Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

The official report continues: "I asked him if there was any one he had injured, to whom he could yet make reparation – any one suffering obloquy for crimes which he had committed. He made no answer; but soon after continued: 'I have wronged many persons, but chiefly my parents.' He said 'this will kill my poor mother.' I was not before aware that he had a mother." The corresponding sentences in the original, run thus: "Many that he had wronged, but did not know how reparation could be made to them. Your parents most wronged … himself by saying he had entertained same idea in John Adams and Potomac, but had not ripened into… Do you not think that such a mania should … certainly. Objected to manner of death." The dots in place of words indicate the places where the writing was illegible. The remarkable variations between the report and the original in these sentences is, that the original leaves out all those crimes which he had committed, and which were bringing obloquy upon others, and to which he made no answer, but shows that he did make answer as to having wronged persons, and that answer was, that he did not know how reparation could be made. There is no mention of mother in this part of the original – it comes in long after. Then the John Adams and the Potomac, which are here mentioned in the twelfth line of the original, only appear in the fifty-sixth in the report – and the long gap filled up with things not in the original – and the word "idea," as attributed to Spencer, substituted by "mania."

The report continues (and here it is told once for all, that the quotations both from the report and the original, of which it should be a copy, follow each in its place in consecutive order, leaving no gap between each quoted part and what preceded it): "when recovered from the pain of this announcement (the effect upon his mother), I asked him if it would not have been still more dreadful had he succeeded in his attempt, murdered the officers and the greater part of the crew of the vessel, and run that career of crime which, with so much satisfaction he had marked out for himself: he replied after a pause; 'I do not know what would have become of me if I had succeeded.' I told him Cromwell would soon have made way with him, and McKinley would probably have cleared the whole of them from his path." The corresponding part of the original runs thus: "Objected to manner of death: requested to be shot. Could not make any distinction between him and those he had seduced. Justifiable desire at first to… The last words he had to say, and hoped they would be believed, that Cromwell was innocent … Cromwell. Admitted it was just that no distinction should be made." – This is the consecutive part in the original, beginning in utter variance with what should be its counterpart – hardly touching the same points – leaving out all the cruel reproaches which the official report heaps upon Spencer – ending with the introduction of Cromwell, but without the innocence which the original contains, with the substitution of Cromwell's destruction of him, and with the addition of McKinley's destruction of them all, and ultimate attainment of the chief place in that long career of piracy which was to be ran – and ran in that state of the world in which no pirate could live at all. What was actually said about Cromwell's innocence by Spencer and by McKinley as coming from Cromwell "to stir up the devil between them," as the historian Cooper remarked, was said before this writing commenced! said when Mackenzie returned from announcing the ten minutes lease of life to him and Small! which Mackenzie himself had reported in a previous part of his report, before the writing materials were sent for: and now, strange enough, introduced again in an after place, but with such alterations and additions as barely to leave their identity discoverable.

The official report proceeds: "'I fear,' said he, 'this may injure my father.' I told him it was too late to think of that – that had he succeeded in his wishes it would have injured his father much more – that had it been possible to have taken him home as I intended to do, it was not in nature that his father should not have interfered to save him – that for those who have friends or money in America there was no punishment for the worst of crimes – that though this had nothing to do with my determination, which had been forced upon me in spite of every effort I had made to avert it, I, on this account the less regretted the dilemma in which I was placed: it would injure his father a great deal more if he got home alive, should he be condemned and yet escape. The best and only service which he could do his father was to die." – Now from the original, beginning at the end of the last quotation: "Asked that his face might be covered. Granted. When he found that his repentance might not be in season, I referred him to the story of the penitent thief. Tried to find it. Could not. Read the Bible, the prayer-book. Did not know what would have become of him if he had succeeded. Makes no objection to death, but objects to time. Reasons – God would understand of him offences … many crimes. Dies, praying God to bless and preserve… I am afraid this will injure my father." – The quotation from the report opens with apprehended fear of injury to his father: it concludes with commending him to die, as the only service he could render that parent: and the whole is taken up with that topic, and crowned with the assertion that, for those who have friends or money in America there is no punishment for the worst of crimes – a sweeping reproach upon the American judiciary; and, however unfounded in his broad denunciation, may he not himself have counted on the benefit of the laxity of justice which he denounced? and – more – did he not receive it? The rest of the paragraph is only remarkable for the declaration of the intention to have brought his prisoners home, and of the change, of which intention they had no notice until placed in the presence of the completed preparations for death, and told they had but ten minutes, by the watch, to live. – Turning to the original of this paragraph, and it will be seen that it opens with preparations for death – goes on in the same spirit – barely mentions his father – and ends with his death – "dies praying God to bless and preserve"… This is evidently the termination of the whole scene. It carries him through the last preparations, and ends his life – sees him die praying to God. Now does the report give any of these circumstances? None. Does the report stop there? It does not. Does it go on? Yes: two hundred and thirty lines further. And the original record go on further? Yes: sixty lines further – which was just double the distance it had come. Here was a puzzle. The man to be talking double as much after his death as before it. This solecism required a solution – and received it before the court-martial: and the solution was that this double quantity was written after hanging – how long, not stated – but after it. Before the court Mackenzie delivered in a written and sworn statement, that his record embracing what was taken down from the lips of Spencer finished at the sentence – "I am afraid this will injure my father:" and that the remainder was written shortly afterwards. Now the part written before the death was thirty-three lines: the part written shortly after it, is above fifty. This solecism explained, another difficulty immediately arises. The commander reported that, "he (Spencer) read over what he (Mackenzie) had written down," and agreed to it all, with one exception – which was corrected. Now he could not have read the fifty odd lines which were written after his death. (All the lines here mentioned are the short ones in the double column pages of the published, "Official Proceedings of the Naval Court Martial.)" These fifty odd lines could not have been read by Spencer. That is certain. The previous thirty-three it is morally certain he never read. They are in some places illegible – in others unintelligible; and are printed in the official report with blanks because there were parts which could not be read. No witness says they were read by Spencer.

The additional fifty odd lines, expanded by additions and variations into about two hundred in the official report, requires but a brief notice, parts of it being amplifications and aggravations of what had been previously noted, and additional insults to Spencer; with an accumulation of acknowledgments of guilt, of willingness to die, of obligations to the commander, and entreaties for his forgiveness. One part of the reported scene was even more than usually inhuman. Spencer said to him: "But are you not going too far? are you not too fast? does the law entirely justify you?" To this the commander represents himself as replying: "That he (Spencer) had not consulted him in his arrangements – that his opinion could not be an unprejudiced one – that I had consulted all his brother officers, his messmates included, except the boys; and I placed before him their opinion. He stated that it was just – that he deserved death," For the honor of human nature it is to be hoped that Mackenzie reports himself falsely here – which is probable, both on its face, and because it is not in the original record. The commander says that he begged for one hour to prepare himself for death, saying the time is so short, asking if there was time for repentance, and if he could be changed so soon (from sin to grace). To the request for the hour, the commander says no answer was given: to the other parts he reminded him of the thief on the cross, who was pardoned by our Saviour, and that for the rest, God would understand the difficulties of his situation and be merciful. The commander also represents himself as recapitulating to Spencer the arts he had used to seduce the crew. The commander says upwards of an hour elapsed before the hanging: he might have said two hours: for the doom of the prisoners was announced at about eleven, and they were hung at one. But no part of this delay was for their benefit, as he would make believe, but for his own, to get confessions under the agonies of terror. No part of it – not even the whole ten minutes – was allowed to Spencer to make his peace with God; but continually interrupted, questioned, outraged, inflamed against his companions in death, he had his devotions broken in upon, and himself deprived of one peaceful moment to commune with God.

The report of the confessions is false upon its face: it is also invalidated by other matter within itself, showing that Mackenzie had two opposite ways of speaking of the same person, and of the same incident, before and after the design upon Spencer's life. I speak of the attempt, and of the reasons given for it, to get the young man transferred to another vessel before sailing from New York. According to the account given first of these reasons, and at the time, the desire to get him out of the Somers was entirely occasioned by the crowded state of the midshipmen's room – seven, where only five could be accommodated. Thus:

"When we were on the eve of sailing, two midshipmen who had been with me before, and in whom I had confidence, joined the vessel. This carried to seven, the number to occupy a space capable of accommodating only five. I had heard that Mr. Spencer had expressed a willingness to be transferred from the Somers to the Grampus. I directed Lieut. Gansevoort to say to him that if he would apply to Commodore Perry to detach him (there was no time to communicate with the Navy Department), I would second the application. He made the application; I seconded it, earnestly urging that it should be granted on the score of the comfort of the young officers. The commodore declined detaching Mr. Spencer, but offered to detach midshipman Henry Rodgers, who had been last ordered. I could not consent to part with Midshipman Rodgers, whom I knew to be a seaman, an officer, a gentleman; a young man of high attainments within his profession and beyond it. The Somers sailed with seven in her steerage. They could not all sit together round the table. The two oldest and most useful had no lockers to put their clothes in, and have slept during the cruise on the steerage deck, the camp-stools, the booms, in the tops, or in the quarter boats."

Nothing can be clearer than this statement. It was to relieve the steerage room where the young midshipmen congregated, that the transfer of Spencer was requested; and this was after Captain Mackenzie had been informed that the young man had been dismissed from the Brazilian squadron, for drunkenness. "And this fact," he said, "made me very desirous of his removal from the vessel, chiefly on account of the young men who were to mess and be associated with him, the rather that two of them were connected with me by blood and two by marriage; and all four intrusted to my especial care." After the deaths he wrote of the same incident in these words:

"The circumstance of Mr. Spencer's being the son of a high officer of the government, by enhancing his baseness in my estimation, made me more desirous to be rid of him. On this point I beg that I may not be misunderstood. I revere authority. I recognize, in the exercise of its higher functions in this free country, the evidences of genius, intelligence, and virtue; but I have no respect for the base son of an honored father; on the contrary, I consider that he who, by misconduct sullies the lustre of an honorable name, is more culpable than the unfriended individual whose disgrace falls only on himself. I wish, however, to have nothing to do with baseness in any shape; the navy is not the place for it. On these accounts I readily sought the first opportunity of getting rid of Mr. Spencer."

Here the word base, as applicable to the young Spencer, occurs three times in a brief paragraph, and this baseness is given as the reason for wishing to get the young man, not out of the ship, but out of the navy! And this sentiment was so strong, that reverence for Spencer's father could not control it. He could have nothing to do with baseness. The navy is not the place for it. Now all this was written after the young man was dead, and when it was necessary to make out a case of justification for putting him, not out of the ship, nor even out of the navy, but out of the world. This was an altered state of the case, and the captain's report accommodated itself to this alteration. The reasons now given go to the baseness of the young man: those which existed at the time, went to the comfort of the four midshipmen, connected by blood and alliance with the captain, and committed to his special care: – as if all in the ship were not committed to his special care, and that by the laws of the land – and without preference to relations. The captain even goes into an account of his own high moral feelings at the time, and disregard of persons high in power, in showing that he then acted upon a sense of Spencer's baseness, maugre the reverence he had for his father and his cabinet position. Every body sees that these are contradictions – that all this talk about baseness is after-talk – that all these fine sentiments are of subsequent conception: in fact, that the first reasons were those of the time, before he expected to put the young man to death, and the next after he had done it! and when the deed exacted a justification, and that at any cost of invention and fabrication. The two accounts are sufficient to establish one of those errors of fact which the law considers as discrediting a witness in all that he says. But it is not all the proof of erroneous statement which the double relation of this incident affords: there is another, equally flagrant. The captain, in his after account, repulses association with baseness, that is with Spencer, in any shape: his elaborate report superabounds with expressions of the regard with which he had treated him during the voyage, and even exacts acknowledgment of his kindness while endeavoring to torture out of him confessions of guilt.

The case of Spencer was now over: the cases of Small and Cromwell were briefly despatched. The commander contrived to make the three victims meet in a narrow way going to the sacrifice, all manacled and hobbling along, helped along, for they could not walk, by persons appointed to that duty. Gansevoort helped Spencer – a place to which he had entitled himself by the zeal with which he had pursued him. The object of the meeting was seen in the use that was made of it. It was to have a scene of crimination and recrimination between the prisoners, in which mutual accusations were to help out the miserable testimony and the imputed confessions. They are all made to stop together. Spencer is made to ask the pardon of Small for having seduced him: Small is made to answer, and with a look of horror – "No, by God!" an answer very little in keeping with the lowly and Christian character of Small, and rebutted by ample negative testimony: for this took place after the secret whispering was over, and in the presence of many. Even Gansevoort, in giving a minute account of this interview, reports nothing like it, nor any thing on which it could be founded. Small really seems to have been a gentle and mild man, imbued with kind and pious feelings, and no part of his conduct corresponds with the brutal answer to Spencer attributed to him. When asked if he had any message to send, he answered, "I have nobody to care for me but a poor old mother, and I had rather she did not know how I died." In his Bible was found a letter from his mother, filled with affectionate expressions. In that letter the mother had rejoiced that her son was contented and happy, as he had informed her; upon which the commander maliciously remarked, in his report, "that was before his acquaintance with Spencer." There was nothing against him, but in the story of the informer, Wales. He instantly admitted his "foolish conversations" with Spencer when arrested, but said it was no mutiny. When standing under the ship gallows (yard-arm) he began a speech to his shipmates, declaring his innocence, saying "I am no pirate: I never murdered any body!" At these words Mackenzie sung out to Gansevoort, "Is that right?" meaning, ought he to be allowed to speak so? He was soon stopped, and Gansevoort swears he said "he deserved his punishment." Cromwell protested his innocence to the last, and with evident truth. When arrested, he declared he knew nothing about the mutiny, and the commander told him he was to be carried home with Spencer to be tried; to which he answered, "I assure you I know nothing about it." His name was not on the razor-case paper. Spencer had declared his ignorance of all his talk, when the commander commenced his efforts, under the ten minutes' reprieve, to get confessions, and when Spencer said to him, as he turned off to go to Small and Cromwell with the ten minutes' news – the first they heard of it: "As these are the last words I have to say, I trust they will be believed: Cromwell is innocent." When told his doom, he (Cromwell) exclaimed, "God of the Universe look down upon me; I am innocent! Tell my wife – tell Lieutenant Morris I die innocent!" The last time that Mackenzie had spoken to him before was to tell him he would be carried to the United States for trial. The meeting of the three victims was crowned by reporting them, not only as confessing, and admitting the justice of their deaths, but even praising it, as to the honor of the flag, and – penitently begging pardon and forgiveness from the commander and his lieutenant! – and they mercifully granting the pardon and forgiveness! The original record says there were no "hangmen" on board the ship: but that made no balk. The death signal, and command, were given by the commander and his lieutenant – the former firing the signal gun himself – the other singing out "whip!" at which word the three wretched men went up with a violent jerk to the yard-arm. There is something unintelligible about Cromwell in the last words of this original "record." It says: "S. Small stept up. Cromwell overboard, rose dipping to yard-arm." Upon which the editor remarks: "The above paper of Commander Mackenzie is so illegible, as not to be correctly written" (copied). Yet it was this paper that Spencer is officially reported to have read while waiting to be jerked up, and to have agreed to its correctness – and near two-thirds of which were not written until after his death!

The men were dead, and died innocent, as history will tell and show. Why such conduct towards them – not only the killing, but the cruel aggravations? The historian Cooper, in solving this question, says that such was the obliquity of intellect shown by Mackenzie in the whole affair, that no analysis of his motives can be made on any consistent principle of human action. This writer looks upon personal resentment as having been the cause of the deaths, and terror, and a desire to create terror, the cause of the aggravations. Both Spencer and Cromwell had indulged in language which must have been peculiarly offensive to a man of the commander's temperament, and opinion of himself – an author, an orator, a fine officer. They habitually spoke of him before the crew, as "the old humbug – the old fool;" graceless epithets, plentifully garnished with the prefix of "damned;" and which were so reported to the captain (after the discovery of the mutiny – never before) as to appear to him to be "blasphemous vituperation." This is the only tangible cause for hanging Spencer and Cromwell, and as for poor Small, it would seem that his knowledge of navigation, and the necessity of having three mutineers, decided his fate: for his name is on neither of the three lists (though on the distribution list), and he frankly told the commander of Spencer's foolish conversations – always adding, it was no mutiny. These are the only tangible, or visible causes for putting the men to death. The reason for doing it at the time it was done, was for fear of losing the excuse to do it. The vessel was within a day and a half of St. Thomas, where she was ordered to go – within less time of many other islands to which she might go – in a place to meet vessels at any time, one of which she saw nearly in her course, and would not go to it. The excuse for not going to these near islands, or joining the vessel seen, was that it was disgraceful to a man-of-war to seek protection from foreigners! as if it was more honorable to murder than to take such protection. But the excuse was proved to be false; for it was admitted the vessel seen was too far off to know her national character: therefore, she was not avoided as a foreigner, but for fear she might be American. The same of the islands: American vessels were sure to be at them, and therefore these islands were not gone to. It was therefore indispensable to do the work before they got to St. Thomas, and all the machinery of new arrests, and rescue was to justify that consummation. And as for not being able to carry the ship to St. Thomas, with an obedient crew of 100 men, it was a story not to be told in a service where Lieutenant John Rodgers and Midshipman Porter, with 11 men, conducted a French frigate with 173 French prisoners, three days and nights, into safe port.

The three men having hung until they ceased to give signs of life, and still hanging up, the crew were piped down to dinner, and to hear a speech from the commander, and to celebrate divine service – of which several performances the commander gives this account in his official report:

"The crew were now piped down from witnessing punishment, and all hands called to cheer ship. I gave the order, 'stand by to give three hearty cheers for the flag of our country!' Never were three heartier cheers given. In that electric moment I do not doubt that the patriotism of even the worst of the conspirators for an instant broke forth. I felt that I was once more completely commander of the vessel which had been entrusted to me; equal to do with her whatever the honor of my country might require. The crew were now piped down and piped to dinner. I noticed with pain that many of the boys, as they looked to the yard-arm, indulged in laughter and derision."

He also gives an impressive account of the religious service which was performed, the punctuality and devotion with which it was attended, and the appropriate prayer – that of thanks to God for deliverance from a great danger – with which it was concluded.

"The service was then read, the responses audibly and devoutly made by the officers and crew, and the bodies consigned to the deep. This service was closed with that prayer so appropriate to our situation, appointed to be read in our ships of war, 'Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of enemies; that we may be a safeguard to the United States of America, and a security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the inhabitants of our land may in peace and quietude serve thee our God; and that we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of our land, with the fruits of our labor, with a thankful remembrance of thy mercies, to praise and glorify thy holy name through Jesus Christ our Lord.'"