Cooper Wade,  ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾

John Constable, ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

Thomas Hudson. ^(iv)

Kirkby had ample reason to resent Benbow,(vi) who was just a few months senior to him. Benbow had been kept in constant employ, was in favour with the Admiralty and other Lords and had advanced to Vice Admiral rank. As Burne indicates in Queen Anne’s Navy, there is much evidence in Kirkby's letters to the Admiralty of his strong feeling of having been unjustly passed over for ships and promotion.

In addition, Richard Kirkby, had a history of cruelty: in this 1694-5 service in the Mediterranean he court-martialled his boatswain and sentenced him to be broken and flogged for disobedience and insolence. Apparently Kirkby had ordered him to do some painting, which was typically the carpenters chore. The Boatswain had dared to dispute the matter and later sued Kirkby in civil court. Although we have no more details of the outcome, Charnock described this incident as a violent dispute and quarrel and added that Kirkby's "own character rather suffered in this civil encounter." (x) This incident with the Boatswain may well have become an embarrassment to the naval authorities, once it became a civil action. In addition, Kirkby fell out with his Chaplain and dismissed him during this 1695 Mediterranean voyage. He also ordered a seaman to be flogged and towed ashore for 'scandalous actions, to the great corruption of good manners'.(xi) This may well have been a reference to unhygienic practices such as fouling the lower decks rather than using the 'head'.

The times are soe dull here yet that I can find you nothing but what you’d have from every hand: therefore I only acquaint you, that I am the eldest officer (under the flagg) in the squadron, & request you to remember our old friendship as occasion offers. Mr. Hutchinson & I remember you as often as wee meet…(xvi)

I referr you for news to the admiralls Account: tho that brings you little of Moment. Wee are upon the brink of an Expedition. God find it proppitious & you shall know the contents of our success. Poore Charles Hutchingson has been severall times severely afflicted with sickness, but I hope is now sufficiently season’d. Since Reare Admirall Whetstone has hoisted his flagg here, I must request you to make My Lord high Admirall senciable I am the next officer & recommend me as a friend to his Memory which addition to your many favours I shall heartily acknowledge…(xvii)

Despite his behaviour during the Mutiny, accounts of his execution indicate that at the time of his death, he behaved with dignity and perhaps even remorse, clearly with a concern for the effect of his death upon his family. The 1705 pamphlet quotes from a letter to his relations in which Kirkby suggests that he continued to hope that his view of events would eventually prevail:

Cowper refers to an earlier account of Kirkby’s execution published in 1703 which records Kirkby’s speech to the gathered company just before his death:

He devoted it with something of a Resolution and Presence of Mind, to a modest and becoming submission & expressed himself in such words as were proper to Deter others of his countrymen from Cowardice for the future. (xix)

Captain Acton of the Bristol, who had brought Kirkby back to England and had carried out the execution described his death in a letter to Secretary Burchett:

Captain Kirkby, during the time of his being in prison, he behaved himself mannerly and very much like a Christian by continued prayer and reading of good books, and upon receiving notice of his approaching death seemed very easy, desiring of God to strengthen him and the night before his execution I sat up late with him and found him very calm and easy, not railing or reviling, but forgiving all the world and praying, for the Queen health and prosperity…and after prayers spoke a quarter of an hour to all the people in general to forbear swearing and debauchery and be obedient to their superiors, but did not rail at his hard fate or any such thing to arraign his judges or the like…I delivered their bodies as desired to their friends to be privately interred. (Adm.1/1436)

His final resting place is just before the altar of Charles’ Church Plymouth, the bombed out shell of which remains as a war memorial. In 1873 Llewellynn Jewitt recorded in his History of Plymouth that in 1816:

On removing the pulpit in Charles’ Church during alterations, the leaden coffins containing the bodies of Capt. Richard Kerby and Captain Cooper Wade, who were shot in Plymouth Sound for cowardice in the action between Benbow and Du Casse, in 1702, were discovered.

Kirkby's main supporter in the mutiny, Cooper Wade, may have had an even more personal reason for resenting Benbow. On December 10, 1701, William Berry, a boy belonging to Wade's ship the Greenwich, brought a complaint against Peeter Amorin "that the said Peeter Amorin did commit upon the body of him the said William Berry that unnatural and detestable sin of Sodomy." Amorin was Wade's Steward. He confessed and was sentenced to death by hanging.(xx) On December 16, the sentence was carried out on board the Greenwich.

In addition to possibly resenting Benbow for the death of his Steward, Wade may also have been influenced by his experiences as a survivor of earlier expeditions to the West Indies. He had served on an earlier ill-fated voyage. In 1693 he had been the Second Lieutenant on the Resolution under Sir Francis Wheeler, then commander in chief of naval forces in the West Indies. Wheeler's squadron was decimated by disease and accomplished little. On May 17, 1693, as the squadron limped northward to Boston, Commander Wheeler made Cooper Wade captain of the Bomb vessel Phoenix, and on May 23, captain of the fireship Owner's Love.(xxi) Wade learned the cruel lesson that the quickest way to prosper was through the death of one's superiors.

In the summer of 1695 Wade was in a small squadron under Peregrine, Marquis of Carmarthen (formerly Earl of Danby and later second Duke of Leeds). Carmarthen was tasked with protecting the trade at the mouth of the Channel. He mistook a fleet of homeward-bound merchantmen for the French Brest fleet and vacated his station. As a result a number of vessels from Barbados and the East Indies fell into the hands of the enemy. Some controversy resulted. Burnet blamed him outright as a man extravagant in his pleasures and humours. Charnock defended him and states that this failure was independent of the noble marquis. Clowes suggests that his behaviour was one of the causes that led to the abandonment of the practice of putting raw officers into commands of great responsibility merely because they were influential noblemen. Wade was witness to this controvery and benefited from Carmarthen's attempt to displace blame. Captain Thomas Coall (Cole) of the Dreadnaught was an old tarpaulin captain, senior captain of Carmarthen's squadron, and took the brunt of Carmarthen's fury. He relates in a report to the Admiralty that Carmarthen assaulted him on his own ship, calling him a dog, punching him and pulling him about the ship by his cheeks till he confined him in the First Lieutenant's cabin, and replacing him with Captain Wade. In the end Coall was reinstated, but shortly thereafter shelved on half pay. The Admiralty refrained from dealing with the noble born agressor. Wade saw that a gentleman officer with connections could prevail over a tarpaulin with impunity. (Edward Fraser, 1910, The Fighting Fame of the King's Ships)

Wade also learned that officers disgruntled with their commanders did have recourse to Parliament. In July 1697 he was part of a fleet of thirteen ships stationed in St. John's Newfoundland under Captain John Norris. They learned that five French men of war had put into Conception Bay, less than twenty miles away. They were able to confirm that this was the remnant of Pointis' fleet, which had just sacked Carthagena and was overflowing with gold and silver. A council of war was called, which included eleven land officers, responsible for St. John's. Eight of the thirteen sea officers, including Cooper Wade, voted to attack Pointis. The other five and all the land officers outvoted them, arguing that the defence of St. John's was their priority. So Pointis escaped. The House of Lords chastised Norris for including the land officers in his council of war and for failing to attack the French. Wade remembered the Lords' willingness to investigate naval commanders. During his Court Martial he was quoted as having threatened on several occasions "this will be another Parliament Business". Wade must have had cause to hope that a dispute with Benbow would receive a favourable hearing when referred to the Government.(xxxiii)

Testimony at the Court-Martial by Robert Thompson, 1^st Lieutenant of the Bredah, indicates that Wade was clearly a follower, and under Kirkby’s influence. Lieutenant Thompson testified that during the captain’s consultation on the final day of the battle, he took the captains to task for their timidity in the face of such a good opportunity to attack the enemy. He asked Wade "Is this not a shame?" When Wade tried to agree that it was and to add some further words, "Kirkby taxed him with not being a man fit to sit at a consult that would give ear to every single man’s words." (xxiv)

Although we do not know who Wade’s great relations were, that Campbell had referenced, we do know that he left a considerable estate. His will, probated June 16, 1703, was dated August 18, 1701, and gives his residence as Portsmouth. In it he left his estate to his wife Elizabeth (Payne). It consisted of messuages, lands, tenements, heriditements, and in particular, property in the parish of St. Matthew Ipswich, where he was christened May 1, 1660.

His body was laid to rest with Kirkby’s near the altar of Charles’ Church, Plymouth.

John Constable

John Constable, another of the mutineers had his own troubled history with Benbow. Like Benbow, he served for many years in the Channel fleet. He was 1^st Lieutenant of the Bredah at the battle of Barfleur in May 1692, when Benbow was Master of the fleet. He must have performed well for in November 1692 he was made Captain of the Katherine storeship. It is likely that Benbow assisted Carmarthen in the fiasco at Brest in 1694, in which Constable in the Shoreham and others suffered terrible enemy fire while trapped by the tides. On September 12, 1697, as Captain of the Lowestoffe, he joined Rear Admiral Benbow's squadron near the Gunfleet at the mouth of the Thames. On October 3rd, he and the Roebuck fire ship gave chase to a Dunkirk privateer. At one o'clock Constable called off the chase, when just one mile from the Frenchman. Constable stated that the enemy had his boat over board, indicating that the wind had died and they were towing their ship in order to escape. Benbow had court martialled Captain Henry Tourville for similar ineffectiveness in 1693. In the Roebuck incident Benbow may well have made known his displeasure to both Constable and his superiors. Shortly after this incident, on November 8, 1697, Admiralty records indicate another complaint was lodged against Constable.

These complaints were sufficient to see Constable suspended and removed from his ship. As Rear Admiral, responsible for Constable, it is likely that Benbow influenced his removal, as he had done with Tourville. At the very least, Constable would have resented his flag officer for not supporting him in his dispute with the Admiralty. Constable was left unemployed until his appointment in April 1701 to the Windsor in Benbow's ill-fated Caribbean squadron. At his court martial Constable’s resistance was judged to have been less severe then Kirkby and Wade’s. He escaped the death penalty, and was sentenced to imprisonment.

The fourth mutineer, Thomas Hudson, was the First Lieutenant on Benbow's flagship, the Bredah, when the squadron set out for the West Indies in September 1701. As such he was ideally situated to be next in line for promotion to Post Captain. No doubt he was chosen for this position because of his considerable experience, particularly in the West Indies. Hudson had served with Cooper Wade in Wheeler’s 1693 West Indian expedition. In fact he had succeeded Wade as Captain of the Bomb vessel Phoenix on May 25, 1693. As comrades in arms who had survived that disasterous voyage they must have forged a lasting relationship. This may well have been the cement that bound him to the other mutineers. As Captain of the Bomb vessel he must certainly have been technically proficient and a good seaman. Following his return to home waters in October 1693, he remained captain of the Phoenix until December 1694. He likely served in the Channel squadron of bomb ships under Benbow during the latter part of 93 and throughout 94 when Benbow as Commander in Chief was charged with bombarding the French Channel ports. From December 1694 till February 1700 Hudson served as captain of small vessels including the Kitchen yacht and the Postboy brig, probably delivering vital messages between the Admiralty and ships on distant stations. He had clearly put in his time and was due for promotion to a ship of the line. If Benbow did not personally choose him, he certainly would have concurred, given Hudson’s experience. Benbow appointed Hudson to post captain in December 1701 when the Scarbrough lost her captain to illness. Shortly after he was moved to the Pendennis.

Richard Kirkby:

iv.  Naval Biographical Database, Charnock, Commissioned Sea Officers.