The Black Ship

by Dudley Pope

A detailed account of the bloodiest mutiny in the history of the Royal Navy, from the author of the Lord Ramage novels. Dudley Pope meticulously recounts the butchering of the officers aboard His Majesty’s Frigate Hermione in the West Indies in 1797. The captain of the frigate, Hugh Pigot, was a brutal and sadistic commander who flogged his men mercilessly and drove them beyond the limits of endurance. However, nothing could excuse the slaughter of guilty and innocent officers alike as the mutineers went wild and committed crimes beyond anything Pigot could have dreamed up. Not content with that, they then took the ship into an enemy port and gave her up to the Spanish who, unaware of the true facts for some time, nevertheless greeted them with the contempt they deserved. The Spanish took the ship into their service but, due to an amazing episode of red tape and internal wrangling, never actually got the frigate to sea. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy relentlessly hunted down the mutineers over the next ten years, and of the 33 either caught or who gave themselves up, 24 were either hanged and hung in chains upon gibbets, or transported for life… The events culminate with the daring re-capture of the Hermione under the guns of Spanish forts, with Captain Edward Hamilton leading 100 English sailors in six open boats in one of the most brilliant cutting-out expeditions in naval history.“Hiding high drama behind harsh fact, this true tale of horror and adventure at sea will appeal to naval buffs and historians; romantically-minded landlubbers may object to its factual flavor.” —Kirkus Reviews

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Nautical, Military Fiction, Naval History, Maritime, Crime

474 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 15, 1998

About the author

Dudley Pope was born in Ashford, Kent.

By concealing his age, Pope joined the Home Guard aged 14 and at age 16 joined the Merchant Navy as a cadet. His ship was torpedoed the next year (1942). Afterwards, he spent two weeks in a lifeboat with the few other survivors.

After he was invalided out of the Merchant Navy, the only obvious sign of the injuries Pope had suffered was a joint missing from one finger due to gangrene. Pope then went to work for a Kentish newspaper, then in 1944 moved to The Evening News in London, where he was the naval and defence correspondent. From there he turned to reading and writing naval history.

Pope's first book, "Flag 4", was published in 1954, followed by several other historical accounts. C. S. Forester, the creator of the famed Horatio Hornblower novels, encouraged Pope to add fiction to his repertoire. In 1965, "Ramage" appeared, the first of what was to become an 18-novel series.

Pope took to living on boats from 1953 on; when he married Kay Pope in 1954, they lived on a William Fife 8-meter named Concerto, then at Porto Santo Stefano, Italy in 1959 with a 42-foot ketch Tokay. In 1963 he and Kay moved to a 53-foot cutter Golden Dragon, on which they moved to Barbados in 1965. In 1968 they moved onto a 54-foot wooden yacht named Ramage, aboard which he wrote all of his stories until 1985.

Pope died April 25, 1997 in Marigot, St. Martin. Both his wife and his daughter, Jane Victoria survived him.

Reviews

[Eric_W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dudley Pope, author of the Ramage series, has written an absorbing history of the most bloody mutiny to occur in the English navy .
His Majesty's frigates during the late 18th century were crammed with men. It was an unusual captain who managed to keep the men reasonably content and safe under such circumstances. The Hermione, a very small ship, carried 170 at the time of her crew's mutiny against Captain Pigot. Even though the normal complement was 220 for such a small warship, that was a lot of men, and it meant many duties on the foretops had to be shared. Pigot was an extraordinarily cruel captain at a time when cruelty was commonplace.

Hugh Pigot had led a charmed life. His father was an Admiral of the Blue, and Hugh's first experience as a midshipman was on a ship used as flagship by his father. For obvious reasons at a time when connections meant everything, Hugh was not treated in the rough-and-tumble manner a normal midshipman would have been. He had the best of everything and no chance to learn "assurance and tolerance." His promotions were hurried along and when appointed post captain he had had only twelve
weeks of command experience.

Flogging with a cat-o'-nine tails (nine two-foot lengths of rope attached to a handle) was the most common form of punishment to maintain discipline. A few lashes could reduce a man's back to bloody ruins and until 1790 Admiralty rules forbade more than twelve, a regulation that was ignore d. Experiments done with replicas have shown that one or two strokes with the lash could easily break a 1 x2 board, and in 1781 three men died within twenty-four hours of being flogged. For mutinous behavior a man could be flogged around the fleet, i.e., taken to each ship to receive twelve lashes; the total might be 300, leading to almost certain death. Punishments on shore were equally harsh, hanging being th e retribution for over two hundred different offenses, but 0 n shore some oversight was available. At sea no one could take exception to the captain's orders. Pigot flogged everyone except his favorites over and over again.

The mutiny was successful, but only in the sense that the captain and most of the officers were killed or thrown overboard. The ship was sailed to a Spanish port where it remained for several years, moored in a sea of red tape, the Spanish being unable to decide what to do with the men and vessel. The ship was eventually recaptured during a daring raid into the Spanish harbor. About thirty of the mutineers were captured and hung. It is extraordinary how Pope has managed to reconstruct the events using contemporary documents to recreate a rather dismal period of British history.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dudley Pope is perhaps more well known for his eighteen book fictional maritime series on the exploits of Lord Ramage. After serving in the Merchant Navy during WWII, Pope remained afloat, living on boats in the Med and Caribbean, while writing his nautical adventure stories.
'The Black Ship' (1963) reads like another fiction, yet is the result of extensive research that uncovers the true account of the Royal Navy's most notorious mutiny, which makes the unfortunate events on HMS Bounty sound like some scrape on a boating lake.
Whoever coined the epithet of the 'jolly jack tar' certainly did not serve in His Majesty's ships of the period covered in this book. To escape the back breaking duties, yellow fever, cannon shot or lash that was the ordinary seaman's lot, it is easy to condone mutiny, and wonder how these rebellions did not occur with greater frequency.
There was no open boat, such as was provided to Captain Bligh. The sadistic Captain Pigot and his officers on the frigate HMS Hermione were murdered and jettisoned over the side. Pope has trawled Naval archives and Public Records to fully document the details of this mutiny and the fates of the mutineers as well as the incredible recovery of the ship.
Another great Pen & Sword book.

[Alex Helling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Tyrannical young man set in charge of one of His Majesty’s ships in the disease ridden and swelteringly hot West Indies, a station notorious for the loss of crew to pestilence. Captain Pigot was a martinet regularly resorting to the Cat o nine tails to discipline the crew for any fault, real or perceived. The navy required discipline, but it can go too far. And on the frigate HMS Hermione in 1797 it did. The crew mutinied. There was an effusion of blood in revenge. The Black Ship by Dudley Pope is the tale of the mutiny, the navy’s attempts to catch the mutineers, and the cutting out of the Hermione from a fortified harbour years later as final closure.

It is a thrilling story. At times it feels more like a novel than a history book. Once we get into the main narrative section Pope builds the tension as Pigot enforces rounds of his harsh and unpredictable discipline until it eventually snaps and we get a detailed account of the bloody night of the mutiny. Pope does however reign the narrative in at times to discuss aspects such as discipline in the navy, and its psychology. This is probably necessary, but combined with the great detail on the numbers of floggings it does at times considerably cut into the pace of the story.

The Black Ship is small scale history; one small ship, in a tightly constrained time period - mostly just a few weeks. As the whole book is focused on this one, relatively small, event it is able to get right into the details of how the mutiny took place. We get a good look into shipboard life on a frigate and what makes it tick, and particularly the punishment meted out, but at the same time Pope makes it clear that this is an unusual case. Captain Pigot was very young for responsibility over a frigate resorting to the cat to maintain his position. We get a lot of detail on him, and his background, and character with Pope trying to identify what made him and the cause of the mutiny.

The causes and mutiny itself are only half the story. The mutineers then need to get away; they run to the Spanish mainland. This gives the book its’ second story; what the mutineers did, the hunt, and the courts martial as many of them are caught over the subsequent decade. The court martials enables Pope to give an unusual amount of detail about the mountaineers. While interesting the narrative at this point is rather tangled, following multiple threads.

But there is a final act. Another navy frigate, HMS Surprise launches a very risky operation to try to ‘cut out’ the Hermione and capture her back from the Spanish while outnumbered. A great action packed climax worthy of a novel.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Patrick O'Brian's "The Reverse of the Medal," there is a brief scene where Captain Jack Aubrey is part of a court-martial of a man accused of being a mutineer on HMS Hermione. The mutiny on the Hermione in 1797 was the bloodiest in the history of the Royal Navy. The captain, Hugh Pigot, and most of his officers were killed by the mutineers. The ship was surrendered to Spain, and eventually recaptured by the British. 33 of the mutineers were eventually captured, and 24 were hanged and another transported to New South Wales. This is the bare bones story that Dudley Pope masterfully brings to life from British and Spanish sources. I have had this book for years, and am glad for the impulse that persuaded me to buy it. If this period is of interest, then this book is worthwhile. Both interesting and well-written, which don't always go together.

[Morgan McGuire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like Patrick O'Brien, except it is nonfiction. Pope doesn't get hung up in footnotes and maybe this/maybe that. He paints a clear picture with words and allows his imagination to paint insignificant details to make it easier for the reader to follow the story. Like O'Brien, only more so, he assumes certain knowledge on the part of the reader about 18th century British culture and the navy which is beyond me--starting with how to pronounce "Pigot" and ending with the byzantine naval ranking system. However, this book absolutely delivers on immaculately researched naval history (N.B., which takes a tough stomach for violence and injustice to read through).

[Jared Knighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exceptional historical writing. At times the true story of H.M. Ship Hermione reads almost like a novel: in the build up to the mutiny, the harrowing slaughter that ensued, and the thrilling recapture of the ship from the Spanish by the crew of the Surprise (yes, the same surprise commanded by the fictional Jack Aubrey).
An absolute must-read for any age of sail enthusiasts and O'Brian devotees.

[Sean Reeves · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exhaustive account of the mutiny on the British frigate Hermione toward the close of the 18th century. The book was originally written in 1963 and republished in 2003 and 2009. It's meticulously researched and quite an absorbing read, although at times there is an excess of detail and the sheer number of characters involved can be daunting.

[Mr Michael R Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read but a book written in different times.
The story of the Royal Navy’s most brutal mutiny is a great read and Pope tells it well.
At times the narrative can seem disjointed but stick with it.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Historical retelling....late 1790s Caribbean....factual accounting of the deadliest mutiny in British history. Really non-fiction and not historical novel, so didn't fit what I was looking for.

[Stuart]

A fascinating and detailed portrait of the era and people, as well as of the bloodthirsty mutiny.

[Charles Johnson]

Very thoroughly researched...

[Vasha7 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most history books, when they set out to narrate an episode of the past, also have a thesis they want to argue. In the case of The Black Ship, you might say that Dudley Pope is writing a rebuttal to a letter by Sir Hyde Parker, Commander-in-Chief of the naval operations in the West Indies, who, fearful that revolutionary potential lurked in the minds of sailors, argued that all the men who had been aboard the Hermione at the time of the mutiny should be hanged, even if it could be clearly shown that they had taken no part—in order to “[impose] discipline by the terror of exemplary punishment”.

Captain Hugh Pigot, commanding the Hermione, had been a favorite protégé of Sir Hyde’s. No captain had been fonder of exemplary punishment than he; the list of floggings he ordered over the course of a year is one of the longest in the British navy. Yet he was not merely strict; he was also incompetent at his duties and had an overwhelming pride that led him to punish others for his own mistakes and attempt to terrorize them into doing what he wanted, however unreasonable. Pope exposes the way that promotions operated in the Navy so that a man like Pigot could be put in charge of a frigate with very little experience and no one ever having criticized his conduct. Pope consistently argues that neither the Hermione’s crew, nor other sailors who mutinied in the year 1797, were revolutionaries, and that Pigot’s methods of “imposing discipline”, both arbitrary and extreme, in fact acted to destroy all discipline on board.

Dudley Pope was equally known as a historian and a novelist, and he writes as both in this book. At times he inserts scenes narrated from the point of view of someone who participated in them, imagining their very thoughts. His descriptions of events are invariably vivid. The reader can never be tempted to view this book as a purely “neutral” examination, because besides the emotional color lent by Pope’s novelistic writing, he contributes overtly moralizing analysis. This is no doubt more honest than books where the author’s point of view is more hidden. It is a good thing that the present edition (Heart of Oak Sea Classics) has an introduction by Christopher McKee that offers some hindsight and some caveats to Pope’s analysis. McKee has no serious criticisms of the work; for my part, speaking of course with less knowledge, I think that this is an admirably clear book that is well suited to a general audience.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I picked this book up, I thought I was going to be reading a work of fiction. Dudley Pope perhaps is best known for the Ramage series. This book, though, comes from Pope's non-fiction catalog. It reads like fiction, though. The nasty business of mutiny becomes a study in cruelty, greed, venality, and bureaucracy.

Winston Churchill is said to have remarked that the Royal Navy's traditions could be described as, "rum, sodomy, and the lash." Pope provides a vivid description of both rum and the lash and how they played their parts in the mutiny of HMS Hermione. After reporting the mutiny, he details how the Royal Navy tracked down as many of mutineers as possible and bring them account for their revolt and their treason.

Pope does a very good job of explaining how the Royal Navy functioned in the Caribbean and describes the pressures it felt in Britain's war(s) with France. The story shows a novel perspective of how the Royal Navy tradition of press-gangs led to conflict with its former colony: the United States of America. The causes of the War of 1812 come up in this book. The murky official status of privateers, the conflicted interests of naval captains to offer protection and acquire prize money, the vulnerability of merchant ships navigating in contested and heavily patrolled waters, and the general motley nature of naval crews all come together in this book.

[Reni · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a curious book.

Parts of this book read like a novel, but it is non-fiction, all events, down to dialogue, etc. are taken from court martial transcripts, letters or diaries. This makes for a thrilling but also exciting read, not just on mutiny in the Age of Sail, but the book also has a few things to say on hierarchy aboard ship and types of leadership in general.

However, if you are just looking for a narrative about the Hermione mutiny I can understand why this book could be considered overly long. We are presented with a hundred pages from the life of the ship (like cutting out expeditions against Spanish privateers) and biographical sketches of men and ships that played a role in the Hermione's life before we even get close to the events of the mutiny. I see why it is important to have a look at Pigott first, even in detail, but some of the other material cut have been cut easily. I guess this is one fault of the book being partly a crime novel and partly non-fiction. The one calls for detail and context, and the other for a tight narrative.

However, the book gave me a lot of just the info I started reading the book for, and provided a chilling narrative along the way. It never hurts to check more (modern) sources, but everyone interested in the themes of this books can't do wrong by having a look at Pope's Black ship as a starting point.

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 5 out of 5]

This classic nonfiction work on the Nelsonian era of ships and the men who sailed them recounts the bloodiest mutiny in British naval history. The account of how the cruelty and depraved indifference to human life of Captain Hugh Pigot, commander of the Hermione, drove his men to take over the ship and slaughter most of the officers. Author Dudley Pope takes a distinctly pro-British slant, to the point of occasional inaccuracy (for example, the United States has “citizens,” not “subjects;” furthermore, Pope’s opinion of the English vs. American dispute concerning press gangs and the British theft of U.S. citizens from U.S. vessels prior to 1812 is at best debatable). Such relatively small problems aside, however, this is an outstanding piece of writing, presenting a wealth of historical data in prose as readable as a well-crafted novel. For readers with any interest at all in the subject matter, this is a must read.

[Brianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like this could have been an amazing novella-sized non-fictional account, but the author made this a little longer than it should have been.

Also, I was kind of put off by the foreward which accuses the author of putting too much weight into the account of the midshipman, who apparently "played up" the Captain's atrocities. I mean, I appreciate the warning to take it with a grain of salt, but it made me doubt why I was reading the book a'tall.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure why I, a land-locked Midwestern mom, should like naval history and fiction so much ... but there it is. This book was full of revealing details about how the British Navy actually functioned, and made me wonder why there weren't MORE mutinies. Very well-written and fascinating subject matter, but also borderline disturbing, the institutionalized mistreatment of human beings.

[Steve Goble · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent account of the horrid conditions and poor leadership that led to a bloody mutiny aboard H.M.S. Hermione, the various paths taken by the mutineers and the subsequent hanging of many of them, the surrendering of the ship to the Spaniards and the later daring recovery of the ship by the British.

[Francis Kiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

The edition I read is a part of the "Heart of Oak" series published by Henry Holt and Company in New York. It recounts the events leading up to and following the mutiny aboard the HMS Hermione in 1797.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four and a half stars, probably. A really fine work of history. Pope builds a compelling narrative from outstanding original research, tying in interesting digressions that speak more broadly to life in the Georgian RN. And on top of it an excellent story, told with a novelist's skill.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know much about ships, & prefer historical fiction, but this book is a record of actual historical events, well documented. It reads like a story. Anyone interested in the history of the Royal Navy should read it!

[Dave Myer · Rating 4 out of 5]

a surprisingly good read for such a thorough historical account…also offers some great commentary on leadership

[Trevor Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with some of the reviews that the book was to long
But there was a great deal to write about, it could have been shortened

[Pedja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow working but methodical and reliable.

[Kristine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting story but too long winded in the retelling at times.

[Rick Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Just excellent.