pass up the river, and such a multitude of ships certainly had never
before entered a port by one tide.
Fresh desertions now occurred every day, and all hope of concerted
action was ended by stormy discussions, in which contradictory
suggestions were made with such heat as to lead in many instances to
acts of violence. Upon ship after ship the red flag was hauled down and
replaced by one that was white, signifying submission. On the 12th only
seven ships had the red flag flying. Such was the confusion, every crew
being divided into two hostile parties, that five ships were taken up
the Thames by those in favour of surrender, aided by their opponents
under the belief that an attack was about to be made on the shore
defences. The discovery by the latter that they were betrayed aroused
terrible strife. The deck of the _Iris_ frigate became a battlefield;
one party in the fore, the others in the after-part, turned the great
guns against each other, and fought till the mutineers were worsted.
By the 16th the mutiny had terminated, every ship having been restored
to the command of its officers. A party of soldiers went on board the
_Sandwich_ to which Parker had returned, and to them the officers
surrendered the delegates of the ship, namely a man named Davies and
Richard Parker.
Richard Parker, to whom the title of admiral had been accorded by
the fleet and by the public during the whole of this affair, was the
undoubted ringleader, and was the individual on whom all eyes were
turned as the chief of the mutineers. He was brought to trial on the
22nd of June, after having been confined during the interval in the
Black-hole of Sheerness garrison. Ten officers, under the presidency
of Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, Bart., composed the court-martial,
which sat on board the _Neptune_, off Greenhithe. The prisoner
conducted his own defence, exhibiting great presence of mind, and
preserving a respectful and manly deference throughout towards his
judges.
The prosecution on the part of the Crown lasted two days, and on the
26th, Parker called witnesses in his favour, and read a long and able
defence which he had previously prepared. The line of argument adopted
by him was--that the situation he had held had been in a measure
forced upon him; that he had consented to assume it chiefly from the
hope of restraining the men from excesses; that he had restrained them
in various instances; that he might have taken all the ships to sea,
or to an enemy’s port, had his motives been disloyal, etc. Parker
unquestionably spoke the truth on many of these points. Throughout the
whole affair, the injury done to property was trifling, the taking of
some flour from a vessel being the chief act of the kind. But he had
indubitably been the head of the mutineers. It was proved that he went
from ship to ship giving orders and encouraging the men to stand out,
and that his orders were given as though he were actually admiral of
the fleet. Nothing could save him. He was sentenced to death. When his
doom was pronounced, he rose, and said, in firm tones, “I shall submit
to your sentence with all due respect, being confident in the innocency
of my intentions, and that God will receive me unto His favour;
and I sincerely hope that my death will be the means of restoring
tranquillity to the Navy, and that those men who have been implicated
in the business may be reinstated in their former situations, and again
be serviceable to their country.”
On the morning of the 30th of June, the yellow flag, the signal of
death, was hoisted on board the _Sandwich_, where Richard Parker lay,
and where he was to meet his fate. The whole fleet was ranged a little
below Sheerness, in sight of the _Sandwich_, and the crew of every ship
was piped to the forecastle. Parker was awakened from a sound sleep
on that morning, and after being shaved, he dressed himself in a suit
of deep mourning. He mentioned to his attendants that he had made a
will, leaving to his wife some property in Devonshire that belonged to
him. On coming to the deck, he was pale, but perfectly composed, and
drank a glass of wine “to the salvation of his soul, and forgiveness of
all his enemies!” He said nothing to his mates on the forecastle but
“Good-bye to you!” and expressed a hope that “his death would be deemed
sufficient atonement, and save the lives of others.”
He was strung up to the yard-arm at half-past nine o’clock. A dead
silence reigned among the crews around during the execution. When cold,
his body was taken down, put in a shell, and interred within an hour
or two after his death in the new naval burying ground at Sheerness. A
remarkable and pathetic sequel to the account has served as the basis
of a popular ballad still sung.
Richard Parker’s unfortunate wife had not left Scotland, when the
news reached her ears that the Nore fleet had mutinied, and that the
ringleader was one Richard Parker. She could not doubt that this was
her husband, and immediately took a place in the mail for London, to
save him if possible. On her arrival, she heard that Parker had been
tried, but the result was not known. Being able to think of no way but
petitioning the King, she gave a person a guinea to draw up a paper,
praying that her husband’s life might be spared. She attempted to make
her way with this into His Majesty’s presence, but was obliged finally
to hand it to a lord-in-waiting, who gave her the cruel intelligence
that all applications for mercy would be attended to, except for
Parker. The distracted woman then took coach for Rochester, where she
got on board a King’s ship, and learnt that Parker was to be executed
next day. She sat up, in a condition of unspeakable wretchedness, the
whole of that night, and at four o’clock in the morning went to the
riverside to hire a boat to take her to the _Sandwich_, that she might
at least bid her poor husband farewell. Her feelings had been deeply
wrung by hearing every person she met talking on the subject of her
distress, and now the first waterman to whom she spoke refused to take
her as a single passenger. “The brave Admiral Parker is to die to-day,”
he said, “and I can get any sum I choose to ask for carrying over a
party.”
Finally, the wretched wife was glad to go on board a Sheerness market
boat, but no boat was allowed to run up alongside of the _Sandwich_. In
her desperation she called on Parker by name, and prevailed on the boat
people, moved by the sight of her distress, to attempt to approach, but
they were stopped by a sentinel who threatened to fire at them, unless
they withdrew.
O Parker was the truest husband,
Best of friends, whom I love dear;
Yet when he was a-called to suffer,
To him I might not then draw near.
Again I ask’d, again I pleaded,
Three times entreating,--all in vain;
They even that request refused me,
And ordered me ashore again.
As the hour drew nigh, she saw her husband appear on deck walking
between two clergymen. She called to him, and he heard her voice, for
he exclaimed, “There is my dear wife from Scotland.”
Then, happily, she fainted, and did not recover till some time after
she was taken ashore. By this time all was over, but the poor woman
could not believe it so. She hired another boat, and again reached the
_Sandwich_. Her exclamation from the boat must have startled all who
heard it. “Pass the word,” she cried in her delusion, “for Richard
Parker!”
The ballad says:--
The yellow flag I saw was flying,
A signal for my love to die;
The gun was fir’d, as was requir’d,
To hang him on the yard-arm high.
The boatswain did his best endeavour,
I on the shore was put straightway,
And there I tarried, watching, weeping,
My husband’s corpse to bear away.
On reaching the _Sandwich_ she was informed that all was over, and
that the body of her husband had just been taken ashore for burial.
She immediately caused herself to be rowed ashore again, and proceeded
to the cemetery, but found that the ceremony was over and the gate was
locked. She then went to the Admiral and sought the key, but it was
refused to her. Excited almost to madness by the information given her
that probably the surgeons would disinter the body that night and cut
it up, she waited around the churchyard till dusk, and then clambering
over the wall, readily found her husband’s grave. The shell was not
buried deep, and she was not long in scraping away the loose earth that
intervened between her and the object of her search. She tore off the
lid with her nails and teeth, and then clasped the hand of her husband,
cold in death, and no more able to return the pressure.
Her determination to possess the body next forced her to quit the
cemetery and seek the assistance of two women, who, in their turn,
got several men to undertake the task of lifting the body. This was
accomplished successfully, and at 3 a.m. the shell containing the
corpse was placed in a van and conveyed to Rochester, where, for the
sum of six guineas, the widow procured another wagon to carry it to
London. On the road they met hundreds of people all inquiring about,
and talking of, the fate of “Admiral Parker.”
The rude ballad thus relates the carrying away of the body:--
At dead of night, when all was quiet,
And many thousands fast asleep,
I, by two female friends attended,
Into the burial-ground did creep.
Our trembling hands did serve as shovels
With which the mold we moved away,
And then the body of my husband
Was carried off without delay.
At 11 p.m. the van reached London, but there the poor widow had no
private house or friends to go to, and was constrained to stop at the
“Hoofs and Horseshoe” on Tower Hill, which was full of people. Mrs.
Parker got the body into her room, and sat down beside it; but the
secret could not long be kept in such a place, more particularly as the
news of the exhumation had been brought by express that day to London.
An immense crowd assembled about the house, anxious to see the body of
Parker, but this the widow would not permit.
The Lord Mayor heard of the affair, and came to ask the widow what she
intended to do with her husband’s remains. She replied, “To inter them
decently at Exeter or in Scotland.” The Lord Mayor assured her that the
body would not be taken from her, and eventually prevailed on her to
consent to its being decently buried in London. Arrangements were made
with this view, and in the interim it was taken to Aldgate Workhouse,
on account of the crowds attracted by it, which caused some fears lest
“Admiral Parker’s remains should provoke a civil war.”
Finally, the corpse was buried in Whitechapel Churchyard, and Mrs.
Parker, who had in person seen her husband consigned to the grave, gave
a certificate that all had been done to her satisfaction. But, though
strictly questioned as to her accomplices in the exhuming and carrying
away of the body, she firmly refused to disclose the names.
Parker had, as he said, made a will, leaving to his wife the little
property he had near Exeter. This she enjoyed for a number of years,
but ultimately lost it through a lawsuit with Parker’s sisters,
who claimed that it was theirs by right. She was thrown into great
distress, and, becoming almost blind, was obliged to solicit assistance
from the charitable. King William IV gave her at one time £10, and at
another £20.
In 1836 the forlorn and miserable condition of poor Parker’s widow
was made known to the London magistrates, and a temporary refuge was
provided for her. But temporary assistance was of little avail to one
whose physical infirmities rendered her incapable of any longer helping
herself. When Camden Pelham wrote in 1840, she was aged seventy, blind,
and friendless; but time and affliction had not quenched her affection
for the partner of her early days. However, in 1828, John C. Parker,
the son of the mutineer, obtained a verdict against his aunts for the
possession of the little estate of Shute that had belonged to his
father’s elder brother. The question turned on the legitimacy of the
plaintiff, which was proved by his mother, a woman who then exhibited
the remains of uncommon beauty, and who was able to prove that she had
married Richard Parker in 1793.
Then farewell, Parker, best beloved,
That was once the Navy’s pride,
And since we might not die together,
We separate henceforth abide.
His sorrows now are past and over,
Now he resteth free from pain--
Grant, O God, his soul may enter
Where one day we meet again.[16]
The melody to which the ballad of the “Death of Parker” is set is much
more ancient, by two centuries at the least, than the ballad itself. It
is plaintive and very beautiful, and the words are admirably fitted to
the dainty and tender air.
Richard Parker was a remarkably fine man. The brilliancy and expression
of his eyes were of such a nature as caused one of the witnesses, while
under examination, to break down, and quail beneath his glance, and
shrink abashed, incapacitated from giving further testimony.
Douglas Jerrold wrote a drama upon the theme of the “Mutiny at the
Nore.” But it is a mere travesty of history. The true pathos and beauty
of the story of the devoted wife were completely put aside for vulgar
melodramatic incidents.
For authorities, the _Annual Register_ for 1797; _The Chronicles of
Crime_, by Camden Pelham, London, 1840; _The Mutiny at Spithead and the
Nore_, London, 1842; “Richard Parker, of Exeter, and the Mutiny of the
Nore,” by S. T. Whiteford, in _Notes and Gleanings_, Exeter, 1888.
BENJAMIN KENNICOTT, D.D.
Benjamin Kennicott was born at Totnes on 4 April, 1718, and was the
son of Benjamin Kennicott, the parish clerk of that town. The family
had been one of some respectability, as in 1606 one Gabriel Kennicott
was mayor of Totnes. Probably, if a well-to-do tradesman family at one
time, it had sunk, and Benjamin senior was quite content to act as
clerk on a small stipend. His son was educated at the Grammar School,
founded by King Edward VI in 1554, and held in a building adjoining the
Guildhall, both of which occupy a portion of the old dissolved priory
of Totnes, on the north side of the church. The trustees of Eliseus
Hele had endowed the school, and the corporation were empowered to send
three boys to the school to receive their education free of expense;
and there can be little doubt that Benjamin the younger was one so
privileged. After quitting school he was appointed master of a charity
school for poor children, male and female, at Totnes; which same
charity children were provided with quaint and antiquated garbs. Young
Kennicott now doubtless thought that he was provided for for life.
In 1732, when he was only fourteen years of age, the bells of Totnes
tower were recast, and at the same time the ringers presented to the
bell-ringing chamber an eight-light brass candlestick inscribed with
the names of the ringers. Benjamin Kennicott the elder headed the
list, and Benjamin Kennicott the younger brought up the tail. But in
1742, when new regulations were drawn up and agreed to by the ringers,
the youngest ringer had become the leader.
Bell-ringing was a pastime dearly loved and much practised in Devon at
the time. There were contests between the ringers of various churches,
and challenges, the prize being either money or a hat laced with gold.
All over the county one comes on old songs relating to these contests,
and in these songs are recorded the names of ringers who are now only
represented by moss-grown stones in the churchyard. A party of ringers,
say of Totnes, would sally forth to spend a day in contest with those
of Ashburton or Dartmouth, and all day long the tower would be reeling
with the clash of the bells. Here is one of the songs touching the
ringers of Torrington:--
1. Good ringers be we that in Torrington dwell,
And what that we are I will speedily tell.
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6; 6 . 5 . 4 . 3 . 2 . 1.
The first is called Turner, the second called Swete,
The third is a Vulcan, the fourth Harry Neat.
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6; 6 . 5 . 4 . 3 . 2 . 1.
2. The fifth is a doctor, a man of renown,
The tenor the tailor that clothes all the town.
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6; 6 . 5 . 4 . 3 . 2 . 1.
The breezes proclaim in their fall and their swell,
No jar in the concord, no flaw in a bell.
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6; 6 . 5 . 4 . 3 . 2 . 1.
3. The winds that are blowing on mountain and lea,
Bear swiftly my message across the blue sea,
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6; 6 . 5 . 4 . 3 . 2 . 1.
Stand all men in order, give each man his due,
We can’t be all tenors, but each can pull true.
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6; 6 . 5 . 4 . 3 . 2 . 1.
[Illustration: /B. Kennicott. S.T.P./
olim Socius.
_From the portrait at Exeter College, Oxford_]
There is another, wedded to an exquisitely sweet and expressive melody,
concerning the ringers of North Lew, who challenged Ashwater,
Broadwood, S. Stephen’s, and Callington. I give but the opening verse:--
One day in October,
Neither drunken nor sober,
O’er Broadbury Down I was wending my way,
When I heard of some ringing,
Some dancing and singing,
I ought to remember that Jubilee Day.
’Twas in Ashwater town,
The bells they did soun’;
They rang for a belt and a hat laced with gold.
But the men of North Lew
Rang so steady and true,
That never were better in Devon, I hold.
On this song the late Rev. H. H. Sheppard remarked: “There is an
indolent easy grace about this tune which is quite in keeping with the
words and charmingly suggestive. The sunny valleys, the breezy downs,
the sweet bell-music swelling and sinking on the soft autumn air,
the old folk creeping out of their chimney-nooks to listen, and all
employment in the little town suspended in the popular excitement at
the contest for the hat laced with gold; all this, told in a few words
and illustrated by a few notes, quite calls up a picture of life, and
stamps the number as a genuine folk-song. The narrator is unhappily
slightly intoxicated, but no one thinks the worse of him; stern
morality on that or any other score will in vain be looked for in songs
of the West.”
Such a picture as this must have occurred again and yet again in young
Kennicott’s life whilst head of the ringers at Totnes.
Kennicott’s sister was in service as lady’s-maid to the Hon. Mrs.
Elizabeth Courtney, of Painsford in Ashprington, near Totnes; and
in 1743 that lady had a narrow escape from death, having eaten a
poisonous herb in mistake for watercress, which it much resembled.
The charity-school master, on hearing of this, composed a poem on her
recovery, which he dedicated to “Kelland Courtney, Esq., and his Lady.”
It consisted of no fewer than three hundred and thirty-four lines;
and this effusion having gained him the favour of the family, he was
taken in hand, and sent in 1744 to Oxford, where he became a student of
Wadham College. But the Courtneys, though his principal patrons, were
not the sole. Archdeacon Baker, the Rev. F. Champernowne, and H. Fownes
Luttrell, Esq., subscribed to send him to college.
At Oxford he speedily attracted attention by his industry and
abilities, and was elected Fellow of Exeter College in 1747, and was
admitted to his B.A. degree a year before the usual time. He took
his M.A. degree in 1750, about which time he entertained a design of
collating the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament. In 1753 he published
his first volume on the state of the printed text, and in 1760 his
second volume. In these works he pointed out various discrepancies, and
proposed an extensive collation of manuscripts.
Subscriptions were obtained, and between 1760 and 1769 no less than
£9117. 7s. 6d. had been raised for the work. This work occupied ten
years. To aid in it, persons were employed to examine the MSS. in all
parts of Europe. In 1769, Dr. Kennicott stated that of the 500 Hebrew
MSS. then in Europe he had himself seen and studied 250; and of the
16 MSS. of the Samaritan Pentateuch eight had been collated for him.
Subsequently other MSS. were heard of, and the collation extended in
all to 581 Hebrew and 16 Samaritan MSS.
In 1776 appeared the first fruit of all the labour, being the first
volume of his _Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum variis lectionibus_,
and the second appeared in 1780.
Kennicott took his degree of D.D. in 1761, and received from the Crown
a pension of £200. In 1770 he was made Prebendary of Westminster, but
this he afterwards exchanged for a canonry at Christchurch. He was
also rector of Culham, a valuable living, but resigned it, as owing to
his studies he was unable to reside and pay attention to his pastoral
duties there.
Against the garden wall of Exeter College grew a fig tree, and
Kennicott was very partial to figs. Now in a certain year there was
but a single fig on the tree. The Doctor watched it, eagerly expecting
when it would be ripe, for a fig is like a pear, it ripens and reaches
perfection all at once, before which moment it is no good at all. To
secure this fruit for himself he wrote out a label, “Dr. Kennicott’s
Fig,” and hung it above the fruit on the tree. But just as the fig was
fit to be gathered and eaten, some audacious undergraduate managed
to get it, plucked, ate, and then reversing the label wrote in large
letters thereon “A Fig for Dr. Kennicott.”
When the reverend divine was at the height of his fame he visited
Totnes, and was asked to preach in the parish church. This he consented
to do. In the vestry he found his old father, still parish clerk,
prepared to robe him. The Doctor protested. No--on no account would he
suffer that. He could perfectly well and unassisted encase himself in
cassock and surplice and assume his scarlet doctorial hood. But the old
man was stubborn. “But, Ben--I mean Reverend Doctor--do it I must, and
do it I will. You know, Ben--I mean Reverend Sir--I am your father and
you must obey.” So the Hebrew scholar was fain to submit and give to
the old parish clerk the proudest hour of his life. Dr. Kennicott died
on 18 September, 1783, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.
For authority see an article on “Benjamin Kennicott, /D.D./,” by
Mr. Ed. Windeatt, in the _Transactions_ of the Devonshire Association,
1878.
The portrait given with this article is from one in Exeter College.
CAPTAIN JOHN AVERY
Concerning this captain it is not easy to give a trustworthy account as
the discrepancies between the narratives of his life and adventures are
considerable, and the means of discriminating between the true and the
fictitious are not available. He is a Flying Dutchman who appears in
weird and terrible scenes, and then vanishes into mist.
The authorities for his adventures, such as they are, are these:--
(_a_) _“The Life of Captain Avery” in Captain Charles Johnson’s
General History of the Robberies and Murders of Notorious Pyrates,
from 1717._ London, 1724.
(_b_) _The Life and Adventures of Captain John Avery._ I. Baker.
London, 1709.
(_c_) _The Famous Adventures of Captain John Avery of Plymouth._
Falkirk, 1809. Probably a reprint of an earlier Life.
(_d_) _The King of Pirates._ (Supposed to be by Daniel Defoe.)
London, 1720.
With regard to (_a_), Johnson gives no authority for his narrative, and
it widely differs in the sequel from (_b_) and (_c_).
(_b_) purports to be written by Adrian Van Broeck, a Dutchman, who was
a prisoner for some time with Avery in Madagascar, but he effected
his escape in a vessel of the East India Company, and his narrative
terminates abruptly with the severance of his connexion with the
pirates.
(_c_). In this--as we have it--late version, all the early life of John
Avery is given totally different from (_a_) and (_b_). Little or no
reliance can be placed on it, and as to (_b_) it is hard to say whether
Van Broeck’s is a fictitious narrative or whether he records actual
facts. It is singular that Johnson should not have spoken explicitly
about this, the first published record of the pirate’s adventures.
(_d_) purports to be Avery’s story of his own life, but it is almost
certainly a product of Defoe’s lively imagination.