Chapter CXXIII (3)

Assumptions without foundations, inferences without premises, beliefs without knowledge, thoughts without knowing why, suspicions without reasons--are all a species of _inventions_ but little removed from direct falsehood, and leaves the person who indulges in them without credit for any thing he may say. This was pre-eminently the case with the commander Slidell Mackenzie, and with all his informers; and here is a fine specimen of it in himself. First: the presumed probability that Spencer yet hoped to get possession of the vessel, and carry out the scheme of murder and piracy which he had matured. What a presumption in such a case! the case of men, ironed, bagged and helpless,--standing under the gallows in the midst of armed men to shoot and stab for a motion or a sign--and a presumption, not only without a shadow to rest upon, but contradicted by the entire current of all that was sworn--even by Garty and Wales. "Fulfilment of secret agreement for rescue." Secret! Yes! very secret indeed! There was not a man on board the vessel that ever heard such a word as rescue pronounced until after the arrests! The crazy misgivings of a terrified imagination could alone have invented such a scheme of rescue. The name of Small was a sad stumbling block in the road to his sacrifice, as that of Andrews to the truth of the razor case paper. One was not in the list, and the other was not in the ship: and all these forced assumptions were to reconcile these contradictions; and so the idea of an _alias dictus_ was fallen upon, though no one had ever heard Small called Edward Andrews, and his mother, in her letter, gave her own name as her son's, as Small. Having now succeeded in getting Spencer enraged against his two companions in death, the commander takes himself to his real work--that of getting confessions--or getting up something which could be recorded as confessions, under the pretext of writing to his father and mother: and to obtain which all this refined aggravation of the terrors of death had been contrived. But here recourse must be had to the testimony before the court to supply details on which the report is silent, or erroneous, and in which what was omitted must be brought forward to be able to get at the truth. McKinley swears that he was six or eight feet from Spencer when the commander asked him if he wished to write. Spencer answered that he did. An apprentice named Dunn was then ordered to fetch paper and campstool out of the cabin. Spencer took the pen in his hand, and said--"I cannot write." "The commander spoke to him in a low tone. I do not know what he then said. I saw the commander writing. Whether Mr. Spencer asked him to write for him or not, I can't say."--Mr. Oliver H. Perry swears: "Saw the commander order Dunn to bring him paper and ink: saw the commander write: was four or five feet from him while writing: heard no part of the conversation between the commander and Spencer: was writing ten or fifteen minutes."--Other witnesses guess at the time as high as half an hour. The essential parts of this testimony, are--_first_, That Spencer's hands were ironed, and that he could not write: _secondly_, that the commander, instead of releasing his hands, took the pen and wrote himself: _thirdly_, that he carried on all his conversation with Spencer in so low a voice that those within four or five feet of him (and in the deathlike stillness which then prevailed, and the breathless anxiety of every one) _heard not a word of what passed between them!_ neither what Mackenzie said to Spencer, nor Spencer said to him. Now the report of the commander is silent upon this lowness of tone which could not be heard four or five feet--silent upon the handcuffs of Spencer--silent upon the answer of Spencer that he could not write; and for which he substituted on the court-martial the answer that he "declined to write"--a substitution which gave rise to a conversation between the judge advocate and Mackenzie, which the judge advocate reported to the court in writing; and which all felt to be a false substitution both upon the testimony, and the facts of the case. A man in iron handcuffs cannot write! but it was necessary to show him "declining" in order to give him a recording secretary! And it is silent upon the great fact that he sat on the arm-chest with Spencer, and whispering so low that not a human being could hear what passed: and, consequently, that Mackenzie chose that he himself should be the recording secretary on that occasion, and that no one could know whether the record was true or false. The declaration in the report that Spencer read what was written down, and agreed to it, will be attended to hereafter. The point at present is the secrecy, and the fact that the man the most interested in the world in getting confessions from Spencer, was the recorder of these confessions, without a witness! without even Wales, Gansevoort, Garty; or any one of his familiars. For the rest, it becomes a fair question, which every person can solve for themselves, whether it is possible for two persons to talk so low to one another for, from a quarter to half an hour, in such profound stillness, and amidst so much excited expectation, and no one in arm's length able to hear one word. If this is deemed impossible, it may be a reasonable belief that nothing material was said between them--that Mackenzie wrote without dictation from Spencer; and wrote what the necessity of his condition required--confessions to supply the place of total want of proof--admissions of guilt--acknowledgments that he deserved to die--begging forgiveness. And so large a part of what he reported was proved to be false, that this reasonable belief of a fabricated dialogue becomes almost a certainty.

The commander, now become sole witness of Spencer's last words--words spoken if at all--after his time on earth was out--after the announcement in his presence that the ten minutes were out--and hearing the commander's response to the notification, "Very well:" this commander thus proceeds with his report: "I asked him if he had no message to send to his friends? He answered none that they would wish to receive. When urged still further to send some words of consolation in so great an affliction, he said, 'Tell them I die wishing them every blessing and happiness. I deserve death for this and many other crimes--there are few crimes I have not committed. I feel sincerely penitent, and my only fear of death is that my repentance may come too late.'"--This is what the commander reports to the Secretary of the Navy, and which no human witness could gainsay, because no human being was allowed to witness what was said at the time; but there is another kind of testimony, independent of human eyes and ears, and furnished by the evil-doer himself, often in the very effort to conceal his guilt, and more convincing than the oath of any witness, and which fate, or accident, often brings to light for the relief of the innocent and the confusion of the guilty. And so it was in this case with Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie. That original record made out upon inaudible whispers on the camp-stool! It still existed--and was produced in court--and here is the part which corresponds (should correspond) with this quoted part of the report; and constituting the first part of the confession: "When asked if he had any message to send: none that they would wish to receive. Afterwards, that you die wishing them every blessing and happiness; deserved death for this and other sins; that you felt sincerely penitent, and only fear of death was that your repentance might _be too late_."--Compared together, and it is seen that the words "other sins," in the third sentence, is changed into "_many other crimes_,"--words of revoltingly different import--going beyond what the occasion required--and evidently substituted as an introduction to the further gratuitous confession: "_There are few crimes which I have not committed._" Great consolation in this for those parents for whom the record was made, and who never saw it except as promulgated through the public press. In any court of justice the entire report would be discredited upon this view of flagrant and wicked falsifications. For the rest, there is proof that the first sentence is a fabrication. It is to be recollected that this inquiry as to Spencer's wishes to communicate with his parents was made publicly, and before the pen, ink and paper was sent for, and that the answer was the inducement to send for those writing materials. That public answer was heard by those around, and was thus proved before the court-martial--McKinley the witness: "_The commander asked him if he wished to write?_ Mr. Spencer said he did. The commander ordered Dunn to fetch paper and campstool out of the cabin. Spencer took the pen in his hand--he said, 'I cannot write.' The commander spoke to him in a low tone: I do not know what he then said. I saw the commander writing." This testimony contradicts the made-up report, in showing that Spencer was asked to write himself, instead of sending a message: that the declaration, "_nothing that they would wish to hear_," is a fabricated addition to what he did say--and that he was prevented from writing, not from disinclination and declining, as the commander attempted to make out, but because upon trial--after taking the pen in his hand--he could not with his handcuffs on. Certainly this was understood beforehand. Men do not write in iron handcuffs. They were left on to permit the commander to become his secretary, and to send a message for him: which message he never sent! the promise to do so being a mere contrivance to get a chance of writing for the Secretary of the Navy, and the public.

The official report continues: "I asked him if there was any one he had injured, to whom he could yet make reparation--any one suffering obloquy for crimes which he had committed. He made no answer; but soon after continued: 'I have wronged many persons, but chiefly my parents.' He said 'this will kill my poor mother.' I was not before aware that he had a mother." The corresponding sentences in the original, run thus: "Many that he had wronged, but did not know how reparation could be made to them. Your parents most wronged ... himself by saying he had entertained same idea in John Adams and Potomac, but had not ripened into.... Do you not think that such a mania should ... certainly. Objected to manner of death." The dots in place of words indicate the places where the writing was illegible. The remarkable variations between the report and the original in these sentences is, that the original leaves out all those crimes which he had committed, and which were bringing obloquy upon others, and to which he made no answer, but shows that he did make answer as to having wronged persons, and that answer was, that he did not know how reparation could be made. There is no mention of mother in this part of the original--it comes in long after. Then the John Adams and the Potomac, which are here mentioned in the twelfth line of the original, only appear in the fifty-sixth in the report--and the long gap filled up with things not in the original--and the word "idea," as attributed to Spencer, substituted by "mania."

The report continues (and here it is told once for all, that the quotations both from the report and the original, of which it should be a copy, follow each in its place in consecutive order, leaving no gap between each quoted part and what preceded it): "_when recovered from the pain of this announcement (the effect upon his mother)_, I asked him if it would not have been still more dreadful had he succeeded in his attempt, murdered the officers and the greater part of the crew of the vessel, and run that career of crime which, with so much satisfaction he had marked out for himself: he replied after a pause; 'I do not know what would have become of me if I had succeeded.' I told him Cromwell would soon have made way with him, and McKinley would probably have cleared the whole of them from his path." The corresponding part of the original runs thus: "Objected to manner of death: requested to be shot. Could not make any distinction between him and those he had seduced. Justifiable desire at first to.... The last words he had to say, and hoped they would be believed, that Cromwell was innocent ... Cromwell. Admitted it was just that no distinction should be made."--This is the consecutive part in the original, beginning in utter variance with what should be its counterpart--hardly touching the same points--leaving out all the cruel reproaches which the official report heaps upon Spencer--ending with the introduction of Cromwell, but without the innocence which the original contains, with the substitution of Cromwell's destruction of him, and with the addition of McKinley's destruction of them all, and ultimate attainment of the chief place in that long career of piracy which was to be ran--and ran in that state of the world in which no pirate could live at all. What was actually said about Cromwell's innocence by Spencer and by McKinley as coming from Cromwell "to stir up the devil between them," as the historian Cooper remarked, was said before this writing commenced! said when Mackenzie returned from announcing the ten minutes lease of life to him and Small! which Mackenzie himself had reported in a previous part of his report, before the writing materials were sent for: and now, strange enough, introduced again in an after place, but with such alterations and additions as barely to leave their identity discoverable.

The official report proceeds: "'I fear,' said he, 'this may injure my father.' I told him it was too late to think of that--that had he succeeded in his wishes it would have injured his father much more--that had it been possible to have taken him home as I intended to do, it was not in nature that his father should not have interfered to save him--_that for those who have friends or money in America there was no punishment for the worst of crimes_--that though this had nothing to do with my determination, which had been forced upon me in spite of every effort I had made to avert it, I, on this account the less regretted the dilemma in which I was placed: it would injure his father a great deal more if he got home alive, should he be condemned and yet escape. The best and only service which he could do his father was to die."--Now from the original, beginning at the end of the last quotation: "Asked that his face might be covered. Granted. When he found that his repentance might not be in season, I referred him to the story of the penitent thief. Tried to find it. Could not. Read the Bible, the prayer-book. Did not know what would have become of him if he had succeeded. Makes no objection to death, but objects to time. Reasons--God would understand of him offences ... many crimes. Dies, praying God to bless and preserve.... I am afraid this will injure my father."--The quotation from the report opens with apprehended fear of injury to his father: it concludes with commending him to die, as the only service he could render that parent: and the whole is taken up with that topic, and crowned with the assertion that, for those who have friends or money in America there is no punishment for the worst of crimes--a sweeping reproach upon the American judiciary; and, however unfounded in his broad denunciation, may he not himself have counted on the benefit of the laxity of justice which he denounced? and--more--did he not receive it? The rest of the paragraph is only remarkable for the declaration of the intention to have brought his prisoners home, and of the change, of which intention they had no notice until placed in the presence of the completed preparations for death, and told they had but ten minutes, by the watch, to live.--Turning to the original of this paragraph, and it will be seen that it opens with preparations for death--goes on in the same spirit--barely mentions his father--and ends with his death--"_dies praying God to bless and preserve_".... This is evidently the termination of the whole scene. It carries him through the last preparations, and ends his life--sees him die praying to God. Now does the report give any of these circumstances? None. Does the report stop there? It does not. Does it go on? Yes: two hundred and thirty lines further. And the original record go on further? Yes: sixty lines further--which was just double the distance it had come. Here was a puzzle. The man to be talking double as much after his death as before it. This solecism required a solution--and received it before the court-martial: and the solution was that this double quantity was written after hanging--how long, not stated--but after it. Before the court Mackenzie delivered in a written and sworn statement, that his record embracing what was taken down from the lips of Spencer finished at the sentence--"_I am afraid this will injure my father_:" and that the remainder was written shortly afterwards. Now the part written before the death was thirty-three lines: the part written shortly after it, is above fifty. This solecism explained, another difficulty immediately arises. The commander reported that, "he (Spencer) _read over what he (Mackenzie) had written down_," and agreed to it all, with one exception--which was corrected. Now he could not have read the fifty odd lines which were written after his death. (All the lines here mentioned are the short ones in the double column pages of the published, "Official Proceedings of the Naval Court Martial.)" These fifty odd lines could not have been read by Spencer. That is certain. The previous thirty-three it is morally certain he never read. They are in some places illegible--in others unintelligible; and are printed in the official report with blanks because there were parts which could not be read. No witness says they were read by Spencer.

The additional fifty odd lines, expanded by additions and variations into about two hundred in the official report, requires but a brief notice, parts of it being amplifications and aggravations of what had been previously noted, and additional insults to Spencer; with an accumulation of acknowledgments of guilt, of willingness to die, of obligations to the commander, and entreaties for his forgiveness. One part of the reported scene was even more than usually inhuman. Spencer said to him: "But are you not going too far? are you not too fast? does the law entirely justify you?" To this the commander represents himself as replying: "That he (Spencer) had not consulted him in his arrangements--that his opinion could not be an unprejudiced one--that I had consulted all his brother officers, his messmates included, except the boys; and I placed before him their opinion. He stated that it was just--that he deserved death," For the honor of human nature it is to be hoped that Mackenzie reports himself falsely here--which is probable, both on its face, and because it is not in the original record. The commander says that he begged for one hour to prepare himself for death, saying the time is so short, asking if there was time for repentance, and if he could be changed so soon (from sin to grace). To the request for the hour, the commander says no answer was given: to the other parts he reminded him of the _thief_ on the cross, who was pardoned by our Saviour, and that for the rest, God would understand the difficulties of his situation and be merciful. The commander also represents himself as recapitulating to Spencer the arts he had used to seduce the crew. The commander says upwards of an hour elapsed before the hanging: he might have said two hours: for the doom of the prisoners was announced at about eleven, and they were hung at one. But no part of this delay was for their benefit, as he would make believe, but for his own, to get confessions under the agonies of terror. No part of it--not even the whole ten minutes--was allowed to Spencer to make his peace with God; but continually interrupted, questioned, outraged, inflamed against his companions in death, he had his devotions broken in upon, and himself deprived of one peaceful moment to commune with God.

The report of the confessions is false upon its face: it is also invalidated by other matter within itself, showing that Mackenzie had two opposite ways of speaking of the same person, and of the same incident, before and after the design upon Spencer's life. I speak of the attempt, and of the reasons given for it, to get the young man transferred to another vessel before sailing from New York. According to the account given first of these reasons, and at the time, the desire to get him out of the Somers was entirely occasioned by the crowded state of the midshipmen's room--seven, where only five could be accommodated. Thus:

"When we were on the eve of sailing, two midshipmen who had been
with me before, and in whom I had confidence, joined the vessel.
This carried to seven, the number to occupy a space capable
of accommodating only five. I had heard that Mr. Spencer had
expressed a willingness to be transferred from the Somers to the
Grampus. I directed Lieut. Gansevoort to say to him that if he
would apply to Commodore Perry to detach him (there was no time
to communicate with the Navy Department), I would second the
application. He made the application; I seconded it, earnestly
urging that it should be granted on the score of the comfort
of the young officers. The commodore declined detaching Mr.
Spencer, but offered to detach midshipman Henry Rodgers, who had
been last ordered. I could not consent to part with Midshipman
Rodgers, whom I knew to be a seaman, an officer, a gentleman; a
young man of high attainments within his profession and beyond
it. The Somers sailed with seven in her steerage. They could not
all sit together round the table. The two oldest and most useful
had no lockers to put their clothes in, and have slept during
the cruise on the steerage deck, the camp-stools, the booms, in
the tops, or in the quarter boats."

Nothing can be clearer than this statement. It was to relieve the steerage room where the young midshipmen congregated, that the transfer of Spencer was requested; and this was after Captain Mackenzie had been informed that the young man had been dismissed from the Brazilian squadron, for drunkenness. "And this fact," he said, "made me very desirous of his removal from the vessel, chiefly on account of the young men who were to mess and be associated with him, the rather that two of them were connected with me by blood and two by marriage; and all four intrusted to my especial care." After the deaths he wrote of the same incident in these words:

"The circumstance of Mr. Spencer's being the son of a high
officer of the government, by enhancing his baseness in my
estimation, made me more desirous to be rid of him. On this
point I beg that I may not be misunderstood. I revere authority.
I recognize, in the exercise of its higher functions in this
free country, the evidences of genius, intelligence, and virtue;
but I have no respect for the base son of an honored father;
on the contrary, I consider that he who, by misconduct sullies
the lustre of an honorable name, is more culpable than the
unfriended individual whose disgrace falls only on himself. I
wish, however, to have nothing to do with baseness in any shape;
the navy is not the place for it. On these accounts I readily
sought the first opportunity of getting rid of Mr. Spencer."

Here the word base, as applicable to the young Spencer, occurs three times in a brief paragraph, and this baseness is given as the reason for wishing to get the young man, not out of the ship, but out of the navy! And this sentiment was so strong, that reverence for Spencer's father could not control it. He could have nothing to do with baseness. The navy is not the place for it. Now all this was written after the young man was dead, and when it was necessary to make out a case of justification for putting him, not out of the ship, nor even out of the navy, but out of the world. This was an altered state of the case, and the captain's report accommodated itself to this alteration. The reasons now given go to the baseness of the young man: those which existed at the time, went to the comfort of the four midshipmen, connected by blood and alliance with the captain, and committed to his special care:--as if all in the ship were not committed to his special care, and that by the laws of the land--and without preference to relations. The captain even goes into an account of his own high moral feelings at the time, and disregard of persons high in power, in showing that he then acted upon a sense of Spencer's baseness, maugre the reverence he had for his father and his cabinet position. Every body sees that these are contradictions--that all this talk about baseness is after-talk--that all these fine sentiments are of subsequent conception: in fact, that the first reasons were those of the time, before he expected to put the young man to death, and the next after he had done it! and when the deed exacted a justification, and that at any cost of invention and fabrication. The two accounts are sufficient to establish one of those errors of fact which the law considers as discrediting a witness in all that he says. But it is not all the proof of erroneous statement which the double relation of this incident affords: there is another, equally flagrant. The captain, in his after account, repulses association with baseness, that is with Spencer, in any shape: his elaborate report superabounds with expressions of the regard with which he had treated him during the voyage, and even exacts acknowledgment of his kindness while endeavoring to torture out of him confessions of guilt.

The case of Spencer was now over: the cases of Small and Cromwell were briefly despatched. The commander contrived to make the three victims meet in a narrow way going to the sacrifice, all manacled and hobbling along, helped along, for they could not walk, by persons appointed to that duty. Gansevoort helped Spencer--a place to which he had entitled himself by the zeal with which he had pursued him. The object of the meeting was seen in the use that was made of it. It was to have a scene of crimination and recrimination between the prisoners, in which mutual accusations were to help out the miserable testimony and the imputed confessions. They are all made to stop together. Spencer is made to ask the pardon of Small for having seduced him: Small is made to answer, and with a look of horror--"_No, by God!_" an answer very little in keeping with the lowly and Christian character of Small, and rebutted by ample negative testimony: for this took place after the secret whispering was over, and in the presence of many. Even Gansevoort, in giving a minute account of this interview, reports nothing like it, nor any thing on which it could be founded. Small really seems to have been a gentle and mild man, imbued with kind and pious feelings, and no part of his conduct corresponds with the brutal answer to Spencer attributed to him. When asked if he had any message to send, he answered, "I have nobody to care for me but a poor old mother, and I had rather she did not know how I died." In his Bible was found a letter from his mother, filled with affectionate expressions. In that letter the mother had rejoiced that her son was contented and happy, as he had informed her; upon which the commander maliciously remarked, in his report, "that was before his acquaintance with Spencer." There was nothing against him, but in the story of the informer, Wales. He instantly admitted his "foolish conversations" with Spencer when arrested, but said it was no mutiny. When standing under the ship gallows (yard-arm) he began a speech to his shipmates, declaring his innocence, saying "I am no pirate: I never murdered any body!" At these words Mackenzie sung out to Gansevoort, "Is that right?" meaning, ought he to be allowed to speak so? He was soon stopped, and Gansevoort swears he said "he deserved his punishment." Cromwell protested his innocence to the last, and with evident truth. When arrested, he declared he knew nothing about the mutiny, and the commander told him he was to be carried home with Spencer to be tried; to which he answered, "I assure you I know nothing about it." His name was not on the razor-case paper. Spencer had declared his ignorance of all his talk, when the commander commenced his efforts, under the ten minutes' reprieve, to get confessions, and when Spencer said to him, as he turned off to go to Small and Cromwell with the ten minutes' news--the first they heard of it: "As these are the last words I have to say, I trust they will be believed: Cromwell is innocent." When told his doom, he (Cromwell) exclaimed, "God of the Universe look down upon me; I am innocent! Tell my wife--tell Lieutenant Morris I die innocent!" The last time that Mackenzie had spoken to him before was to tell him he would be carried to the United States for trial. The meeting of the three victims was crowned by reporting them, not only as confessing, and admitting the justice of their deaths, but even praising it, as to the honor of the flag, and--penitently begging pardon and forgiveness from the commander and his lieutenant!--and they mercifully granting the pardon and forgiveness! The original record says there were no "hangmen" on board the ship: but that made no balk. The death signal, and command, were given by the commander and his lieutenant--the former firing the signal gun himself--the other singing out "whip!" at which word the three wretched men went up with a violent jerk to the yard-arm. There is something unintelligible about Cromwell in the last words of this original "record." It says: "S. Small stept up. Cromwell overboard, rose dipping to yard-arm." Upon which the editor remarks: "The above paper of Commander Mackenzie is so illegible, as not to be correctly written" (copied). Yet it was this paper that Spencer is officially reported to have read while waiting to be jerked up, and to have agreed to its correctness--and near two-thirds of which were not written until after his death!

The men were dead, and died innocent, as history will tell and show. Why such conduct towards them--not only the killing, but the cruel aggravations? The historian Cooper, in solving this question, says that such was the obliquity of intellect shown by Mackenzie in the whole affair, that no analysis of his motives can be made on any consistent principle of human action. This writer looks upon personal resentment as having been the cause of the deaths, and terror, and a desire to create terror, the cause of the aggravations. Both Spencer and Cromwell had indulged in language which must have been peculiarly offensive to a man of the commander's temperament, and opinion of himself--an author, an orator, a fine officer. They habitually spoke of him before the crew, as "the old humbug--the old fool;" graceless epithets, plentifully garnished with the prefix of "damned;" and which were so reported to the captain (after the discovery of the mutiny--never before) as to appear to him to be "blasphemous vituperation." This is the only tangible cause for hanging Spencer and Cromwell, and as for poor Small, it would seem that his knowledge of navigation, and the necessity of having three mutineers, decided his fate: for his name is on neither of the three lists (though on the distribution list), and he frankly told the commander of Spencer's foolish conversations--always adding, it was no mutiny. These are the only tangible, or visible causes for putting the men to death. The reason for doing it at the time it was done, was for fear of losing the excuse to do it. The vessel was within a day and a half of St. Thomas, where she was ordered to go--within less time of many other islands to which she might go--in a place to meet vessels at any time, one of which she saw nearly in her course, and would not go to it. The excuse for not going to these near islands, or joining the vessel seen, was that it was disgraceful to a man-of-war to seek protection from foreigners! as if it was more honorable to murder than to take such protection. But the excuse was proved to be false; for it was admitted the vessel seen was too far off to know her national character: therefore, she was not avoided as a foreigner, but for fear she might be American. The same of the islands: American vessels were sure to be at them, and therefore these islands were not gone to. It was therefore indispensable to do the work before they got to St. Thomas, and all the machinery of new arrests, and rescue was to justify that consummation. And as for not being able to carry the ship to St. Thomas, with an obedient crew of 100 men, it was a story not to be told in a service where Lieutenant John Rodgers and Midshipman Porter, with 11 men, conducted a French frigate with 173 French prisoners, three days and nights, into safe port.

The three men having hung until they ceased to give signs of life, and still hanging up, the crew were piped down to dinner, and to hear a speech from the commander, and to celebrate divine service--of which several performances the commander gives this account in his official report:

"The crew were now piped down from witnessing punishment, and
all hands called to cheer ship. I gave the order, 'stand by to
give three hearty cheers for the flag of our country!' Never
were three heartier cheers given. In that electric moment I
do not doubt that the patriotism of even the worst of the
conspirators for an instant broke forth. I felt that I was once
more completely commander of the vessel which had been entrusted
to me; equal to do with her whatever the honor of my country
might require. The crew were now piped down and piped to dinner.
I noticed with pain that many of the boys, as they looked to the
yard-arm, indulged in laughter and derision."

He also gives an impressive account of the religious service which was performed, the punctuality and devotion with which it was attended, and the appropriate prayer--that of thanks to God for deliverance from a great danger--with which it was concluded.

"The service was then read, the responses audibly and devoutly
made by the officers and crew, and the bodies consigned to the
deep. This service was closed with that prayer so appropriate
to our situation, appointed to be read in our ships of war,
'Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence
of enemies; that we may be a safeguard to the United States of
America, and a security for such as pass on the seas upon their
lawful occasions; that the inhabitants of our land may in peace
and quietude serve thee our God; and that we may return in
safety to enjoy the blessings of our land, with the fruits of
our labor, with a thankful remembrance of thy mercies, to praise
and glorify thy holy name through Jesus Christ our Lord.'"

This religious celebration concluded, and the prayer read, the commander indulges in a remark upon their escape from a danger plotted before the ship left the United States, as unfeeling, inhuman and impious at the time, as it was afterwards proved to be false and wicked. After the arrest of Spencer, the delators discovered that he had meditated these crimes before he left the United States, and had let his intention become known at a house in the Bowery at New York. In reference to that early inception of the plot, now just found out by the commander, he thus remarks:

"In reading this (prayer) and in recollecting the uses to which
the Somers had been destined, as I now find, before she quitted
the waters of the United States, I could not but humbly hope
that divine sanction would not be wanting to the deed of that
day."

Here it is assumed for certain that piratical uses were intended for the vessel by Spencer before he left New York; and upon that assumption the favor of Heaven was humbly hoped for in looking down upon the deed of that day. Now what should be the look of Heaven if all this early plotting should be a false imputation--a mere invention--as it was proved to be. Before the court-martial it was proved that the sailor boarding-house remark about this danger to the Somers, was made by another person, and before Spencer joined the vessel--and from which vessel the commander knew he had endeavored to get transferred to the Grampus, after he had come into her--the commander himself being the organ of his wishes. Foiled before the court in attaching this boarding-house remark to Spencer, the delators before the court undertook to fasten it upon Cromwell: there again the same fate befell them: the remark was proved to have been made by a man of the name of Phelps, and before Cromwell had joined the vessel: and so ended this last false and foul insinuation in his report.

The commander then made a speech, whereof he incorporates a synopsis in his report; and of which, with its capital effects upon the crew, he gives this account:

"The crew were now ordered aft, and I addressed them from the
trunk, on which I was standing. I called their attention first
to the fate of the unfortunate young man, whose ill-regulated
ambition, directed to the most infamous ends, had been the
exciting cause of the tragedy they had just witnessed. I spoke
of his honored parents, of his distinguished father, whose
talents and character had raised him to one of the highest
stations in the land, to be one of the six appointed counsellors
of the representative of our national sovereignty. I spoke of
the distinguished social position to which this young man had
been born; of the advantages of every sort that attended the
outset of his career, and of the professional honors to which a
long, steady, and faithful perseverance in the course of duty
might ultimately have raised him. After a few months' service
at sea, most wretchedly employed, so for as the acquisition of
professional knowledge was concerned, he had aspired to supplant
me in a command which I had only reached after nearly 30 years
of faithful servitude; and for what object I had already
explained to them. I told them that their future fortunes were
in their own control: they had advantages of every sort and in
an eminent degree for the attainment of professional knowledge.
The situations of warrant officers and of masters in the navy
were open to them. They might rise to commands in the merchant
service, to respectability, to competence, and to fortune; but
they must advance regularly, and step by step; every step to be
sure, must be guided by truth, honor, and fidelity. I called
their attention to Cromwell's case. He must have received an
excellent education, his handwriting was even elegant. But he
had also fallen through brutish sensuality and the greedy thirst
for gold."

But there was another speech on the Sunday following, of which the commander furnishes no report, but of which some parts were remembered by hearers--as thus by McKee:--(the judge advocate having put the question to him whether he had heard the commander's addresses to the crew after the execution). Answer: "I heard him on the Sunday after the execution: he read Mr. Spencer's letters: he said he was satisfied the young man had been lying to him for half an hour before his death." Another witness swore to the same words, with the addition, "that he died with a lie in his mouth." Another witness (Green) gives a further view into this letter-reading, and affords a glimpse of the object of such a piece of brutality. In answer to the same question, if he heard the commander's speech the Sunday after the execution? He answered, "Yes, sir. I heard him read over Mr. Spencer's letter, and pass a good many remarks on it. He said that Cromwell had been very cruel to the boys: that he had called him aft, and spoke to him about it several times. To the question, Did he say any thing of Mr. Spencer? he answered--"Yes, sir. He said he left his friends, lost all his clothes, and shipped in a whaling vessel." To the question whether any thing was said about Mr. Spencer's truth or falsehood? he answered: "I heard the commander say, this young man died with a lie in his mouth; but do not know whether he meant Mr. Spencer, or some one else." It is certain the commander was making a base use of these letters, as he makes no mention of them any where, and they seem to have been used solely to excite the crew against Cromwell and Spencer.

In finding the mother's letter in Small's bible, the captain finds occasion to make two innuendos against the dead Spencer, then still hanging up. He says:

"She expressed the joy with which she had learned from him that
he was so happy on board the Somers (at that time Mr. Spencer
had not joined her); that no grog was served on board of her.
Within the folds of this sacred volume he had preserved a copy
of verses taken from the Sailor's Magazine, enforcing the value
of the bible to seamen. I read these verses to the crew. Small
had evidently valued his bible, but could not resist temptation."

This happiness of Small is discriminated from his acquaintance with Spencer: it was before the time that Spencer joined the ship! as if his misery began from that time! when it only commenced from the time he was seized and ironed for mutiny. Then the temptation which he could not resist, _innuendo_, tempted by Spencer--of which there was not even a tangible hearsay, and no temptation necessary. Poor Small was an habitual drunkard, and drank all that he could get--his only fault, as it seems. But this bible of Small's gave occasion to another speech, and moral and religious harangue, of which the captain gave a report, too long to be noticed here except for its characteristics, and which go to elucidate the temper and state of mind in which things were done:

"I urged upon the youthful sailors to cherish their bibles
with a more entire love than Small had done; to value their
prayer books also; they would find in them a prayer for every
necessity, however great; a medicine for every ailment of the
mind. I endeavored to call to their recollection the terror
with which the three malefactors had found themselves suddenly
called to enter the presence of an offended God. No one who
had witnessed that scene could for a moment believe even in
the existence of such a feeling as honest Atheism: a disbelief
in the existence of a God. They should also remember that
scene. They should also remember that Mr. Spencer, in his last
moments, had said that 'he had wronged many people, but chiefly
his parents.' From these two circumstances they might draw two
useful lessons: a lesson of filial piety, and of piety toward
God. With these two principles for their guides they could never
go astray."

This speech was concluded with giving cheers to God, not by actual shouting, but by singing the hundredth psalm, and cheering again--all for deliverance from the hands of the pirates. Thus:

"In conclusion, I told them that they had shown that they could
give cheers for their country; they should now give cheers to
their God, for they would do this when they sung praises to
his name. The colors were now hoisted, and above the American
ensign, the only banner to which it may give place, the banner
of the cross. The hundredth psalm was now sung by all the
officers and crew. After which, the usual service followed;
when it was over, I could not avoid contrasting the spectacle
presented on that day by the Somers, with what it would have
been in pirates' hands."

During all this time the four other men in irons sat manacled behind the captain, and he exults in telling the fine effects of his speaking on these "deeply guilty," as well as upon all the rest of the ship's crew.

"But on this subject I forbear to enlarge. I would not have
described the scene at all, so different from the ordinary
topics of an official communication, but for the unwonted
circumstances in which we were placed, and the marked effect
which it produced on the ship's company, even on those deeply
guilty members of it who sat manacled behind me, and that it was
considered to have done much towards restoring the allegiance of
the crew."

Of these deeply guilty, swelled to twelve before the ship got home, three appeared before the court-martial, and gave in their experience of that day's work. McKee, the first one, testifies that he had so little suspicion of what was going on, that, when he saw the commander come upon deck in full uniform, he supposed that some ship was seen, and that it was the intention to visit or speak her. To the question, what passed between yourself and the commander, after the execution? he answered: "He said he could find nothing against any of the four that were then in irons--if he had found any proof our fate would have been the same; and if he could find any excuse for not taking them home in irons, he would do so. I understood him to mean he would release them from their irons." Green, another of them, in answer to the question whether the commander spoke to him after hanging, answered--"Yes, sir. He said he could not find any thing against us; if he could, our fate would have been the same as the other three. He asked me if I was satisfied with it?" McKinley was the third, and to the same question, whether the commander spoke to him on the day of the executions? he answered--"He did while the men were hanging at the yard arm, but not before. He came to me, and said, 'McKinley, did you hear what I said to those other young men?' I told him, 'No, sir.' 'Well,' said he, 'it is the general opinion of the officers that you are a pretty good boy, but I shall have to take you home in irons, to see what the Secretary of the Navy can do for you.' He said: 'In risking your life for other persons (or something to that effect) is all that saves you.' He left me then, and I spoke to Mr. Gansevoort--I asked him if he thought the commander thought I was guilty of any thing of the kind. He said: 'No, I assure you if he did, he would have strung you up.'" Wilson, the fourth of the arrested, was not examined before the court; but the evidence of three of them, with McKenzie's refusal to proceed against them in New York, and the attempt to tamper with one of them, is proof enough that he had no accusation against these four men: that they were arrested to fulfil the condition on which the first three were to be hanged, and to be brought home in irons with eight others, to keep up the idea of mutiny.

The report having finished the history of the mutiny--its detection, suppression, execution of the ringleaders, and seizure of the rest (twelve in all) to be brought home in bags and irons--goes on, like a military report after a great victory, to point out for the notice and favor of the government, the different officers and men who had distinguished themselves in the affair, and to demand suitable rewards for each one according to his station and merits. This concluding part opened thus:

"In closing this report, a pleasing, yet solemn duty devolves
upon me, which I feel unable adequately to fulfil--to do justice
to the noble conduct of every one of the officers of the Somers,
from the first lieutenant to the commander's clerk, who has
also, since her equipment, performed the duty of midshipman.
Throughout the whole duration of the difficulties in which
we have been involved, their conduct has been courageous,
determined, calm, self-possessed--animated and upheld always by
a lofty and chivalrous patriotism, perpetually armed by day and
by night, waking and sleeping, with pistols often cocked for
hours together."

The commander, after this general encomium, brings forward the distinguished, one by one, beginning of course with his first lieutenant:

"I cannot forbear to speak particularly of Lieutenant
Gansevoort. Next to me in rank on board the Somers, he was my
equal in every respect to protect and defend her. The perfect
harmony of our opinions, and of our views of what should be
done, on each new development of the dangers which menaced the
integrity of command, gave us a unity of action that added
materially to our strength. Never since the existence of our
navy has a commanding officer been more ably and zealously
seconded by his lieutenant."