3 - Naval Crimes

Summary

As its title suggests, the present chapter is devoted to naval crimes. Naval crimes amounted to the lion's share of the offences tried by the courts martial in the volumes in the sample. Of the 1,596 violations of the Articles of War mentioned in these volumes, 1,241, or almost 78 per cent, fall within this category. At the same time, of the 1,149 defendants named in the sample, 533, or slightly more than 43 per cent, were tried exclusively for naval infractions.

It is all well and good to say that 43 per cent of the men tried by courts martial in the volumes in the sample were arraigned exclusively for naval infractions, but what were naval crimes? Naval crimes can be defined as those offences that were illegal only in the context of a maritime fighting force. Thus the transcripts in this chapter deal with transgressions such as desertion and absence without leave [81–94], mutiny [95–8], mutinous expressions and sedition [99–101], disobedience of orders [102–3], contempt, insolence and disrespect [104–5], neglect of duty [106–7], loss of ship and grounding [108–12], unofficerlike conduct [113–14] and brutality [115–16].

Charges of desertion or absence without leave were the most frequent naval crimes mentioned in the sample, amounting to 28 per cent of all offences in this category. Mutiny constituted almost 16 per cent of the allegations, with mutinous expressions accounting for approximately 4 per cent more. This percentage for mutiny is a bit misleading because three-quarters of the indictments for the said offence resulted from just nine incidents. contempt, insolence and disrespect made up 13.6 per cent of the total, disobedience of orders 11 per cent and neglect of duty another 9.4 per cent. Loss of ship or grounding came to approximately 10 per cent of the aggregate, with unofficerlike behaviour being 4.7 per cent of the sum and brutality constituting a little more than 3 per cent.

Trials for breaches of the articles of War such as failure to join battle, collisions between ships and cowardice are not included in this chapter because the few cases to be found between 1793 and 1815 either exceed the limitations established in the introduction or are more appropriate in another chapter.