Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley, Page 2

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  described how he himself dressed the body, disposing of those parts which distinguished it as human and renaming the rest beef. The enterprise was made the more unpleasant because the survivors had no means of making a fire and were obliged to eat the flesh raw. 6

  Before returning to England, the mate, Christopher Langman, made deposition before a justice of the peace in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, arguing that "this Depondent believeth that the said John Dean, according to his Working of the said Ship in the said Voyage, design'd to lose her." He was seconded by the testimony of the boatswain, Nicholas Mellen, and a seaman, George White. Both claimed that Deane had left the security of a naval convoy on the cruise from London to Ireland with the intent of turning his ship over to privateers so that the owners might collect insurance money. They argued that the captain "was prevented by the Depondent, Christopher Langman, by whose Assistance the said Ship arrived at her Port." They also claimed that Deane endeavored to hand the ship over a second time during the Atlantic passage, that he physically assaulted Langman on the night of the disaster while attempting intentionally to wreck the ship, and that the mate was responsible for getting the crew safely from the sinking ship to Boon Island.7

  Though the original has not survived, Captain Deane wrote a manuscript account of the voyage and shipwreck soon after his return to England. Jasper Deane, the captain's older brother, owned the vessel and, with Charles Whitworth, the cargo. He immediately moved to protect his interest by rushing the captain's account to publication. In the introduction Jasper wrote that he hoped to preempt "the Design of others, to publish the Account without us." In the postscript he refutes what he calls the "barbarous and scandalous Reflection, industriously spread abroad and level'd at our ruine, by some unworthy, malicious

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  Persons (viz.) That we having ensur'd more than our Interest in the Ship Nottingham, agreed and willfully lost her, first designing it in Ireland, and afterwards effecting it at Boon Island." He argues that the vessel was seriously underinsured and the charges "preposterous" that the captain would endeavor intentionally to wreck his ship in midwinter at such a forbidding place. "One wou'd wonder [if] Malice itself cou'd invent or suggest anything so ridiculous," he notes disdainfully. 8

  Langman, Mellen, and White published a response to the captain's account, condemning him for incompetence and renewing their charge against him. Their True Account of the Voyage of the Nottingham Galley was published immediately after Deane's Narrative and describes the ship as "cast away ... by the Captain's Obstinacy, who endeavour'd to betray her to the French, or run her ashore." Taking issue with the "Falsehoods in the Captain's Narrative," it depicts the crew as "Sufferers in this unfortunate Voyage ... from the Temper of our Captain, who treated us barbarously both by Sea and Land." Disputing Deane's Narrative point by point, it concludes with the argument that if "the said Master had taken the Mate's Advice, the ship, with God's Assistance, might have been in Boston Harbour several Days before she was lost." Langman warns others ''not to trust their Lives or Estates in the Hands of so wicked and brutish a Man."9

  A third account was published in 1711, an abridged and sensationalized version taken from Deane's Narrative and published by J. Dutton near Fleet Street, apparently issued after both Deane's Narrative and Langman's True Account. Describing itself as A Sad and Deplorable, but True Account, it announces that the shipwreck was "very well known by most Merchants upon the Royal Exchange." The last page contains the printed signatures of "Jasper Dean," "John Dean, Captain," and "Miles Whitworth, lately dead," but it does not append Jasper Deane's introduction or afterword. On the cover it sensationally asserts that "having

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  no food, [the survivors] were fain to Feed upon the dead Bodies, which being all Consum'd, they were going to Cast lots which shou'd be the next Devor'd...." It enlarges upon the cannibalism on Boon Island by adding that "the dismal Prospect of future Want obliged the Captain to keep a strict watch over the rest of the Body, lest any of them shou'd get to it, and then being spent, [we would] be forced to feed upon the living. Which we must certainly have done, had we stayed a few days longer." Unlike the Narrative, which was written in the first person, the Sad and Deplorable ... Account is a mixture of first- and third-person description and does not seem to have been authorized. 10 A second abbreviated version, taken from the account introduced by Jasper Deane, was published in Boston in 1711, prefaced with a sermon on the subject by Cotton Mather.11

  Though the Deane Narrative has prevailed as the accepted version of the disaster, the sensational story of shipwreck and cannibalism nearly destroyed the captain's reputation. It is not surprising, therefore, that he seized an opportunity to secure a commission as a lieutenant in the Russian naval service, where he disappeared for eleven years. In a new career in a new country, Deane escaped public notoriety as well as his brother's private fury for having lost the Nottingham Galley.12

  In the winter of 171415, Deane received his first command, a newly constructed, fifty-gun man-of-war, the Yagudil, which he was ordered to transport from Archangel to the Baltic. It was another harrowing, late-season voyage, this time around Mur-mansk and the North Cape. The experience must have brought back memories of the Nottinghaim Galley, for nearly half of the crew perished before the ship docked in Trondheim, Norway. Deane was then reassigned to the thirty-two gun frigate Samson, operating out of Reval. He took over twenty prizes in the next several years and earned a reputation as a daring commerce raider. At the end of 1719, Deane was court-martialed for an

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  incident that had taken place two years earlier, when he had been obliged to give up two prizes at sea. In actuality, he had fallen victim to the jealousy of junior Russian officers who coveted his command. He was reduced to lieutenant and exiled to Kazan. A year later, during the celebration of the victory over Sweden, the Tsar granted a general amnesty to disgraced officers, and Deane was one of many mercenaries expelled from Russia. 13

  Deane departed in the spring of 1722. His former patron, the High Admiral Apraksin, curiously provided him with a document indicating that he had left Russian service with the rank of captain, the title he wore for the rest of his life. Penniless, but rich in knowledge of the Tsar's naval affairs, Deane produced "A History of the Russian Fleet during the Reign of Peter the Great," a secret, detailed account of the rise of Russian naval power in the Baltic, which he used to promote himself as an expert on Russian affairs in the highest circles of the government. Though the original manuscripts have disappeared, two published versions of the history have survived. The original, anonymous manuscript was purchased by Count E. Putiatin from a London bookseller in 1892 and was then translated into Russian and published in St. Petersburg in 1895. Four years later it was issued in London by the Navy Records Society.14 In 1934 a second version of the manuscript came into the possession of another maritime collector, Captain Bruce Ingram. It was similar in all respects to the Putiatin manuscript except that it contained a final chapter entitled "The History Continued to the Commencement of 1725" and a dedication to George I identifying Deane as the author."15 In the same year that he circulated his manuscript on the Russian fleet, Deane also reissued his account of the wreck of the Nottingham Galley, now stripped of Jasper Deane's introductory and closing remarks.16

  Deane's self-promotion paid off handsomely, for it brought him to the attention of Robert Walpole and of Lord Townshend,

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  secretary of state for the northern department. Both were haunted by the specter of a European-wide Jacobite conspiracy and, after their ambassador was recalled in 1722, felt particularly deficient in intelligence from Russia. 17 According to Town-shend's deputy, George Tilson, "Captain Deane undertook to be useful to us and showed a letter from Admiral Apraksin, who seemed to be of power in that country, which persuaded us he might render service."18 Deane was appointed commercial consul at St. Petersburg, which Townshend described as a "colour, but his tr
ue business is to transmit hither what intelligence he may be able to get for his Majesty's service."19 The captain had entered a new career as a spy, an occupation for which he was well suited by background and temperament. He returned to the Russian capital in the spring of 1725 but was refused accreditation and was forced to leave after just sixteen days.20

  After his departure, Deane wrote two illuminating reports. The first, entitled "An Account of Affairs in Russia, JuneJuly, 1725" was a detailed analysis of the political situation after the death of Peter I. The second, "The Present State of the Maritime Power of Russia," was an intelligence report on the standing Russian Baltic fleet.21 Deane was convinced that he had failed in his mission, however, for what his superiors wanted was an account of the activities of Jacobite emigrés and sympathizers in Russia. In despair, he wrote Townshend that enemies were gathering "to blacken my name ... and that you will think me a monster."22

  Before he left St. Petersburg, Deane made contact with a Jacobite courier, a young Irish military officer named Edmund O'Conner. With an offer of monetary reward and promise of a king's pardon, Deane convinced O'Conner to betray the cause. The captain made contact with O'Conner again in Holland and delighted his superiors by penetrating the communications network of the nefarious Jacobite agent John Archdeacon. During

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  the winter of 172526 Deane and O'Conner gained the confidence of Archdeacon, gathered new correspondence, forged documents, and manufactured seals. 23

  The following spring Deane was assigned to the squadron dispatched to the Baltic to threaten the Russians in the Gulf of Finland. He was able to acquire current intelligence about the Russian fleet, and he set about recruiting a network of agents to supply future information. He issued a number of dispatches and seems to have influenced or written the report signed by Admiral Charles Wager entitled "The Present State of the Danes, Swedes, and Russians in Respect to One Another and to the English Fleet in the Baltic in the Year 1726."24

  Back in London in the fall of 1726, Deane released a new edition of the Narrative, which was then reprinted the following year.25 In these new editions, the captain was less actor or subject than author, and the shift from first-person to third-person narration was intended to portray a man ultimately in control of his fate. Again, Deane's goal was to keep his name current, for he now sought continued employment in the Foreign Office as commercial consul for the Ports of Flanders at Ostend. He won the post in 1728, for Walpole, Townshend, and Wager were powerful patrons who admired his service and loyalty. Most of all, they wished to place someone in Flanders capable of assisting the enterprise of suppressing Austria's attempt to enter the East India trade. A perfect choice for the assignment, Deane played a significant role in eliminating the Ostend East India Company.26

  Deane remained consul in Ostend until 1738, when he retired to his home in Wilford, Nottinghamshire. He continued to recognize the value of his celebrity, and in 1730 and 1738 he reissued the 1727 Revis'd Narrative to redefine himself within the context first of Ostend and then of Wilford.27 In 1735 he arranged for a memorial to the deliverance of the crew of the Nottingham Galley

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  and commissioned the Reverend Samuel Wilson to publish "An Abstract Of Consul Deane's Narrative," which described the captain as "a pious Gentleman ... who wished the great Salvation ... should be commemorated ... [and] that the Mercy should not be forgotten, but from year to Year be acknowledged with suitable Gratitude and Praise." 28

  Captain Deane died at his home in Wilford in 1761 at the age of eighty-three. In his will he made provision for a commemoration of the wreck of the Nottingham Galley in New England, a generous sum for that purpose to be granted to Doctor Miles Whitworth of Boston, whose father had died as a consequence of the disaster.29 The following year the younger Whitworth chose to reprint the original 1711 edition, the version Captain Deane had tried to suppress all of his life.30 Since then it has been reprinted twice more, once by William Abbatt for the Magazine of History and Biography in 1917 and again by Mason Smith in 1968.31 Smith's is a modern photo-offset edition published in just two hundred and fifty copies for book collectors. It contains an interesting physical description of Boon Island.

  Because it was the first edition printed in modern type, the Abbatt version has become a favorite for reprint in more recent anthologies of shipwrecks and sea disasters, for example, R. Thomas's Remarkable Shipwrecks, Fires, Famines, Calamities, Providential Deliverances, and Lamentable Disasters on the Seas, first printed in 1835 and reprinted as Interesting and Authentic Wrecks in 1970, and G. W. Barrington's Remarkable Voyages and Shipwrecks.32 The most recent popularization directed to shipwreck enthusiasts is Keith Huntress's 1975 volume, Narratives of Shipwrecks & Disasters, 15861860. According to the editor, "the genesis of this anthology was the chance purchase ... of a battered copy of R. Thomas's Remarkable Shipwrecks."33

  There are no analytic or scholarly accounts of the wreck of the Nottingham Galley except for the highly regarded legal history

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  by A. W. Brian Simpson, Cannibalism and the Common Law. Surprisingly inaccurate, Simpson claims that the Deane and Langman versions "in general are not in conflict," and although seemingly judicious, he relies upon the Langman account to explain the sequence of events. He also badly miscalculates the length of the crew's stay on Boon Island, dating the rescue in September rather than early January, ten months rather than twenty-four days after the wreck. 34

  Two notable works of fiction deal with Captain Deane and the wreck of the Nottingham Galley. In 1870 author of juvenile literature W. H. G. Kingston wrote John Deane of Nottingham, a work that confounds fact and fiction.35 It is a fanciful tale that spins for Deane a Robinhood-like youth as a butcher's apprentice and deer poacher who joins the navy when forced to flee Nottingham. Kingston uses actual ships and commanders of the period to construct a career leading to Deane's promotion to captain by Admiral Rooke after the battle of Gibraltar. Though he may well have served in the navy in the ratings, the admiralty papers show no evidence that Deane ever served as an officer, and it is unlikely that such an attainment would have gone unrecorded in this period. Moreover, had the captain been promoted for bravery in battle, he certainly would have used it to his advantage later in life. Even the most casual reader would find it hard to recognize the wreck of the Nottingham Galley in Kingston's book, for it bears little resemblance to the original accounts. Nonetheless, Kingston has had a lasting impact on Deane's biography, for local historians have passed on "knowledge" gained from his book.

  Kenneth Roberts's work is quite different. A native of Maine familiar with Boon Island and accounts of the wreck of the Nottingham Galley, Roberts is true to his sources. He was an uncommonly principled borrower of historical material who was careful not to make central historical figures leading characters in his

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  novels. The fictional aspects of Boon Island are largely devoted to creating a milieu for the development of the characters, among them Miles Whitworth, who is used as the narrator. The captain remains a shadowy, though honorable and strong, figure, not unlike the person he actually seems to have been.

  During his lifetime, Captain Deane's account of the Notttingham disaster prevailed, for he had outlived his opponents and possessed the resources and desire to promote his own version of events. Indeed, he even attempted to maintain control after his death by making a provision in his will for posthumous publication by Whitworth. Interestingly, Deane's tombstone in the Wilford churchyard records only that the captain "commanded a Ship of War in the Czar of Moscovy's service," that he "was appointed by His Britannick Majesty, Consul for the Ports of Flanders and Ostend," and that he "retired to this village in the year 1738." 36 But the captain could not manage publication from the grave, and it is ironic that all accounts since his death have been based on the narrative published originally by his brother Jasper in 1711, the account the captain had labored so diligently to suppress. Though attached to the o
ld captain, Miles Whitworth apparently preferred Jasper's version because of the way it depicted his father. Others have found the first-person narrative of that account more authentic, dramatic, and compelling, which may explain why it has endured since Deane's death in every collection and anthology. It is perplexing that such a literate man, so protective of his reputation, wrote nothing about himself for posterity and that he did not have the foresight to consider that he might be remembered best in works of fiction. Yet, this too adds to the mystery of Captain John Deane.