William Moulton, captain of the foretop, and Joseph Nash, 50 lashes. In June the three men sentenced to death were pardoned, their reprieve, with a suitable caution, being read by Captain Wolley; most of those to be flogged were also pardoned. Captain Hill was superseded out of _Naiad_, considered too senior to command a frigate, and was never employed again."

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

To me, this sounds like: Someone at the Admiralty gave Captain Hill a thorough scrutinizing, and realized the petitioners were correct. However, for obvious reasons, the Admiralty could not simply let the petitioners off, as that might be seen as condoning mutiny. So, the Admiralty gave the petitioners the highest possible punishment, "pour discourager les autres"; then let them off the hook, with the words "you were right, but you went about it the wrong way".

[Bligh]

A very interesting discovery Chris.
This paints a slightly different picture from the established one, depicting the Draconian no room for any form of leniency inflexible policy no matter what the extenuating circumstances with which history and many Fiction writers have credited to the Admiralty.
Apart from the odd instance of remission for turning King's evidence, or actual proof that they did not take part in mutiny, I have never come across any mass pardon other than those of Spithead and to some extent the Nore, both of which would have involved crippling the effectiveness of the Fleet had all the participants been executed.

Your summation at the end is very interesting. It would have been enlightening to have read the proceedings of the meeting in which the Admiralty made their decision for clemency.

Rob.

[csadn]

Your summation at the end is very interesting. It would have been enlightening to have read the proceedings of the meeting in which the Admiralty made their decision for clemency.

Actually: I suspect there was *no* "formal" meeting to discuss clemency, much less documentation. This has the distinct impression of something which took place behind closed doors, with no secretaries present; and was most-likely handled "from the bottom up" rather than "top down". (That is: Sometime in the course of the trial, either someone involved looked into the situation, or someone who was far more conversant with the Captain in question pulled some ropes connected to the Admiralty, and said, "Umm, guys -- we have a *big* problem here; and it's only going to get worse if we don't nip it in the bud here". A few late-night meetings later, the matter was carefully stage-managed to achieve the desired result: Get the offending Captain out of the system so they don't end up with a Proper Mutiny; allow the "mutineers" to appreciate the gravity of what they did, while not actually punishing them; and make it clear to the rest of the Fleet "there's ways to handle this; this ain't them".)

[Bligh]

Well Chris, however formal or informal the meeting, I would still have liked to be listening in. Probably even more-so if your summation of the situation were the correct one.
Rob.