The Black Ship

After spending a pleasant hour or two clambering around on tall ships and looking at exhibits, I picked up a copy of Dudley Pope's fascinating historical study, The Black Ship (1963; Pen & Sword Military Classics edition 2003), at the San Diego Maritime Museum.  This is the true story of one of the most brutal captains ever in the British Royal Navy, Hugh Pigot, and the bloody mutiny on his last ship, the frigate Hermione, in 1797.  For anyone who's a fan of Patrick O'Brian or other historical-military fiction of the Napoleonic wars, this is a wonderfully-sourced recreation of the era.  Pope quotes extensively from the surprisingly large number of surviving period documents that relate to the mutiny and its aftermath and spends additional time deconstructing the family and career history of Captain Pigot and providing period context for his treatment of his men, which was rough even by the standards of a fairly bloody era. 

Pope also wrote fiction set in the period (I think I may have read one of his Ramage novels at some point) and has a novelist's sense of plot and pacing.  Even knowing the outcome of the story, the book is a page-turner.  I zoomed through it like I would a thriller.  And the wealth of period detail, from slang to the details of individual sailors' roles in such activities as setting sails, adds rich background to take back to my fiction reading.  Pope's precision as a historian is also on full display; every quote in the book except general commands of the "set sail!" variety is taken directly from a period source.  Pope has gone into not only the records of the British Navy but also Spanish records of the era in search of details of the ship's fate (hilariously trapped in colonial bureaucracy) after being turned over to the Spanish by the mutineers before eventually being recaptured by sailors of H.M.S. Surprise (the real one, under Captain Edward Hamilton) in one final thrilling episode.

I highly recommend this book for fans of historical novels, especially naval fiction, set in the era, or Napoleonic/Regency history buffs in general.

Comments

[Marilee J. Layman]

Did you do anything other than ships?

[Susan de Guardiola]

I did the zoo and I did ships and I walked around and absorbed sunlight. That was enough; I was really suffering from exhaustion and jet lag along with people overload. As soon as I work out how/where to do it I will put a bunch of photos from the trip up and write a post or two. Catching up on my sleep and on Kickery are also on that list.

[Serge]

A ship called Surprise? Was that unusual for a ship to be so called? For all I know (which really isn't much), it may have fit perfectly within the traditions behind the naming of ships.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Serge: There seem to have been a couple of real ships by that name, but I noted it particularly because the third Patrick O'Brian novel is called H.M.S. Surprise and is about a fictional ship, and because I had just spent part of my afternoon on the ship they used for it in the film Master and Commander. Anyone familiar with either the Aubrey/Maturin books or the film would wonder about that name.

I don't know much about ship naming conventions either, except that ships are personified as female and therefore are often given women's names (like the Hermione). Spanish ships seem to acquire saints' names (Santa Cecilia). Surprise seems to fit into the same group of names as Enterprise, Retaliation, Challenger, etc. that presumably are desirable traits/goals for the ship and/or its crew.

[Serge]

Ah... I wasn't familiar with O'Brian, except for the movie, so I missed the reference.