Part 19

The execution of Parker took place on the 30th June, 1797. On that day, at eight in the morning, a gun was fired from his Majesty’s ship _L’Espion_, lying off Sheerness garrison, Vice-Admiral Lutwidge’s flag-ship; and the yellow flag, the signal of capital punishment, was hoisted, which was immediately repeated by the _Sandwich_ hoisting the same colour on her fore-top. The _Sandwich_ was stationed rather above Blackstakes, the headmost ship of the fleet. The garrison was immediately under arms on the gun firing, and proceeded in single files along the south shore of the Medway, near to Queenborough, to be present at the execution. All the gates were then shut, and each ship sent a boat off, with a lieutenant and a party of marines, to attend the _Sandwich_; and the crews of all were piped to the forecastle, and the marines drawn up on the quarterdeck, to be witnesses of the execution. The prisoner was awakened a little after six o’clock from a sound sleep by the marshal-provost, who, with a file of marines, composed his guard. He arose with cheerfulness, and requested permission might be asked for a barber to attend him, which was granted him. He soon dressed himself in a neat suit of mourning (waistcoat excepted) wearing his half-boots over a pair of black silk stockings. He then took his breakfast, talked of a will he had written—in which he bequeathed to his wife a little estate he said he was heir to—and after that lamented the misfortunes that had been brought on the country by the mutiny, but solemnly denied having the least connection or correspondence with any disaffected persons on shore; and declared that it was chiefly owing to him that the ships were not carried into the enemy’s ports. On his coming on deck he looked a little paler than common, but soon recovered his usual complexion. The chaplain told him that he had selected two appropriate psalms; to which the prisoner desired to add the 51st, and then recited each alternate verse in a manner peculiarly impressive. He heard the preparatory gun fired, at nine, without the smallest emotion; and prayers being ended, he rose, and asked Captain Moss if he might be indulged with a glass of white wine, which being immediately granted, he took it, and lifting up his eyes, exclaimed, “I drink first to the salvation of my soul! and next to the forgiveness of all my enemies!” Addressing himself to Captain Moss, he said “he hoped he would shake hands with him,” which the captain did. He then desired “that he might be remembered to his companions on board the _Neptune_, with his last breath entreating them to prepare for their destiny, and to refrain from unbecoming levity.” His arms being now bound, the procession moved to a platform erected on the cat-head, with an elevated projection. There Parker knelt with the chaplain, and joined in some devout ejaculations, to all which he repeated loudly, “Amen.” He now asked the captain “whether he might be allowed to speak,” and immediately, apprehending his intention might be misconceived, he added, “I am not going, sir, to address the ship’s company; I wish only to declare that I acknowledge the justice of the sentence under which I suffer, and I hope my death may be deemed a sufficient atonement, and may save the lives of others.” He now requested a minute to collect himself, and knelt down alone for that space of time; then rising up, said, “I am ready,” and, holding his head up with considerable dignity, said to the boatswain’s mate, “take off my handkerchief” (of black silk); which being done, the provost-marshal placed the halter over his head (which had been prepared with grease), but, doing it awkwardly, the prisoner said rather pettishly to the boatswain’s mate, “Do you do it, for he seems to know nothing about it.” The halter was then spliced to the reeved rope. All this being adjusted, the provost attempted to put a cap on, which he refused; but on being told it was indispensable, he submitted, requesting that it might not be pulled over his eyes till he desired it. He then turned round for the first time, gave a steady look at his shipmates on the forecastle, and, with an affectionate smile, nodded his head, and said, “Good bye to you.” He now said, “Captain Moss, is the gun primed?” “It is.” “Is the match alight?” “All is ready.” On this he advanced a little and said, “Will any gentleman be so good as to lend me a white handkerchief for a signal?” After some little pause, a gentleman stepped forward and gave him one; to whom, bowing, he returned his thanks. He now ascended the platform, repeated the same question about the gun, evidently to gain the time he wished, for the perfect completion of what he had preconcerted in his own mind; then, the cap being drawn over his face, walking by firm degrees up to the extremity of the scaffold, he dropped the handkerchief, put his hands in his coat-pockets with great rapidity, and at the moment he was springing off, the fatal bow gun fired, and the reeve rope catching him ran him up, though not with great velocity, to the yard-arm. When suspended about midway, his body appeared extremely convulsed for a few seconds, immediately after which no appearance of life remained. The instant he was visible to the garrison from the yard-arm, the telegraph was put in motion to announce it to the Admiralty, and from the clearness of the atmosphere and quickness of working, the advice must have been received in seven minutes. He suffered exactly at half-past nine, and was lowered down after hanging at the yard-arm a full hour; when the yellow flag was struck, and his body instantly put into a shell that had been prepared for it, with all his clothes on; and soon after it was taken in one of the _Sandwich’s_ boats, and rowed to the east point of the garrison, and there being landed was carried to the new naval burying-ground at Sheerness, out of the Red Barrier Gate, leading to Minster; the coffin-lid was here taken off in the presence of the spectators for a few minutes. His countenance appeared not much altered, but his eyes were wide open. He was interred exactly at noon. The whole conduct of this awful ceremony was extremely impressive. It was evident, from the countenance of the crew of the _Sandwich_, that the general feeling for the fate of their mutinous conductor was such as might be wished; not a word, and scarcely a whisper, was heard.

Parker’s body was not allowed to rest in the naval burying-ground, in consequence of an affecting incident. His wife, it seems, was in Scotland when the Nore mutiny broke out, and on hearing that her husband was the ringleader, she hastened to London to endeavour to dissuade him from pursuing his guilty career. She arrived too late; Parker was tried and condemned; and she only reached Sheerness in time to witness his execution from a boat which approached the _Sandwich_ as near as it was permitted. She saw her husband appear on deck between two clergymen. She called on him, and he heard her voice, for he exclaimed, “There is my dear wife from Scotland.” Immediately afterwards she fell back in a state of insensibility, and did not recover till some time after she was taken ashore. She was excited almost to madness by the information that the surgeons would probably disinter the body that night. She therefore resolved on the following plan:—She hung about the churchyard till dusk, and then she contrived with some friends to scale the churchyard wall, and went to her husband’s grave. She there had the coffin dug up, and the lid removed, and after clasping the cold hand of Parker, she got several men to undertake the task of lifting the body. This was accomplished successfully, and at three o’clock in the morning, the shell containing the corpse was placed in a van and taken to Rochester, where, for the sum of six guineas, Mrs. Parker procured another waggon to carry it to London. On the road they met hundreds of persons all inquiring about and talking of the fate of “Admiral Parker,” as the common people called him. At eleven P.M. the van reached London; here the widow stopped at the Hoop and Horse Shoe, on Tower hill, which was full of people. A great crowd by-and-by assembled about the house, anxious to see the body of Parker. The Lord Mayor heard of the affair, and came and asked 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 said the body would not be taken from her, but prevailed upon her to have it decently buried in London. Arrangements were made with this view, and finally the corpse of Parker was inhumed in Whitechapel churchyard, although not until it had to be removed to Aldgate workhouse, on account of the crowds attracted by it, which caused some fears lest “Admiral” Parker’s remains should create a public commotion.

The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1797 thus records this singular affair:—

“The body of Parker, the mutineer, which was taken out of the new naval burying-ground at Sheerness, was brought to the Hoop and Horse Shoe public-house, Queen-street, Little Tower-hill, on Saturday evening. So large a concourse of persons assembled before the house next day, that a party of constables were stationed there, in order to keep the mob from breaking into the house; and the corpse was removed in the afternoon to the workhouse, in Nightingale-lane, by order of the parish officers. Mrs. Parker was taken before the sitting magistrates in Lambert-street, and examined touching the object of her taking up the body. Her answer was, ‘For the purpose of a more decent interment.’ It was buried this morning early in the vaults of Whitechapel church.”

Mrs. Parker long survived her husband, and latterly fell into distress; and among other relief received by her was at one time £10, and at another £20, from King William IV.

In the year 1797 lay in his death-illness the master spirit of that political period, the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, who, heart-broken at the loss of his only son, took no further interest in the concerns of private life, but devoted his whole mind to the state of public affairs. Amid the startling and depressing news of Napoleon’s triumphant campaign in Italy, the victory of St. Vincent somewhat revived Burke’s spirits, but then these naval mutinies came to sadden him again—to sadden but not to subdue him. The ministry of the day sought counsel and courage from the dying man’s energy. One of the conferences of Government with him is thus referred to in an able biography of Wilberforce:—“During the awful crisis of the mutiny, he (Wilberforce) saw the last gleams of (take him for all in all) the greatest luminary of the eighteenth century.” Wilberforce, in his own diary, says:—“Monday, April 17.—Heard of Portsmouth mutiny; consultation with Burke ... The whole scene is now before me. Burke was lying on a sofa much emaciated, and Windham, Laurence, and some other friends were around him. The attention shown to Burke by that party was just like the treatment of Ahithopel of old; it was as if one went to inquire of the oracle of the Lord.”

In one of his last letters, dated May 12, 1797, Burke thus refers to the mutiny at the Nore:—“The times are so deplorable that I do not know how to write about them. Indeed, I can hardly bear to think of them. In the selection of these mischiefs ... are those of the navy and those of Ireland.... As to the first, ... I trust in God that these mutineers may not, as yet, have imbrued their hands deeply in blood. If they have, we must expect the worst that can happen.”

Burke’s spirit revolted at what he thought he perceived—viz., that the mutiny at home and the French abroad were making the British Government lose courage. A short time before his decease he used these remarkable words: “Never succumb to these difficulties. It is a struggle for your existence as a nation, and if you must die, die with the sword in your hand. But I have no fears whatever for the result. There is a salient living principle of energy in the public mind of England which only requires proper direction to enable her to withstand this or any other impending danger.” Burke spoke with the foresight of a prophet; the mutiny subsided even before he breathed his last, and, not long after, naval successes restored public confidence. Justice was satisfied by the execution of Parker and a few other executions, and by some minor punishments. The British navy soon showed that it possessed its “living principle of energy.” The sailors speedily redeemed themselves, and wiped away the recent stigma with victory upon victory. The battle of Camperdown was won in the October of this same 1797. King George III., on the 30th of that October, visited the fleet, and the victor of Camperdown, Admiral Lord Duncan, at the Nore, and the royal clemency was extended generally to such mutineers as still remained under sentence. The following year the Nile was won. These triumphs were “happy prologues to the swelling act of the imperial theme”—Trafalgar. Yet while, through the halo of these glories, we look, less angrily, back to the sad insubordination that preceded them, we may offer up a fervent prayer that, for the honour and vitality of our navy, no such outbreak may ever occur again as the mutiny at the Nore.

THE TRIAL OF GOVERNOR WALL.

Joseph Wall, the unfortunate subject of the following trial, was the scion of a very respectable Irish family, and was the eldest son of Garrett Wall, Esq., of Derryknavin. He was born in 1737, and entered the British army at an early age. He was a brave and honourable man, but of a severe and rather unaccommodating temper, and was not popular among the officers and men, though he rapidly advanced in his profession, having obtained early promotion for the gallantry he displayed at the reduction of the Havannah in 1762. It was while Lieut.-Colonel and Governor and Commandant of Goree, an island on the coast of Africa, that he committed the offence which brought him to the scaffold—viz., the murder of one Benjamin Armstrong, by ordering him to receive eight hundred lashes on the 10th July, 1782, of which he died in five days afterwards. Wall’s emoluments were, at the time, very considerable, as, besides his military appointments, he was Superintendent of Trade to the colony. His family was Roman Catholic, but, according to the exigency of the then penal laws, he had to conform to Protestantism, to enable him to hold his commission.

Some time after the account of the murder of Armstrong reached the Board of Admiralty, a reward was offered for Wall’s apprehension, who had come to England, and he was taken. He, however, contrived to escape while in custody at Reading, and fled to the Continent, and sojourned there, sometimes in France and sometimes in Italy; but mostly in France, under an assumed name, where he lived respectably and was admitted into good society. He particularly kept company with the officers of his own country who served in the French army, and was well known at the Scotch and Irish colleges in Paris. He now and then incautiously ventured into England and Scotland. While thus, at one time in Scotland, he made a high match. He wedded a scion of the great line of Kintail—viz., Frances, fifth daughter (by his wife, Lady Mary Stewart, daughter of Alexander, sixth Earl of Galloway) of Kenneth MacKenzie, Lord Fortrose, M.P., and sister of Kenneth, last Earl of Seaforth. Wall came finally to England in 1797. He was frequently advised by the friend who then procured him a lodging to leave the country again, and questioned as to his motive for remaining; he never gave any satisfactory answer, but appeared, even at the time when he was so studiously concealing himself, to have a distant intention of making a surrender, in order to take his trial. It is very evident his mind was not at ease, and that he was incapable of any firm resolution either one way or the other. Even the manner in which he did at last surrender himself showed a singular want of determination, as he left it to chance whether the Minister should send for him or not; for rather than go and deliver himself up, he wrote to say “he was ready to do so”—a less becoming, but not a less dangerous mode of encountering danger. His high-born wife showed him throughout his troubles the greatest devotion: she was with him in Upper Thornhaugh Street, Bedford Square, where he lived under the name of Thompson when he was apprehended. It is most probable that, had he not written to the Secretary of State, the matter had been so long forgotten, that he would never have been molested; but once he was in the hands of the law, the Government had but one obvious course, which was to bring him to trial. This was accordingly done, and the judicial investigation took place, at the Old Bailey on the 20th January, 1802. The judges who presided were—The Right Hon. Sir Archibald MacDonald, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer; the Hon. Sir Soulden Lawrence, one of the justices of the Court of King’s Bench; and the Hon. Sir Giles Rooke, one of the justices of the Court of Common Pleas.

The counsel for the Crown were the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Law (afterwards Lord Ellenborough and Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench); the Solicitor-General, the Hon. Spencer Percival (afterwards First Lord of the Treasury, and, while so, assassinated by Bellingham); Mr. Wood (afterwards Sir George Wood and a baron of the Exchequer); Mr. Plumer (afterwards Sir Thomas Plumer, and successively Vice-Chancellor of England and Master of the Rolls); Mr. William Fielding (afterwards a metropolitan police-magistrate, son of Henry Fielding, the novelist); and Mr. Abbott (afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench and Lord Tenterden).

The counsel for the defence were Mr. Knowlys (afterwards Recorder of London), Mr. Gurney (afterwards Sir John Gurney, a baron of the Exchequer), and Mr. Alley.

The indictment was opened by Mr. Abbott; and while he was stating the charge, the prisoner from the dock said to the Chief Baron, “My lord, I cannot hear in this place; I hope your lordship will permit me to sit near my counsel.” In which the Chief Baron replied, “It is perfectly impossible; there is a regular place appointed by law—I can make no invidious distinctions.”

The Attorney-General stated the case for the prosecution in a remarkably able and lucid speech, which so fully details the whole horrible affair, that I cannot do better than give the greater portion of it. After a few preliminary remarks on the nature of the crime, the Attorney-General’s address proceeded as follows:—

“Gentlemen of the jury,—The crime imputed to the prisoner I have stated to you to be murder; the prisoner is charged, upon the present indictment, with the murder of a person of the name of Benjamin Armstrong, who was a soldier and serjeant in the garrison at Goree, of which the prisoner at the bar was, at the time of Armstrong’s death, the commander and governor. The circumstances that led to the punishment which was the cause of the death of this person it will be for me presently to state to you; and it will be for me, after I have so done, to discuss in some manner that which is the probable, and which is not only the probable, but which, from circumstances antecedent, I know to be the actual, ground of defence which the prisoner will rely upon before you for his deliverance this day.

“Gentlemen, Mr. Wall was, in the year 1782, commandant of the garrison of Goree, which is an island upon the coast of Africa; he had under him in command there a Captain Lacy, who afterwards succeeded him in the command of that garrison; he had under him, likewise, a Lieutenant Fall, a Lieutenant O’Shanley, an Ensign Ford, and Ensign Deering; these, with Major Phipps, an officer of artillery, were, I believe, all the military officers then at the place—at least, it does not occur to me, at present, to mention any other military officer as then being there.

“The circumstances of the case now before us, you will recollect, arose in the year 1782; the 10th of July, 1782, is the time when that death was occasioned which is imputed to the prisoner at the bar as murder. The prisoner returned to this country in the month of August, 1782; he was apprehended for this offence in the month of March, 1784, under a warrant from the Privy Council. You will bear in mind, gentlemen, that most of the persons who, in respect to their local and official situations, were the most material witnesses to establish his innocence—if innocent he be—were living, and within the reach of process from the criminal courts of this country, and might have been then brought forward to establish his vindication, if, by such evidence, he felt that he could have been vindicated from the charge now under your consideration.