God Damned Them All - DVD commentary meme

[machiavellijr]

Summary: A grim narrative of fraud, deception, false advertising, murders, robberies, puttings in fear and operating without a Board of Trade Certificate.

Starting as I meant to go on, this is adapted from Judge Jeffreys’ charge sheet in George MacDonald Fraser’s comic novel ‘The Pyrates’. Which is very funny although some of the humour including this scene has dated absolutely appallingly, I suspect the Jeffreys scene was pretty racist even by the standards of the day but I do love this ‘arson, murder and jaywalking’ list.

Report on the condition of HM Sloop Antelope (12)

Lieut. Wm. Laurence (HMS St Lawrence) on detached duty, HM Naval Yard Halifax, Nova Scotia

To Capt. Marriott Arbuthnot, HM Resident Commissioner of the Naval Yard

Sir,

It is my honour to report that on the 26th ultimo I inspected HM Sloop Antelope in the company of her sailing master, purser, and the Master Shipwright. The Antelope is a ketch-sloop of the Hind class, constructed at Deptford in the year ‘44, and has served on the North America station these eighteen years, most recently under Commander Reeman on the Carolina blockade.

The view of Master Shipwright, in which I fully concur, is that the long exertions of blockade duty have rendered her entirely unsuitable for further military service. It is a tribute to her officers that they have brought her safely into harbour through the autumn storms, but the weight of her guns oppresses her cruelly, she is making six inches of water an hour in the inner harbour in a clock-calm, and there is barely a strake of copper left below her waterline so her bottom is exceeding foul. 

You will recall, Sir, the reconstruction of HM Sloop Tryall and note that the Antelope is a decade older and the costs correspondingly greater, so as to exceed any possible benefit. Whilst it might be possible to refit her as a merchantman or packet, no wise man would trust himself to such an ill-found vessel in these waters, and our unanimous recommendation is that she be condemned and broken up.

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

Lieut. William Laurence

There was an historical HMS Antelope at this time and she was one of the oldest ships in the Navy, laid down in 1703 and reconstructed in the 1730s. However, she was a 50-gun fourth-rate, far too big for any kind of privateer. The fictional Antelope would still be the oldest sloop in the Navy (and would be dramatically undermanned with a crew of 21). 

Captain Arbuthnot really was the Resident Commissioner of the Navy Yard in Halifax at this date, I know nothing else about him.

William Laurence is of course the protagonist of the Temeraire series. I had in my head he was substantially older than e.g. Hornblower or Aubrey, and might have been a Lieutenant this early. I was canonically wrong and he ought to be around 6 at this point, but given that Naomi Novik retconned the existence of half the Spanish Empire between novels I think I can be forgiven.

Commander Reeman is Douglas Reeman, author of many, many sea-stories under his own name and the pseudonym Alexander Kent.

HMS Tryall (a real-life sister of my fictional Antelope) was a notorious example of corruption, she was rebuilt at great expense in the 1760s with a view to using her as a survey and exploration ship, but was never used as such and served only a couple of years post-refit.

Note from Naval Storekeeper Richard Williams to Master Attendant David Hooper

Davey - Antelope is to be condemned, we’ll have her towed round to Cole Harbour ‘for breaking up’, and if the buyer sails her away from there, not our problem is it? Only thing is, some of the warrant officers have got wind of the buyer, they’ll not get another ship and they want to go with her. Takes all sorts I suppose, you’d not get me shipping out on that tub, mind I’m not sure they’ll sober up long enough to notice. So the buyer gets a carpenter, a sailmaker and a cook if he wants them. Come to dinner tomorrow, got some good wine from the captain’s steward on Indy. My quarter share of the Antelope won’t make me rich, but I can afford to stand you a decent drink.

• Dick

These are again the real men who held those posts in the late 1770s. I think the carpenter, sailmaker and cook having come with the ship would explain their canonical uselessness, and to have so little care for the ship they'd have to sail on the carpenter and sailmaker must have been at least as drunk as the cook!

Mrs Faye Graham, widow, of Sherbrooke in Nova Scotia, in conversation with the editors

Everyone’s met an Elcid Barrett. Short fat man with a silly little beard, never married, but he could charm the birds out of the trees. You should have heard him telling stories in the winters, like having our own little acting troupe, he’d keep spinning yarns for days, yarns that felt more real than the cold or the snow or the boredom or the smoke. And it’s not that he was lazy either, he wasn’t, when he wanted something he had all the energy in the world. But what he wanted was my Tom to go off to sea with him and Barrett, he wasn’t the man to organise a sea voyage. He wasn’t the organising type, not at all. What did he know about planning to feed twenty men for four months, or dealing with chandlers and dockyards, let alone fighting? Sure and he’d been to sea, what man round here hasn’t, but not that kind of sailing, and not as a captain in a war. I would give him a piece of my mind if he’d lived, poor silly man, but that’s nothing to what I’d give to whoever put the idea into his head. Going off to fight those nasty Americans in a little old boat, all the way off to Jamaica they said.

Faye Graham is not my late grandmother, due to being around 150 years too early. Elcid Barrett was clearly a very persuasive chap, given the state of the Antelope and his obviously unrealistic plans and promises.

Memorial erected by the Merchants of Halifax to the memory of Elicid Barrett in St Paul’s, Halifax NS, 1781.

Erected by the Honourable Merchants of Nova Scotia as a grateful testimony to the valour and eminent services of ELCID BARRETT, CAPTAIN of the PRIVATE MAN-OF-WAR ANTELOPE; who, on the 4th of June 1778, put to sea from Halifax in the patriotic cause to harry the commerce of the AMERICAN REBELS. Sailing from Montego-Bay against the REBELS, on the 10th of September 1778 he gallantly engaged the American brig BRAND, a vessel of considerably superior force out of ST EUSTICE. After a well contested engagement, ANTELOPE was sunk with all hands, her colours nailed to the mast and her guns firing to the end. The example thus given of valour and devotion to their homeland’s welfare being all the stronger for their hitherto unwarlike character.

“Let me speak proudly: tell the constable. We are but warriors for the working-day”

This is a composite of a handful of memorial tablets to various heroic naval actions. Putting one up for an unsuccessful privateer would be unusual, but not totally outrageous. Of course, they’ve got no way of knowing exactly what happened, other than whatever details the Yankees might have made public.

The quote is from Henry V and yes, it’s a misreading to say it’s about citizen-soldiers, but it was a good enough misreading for Kipling among others, so I reckon the Merchants of Halifax can use it too.

Correspondence between the Merchants of Halifax and Lloyds of London

Gentlemen,

Regarding the insurance taken out the 6 April ultimo against our Ship Antelope, Elcid Barrett Master, we are Sorry to Tell you that she is reported overdue at Barbadoes, having sailed from Montego-Bay on the 10 September and no word heard of her these three months.

This Serves to Desire you will please to pay out Insurance on the Antelope, Vizt On her Hull to the Amount of £1500 Sterling, and on the Armaments and Prize-Cargo £1200 Sterling, for as we averred she was a good Vessell, Strong & well found, & hope you will be able to get it Done expeditiously for the relief of our investments and of her Master’s relations. We how ever hope she may be heard of, having befallen some accident not fatal, before this Reaches you, but if not, judge it no way prudent to Neglect making this claim.

This we Send to you by the Plymouth packet St Ann, with fair copy in the schooner Blaine, direct to the Pool of London.

We can’t add as the Post is going off, but that we are with Esteem, Gentlemen, Your most Obedient servants,

Messrs Dewey, Cheetham & Howe, Merchant Venturers, of Halifax in the Colony of Nova Scotia
Given this day under our several seals, March 29, 1779

Dewey, Cheetham & Howe are obviously the proverbial dishonest American lawyers or middlemen, a suitable name for a corrupt syndicate. In reality there would have been at least one intermediary between them and Lloyds and a letter like this would have gone to their agent in London. The Revolutionary War really fouled up the insurance markets in interesting ways but this is a Yuletide gift not a learned article for Past & Present.

Dear Messrs, Dewey, Cheetham & Howe,

Regarding your claim dated March 29, I am instructed to advise you that no payment can be made regarding the Armaments and any potential Prize-Cargo, being as there is no evidence of any prizes having been taken. We note furthermore that the sum insured for the hull is almost double the mean auction value of HM Sloops sold out of the service at Portsmouth, but as it is in keeping with the sum originally insured, we will indeed make payment with a bill upon the Syndicate’s bankers, who are Hoares. I am further directed to inform you that in view of this discrepancy we will accept no further business from yourselves of this kind.

I remain, Sirs, your obedient servant,

H.D.V. Bredon. Underwriter-Secretary, Lloyds of London

In reality they would probably not have got away with this as it’s a very transparent fraud, but the idea is that Lloyds are under political pressure not to upset the Canadians at this key juncture in the war, so they’ll pay up, just this once.

HDV Bredon is clearly some poor relation of the Dukes of Denver and a distant ancestor of Lord Peter Wimsey, who is canonically a Lloyd’s Name like his forefathers before him.

Hoare’s is a real, and still extant, private bank. “My bankers are Hoares (whores)” is a favourite pun of Jack Aubrey (and of King George V, who remarked on the sacking of the incredibly unpopular Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare “no more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris”).

Log entry from the brig Josie Brand, 10 September 1778

4th day out from St Eustice. 20*32’41”N, 73*24’10”W

 

Chase at length overhauled us, British privateer, name unknown. Beat to quarters at six bells in the forenoon watch. Chase fired on us at long range, minor damage to rigging. Returned fire shortly before noon. Enemy sank after brief action. One survivor rescued, severely wounded, under care of the surgeon. Brand 0 killed, 2 minor wounds from falling rigging. 3 half-casks gunpowder expended, 17 remaining. Opened no.4 cask salt beef, very spoiled, discarded. Hands employed in shark-fishing, late dinner of shark soup to all hands. Complaint received from Jas. Duffy, cooper, of food not being as contracted. 

The Yankee brig Josie Brand is named for British comedian Jo Brand, on the basis that I remember her on panel show Room 101 complaining about fashion dictating uncomfortable underwear for ladies, so it seemed fitting to let her be ‘broad and fat and loose in stays’.

Thinking about it,a Yankee carrying gold would probably be going outbound rather than in. Oh well, never mind. St Eustice is the Dutch colony of Sint Eustatius, a common base for blockade-runners.

One of the images I started this fic with was contrasting a heroic memorial with the Americans barely bothering to record their victory; it rates about as much space in the log as rotten beef and shark soup. 

Log entry from ditto, 13 September 1778

Spoke Spanish carrack Nuestra Senora Cubierta de Pescado, bound from Vigo to Santo Domingo with a contingent of nuns. They have taken aboard our wounded prisoner, named Roger Stanlees of Nova Scotia, into the care of the Sisters. The surgeon thinks him unlikely to live and he will be more comfortable on shore.

The Spanish named many of their large ships after Our Lady; this one has clearly wandered in from Good Omens and is a reference to the Eighth Biker of the Apocalypse, People Covered In Fish.

Roger Stanlees is of course Stan Rogers, the original writer and performer of Barrett’s Privateers.

Letter from Mgr Ambrosio Martini OP to the Archbishop of Havana, 5 November 1778

…
Your Grace, finally I must inform you that we have here in our care a distressed British sailor whom the Sisters acquired on their voyage from an American privateer. He has no legs, but with the blessing he is otherwise making a good physical recovery from his wounds. He babbles constantly and his English is very different to the English spoken at Douai. But the one thing I understand for sure in his speech is the constant repetition of “God damn them all”. I believe that he may be possessed of a demon, as all the heretics of those cold islands are prone to be. I shall keep him on a low diet, away from sources of temptation, and we may yet restore him to his right wits and the True Faith.

Obviously I had to get a “God damn them all” in and I like the image of a wounded sailor deliriously repeating part of the chorus.

Ambrosio is the titular Monk from the 1796 Gothick shocker by Matthew Lewis, though this can’t be the same one as he’s a teenager in Madrid.

Douai was the English-language Catholic seminary in France; someone who learned English there might find Canadian a bit tricky.

Letter from a subsequent Archbishop of Havana to Mgr Martini, 7 November 1784

What do you mean by telling me you have a legless English heretic sailor quartered in your nunnery? Do you not know we are at peace with the English? They fought us in the time of Philip V over some merchant’s ear. What might they not do to us over a sailor’s legs, pray? Yes the Armada may come to our defence, but the Armada is very far away and our former colony of Florida is a nest of their privateers practically within sight of my palace. And why is there a man in your nunnery anyway? Is he a eunuch? Send this sailor back to England on the next ship or your next promotion will be to the Cannibal Isles!

The War of Jenkins’ Ear in the 1740s really had very little to do with Spanish customs men allegedly cutting off a British sailor’s ear, but the Archbishop might not know that. 

Florida (taken from Spain by the British in 1763) was at this time in the process of being returned to Spain but it took the British residents, including many privateers, some time to get round to leaving. You can’t actually see it from Havana, of course.

The Spanish referred to the Carolines and Marquesas as ‘The Cannibal Isles’; at this time they claimed them but had not settled them, so being sent there was at best a life sentence (as no Western ship was likely to drop by) and at worst a death sentence, though more likely from tropical disease than cannibalism.

Summary report from the Intertemporal Research Office, 2179 CE

Well, looks like the song was pretty accurate really. Except for the bit about insurance. Difficult to find rhymes for "syndicate" or "false statement" I suppose.

This isn’t any particular set of time-travelling historians though it could be the future of the Oxford Time-Travel Universe.

I had a whole present-day framing device but it kept trying to develop inappropriate levels of plot which I didn’t have time to research. What was in my mind when planning (for no better reason than I happened to have just reread it) was that Nicholas Hansard from John M. Ford’s brilliant spy novel ‘Scholars of Night’ had been commissioned to confirm whether the song was based on a true story and if so, how accurately. So each document would have his annotations and his growing paranoia that somehow this had to be more secret-squirrel shit if he could only spot the connection (in the novel he starts off trying to authenticate a lost Kit Marlowe MS and ends up preventing WW3). But I couldn’t figure out a good punchline and the paranoia was threatening to swallow the actual story.