Boys at Sea
Jan. 9th, 2010 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anteros_lmc
Burg, B. R., (2007), Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson’s Navy. Palgrave Macmillan.This has been languishing in my drafts folder for weeks now....
I’m trailing in the inestimable
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joyful_molly’s wake when it comes to book reviews but never mind :) here’s my review of Boys at Sea, with a note for slashers at the end. You can find joyful_molly’s thought provoking review and subsequent discussion hereFirstly apologies for the length of this review. This is a dense but eminently readable work with a great deal of remarkable detail that, hopefully, is of interest and worth commenting on. Boys at Sea covers roughly a hundred year period from around 1720 – 1830 and deals exclusively with documented cases of sodomy and other sexual offences tried by British Royal Naval courts martial.
The first chapter provides a concise history of social and cultural reactions to homosexuality and legislation concerning its proscription. It also focuses on the influence that perceptions of urban molly culture and contemporary literature including broadsheets, pamphlets, trial reports, novels and plays may have had on attitudes towards sodomy among the officers who presided over the courts martial.
Although sodomy was clearly regarded as an abhorrent and unnatural crime there is no suggestion in the trial transcripts that sodomy at sea was regarded as “unmanly” or “effeminate”. Unmanliness during this period equated to cowardice rather than effeminacy.
"…although effeminacy was a stock feature of virtually every denunciation of sodomites and mollys....., this aspect of the rhetorical fusillade did not go to sea, at least in buggery and indecency trials." (p 59)
Burg is a scrupulous historian who does not speculate where there is no evidence. As the trial records contain no suggestion of an emotional preference towards same-sex relations Burg can only conclude that they were simply a matter of convenience.
"Mariners hauled before courts martial lived in a universe with limited sexual options when their ships were at sea. There is no way to understand what these men thought or felt. Surviving Admiralty documents do not reveal if their preferences ran towards men and boys or if their choice of same-sex partners was simply the result of deprivation." (p 60)
"Nowhere in any Royal Navy trial transcript for sodomy, attempted sodomy or homoerotic indecency is there an indication that any officer or sailor harboured an inclination or tendency to engage in sexual relations with other men or boys. Sodomy and other shipboard sexual offences are always considered discrete activities, unconnected to taste, preference, pervasive inclinations, or to any inherent character trait.” (p 112)
Although Burg refuses to speculate on the issue of “pervasive inclination” he does acknowledge that "…there may be some submerged notion among naval personnel about the nature of sodomites that does not appear in the court records.” (p 112)
However he does suggest that such inclinations would have been utterly at odds with the “quarterdeck mentality” of the officer class.
"....men worthy of the quarterdeck needed courage, steadfastness, honesty aggressiveness, and morality and they needed them in profusion. In the minds of officers, homoeroticism was entirely incompatible with personal honour and the requirement of their profession." (p 82)
There is a wealth of extraordinary detail here on the nature of sodomy courts martial. The Admiralty took every opportunity to make an example of those that transgressed the twenty-ninth Article of War. Courts martial were held in public before the fleet on the open desk of the largest ship available and were presided over by a panel of ranking officers and a judge advocate. Defendants were rarely afforded the services of a lawyer. Trial records indicate that considerable emphasis was placed on establishing that the “criminal connection”, i.e. penetration and emission, had occurred and that it had been witnessed. Ships surgeons frequently examined defendants and accusers in an effort to determine whether penetration had taken place. Clearly such irrefutable proof was hard to establish. Faced with doubt or lack of evidence some courts found in favour of the defendants while others convicted on the basis of slim or circumstantial evidence. Once convicted for contravening the twenty-ninth article the sentence was invariably death, although pardons were not unheard of.
Where there was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction against the twenty-ninth article defendants were frequently found guilty of the lesser crime of contravening the second Article of War: “uncleanness, or other scandalous actions, in derogation of God's honour.” Uncleanness here referring almost exclusively to sexual transgression. Although not a capital offence punishment was harsh with sentences of 1000 lashes handed down to ratings and terms of two or more years in the Marshalsea prison for midshipmen and warrant officers. In all cases the guilty were cashiered in disgrace from the service and their wages mulcted.
Burg is particularly enlightening on how the language of the trial transcripts mirrors the changing nature of the Royal Navy and society more generally. Throughout much of the 18th century:
"When naming the crimes attributed to accused mariners they clewed closely to the words of the Articles of War....Sodomy and buggery were rendered as sodomy and buggery throughout the trial records." (p 67)
During this period the most commonly used euphemism for the male member is the appropriately nautical "yard", although "cocks" and "pricks" also abound. However by the turn of the 19th century the Navy was undergoing radical reform resulting from wider societal changes and the impact of reform societies such as the Bethel Union. Trial transcripts now spoke coyly of “unnatural crimes”, “situations” and “positions” and the ubiquitous yards, pricks and cocks were replaced by "pintles" and "tools" (pp 174-175).
Throughout this book the authors voice echos that of the courts martial transcripts in it's studious neutrality. Burg does not discuss the issue of consent and nor does he comment or pass judgement on the crimes. He notes that the trial transcripts do not conceptualise boys as victims who were likely to suffer lasting harm form their experiences. Consent may not have been discussed in terminology we are familiar with today, however rape was recognised and the use of force and coercion identified as such (p 129).
Based on the evidence of the trial transcripts Burg makes little comment on the glaring and disturbing issue of intergenerational sex. (As far as I am aware the term paedophilia, which could be applied entirely appropriately to many of these cases, does not appear anywhere in the book.) Burg observes that the main concern of the courts regarding the age of boys is whether they were telling the truth and whether they harboured a grudge against the defendant.
Then as now the first line of defence was to discredit the witnesses and impugn their testimony by questioning their moral character and their ability to understand the gravity of the oath they had sworn and the very specific nature of the offence of sodomy i.e. that both penetration and emission had occurred (pp 116 - 117). That these boys had the courage to bring charges against men who were invariably their social and Naval superiors is remarkable. And it is even more remarkable that many of them refused to be daunted or intimidated by the assembled Naval brass. On being asked whether he knew "what the act of sodomy consists of” the 14 or 15 year old James Bonny answered plainly "He fucked me". His abuser, one Captain Henry Allen, was hung from the starboard fore yard arm of his own ship (pp 94 – 97).
The dry evidence of the trial transcripts and Burg’s scrupulous neutrality can not, and do not try to conceal the horrific violations visited on vulnerable children and youths. Terrible crimes really were committed in the cable tiers.
Before discussing specific cases Burg presents one of the best concise explanations I’ve read of the distinctions between officers (commissioned, warrant or standing and petty), ratings (landsmen, ordinary and able) and boys; their terms of service, their onboard quarters and the degree of privacy their various ranks afforded (pp 30 – 33). With no access to private quarters, it is unsurprising that all cases involving ratings with ratings, resulted from chance discovery with alcohol frequently contributing to lack of discretion. Cases involving boys and commissioned or warrant officers however tended to come to light as a result of direct complains from the alleged victim. The accusation would then be passed up the chain of command until a sufficiently senior officer took the decision to act. If the accusation was against the captain the first lieutenant found himself in the unenviable position of having to decide whether to press charges against his captain and remove him from command or confine him to quarters if necessary. This opened the lieutenant to the charge of mutiny if the accusation against the captain was not proven by court martial.
There are many moving and disturbing cases in this book of three of which are sufficiently remarkable to warrant summary.
HMS Stag
The legally convoluted case of the improbably named Captain Angel and Mr Rice Price makes the plot of Mutiny and Retribution seem plausible and reasonable. Accusations of attempted indecency were brought against Captain Angel of HMS Stag by one Rice Price a passenger being transported to Antigua to take up a shipwrights apprenticeship. Price made his allegations in a letter to First Lieutenant Orde, claiming that while in his cabin Captain Angel had kissed him and thrust his hand into his breeches taking hold of his “private parts.” No mention is made of Price’s age but I assume from the fact he had the wherewithal to write a formal letter invoking the Articles of War that he was considerably older that many of the unfortunate boys who appear in this book. The captain being ashore, Lieutenant Order called the commissioned and warrant officers together to discuss how to act. On his return to ship, Orde presented Captain Angel with the allegation. The captain’s shocked response was sufficient to convince the officers that there was substance to the charge and Angel was removed of command and confined to quarters. During his confinement the distraught Angel told Orde "To me dying today or five days hence is immaterial, every captain is my enemy and where there is one honest man among them there are six rogues" (p 86).
Orde sailed HMS Stag to Guadeloupe and reported the charges to the governor. During the court martial Captain Angel defended himself vigorously, claiming that Price intended to blackmail him and produced a number of witnesses who testified that the alleged offences could not have taken place as Angel and Rice where never together in the captain’s cabin with the door closed. The court martial found in favour of Captain Angel, the charges were dismissed and there is no further record of Rice Price.
However Lieutenant Orde’s ordeal was just beginning as, having acquitted the captain, the court had little choice but to try the first lieutenant for mutiny. Orde claimed that had he not acted he would have contravened the thirty-second Article of War, which states that “All captains and officers…shall do their endeavour to detect, apprehend and bring to punishment all offenders,”. The court found Orde guilty but for once mitigating circumstances were taken into account. Orde was dismissed from HMS Stag but retained his rank and commission and was able to take up a position on another ship, eventually rising to the rank of commander.
HMS Africaine
The 1816 case of HMS Africaine is notable in that it is the exception that proves the rule. This was one ship where there was an obvious, widespread and unconcealed “pervasive inclination” for same sex couplings that persisted over a period of three to four years. Burg quotes a 1974 article on this case whose author claimed that “HMS Africaine had a reputation as a ‘man fucking ship’” (p 138).
In an impressively long sentence Burg sums up the factors that made the case of the Africaine unique in Admiralty trial records:
"The large number of active participants in sexual activity on board the Africaine, their involvement with one another in fluid rather than dyadic relationships, the network that existed among them, the semi-public or public nature of some of their engagements, the stability of the group over an extended period of time, the existence of recognised meeting places where sexual acts took place, and the general awareness among the ships crewmen, whether or not involved in sodomy and indecency, suggests that there existed on board a company of men bound together in a loose confraternity of some sort by their sexual activity." (p 143)
Some two dozen men were implicated in the case, however the Admiralty balked at trying such a large number of men for sodomy. Particularly given that two dozen also happened to be the number of ring leaders of the Nore mutiny who were executed in 1797 as a result of an "event far more destructive to Naval discipline than an assortment of buggery cases aboard an obscure fifth rate" (p 146). Ultimately all but one of the boys involved were cleared although most received some degree of punishment, two midshipmen were sentenced to the Marshalsea, various seamen who denounced their shipmates were convicted of lesser offences and four men were hung.
HMS Pembroke
The case of Lieutenant Morgan of HMS Pembroke is the last court martial for sexual misconduct detailed by Burg. The case dates to 1838 when the comparatively elderly Lieutenant Morgan was repeatedly accused by one Midshipman Rose of engaging in obscene behavior including using obscene language, placed a hand on the knee of a Midshipman Boyd and effectively propositioned him and put his arm around one Signalman Chapman. Such accusations resulted in Lieutenant Morgan withdrawing from the wardroom mess and demanding a court martial to clear his name (p 164). Morgan was tried for violations against the thirty-second article of war:
If any flag officer, captain, or commander, or lieutenant belonging to the fleet, shall be convicted before a court martial of behaving in a scandalous, infamous, cruel, oppressive, or fraudulent manner, unbecoming the character of an officer, he shall be dismissed from His Majesty's service.
Regarding the accusation concerning the signalman, Morgan pleaded a case of mistaken identity claiming that he had thought he had put his arm around the second master, “the implication being that he would never indulge in such familiarity with a mere rating.” Indeed the defence made much of Lieutenant Morgan’s ebullient and gregarious manner.
Commander John Aldrich told of his spontaneity, relating how he sang, danced and once waltzed around the wardroom with a surprise ships surgeon, who was not at all prepared for it. (p 166)
The defense also focused on the close relationship between the two Midshipmen, Rose and Boyd with a large number of witnesses testifying that they bore the nicknames “Substance” and “Shadow”, “the inseparables” and the “Seamice twins.” (p 167).
This is one of the few instances in the book where Burg speculates on psychosocial motives that are not explicit in the trial transcripts.
Even if Morgan’s lawyer had been one of the most creative at the bar he could hardly have made a credible argument for a conspiracy of young men bent on destroying an adult who inadvertently intruded into their relationship. Such a defense, which would have anticipated the work of the leading German sexual theorists of the closing decades of the century,…could only have seemed bizarre beyond belief to naval officers in 1838. (p 167)
Someone did recognise this possibility however as the trial documents are annotated with comments noting the “untoward combination” and “foul conspiracy” between Rose and Boyd (p 168). Although there was little substantial evidence against Morgan the court martial found against him and he was convicted and discharged from the service.
A note for slashers
If you read or write slash this book provides considerable food for thought. It’s a mine of invaluable detail but it is also sobering to read. Although some of the extraordinary cases may read like slash fics (the case of the waltzing Lieutenant Morgan reminded me of one of
esmerelda_t's crackfics, I half expected Bartholemew to be called by the defence) most make for intensely uncomfortable reading. Burg may avoid using the label “victim” but it is impossible to ignore the horror that some of these unfortunate individuals endured. As noted earlier, Burg sticks scrupulously to the evidence presented in courts martial transcripts and refuses to speculate where there is no evidence. However he is not above pointing out the obvious, and sometimes poignant, gaps in this particular historical record:
Little is known of what transpired among commissioned officers when not engaged in shipboard duties. Certainly they talked much among themselves throughout the long years and months afloat…Of their conversation…virtually nothing survives. Their idle chatter over meals or casual talk on the quarterdeck when their ships glided smoothly over calm seas or were safely at their moorings is entirely lost.” (p 23.)
Not entirely lost. Personally I'm glad that there are so many incredibly talented fic writers out there who are able to restore these commissioned officers' idle chatter and casual talk :)
And finally…
This is a serious and commendable academic work (with a heafty academic press price tag to boot) but it is leaved by very occasional touches of knowing humour. Burg’s description of investigations into sex between men in uniform “emerging as a cottage industry in the 1970’s” and continuing to the present “without any signs of diminishing vigour” made me laugh out loud (p xv).
And of course it would be utterly childish of me to note that the author dedicates this book to five individuals two of whom are named Shag and Lucky ;)
questions
Date: 2010-02-22 02:29 pm (UTC)1. "Ordinary sailors customarily found partners among their peers, as did midshipmen"------------------------
whence Burg took it? I read, what adult men of the lowest class of m of England of 18-19 centuries very negatively concerned a TT to that to become обьектом passive содомии whereas they could do it the friend by the friend I? If only mutual masturbation.
2. Burg: "..“partners” (willing or unwilling ones…) were always chosen from the “(…) lowest tiers of the naval hierarchy. (…)” – captains did not have sex with their lieutenants.."
Emma Collingwood objected: "Just because there were no court martials about it doesn’t mean it never happened. All through mankind’s history people have broken the law out of love, not to talk out of lust (probably even more so!) and of all the men aboard a ship, high-ranking officers were the ones with the most privacy and the most opportunities to break that specific Article of War. Considering how much weight was put on reputation and honour, on being a “gentleman”, they would have been extra-careful and had only chosen partners on whose discretion they could rely..."
But I again think, as the majority of officers would not allow to use myself, as women. From collected by Burgom the document it seems that used generally the weakest (likely very few people from officers and boatswains would dare to force the adult sailor or the servant) and dependent - simultaneously because of their age and office position: ((
3. Nevertheless, whether all documents of Burga speak about violence / compulsion? Boys could agree also for money, meal or indulgences on service, but such affairs had less chances to reach court.
4. There is at you any data about homosexuality on fleet between concordant adults? ;-)
Re: questions
Date: 2010-02-24 06:40 pm (UTC)1. I'm afraid I can't find that specific reference amongst Burg's copious end notes. I'll try looking again later and if I find it I'll let you know.
2. "it seems that used generally the weakest (likely very few people from officers and boatswains would dare to force the adult sailor or the servant)" - Indeed. I seem to remember that Burg himself makes a similar point. It's also important to recognise that Burg only discusses cases brought to trial, not mutual consenting relationships for which there is little evidence in courts martial transcripts. Of course that is not to say that such consenting relationships did not occur.
3. "Boys could agree also for money, meal or indulgences on service, but such affairs had less chances to reach court." - Testimony from several trials does seem to indicate an element of bribery in several cases, with warrant officers offering boys clothing and trinkets in return for sexual services. However Burg does not discuss any specific cases of male prostitution aboard ship where men or boys sought out sexual encounters in return for payment. I seem to remember that he does suggest that transactions of this nature may have occurred on the Africaine amongst other transgressions of the Articles of War.
4. "There is at you any data about homosexuality on fleet between concordant adults?" Not in Burg's book. Burg sticks scrupulously to discussion of cases brought to trial and is careful not to extrapolate from those cases to the fleet in general. As a result there is no discussion of consenting sexual relationships. If I come across any other documented examples of this kind I'll certainly let you know!
Hope that helps to answer some of your questions!
http://joyfulmolly.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/books-resource-boys-at-sea-by-professor-b-r-burg/
Date: 2010-04-04 07:55 pm (UTC)http://books.google.co.il/books?id=q7TPqeUa9UIC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=Benemann+Male-male+intimacy++Rum+sodomy&source=bl&ots=Hv05kxwzPX&sig=iJsZTHiaZvGadcDQYp-G4T0Fa3w&hl=en&ei=Euy4S--WJMGaOJzHyc0C&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false
"They chose only those in the lowest tiers of the naval hierarchy."-----------------
This inexact definition. Not simply "the lowest levels", but boys who at all were not considered as "true" people and were, owing to the age, are underdeveloped mentally :((( Adult sailor or the soldier it was theoretically possible to blackmail with hundreds lashes or execution for any offence, but I do not know any such case (Jack Randoll/Jamie at Diana Gabaldon - all the same literarian fiction.)
"And that’s where I disagree. Just because there were no court martials about it doesn’t mean it never happened. All through mankind’s history people have broken the law out of love, not to talk out of lust (probably even more so!)"-------------
I think that such almost was not to second half of 19 centuries (Burg, apparently, investigated only earlier period) when homosexuality more equal in rights began to extend in England ;/