Barons of the Sea by Steven Ujifusa

Author:Steven Ujifusa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

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I. The lowermost yard on the main mast (second mast back from the bow), supporting the main sail.

CHAPTER 13

FRIGHTFUL TO LOOK ALOFT: SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS

No more beautiful sight can be imagined than a morning at sea, with these magnificent vessels racing in mid-ocean, perhaps two or three of them in sight at once; the sun rising amidst golden clouds; the dark blue sea flecked with glistening white caps; long, low black hulls cleaving a pathway of sparkling foam; towering masts, and yards covered with snowy canvas which bellies to the crisp morning breeze as if sculptured in marble; the officers alert and keen for the contest.1

—CAPTAIN ARTHUR HAMILTON CLARK

The trial of Robert Waterman and James Douglass took place at the US District Courthouse in San Francisco, and lasted four months. It was a media circus, with reporters and curious observers cramming the balconies of the rickety structure. The witnesses gave contradictory, tangled testimony about the entire voyage: the attempted mutiny, the knife assault on Douglass, and the alleged beatings and deaths of Pawpaw, Lessing “the Dancing Master,” and other crew members at the hands of the captain and first mate.

Amidst the storm and fury of the press, Waterman remained unrepentant. (Although he did send $500 to the widow of one of the men who fell from aloft, along with a sympathy note.2) The whole affair, he insisted, had been whipped up out of nothing when Challenge’s crew spread “slanderous falsehoods and outlandish stories to the newspapers” as part of their scheme to cover up their own guilt in the mutiny. For him, as for all clipper captains, the primary job was to ensure the arrival of his employer’s ship and cargo as quickly and safely as possible. In his mind, he had been dealt a lousy hand by the crimps, and had hired Douglass because such a bully was the only kind of officer able to whip a diseased, inexperienced, and surly group of men into shape. What bothered Waterman the most was that due to bad seamanship and uncooperative weather, Challenge never had a chance to show her true top speed. Although a rich man, the loss of the $10,000 bonus still stung.

In February 1852 Judge Ogden Hoffman Jr., a Columbia-educated jurist appointed by President Millard Fillmore to bring some semblance of judicial order to San Francisco, admonished the jury to “weigh carefully the portion of the testimony touching on the state of discipline and behavior of the crew at the time the offense is alleged to have been committed and whether under a consideration of all circumstances, as detailed by witnesses, a reasonable man would have cause to fear personal danger or be deprived of the command of the ship and whether this state of affairs warned the committal of an assault like the one charged in the indictment.”3

The jury came back hopelessly deadlocked, and so Waterman emerged from the ordeal triumphant. He was effectively exonerated on all charges, save for the cruel treatment of

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