The schooner, the Lady Wright, arrived at Exeter Quay on Thursday 11h November, 1841 with a cargo from Alicante and when the Exeter lumpers (dockers) and pilots got chatting to the crew, they were told a tale of how Mr.Wright, the captain, had behaved with savage cruelty to his cabin-boy, the 14 year old, Henry Payne, 'an acute and intelligent lad'.
The story quickly spread around the Quay and came to the ears of Mr. Sharland, wine merchant, who thought it right to put the matter into the hands of the lawyer, Charles Brutton who took up the case 'with great good feeling' and brought it to court, the Exeter Police Court, at the Guildhall, the following Monday and Captain Wright's cruelties were recounted by young Henry and by other members of the crew, Richards and Ray, and were thus reported in The Western Times of 20th November 1841:
"The boy Payne was employed on board as cabin-boy and cook. The first assault on the boy was soon after they were out of sight of land, then the captain, for some trifling neglect, beat him with a rope's end most cruelly.
"The boy also detailed a number of other instances in which the captain had punished him with a severity vastly disproportioned to the trivial nature of the offence. In fact, the captain's conduct had inspired him with so so much dread, that on one occasion, when the boy, while the vessel was in harbour at Alicant, had got tipsy with some wine that had been given to him, and fearing the threatened punishment, he jumped overboard, and would have been drowned had he not been rescued by the exertions of Richards.
"It happened on another occasion that the captain caught the boy asleep during the period of his watch which was from one to three in the morning. For this offense he was slung up by the heels - the boy stated for 5 to 10 minutes - the ropes being belayed to the bulwarks, and while thus suspended, about a yard from the deck, so that neither his arms nor his head could touch, the captain flogged him with a rope's end in such a manner as to raise large weales in several parts of his body as thick as a man's finger.
"The witness, Richards hearing the boy screeching from below, went on deck to see what was the matter, but was told by the captain that ' if he interfered, he would run a handspike through his b-----y guts.'. In addition to this infliction, the boy was not allowed to go below from that hour till half past 11 the following night, making altogether nearly 24 hours."
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The captains's 'punishments' were defended in court by Mr. Drake but the Exeter magistrates decided that nothing could justify the cruelty of the last assault and they therefore fined Captain Wright fifty shillings and costs.
This judgement made me think of the justice administered by the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance in Chapter 4 of Don Quixote of La Mancha for nothing more is written in the newspaper about the future of Henry Payne and the other crew members who gave evidence. They presumably were bound to go back to sea with wicked Captain Wright and one shudders to think what shenanigans went on the next time the Lady Wright was 'out of sight of land.'
"I'll run a handspike through your bloody guts!" is as good a salt-sea oath as one could hope to hear on a summer's day.
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