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Abstract
Studies on indiscipline and unrest aboard ship during the Age of Sail so far have mostly focused on the norm-violating behaviours of common seamen. This article, by contrast, investigates acts of insubordination committed by warrant and commissioned officers in the Royal Navy, using courts martial records as sources. It traces the contours of that historical phenomenon, identifying common confrontations as well as less frequent ones that may prove to be particularly revealing about disobedience among naval officers and what this can tell us about governance afloat and its challenges.
Notes
1 Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men, 45. I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their input and suggestions.
2 Frykman et al., Mutiny and Maritime Radicalism, 3.
3 Bruijn, ‘Mutiny’, 604.
4 DuRietz, ‘The Nature of the Bounty Mutiny’, 196.
5 López-Lázaro, ‘Labour Disputes’, 99.
6 Rodger, The Wooden World, Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men; Capp, Cromwell’s Navy.
7 Rodger, Command of the Ocean, 323.
8 Rodger, The Wooden World, 206.
9 Ibid.
10 Fury, ‘Wicked Actions’, 168.
11 Glass, ‘Naval Courts-Martial’, 53–4; Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men, 51–2.
12 Glass, ‘Naval Courts-Martial’, 54. The 1652 Articles of War are printed in Hattendorf et al. (eds), British Naval Documents, 275–81.
13 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 Car. ii, c. 9, 1661, in Raithby (ed.), Statutes of the Realm, 311–14.
14 Ibid., 313.
15 Ibid., 313.
16 Ibid., 313.
17 Ibid., 314.
18 The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA): ADM 1/5253, 219r-222v.
19 TNA: ADM 1/5266, without foliation.
20 Hill, ‘Discipline and Punishment’, 565.
21 Glass, ‘Naval Courts-Martial’, 55–7.
22 Ibid., 58–9.
23 If Arthur N. Gilbert’s observations on military justice in the eighteenth-century British army are applicable to naval courts martial, this was not just a matter of documentation but of the conduct of trials. He contrasts the ‘careful and lengthy trials of officers charged with conduct violations and the perfunctory manner in which common soldiers were tried and sentenced to severe lashings or death for desertion’. Gilbert, Military and Civilian Justice, 44.
24 Rodger, The Wooden World, 218–20.
25 Regulations and Instructions, 45–6.
26 TNA: ADM 1/5259, fo. 196r.
27 Lavery (ed.), Shipboard Life, 409–16.
28 The following description of the incident is based on Woodman, A Brief History of Mutiny, 48–58.
29 Ibid., 49–50.
30 TNA: ADM 1/5253, fos 81r-82v.
31 TNA: ADM 1/52565, unfoliated.
32 During the second half of the eighteenth century, there was a legal provision that ‘witnesses for the prosecution could not sit as his [the defendants] judges’. Byrn, Crime and Punishment, 32. As this is a logical measure for facilitating a fair trial, it is astonishing to see Rooke preside over the court martial against his boatswain.
33 TNA: ADM 1/52565, unfoliated.
34 Rodger, The Wooden World, 207–8.
35 Fury, Tides in the Affairs of Men, 74.
36 TNA: ADM 1/5253, fo. 141r.
37 TNA: ADM 1/5264, unfoliated.
38 TNA: ADM 1/5266, unfoliated.
39 Davies, Pepys’s Navy, 156; Rodger, The Wooden World, 72–4.
40 Manwaring (ed.), The Diary of Henry Teonge, 44.
41 Regulations and Instructions, 45.
42 TNA: ADM 1/5267, fo. 39r–39v.
43 TNA: ADM 1/5267, fos 249–50v.
44 TNA: ADM 1/5267, fos 251r–52v.
45 TNA: ADM 1/5264, unfoliated.
46 TNA: ADM 1/5259, fo. 195r–v.
47 TNA: ADM 1/5261, fo. 141r.
48 TNA: ADM 1/5266, unfoliated.
49 TNA: ADM 1/5253, fo. 139r.
50 TNA: ADM 1/5261, fo. 140r.
51 TNA: ADM 1/5261, fo. 132v.
52 TNA: ADM 1/5264, unfoliated.
53 TNA: ADM 1/5264, unfoliated.
54 Wilson, A Social History of Naval Officers, 65–6.
55 Davies, Pepys’s Navy, 100.
56 Regulations and Instructions, 94.
57 TNA: ADM 1/ 5264, unfoliated.
58 TNA: ADM 1/5259, fo. 200r.
59 TNA: ADM 1/5259, fo. 195r.
60 TNA: ADM 1/5266, unfoliated.
61 TNA: ADM 1/5261, fos 265v–66r.
62 Capp, Cromwell’s Navy, 225.
63 TNA: ADM 1/5259, fos 108r–09r.
64 TNA: ADM 1/5268, unfoliated.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
67 Capp, Cromwell’s Navy, 225–7.
68 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 242.
69 69 Ibid, 208, 210.
70 Ibid, 199.
71 Frykman has recently published a book-length study laying out this thesis, The Bloody Flag.
72 Frykman, ‘Connections between Mutinies’, 88.
73 Richard Harding offers a definition of ‘leadership’ aboard a man-of-war as ‘Surviving on the sea, let alone fighting in ships, demands consistent collaborative action among those who undertake it. For a ship to move and fight, it requires individuals to apply their efforts in precise conjunction with their colleagues, and for this to happen the effort has to be coordinated and directed by someone recognized in that role.’ Harding, ‘Leadership Networks and Effectiveness’, 21.
74 Wareham, The Star Captains. Kindle version (no pagination provided), beginning of chapter 7, ‘In Command’.
75 Ibid.
76 Wilson, A Social History of British Naval Officers, 58.
77 Barton, ‘Duelling in the Royal Navy’.
78 TNA: ADN 1/5261, fos 273r–293v.
79 TNA: ADM 1/5261, fo. 266r.
80 Knight, The Pursuit of Victory, at the beginning of the chapter ‘The Summing-Up’ (from Kindle edition).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Patrick Schmidt
Patrick Schmidt is a student of early modern history. His work comprises studies on guilds, dis/ability history, and, lately, disobedient sailors in the Royal Navy in the years 1669 to 1745. He obtained his doctorate at the University of Giessen and his habilitation at the University of Rostock.