This document provides an in-depth analysis and speculation about the hanging of mutineers from the ship HMS Dromedary, comparing details from Melville's Billy Budd novella. It considers representations of the hanging in historical artworks and examines phrases used by Melville to theorize that one of the mutineers, possibly modeled after Billy Budd, may have escaped by slipping his handcuffs and freeing himself from the noose. The document constructs an elaborate hypothetical scenario of how this may have occurred and explores various textual clues and historical sources to support this conjecture.

1. Mutiny on the Dromedary -- III.
Billy Bud, an Albatross? Melville had described Billy’s hanging in chapter 26 this way:
“In the pinioned figure arrived at the yard-end, to the wonder of all no motion was apparent,
none save that created by the ships’s motion, in moderate weather so majestic in a great ship
ponderously cannoned.”
The H.M.S. Dromedary mounted 44 guns, which might qualify the Dromedary as “ponderously cannoned” --
but, of course, so might any of scores of other British vessels of the age. At any rate, it is the ship’s motion, not
her identity that is the focus of this line from Billy Budd. The ship’s ocean-going motions – yaw, roll, and pitch
-- were the motions of all on board, who compensated instinctively, via a certain attunement of the inner-ear, or
the acquisition of their “sea-legs,” to highly complex motions that could only have been interpreted, on land, as
instability. Cf. “Sway”, “surge’ and “heave”. But these same motions were more “ponderously” imparted to the
suspended bodies of the three mutineers, whose pendulous weight[s], elevated, and extended at the end of the
yard-arm, would undergo corresponding acceleration of their movement, and amplification of inertial forces ..
and more swinging. Etc. But, speaking as matter of physics, probably, this motion would have been observed
by the crew, but almost hardly “noticed,” inasmuch as it was both inevitable, and non-operational. An
execution like this on ship-board, must have been felt in many ways, not least of which would be a sense of a
loss of “hands”. No longer part of the functioning of the ship; but now more part of the environment through
which the ship navigated – the three figures are thus more akin to weather “portents” than any ordinary rigging
or fixtures. And they are certainly no longer bound by military or naval discipline.
Hanging out an Iffigy: I mentioned the Orchardson & Armytage representations as a hanging in “iffigy” ….
And it is: but, while a hanging in effigy is symbolic, figurative, of a lynching that is not going to take place, in
part precisely because the effigy is; this “iffigy” is a representation of a military execution of a death sentence
that has taken place – but only within this conjecture. The existence of the hanging in iffigy represented by
Orchardson and Armytage is only a “possible fact” and so it is only an ideal object for the conjecturing mind –
addressing questions on many levels, such as : 1) is such a hanging actually represented by the three foggy
block and tackle; and 2) if so, did the artist(s) intend to represent an actual hanging on ship-board, vis-à-vis
Napoleon; and 3) if so, did such a hanging take place at some time; and 4) if so, is it possible to reconstruct or
conceptualize the events of such an event. To do so, would be to suspend an entirely new conceptual “iffigy”.
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2. 2
It should be clear that only by answering the first question in the conjectural affirmative, can the mind advance
to the second question, and only by answering that in the conjectural affirmative, advance to the third, and then
on to the fourth. So the mind passes through, and accepts as necessary parameters, at least these three levels of
“pure” conjecture – three nested working hypotheses -- in order to be able to “operate” at the level of the fourth,
where an ideal conception – or geistenmasssen – of what actually happened, can, theoretically, be potentially
worked out. Or not worked out.
These same nested questions must be answered for virtually every text or drawing or document that might
conceivably become a facet in the construction of a conceptual object, or geistenmassen.
Thus, the Armytage engraving is one such; the Snow watercolor of the U.S.S. Somers under way, with two
mutineers hanging from the yard-arm, is another. Billy Budd itself is a clear third; and the complete transcripts
of the Somers mutiny courts martial a fourth. The proposed inter-relationship that fuses doubt into certainty;
that catalyzes amidst confusion, the otherwise intractable inconsistencies in the material – the lines along which
they lay true to one another – is the actually working hypothesis as to historical fact, no matter our sense of
“improbability” at that proposal.
How many texts must be examined? Thousands? And how many of these may be considered to have “facets”
recoverable from their matrix of material? Hundreds?
That working hypothesis may have to be junked. But – even if it is sustainable, it can only be so relative to its
power to generate, or sustain, or support extensions upon itself, and to crystallize or solidify the loose bits
among the material on which it is founded. So, making the suggestion of an escaped mutineer in Admiral
Snow watercolor, is a curious and air-headed proposal only until you can identify how such a mutineer might
have escaped. And that was a serious and really daunting conundrum for some time.
That is until a certain conception appeared …
Last time an answer appeared and was presented -- also in iffigy -- according to which Billy Budd was matched
almost totemically with the albatross that dived down towards the sea into which he dropped. The albatross,
with is bony creak, and double-jointed wings, seemed to support the conjecture that by a certain acrobatical
contortion – one that he alone may have been physiologically endowed to execute – the real Billy Budd
basically popped out his shoulder-joints and somehow slung his entire very slender, young and pliant lower
body through the loop of his arms – all the while being handcuffed “ in the darbies.” Within this preposterous
iffigy, he thereby brought his arms mobile in front of his torso – probably with some major chafing of the wrists
– and so was able to reach the hangman’s rope and lift himself to relieve the choking of the noose around his
neck. Was he able also to free his hands? Or did he swing into action still shackled by the darbies?
As down on the deck, the V.A.L.V. sputtered and spewed, the mate’s pipes sounded loud and shrill some frantic
call to arms, and as chaos and enthusiasm broke out among the crew, Billy moved first to relieve his fellow
impressed American “mutineers.” Probably hanging from the yardarm -- this time by his knees – suspended
over the ocean swells, he used his own noose to lasso one comrade around the legs, maybe moving the noose up
towards his torso, and so hiked and hoisted his weight upward, relieving the pressure on that man’s noose…. In
iffigy, anyway. A frenzy of sheer joy swept through the impressed members of the crew of the Dromedary, and
also their technically English counterparts, as the brutality of the Master and Commander was shattered.
Did it happen? And, in the alternative, what happened next? Did he save both his fellows?
Such is the conjecture of the albatross, who led a mutiny on the Dromedary. Bold, but with just a dash of the
absolutely absurd. The question is, can it work? Can this hypothesis function as such, to catalyze and
crytallize relationships identified between existing texts, to reveal new ones therein, and also bring new
materials into alignment, laying out new facets and complimenting the existing ones? Let’s check:

3. Billy in the Halter: Melville had stated in Chapter
26, that , “At sea, in the old time, the execution by
halter of a military sailor was generally from the
foreyard.” In this sequence, as throughout the
novella, Billy’s bearing and speech is in every
particular polite, diginified and spiritual. Even in
dying and in death, he is unmuffed: refusing to
make a spectacle: – we covered this – “In the
pinioned figure arriving at the yard-end to the
wonder of all there was no motion apparent.”
The figure shown at right, is one way to imagine
Billy Budd, the perfect sailor now at the yard-arm
and catching “the full rose of the dawn” : his head
is bowed in compliance, his hands folded behind his
back – so duty-bound, they would certainly remain
clasped there, out of respect for his sentence, even if
the darbies slipped. Then, his heels clicked together
toes out …. As if to say, “God bless Captain Vere!”
would also be written on his undersea locker, to
which the “shotted hammock” would ferry his body.
As earlier noted, Melville highlighted this very
climatic passage, with the conversation between the
purser and the assistant surgeon, which takes up
chapter 27 “A digression” which reads in part:
“Even if we should assume the hypothesis
that at the first touch of the halyards the
action of Budd’s heart, intensified by
extraordinary emotion at its climax , abruptly
stopped – much like a watch when in
carelessly winding it up you strain at the
finish , thus snapping the chain – even under
that hypothesis how account for the
phenomenon that followed?”
“You admit, then that the absence of
spasmodic movement was phenomenal?”
“It was phenomenal, Mr. Purser, in the sense
that it was an appearance the cause of which
is not immediately to be assigned.”
“But tell me, my dear sir, pertinaciously
continued the other, “was the man’s death
effected by the halter, or was it a species of
euthanasia?
Why such an incredible scenario …?
3

4. Billy in the Darbies: Also, as earlier noted,
Melville’s other focus on the motionlessness of
Billy at execution, seems “tied up” with his wrists
being tied, “pinioned” behind his back, by the
darbies -- “darbies” being British sea-slang for
handcuffs. The poem which utterly concludes Billy
Budd is titled “BILLY IN THE DARBIES” and is
followed by the declaration
Though, now with an eye to this very overemphasis,
we have to ask, was it also the END OF BILLY?
That is, the real Billy?
The question was asked, whether, if, in the interface
between the Armytage engraving and the missing
mutineer in the Snow watercolor of the U.S. S
Somers, and certain passages in Billy Budd, there
was reason to suspect that one of the mutineers
escaped execution: the Albatross.
END OF BOOK
Supposing an answer in the affirmative, the obvious
next question was the “how” by which such an
event might have been accomplished. And the first
obvious answer to come to mind, is of course that
Billy slipped the darbies – and why not?
If the material suggest that one of the mutineers
slipped his bonds and escaped, to stage a certain
form of “diffection” from – or of – the British
Admiralty, wouldn’t it be far more probable that –
in his last struggles – he slipped off the darbies and
then managed to free himself from the noose as
well? The purported relevance of the albatross as
being bony and double-jointed would go almost as
as far to justify an escape from “the darbies” as any
other form of escape – perhaps. Indeed, with a
focus on the darbies, we might just dispense with
the superfluous albatross idea entirely, and propose
a simple sleight of hand on the part of one of the
convicted. No “double-jointed” nonsense
necessary. Hang the blokers; snag the flippin
albatross, and make an albatross pie out of him, per
Patrick O’Brian. See, H.M.S. Surprise.
However, the figure at left may, in all likelihood,
illustrate the experience of men of the early 19th
Century American navy, who understood what
generally happens to man convicted of death by
“the halter”. Even if he successfully manages to
“loose the darbies at the wrist” during execution by
hanging, he is evidently so pre-occupied with the
businesss of flinching and contorting, or his life
already so attenuated from asphyxia and hypoxia,
that when he successfully struggles from the knots,
and the ropes fall loose, there’s no further capacity
to reach even involuntarily for his neck to try to
open the noose – much less to hoist himself up on
the line, and relieve the pressure that way.
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5. In this image of the hanging of the mutineers of the U.S.S. Somers, we see these first two figures depicted.
In the middle is Billy in the Halter: a representation of the parody of perfunctory seamanship Melville made, in
Billy Budd. He appears to have died under orders! And not only that, but done so a minute or two early --
before his comrades fell in line. And if not, he is thinking to himself, “God bless you, Captain Vere …” And
trying to expire without a wiggle.
On the left is “Billy in the Darbies” the figure whose arms are “pinioned” at the wrists, and who asks to have
the darbies loosed. After struggling free, slipping the handcuffs, he is convulsed with pain, and completely
helpless to complete his own rescue, or help his comrades.
On the right, a third figure seems to be tense in frame, perhaps already swinging his feet back, perhaps as if
about to make a calculated move – but one of strictly “local” motion. Beyond him, high in the air, a certain
larger seafowl, dark wings -- apparently jointed. Something seems to be surfacing out of the depths …
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6. 6
“The Turning Point ... was the Mast”: Scene change [This material is cribbed from my Notes of July 4,
2008, Francis Gregory and the USS North Carolina, and of September 2, 2008, Midshipman Spencer’s Code
and the USS Dolphin. ] As mentioned earlier, J. Fenimore Cooper threw himself head-first into the
controversy over the propriety of the discipline which Lieut Alexander Slidell MacKenzie meted out to the
alleged mutineers aboard the Somers, not only in correspondence, but in the press, and through pamphleteering
and polemical commentaries. The bitterness of his criticism of Lt. MacKenzie overflowed into his
contemporaneous historical works “The History of the United States Navy” and in short related texts, such as
The Battle of Lake Erie, in which he continued his attacks on MacKenzie. One important part of Cooper’s
porpoise – uh, corpus, called The Cruise of the Somers (1844), is more difficult to locate, but is a must-read. It
appears that Cooper had got his sea-legs on board the U.S.S. Hornet during the War of 1812, [See, Emmons,
Fredoniad, Canto VI, Cruise of the Hornet] where he and others of certain New England families were trained
to counter-act the exercise of the British policy of impressment, both in actual naval combat and through art
and argument. So he knew his sailing ships. And was familiar with the issues.
On September 17, 1843, in the aftermath of the Somers mutiny court-martials, Cooper, wrote to an unknown
correspondent, but probably “Sturgis,” an old seaman, regarding the Somers mutiny: “The turning point in
the whole affair was the loss of the mast.” By which he refers -- or seems to refer -- to the loss of the main
royal topgallant mast on the Somers, which dismasting MacKenzie claimed, in testimony, was deliberately
caused by Spencer and his cronies, as a preliminary maneuver to the mutiny. Before that same week was out,
however, Cooper had finished a new book, and commented in another letter to Sturgis, of September 22, 1843,
that “Ned Myers” was printed. The tale was billed as the sea ventures of “an old seaman”, and was subtitled
“A LIFE BEFORE THE MAST”. Of course, the title hearkened to Richard Henry Dana’s “Two Years Before
the Mast”, which had been recently published, and Cooper is thought to have wanted to ride in Dana’s wake, to
hefty book sales.
But the title also seems to suggest a life lived until a hanging at the yardarm, or the mast. That is, “A Life
Before the Mast” might mean … “A Life Ending at the Mast.”
Schematic of the Somers: At any rate, some time ago, these materials suggested that the “reality” which was
being pre-eminently encoded and communicated in the commentary and documents on the Somers mutiny
might have to do with the brigantine’s masts, which naturally feature rather prominently, first because of the
“loss of the mast” episode before the mutiny was revealed, and also because Spencer, Cromwell and Small were
eventually run up the mast at the yardarm. Turning to printed and online sources, I looked for a clear
schematic or silhouette of the Somers with its masts -- something like the beautiful naval drawings of the
Grampus and the Hornet which I found early this year [Spring, 2008], with their ensigns inverted “in distress”.
Google those. These were produced for ships that had been lost at about the same time: i.e., Grampus down in
1843, Somers in 1847. I found NOTHING. Hmmmm. Spencer had sought a transfer to the Grampus ….
Turning to the primary source material of the mutiny itself, there is a rather crude but informative woodcut on
the cover of the “Greeley & McElrath” 1843 publication of the “INQUIRY INTO THE SOMERS MUTINY”
[Google Book] Inside the booklet, there is, thankfully, an initial diagram “SECTION REPRESENTING THE
BERTH DECK” (page 2) followed by another “SECTION REPRESENTING THE SPAR DECK” (page 3).
And these show the positions of the mainmast and the foremast, relative to the launch and cabin, etc.
But flipping through the pages, the actual schematic should appear toward the back of the pamphlet, p. 44
captioned “THE UNITED STATES BRIG-OF-WAR SOMERS”, with the description:
The above engraving accurately represents the appearance of the SOMERS as she sits
upon the water -- She is a beautiful craft of 266 tons measurement ....
only... there is no engraving.

7. No picture. No nothing. Just the legend to the picture. There is on page 44, [q.v., Google Book edition] an
itemization of the components of the rigging and cordage, with the size of the sails, length of the masts, etc.
But nothing comprehensive: there is not in the primary literature, apparently in existence a precise nautical
diagram or profile of the Somers with her masts. This is all the more striking, given the centrality of the
relationship of the rigging and masts to the inquiry and later court martial proceedings, and especially in
view of the fact that the layout of the ship’s decks are given in detail, although these are less important to the
understanding of the events which lead to the arrest of Spencer and his cohort.
Even the authors of books on the mutiny have nothing to illustrate their books: Harrison Hayford’s “The
Somers Mutiny Affair” depends for its cover artist, on a crude sketch, probably done by an artist at his
publisher Prentice-Hall,-- or some 10-year old ; and Buckner F. Melton’s 2003 volume “A Hanging
Offense; The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers”, has a small jacket illustration of the U.S.S. Potomac!
Egads. Philip McFarland’s “Sea Dangers: The Affair of the Somers” (1985) has a better illustration, a two-
toned print – of the now famous 1843 watercolor of the Somers, the same painting uploaded now on the
web, captioned “The USS Somers with the bodies of three alleged mutineers hanging from the yardarm
(courtesy, Rear Admiral Elliot Snow, USN; US Naval Historical Center).” The same image doctored by
Wikipedia, that I have used recently. McFarland however does not mention the source of the illustration on
his cover, nor credit the Navy for license to use it, etc. There are only these two illustrations of the Somers,
and one other – which is available on the U.S. Navy website.
This third one is described as a colored sketch of the Somers, by a crewman of the USS Columbia ( Photo #:
NH 97588-KN (Color) ) U.S. Brig Somers (1842-1846) Photo #: NH 97588-KN (Color)
But there is no nautical profile …..
7

8. That’s Odd-- the Mainmast: However, in comparing the three “extant” representations of the Somers,
first, the image above, sketched by a crewman on the USS Columbus; and second the watercolor of 1843
(furnished by Rear Admiral Elliot Snow, USN) and the third, the woodcut or engraving on the cover of
the 1843 Tribune sponsored “Greeley & McElrath” “INQUIRY INTO THE SOMERS MUTINY” [Google
Book; and see below] note that there is a rather obvious similarity, in that on each picture, one sail is furled
or tied up-- and it’s the same sail on each boat: it is the lower rear sail, on the Main mast, which technically
is simply called the Mainmast. In the 1843 engraving, on the cover of the Tribune-related pamphlet, note
that the mainsail is completely furled, just as it is in the sketch preceding, by the Columbia sailor:
The resemblance between the last two images is close: angle of perspective almost identical, and it seems
likely one is a copy of the other. In both, the starboard “mainyard” away from the viewer, is obscured.
What had Melville Said? About Billy Budd? Here it is, in Billy Budd, chapter 26:
At sea in the old time, the execution by halter of a military sailor was generally from the
foreyard. In the present instance, for special reasons the mainyard was assigned …”
READ CAREFULY: For “special reasons,” Billy Budd was hung of the yard of the mainmast. Of course, the
sails were furled for an execution. As in – for instance -- the last two images of the Somers with mainsails
furled. When shown from the other side, the mutineers can be seen. Q.V. the Admiral Snow watercolor so
often reproduced. And so once again, we can ask, was Billy Budd actually hanged aboard the Somers … ?
Now, prepare to get really arcane, as we look at an early letter-form code. Not for the faint of heart:
8

9. 9
Midshipman Spencer’s Code: One of the fascinating features of the Somers mutiny story is the simple but
effective play-cipher that Spencer used to secrete the development of his mutinous plans. The scrap of paper
on which he encrypted the names of the middies and sailors on board, was said to be kept in his razor case,
or in a fold in his neckerchief, and has been transcribed and … “translated” on p. 4 of the “INQUIRY”
pamphlet, under the caption “SPENCER’S PROGRAMME,” [a very curious translation, too] and elsewhere
therein, p. 31 as well, etc. This list is sometimes called his “sheet-anchor of Greek code.” Spencer,
basically, transliterated the names of the relevant junior officers out of English/Roman alphabet characters,
into Greek letter characters so, for instance, “McKinley” reads M’Xενλυ; “Green” is rendered Γρεεν,
“Spencer” himself is Sπενcερ and so on. Spencer had matriculated at Geneva College before joining the
Navy, and had had at least first year Greek, it would seem.
However, Mids. Spencer’s Greek rendering of the sailors’ names are not always direct transliterations, but
sometimes phonetic renderings – as sounded -- or miss-renderings of the officers names. Most notably, the
Purser’s steward, Mr. “Wales” becomes not Yαλες [there is no direct equivalent of “w” in Greek] but
U’αλες – with a modern style “U” instead of the anticipated Greek letter Upsilon (Υ); but the name also
picks up a trailing aspirant mark -- the floating comma -- indicating a dropped aspirated English “h” and
calls for the reading “whales”. Wales to Whales? That’s an easy joke among the middies. And where
have I seen that recently? Whales? Oh yes: The V.A.L.V. But, come to think of it, Spencer never uses a
capital Upsilon Υ, Sigma, Σ, etc. and uses a Chi X, in place of Kappa K. There are lots of irregularities …
And then again, when breaking the men up into categories of the Sερlαιν “Certain” and Δουlφυλ “Doubtful”
participants in his new mutiny, Spencer entirely drops the “b” out of “Doubtful” suggesting (to me)
something other than ordinary transliteration – but, again, more like an aural -- or poetic? -- rendering of the
(unsounded) “b”. As a result, “Doubtful” which should look like Δουβτφυλ, looks more like thus: Δουlφυλ.
Δουlφυλ – ? Hmmm. Do a doubletake: There are no tau’s -- τ -- in this code! For some reason, Spencer
has avoided Greek “tau” τ – completely. While he uses Greek lambda λ for letter “l” he breaks the pattern
and opts for a roman letter “l” italicized, to represent the English letter “t” where the Greek letter “tau” τ ,
would have been expected. So what ought to be Sερταιν appears as Sερlαιν; what ought to be Δουβτφυλ
becomes Δουlφυλ. And it seems both of these idiosyncracies “inhere” in this word, Δουlφυλ.
At this point, one might be tempted to .. jump out a window. Instead, doublecheck the names on the list for
other inconsistencies … and you might notice that among sailors and middies included, none of them has
the letter “t” in his name. That is, none except Smith, whose “th” will answer to Greek theta, θ. Sμιθ.
And Van Brunt? Or is it Van Brunel? But there is no Tom, no Timothy, no Walter, no Bart; No Milton,
Hampton, Weston, or Walton. No one else has a “t” in his name. Henry Wiltham and Richard Hamilton
– both with “t” in their names -- were arrested when the Somers docked ( see p. 6 of the INQUIRY) but they
appear nowhere on Spencer’s list of the Sερlαιν “certain” or the Δουlφυλ “doubtful”. Why not?
So, very deliberately, nowhere does Spencer use the Greek letter tau -- T or τ -- in his code. Which
forces the question, was the code selected to cipher the names of the men; or, rather, were the “mutineers”
selected on board the receiving vessel, U.S.S North Carolina, so that the code could be deployed, but its real
encryption go undetected? Were they chosen in part because they had no “t”’s in their names? Yes:
“Spencer” used Greek “lambda”, λ, L for English l“L”. But he used italic Roman “l” – never capitalized --
for English “t”. This indicates a different function for the “code”: i.e., to enable the word “doubtful” to
morph into the word “doulphul” -- δουlφυλ. The code was actually devised primarily to “encrypt” this
word: Δουlφυl, as a companion to U’αλες. (I say primarily, because, e.g., the word “steerage” – σlεεραγε -
- looks too close to “sleepage” meaning “berth deck” to be accidental.) And since Spencer is rendering this
with the ear, not with the eye --”doulphul” becomes “doleful.” Then, since “doulphul” is twice capitalized,
Δουlφυλ, Spencer‘s “Doulphul” becomes “Dolphin” -- an English word borrowed from Greek. See Henry
V, for Shakespeare’s precedent punning on the English dolphin with French title, dauphin.

10. 10
The Doleful Dolphin: Among the many fascinating things about the Somers mutiny “INQUIRY” record,
are Mackenzie’s never-ending efforts at self-justification, which Cooper attacks so vigorously in all his
writing on the Somers mutiny. One of MacKenzie’s routine methods is to cross-examine witnesses at the
Inquiry, on their general familiarity with his practices for treating the crew; so, for instance, he asks the
Assistant Surgeon Leecock1
whether he, MacKenzie, always sent Leecock ashore to buy fresh fruit for the
men, and made sure the men were always getting fresh fruit, good medicine, rum, etc; or he asks a steward
or ward-room clerk about whether his discipline is too harsh, etc. None of this is relevant to a defense on the
charges of the Inquiry, but it goes into the record without a word from the Judge Advocates or the court.
MacKenzie also tries to enter other basically inadmissible character evidence (after all, this is only a fact-
finding process) such as his own statements about his own excellence, and endorsements from former
officers who served with him. One of these appears in the INQUIRY record for the SEVENTH DAY (pp.
28-29) is a long-winded self-serving statement from Mackenzie on the history of mutinies! beginning with
the HMS Bounty and continuing through the wreck of the French vessel, Medusa, but concluding with a
rather long discussion of MacKenzie’s own command of the USS Dolphin. I’ll spare you the details. Well
-- for now. See INQUIRY, p. 29. It’s not entirely clear whether the court admitted MacKenzie’s character
evidence self-serving statement -- it seems so. But, is this the Dolphin at issue? The doleful Dolphin?
A hint in the affirmative occurs on p. 22, the FIFTH DAY, right hand column, which is one of those sections
which doesn’t copy/paste readily from Google Book. The whole column deals with Gregory’s receiving
vessel, U.S.S. North Carolina, and then with another effort by MacKenzie to justify his actions based upon
the mutiny of the H.M.S. Bounty and the Medusa, during which ne asks to introduce a new character witness,
Lt. Charles Henry Davis. The court is unready to receive the testimony of Lieut. Davis until after
MacKenzie finishes his own testimony -- but, although I can’t read everything -- I was unable to see that
Lieut Davis was ever called. It doesn’t appear that he was. MacKenzie mentions that the two of them
served together on the same vessel, for two years -- but the vessel is not named. (Note, that this same Lt.
Charles Henry Davis was the first translator of Gauss’ De Motu. Hmmmm…)
Dolphins and Whales: As it turns out, Lieutenant Charles Henry Davis served on the U.S.S. Dolphin
ca. 1821-23 searching the Pacific for the mutineers of the whaleship Globe. Δουlφυλς and U’αλες ?
Yes, dolphins and whales. Here, of course, is just what we were hoping for: no resolution whatever, but a
further multiplication of sources, and a deepening of the entire field of investigation. (And a Gaussian as a
maritime pirate-chaser!!) There is, by a happy chance, a whole shelf full of books on the Globe mutiny,
including Gibson, “Demon of the Waters: the True Story of the Mutiny on the Whaleship Globe” (2002) and
Heffernan, “Mutiny on the Globe” (also 2002). I have these already – plus a file on the Globe as thick as a
slice of whale blubber -- . I think because they are considered remote source material for Moby Dick, behind
the ”Whaleship Essex” sources. The central text, however, is probably Paulding’s Journal of a Cruise of the
U.S. Schooner Dolphin (1831). Q.v.
So, we have to conjecture that the entire Somers mutiny “record” and the Billy Budd “history” which are
serving to focus our attention on this unknown event, which is forming under the working title, “Mutiny on
the Dromedary” may have to be refracted yet again, and again, by such a series of careful reading of the
considerable lore, of the mutiny on board the whaleship Globe. Is this a body of “history” like the Somers
mutiny texts? Is it also a careful construct by some unsung masquermind? To determine this, the texts must
of course be read in “immersion” form, to be mastered, and only then “deconstructed” or analyzed.
The Payoff? For anyone who may have hung in there this far, there ought to be a payoff ….
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Leecock, θε Δοκlερ on Spencer’s list, must have been guilt-stricken, for he killed himself on April 1, 1843,
with a shot through the right eye. QUERRY: after Leecock fired his pistol through his right eye, did he have
one or two eyes that were “left”? Cf. Jupiter in E. A Poe, The Gold Bug.

11. For now, perhaps the payoff is in this page, from another retelling of the Somers mutiny, in Devens, Our
First Century…, p. 421 (1876) [Google Book] which relates in maudlin terms the parting words between
Mids. Spencer and Mids. Wales. Note: “Cromwell passed on, almost touching Spencer.” And then ..
“When Mr. Wales came up, Spencer extended his hand to him.” Of course, read “Mr. Whales came up.”
That’s U’αλες, per Spencer’s “sheet-anchor code” and observe the whale coming up from the sea -- as if to
watch the execution. This is Nelson, who sat on the courts martial of the crew members of the Dromedary.
And then, note the final run-on mash-up of text and picture caption: “Mr. Wales, weeping, and causing
others HANGING OF RINGLEADERS FROM THE YARD-ARM to weep...” Here we have a parody or an ironic
inversion of an historic exchange between the real Billy Budd, and “the White” – which is the common term
for the British Admiralty, which here is again personified in Nelson -- the Great White V.A.L.V, “causing
others HANGING OF RINGLEADERS FROM THE YARDARM to weep…” A very touching scene so far…
But keep an eye on that albatross.
© 2011 ROCH STEINBACH ©
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