Pirates and Samurai Finding a Pirate Ship Thursday 20th April 2017, 8:04 pm, I googled ‘mutiny 1829’ and there she was on the screen. I instantly knew it was her. One of those moments of disbelief at your own utter certainty tinged with annoyance that a hunt started two and a half years before had been solved by a search that any 9-year-old worth their salt would have made. Her name was the Cyprus, a shallow draft brig (two-masted square-rigged ship) and her true story more exciting than any Jonny Depp film. I had first come across the old ink and watercolour drawings chronicling the 1830 arrival of a foreign ship off Mugi Cove, Tokushima Prefecture while purchasing an old fisherman’s cottage in the area in June 2014. I had always been interested in obscure local histories and tried googling ‘foreign ship Tokushima’ in Japanese. I clicked on the top result and there on the screen were four ink and watercolour drawings: a nameless brig under British ensign; a crew member; a page of curiosities including a pipe, a bucket and some hats; and a map showing she had moored less than 900m from the back garden of my new holiday home. Some six months later I finally made my way to the Tokushima Prefectural Archive and found that there was a 5th image, the odd one out, that the archivists had not bothered to put up on the website. It was of a red coat and epaulet. Impressed with the detail on the cuffs, I photographed it before hearing a brief description of the illegible hand-written account from Tani-san, one of the volunteer archivists. The manuscript, titled An Illustrated Account of the Arrival of a Foreign Ship, was written in meticulous detail by a low-ranking samurai artist, Hamaguchi Makita. It was obviously a fascinating window into the Edo period recorded as Hokusai carved the wood blocks for his Great Wave. There was also a second much shorter manuscript entitled A Foreign Ship Drifts in Off Mugi Cove. Tani-san, it turned out, was member of the Tokushima Old Manuscript Reading Group and had edited an annotated transcription of legible but still barely comprehensible versions. I took a copy home to translate and two and half years later with a slightly desperate last-ditch two-word Google search, ‘mutiny 1829’, I had solved an almost 200-year-old mystery of the ship’s name and her history, and quickly discovered that there were two books, an academic paper questioning the captain’s claim of having reached Japan, numerous webpages, articles and chapters, as well as a poem and folk ballad all written in English about this amazing escape. Mutiny and Piracy on the Brig Cyprus The brig Cyprus was purchased by the colonial government of Tasmania, then Van Diemen’s Land, in 1826 to convey convicts and supplies to prisons around the island. Van Diemen’s Land was then a British colony and had been settled as a penal colony for transported convicts since 1803. The brig was 70 feet 6 inches (21.8m) long 20 feet (6.1m) wide and had a yellow streak down each side and 1 © Nicholas Russell 2017 Pirates and Samurai her hull was sheathed in copper. Brig Cyprus shown in part of Hobart Harbour, 1825 A. Earle, courtesy of the Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales. On 14th August, winter, 1829, after departing Hobart, she had met with a storm and taken shelter in the uninhabited Recherche Bay. All the prisoners on board had reoffended in Van Diemen’s Land and were heading for Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, also known as the Hell’s Gates and considered the worst place of punishment in the British Empire. A Victorian historian later described it as a place of ‘inexpressible depravity, degradation and woe’. Notice on Sturminster Newton Bridge, U.K., 2004 J. Dunckley, courtesy of Creative Commons. The Horrors of Transportation, c.1849 J. Platt, courtesy of Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. In the late afternoon, the lieutenant in charge of the military guard of the West Suffolk 63rd Foot went out in the jolly boat fishing in the calm of the bay. While he was away the prisoners, some in irons, 2 © Nicholas Russell 2017 Pirates and Samurai were being let up on deck five at a time to exercise. Some of them simply overpowered the three guards on duty, freed the other prisoners, blocked the narrow hatchway to prevent the other soldiers from coming up on deck, grabbed weapons and took control of the ship. Of the 63 prisoners, guards, crew, and accompanying family on board, 45 of them were put ashore on the beach 70km from Hobart with limited supplies. West Suffolk 63rd Foot redcoat shown in part of the Battle of Bunker Hill, 1897 by H. Pyle, presumed stolen. The Making of the Coracle, 1829 by W. B. Gould, courtesy of Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. Of the 33 prisoners destined for Macquarie, 18 took the Cyprus, her cargo of supplies for the penal station and the personal effects of all on board. Later, all but one of the prisoners who stayed behind on the beach had their Macquarie Harbour Penal Station sentences revoked for not escaping and assisting the lieutenant and ship’s captain. William Swallow (a nom de guerre, his real name was William Walker) claiming to have played little active role in the mutiny was later to be celebrated in an Australian folk ballad that includes the following verse: ...The Morn broke bright the Wind was fair, we headed for the sea With one more cheer for those on shore and glorious liberty. For Navigating smartly Bill Swallow was the man, Who laid a course out neatly to take us to Japan... Swallow could read and write and had served an apprenticeship on a collier in the North Sea. He had been pressed to serve in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. After being discharged he was unable to find work and had turned to thieving. He also had a history of daring escapes having once stuffed his shirt with cork and jumped overboard from another ship. 3 © Nicholas Russell 2017 Pirates and Samurai Map data ©2017 Google To keep the Cyprus away from other shipping, Swallow set a course for New Zealand and sailed between the North Island and the South Island where they stocked up with water. Next, probably influenced by the story of the mutiny on the Bounty, they laid a course for Tahiti. But on August 25th, while being driven off course by a storm, a man was lost overboard and they landed on Chatham Island where they stole from a Moriori village and some sealers. When they finally neared Tahiti, the seasonal winds were against them and the sails in poor repair so they ended up sailing back westward to one of the Friendly Islands (Tonga) that the pirates called ‘Nowey’, probably Niuatoputapu. Here they stayed until mid-November when there was a disagreement and only 10 of the remaining 17 headed for Japan. There, the ship was damaged by a cannonball. After that, they headed past Formosa (Taiwan) where they scuttled the ship and headed for Canton, China: two men in the jolly boat, 4 on a Chinese ship, and 4 in the long boat, the stern lettering of which had been changed to ‘the Edward’. In Canton, Swallow claimed that they were shipwreck victims and that while in Japanese waters ‘being in want of Provisions and water’ were ‘fired at by two batteries and 16 Boats, and one shot struck the vessel between wind and water’. Although viewed with suspicion by the authorities three of the crew of ten managed to board a ship to Mexico and were never heard of again, four of them returned to London and were later arrested, one was sent back to London and the remaining two were caught and eventually transported again. 4 © Nicholas Russell 2017 Pirates and Samurai In London, the story of the mutiny and the arrest of the five captured the public’s imagination. All but Swallow were sentenced to death. Though he would later be sentenced to death for illegally returning to England, he was found not guilty of piracy. Later, three including Swallow had their sentences commuted to transportation for life. The remaining, two men were the last to be executed for piracy in England. Thanks to the intense public interest, the trial was well reported in The Times of London on the 14th of September 1830 ‘The story told by three of the prisoners, of being fired at by the Japanese, is probably correct...' Swallow’s account from the trial was reported on 18th of October 1830. ‘Running some distance up the coast of Japan, he anchored in a convenient bay. A boat came from the shore with a Mandarin or person of authority, and desired to know what brought them there, and desired him to give in writing what he wanted, which he did in English, and said they were in want of wood and water, and would give anything in the vessel in exchange. At that time they were in great distress. They had been cruising about nearly five months; all the sails were split, and there was no canvas to mend them. In four hours the letter was returned, with the seal broke, and they were told to be off by sunset, or they would be fired upon, a large ball was shown them as earnest of the intention of the natives.