Adam Nightingale - The Shipwreck Cannibals

The raid was interpreted as, ‘violence offered to the king’s colours’. It was a public slight to Britain. Lord Harrington wrote to Deane and Daniels. He assured Deane that he would do his best to seek proper redress. But the situation was complicated. Britain’s moral high ground was subverted by the fact that it had technically sheltered Irish fugitives. There were potential criticisms levelled at John Deane from Harrington, principally that he should have ordered the crew of the packet boat to give up the fugitive. Deane defended himself by pointing to his normally appalling relationship with the postal service: ‘They esteem me their enemy till in distress and they find no other friend.’ Deane complained of the unclear nature of what his responsibilities were supposed to be. Was it his priority to protect British subjects or hand over deserters to the authorities? There was a lack of clarity in his official orders. There were contradictory orders circulating around the ports as to what British officials were to do with deserters, particularly deserters who had once been British subjects. There were written orders in Dover that stated that it was illegal for British dignitaries to give sanctuary to ‘persons obnoxious to the government,’ especially ‘Irish deserters’. There were other slightly contradictory orders defining those denied sanctuary as ‘deserters and other obnoxious persons’. There was vagueness to the definition that bothered Deane and made it difficult to know how to properly execute his duties. The normally draconian Deane displayed a liberal pragmatism when it came to certain deserters who had originally hailed from Great Britain. Deane felt that, rather than handing them back to the ruling authorities, they ought to be encouraged to return to Britain and enlist in its armed forces. The deserters were often well-drilled, capable soldiers who might otherwise be forced to fight for a foreign power and potential enemy of Britain. The most likely destination for fugitives would have been the Irish regiment in France. ‘A good use may be made of these hard disciplined men at home,’ Deane argued to Harrington. From Deane’s perspective, to funnel so many soldiers back into a regiment so hostile to Protestant and Hanoverian interests was to sow into a whirlwind that Britain would surely one day reap.

Commandant O’Connor’s version of the packet boat incident was predictably different from John Deane’s. Banks, an Irish Lieutenant serving in the French army, entered Ostend on the hunt for deserters. He sought an audience with O’Connor. Lieutenant Banks questioned O’Connor about a certain deserter he believed was hiding in Ostend. When the two men had finished talking the lieutenant sent for De Graff. Banks requested that De Graff get five more soldiers so that they might accompany him to apprehend the deserter. The seven armed men marched to the English packet boat where Banks believed the deserter was hiding. De Graff asked John Howell to hand the man over. Howell refused. De Graff saw a boat approaching the packet vessel. He believed that the design of the boat was to ferry the deserter away. De Graff boarded the boat and arrested the deserter and then arrested Howell for obstructing him. Howell was imprisoned by the magistrates. The deserter was kept in gaol overnight and discharged the following morning.

O’Connor regarded Deane with a mixture of indifference and disdain. When he wrote up his own account of the packet boat incident he included a dismissive assessment of John Deane. He seemed to hold Deane in particular contempt for not talking to him face to face in the melee of recrimination and counter recrimination: ‘This consul Deane has not vouchsafed to make the least complaint to me, as everybody does, but himself: I would not have failed doing everybody justice, whence I concluded his complaints frivolous.’

In June 1738 John Deane had met with a Captain Laye, who had been approved by Harrington as a deputy to Deane. His responsibilities were to act in Deane’s stead when he was away from Ostend. Deane was not impressed with the captain and recommended the brother of the king’s commissioner at Dunkirk, Daniel Day, as an alternative. Harrington approved the recommendation. Both Harrington and Deane were unaware of it, but between them they had selected Deane’s future successor.

Lieutenant Banks was back in Ostend. Deane observed his movements. Banks met with two Ostend magistrates and Mr Ray the burgermaster at the townhouse. Together they searched through the records. A friend of Deane’s asked Lieutenant Banks what he was looking for. Banks said that he was on official business to investigate the packet boat incident and find ‘authentic certificates’ that got to the bottom of what had actually happened because Banks feared ‘England sought to make an affair of state of what had passed’.

Deane believed none of this. His own theory was that Banks was present ‘in some Hibernian scheme for covering the commandant’s conduct’. Deane also believed that O’Connor intended to sacrifice De Graff to censure and disgrace, in order to protect his own position. O’Connor and Banks were working closely together. Deane reported that on entering Ostend, ‘all passengers that speak English, Scotch or Irish’ were taken to O’Connor. Any suspect passengers among those brought to O’Connor were sent on to see Lieutenant Banks. John Deane requested that Banks be interviewed. The matter would not be resolved while Deane was still governor.

O n 4 September 1738 John Deane wrote: ‘It is with great reluctance that I set about the following representation. But to be silent might I think be mostly esteemed a crime both with regard to His Majesty and the public service.’

Deane had sat down in hot blood to relay the details of a confrontation that had taken place earlier that morning.

At six o’clock the post from England had arrived in Ostend. The mail was transferred to the post office. Deane sent a man for his letters. The man returned empty-handed. The man had been told that the post office was closed. It wasn’t certain when it would be open again.

At seven o’clock John Deane sent his servant to the postmaster’s house wanting to know where his letters were. The postmaster replied that he would deliver John Deane’s letters when he pleased.

Deane wanted his letters immediately so that he might quickly respond to any pending government business and send his replies back to England as soon as possible. The packet boat was due to leave Ostend between nine and ten o’clock in the morning. Deane wanted any replies that needed to be written to be on that boat.

Deane went to the see the postmaster in person. He asked why he was behaving in such a manner. The postmaster exploded at Deane. He demanded to know who had told Deane of the mail’s arrival. The two men exchanged words. Deane sent ‘a notary public’ to ‘protest’ against the postmaster. The postmaster verbally abused Deane and then accused him of having perpetuated fraud by circumventing the Ostend postal service ‘by sending a packet to be sent into the post office at Bruges for Vienna’.

The two men parted company.

Deane went home and wrote his letter to Harrington.

Concurrent to his dispute with John Deane, the postmaster had offended Ostend’s magistrates. Almost immediately after his altercation with Deane, the postmaster had either been summoned before the magistrates, or else had encountered them. Either way he received a humiliating dressing down over, ‘some unjustifiable practices on a letter of theirs’. The postmaster left the magistrates in state of near frenzy. He walked the streets of Ostend. His blood was up.