Neil Hanson - The Custom of the Sea

The Spectator was no more sympathetic.

The magistrates of Falmouth have done a public service in arresting Captain Dudley of the yacht Mignonette upon the charge of murder, and in insisting upon an open inquiry. It is high time that the hideous tradition of the sea which authorizes starving sailors to kill and eat their comrades, should be exposed in a Court of Justice and sailors be taught once for all that the special dangers of their profession furnish no excuse for a practice as directly opposed to human as it is to divine law.

Nobody doubts that shipwrecked sailors left without food in open boats have in certain instances killed each other and have sustained life for various periods on human flesh, and nothing would be gained by calling attention once more to incidents so horrible. The case of the Mignonette is, however, peculiar in this, that it reveals in a special way and past all question, the hold which the diabolical tradition has upon all sailors and, as we discover with surprise, even upon landsmen.

The sole authority for the shocking stories that have incriminated them is the yachtsmen themselves. So complete is the belief of sailors in their right to eat their comrades that Captain Dudley, believed to be a most respectable man and certainly with an excellent record, who spoke most kindly to his victim and asked God’s pardon before he took his life, without any compulsion voluntarily related the whole story to the Custom House officers at Falmouth in all its details, some of which are worse than any we have given, and subsequently signed his narrative as a formal deposition.

He did not, be it understood, make a confession as one who committed a crime and was full of remorse, but simply narrated with the straightforward truthfulness with which a sailor usually describes any noteworthy incident of a voyage. He had apparently had no idea whatever that he was liable to legal proceedings and when arrested expressed nothing but astonishment.

Before the magistrates he denied nothing, but broke repeatedly into tears. He was in fact obviously originally a decent man of the ordinary type under the influence of the traditional feeling of his profession that cannibalism is excusable in a starving sailor and that even killing a man in order to eat him is, if all alike perishing in an open boat, not an act amenable to human justice.

That is the belief of all seamen and even of Arctic voyagers, and of course tends directly to induce them when in extremity to resort to the traditionary means. To our amazement, we find at least half the journalists who have mentioned the case are of the same opinion. The public in the port is on the same side and the Falmouth magistrates are blamed for breach of the unwritten law which compels or, it is argued, should compel us to condone or pass over such offences.

We have little patience, we confess, with a modern tolerance of cannibalism which came out so strongly in the discussion of the recent case in the Arctic regions. It is excusable on the ground of insanity caused by suffering but on no other grounds whatever.

There are things which man has no right to do, not by reason of their consequences but because they are forbidden by the most direct command, the inner conscience, which is the same in all races and all regions. There is no good race of cannibals and never will be and no race which when it has once risen to the possession of full consciousness is not instinctively ashamed at the practice and debased by having resort to it.

In its origin cannibalism springs from an enthusiasm for murder from the spirit of brutal destruction carried to its last, extreme expression, and is as little to be excused as any other crime against the inherent instinct.

The Times took much the same line, expressing surprise that, ‘The common people received them with every mark of sympathy and regard, and treat them as if they had performed some meritorious and praiseworthy act.’ It also approvingly quoted a British precedent in 1836 when the dead were cast overboard, ‘lest the living should be tempted to forget themselves and seek relief from their misery in a horrible repast’.

The only consolation that Tom and Stephens could draw from the paper was that reporters had also interviewed both Philippa and Ann at their homes. The accounts gave them their first news of their wives since they had set sail.

Philippa was,

in frail health and very concerned for her husband. She was continuing to teach at the Newtown Board School where she had received a large number of letters from friends and former subordinates and superiors of Captain Dudley. All expressed their highest admiration of him. One person wrote to him: ‘I have thought of you many times since you left and tell you candidly I was afraid you would not get by with the yacht.’

‘I believe my husband has told everything as it happened,’ Mrs Dudley said. ‘He was always candid and I don’t think he means to contradict the main incident but I cannot believe they were in their right minds. There must be something else. Put yourself in his place. Would not any man with a wife at home and children dependent upon him have acted similarly? I have heard that it was he who went back for food while the others entreated him not to risk his life. He must be a brave man to have done that. And he is a Christian man.’

Tom immediately wrote Philippa a letter, which she received the following morning.

No harm can come to me or any of us dear, be sure and trust in God to give you strength to bear the horrid lies that are in the papers. They say it was my statement that has caused the inquiry. I have told the truth. If I had told a lie I should be sharing the comforts of home instead of being here. Don’t think about coming down; it would only make you ill, the journey and seeing me here.

He took it for granted that she had already read the details of their ordeal in the press reports but she had refused to read any of them, preferring to await Tom’s own version of events. The little knowledge she had gleaned of ‘the thrilling and harrowing story’, as she called it, had come only from what friends had told her and the brief references in Tom’s letters.

Stephens wept as he read the newspaper interview with his wife. She was,

in a state of great mental distress and burst into tears at the mere mention of the troubles of her husband. She has received several affectionate letters from him since his detention at Falmouth. He says he is still so ill that he has had the attendance of the doctor every day since landing. He begged her not to believe all that had been said about him in the papers and to bear up until she hears from his own lips the story of the fearful trials he had gone through.

At Madeira he wrote saying he would stop in Australia if she would join him as there seemed to be no luck for him in England. She had replied that with her five little children she would come out as soon as possible. The letter never reached him. She declared he was one of the kindest and noblest of husbands who would not harm a living creature willingly.

Tom had only just finished reading the reports when the turnkey opened the door and led him downstairs to the ground floor, where the lawyer and his clerk were waiting for him.

‘You are up betimes, Mr Tilly.’

‘There is much to do, Captain Dudley, and I cannot deny that I will take a certain pleasure—’ He paused. ‘Forgive me for saying that about so grave a misfortune for you and your crew, but for forty years I have attempted to settle squabbles between neighbours, husbands and wives, or farmers arguing over grazing rights. I have drawn up wills, conveyanced properties, and defended drunkards, smugglers and petty thieves. It is a rare pleasure, and again I apologize for the use of the word, for me to be involved in a case of such great import as this.’ He flushed. ‘That is not to say I have not the skills and experience to defend you, of course.’