THE CASE OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL.
THE hundred seamen imprisoned for riot and mutiny on board the war-steamer Princess Royal have now been set at liberty, and coincidently with their liberation a correspondence on the subject has been made public, which places this unhappy incident in a light somewhat different from that first oast upon it.
Naval discipline is a very nice question. jack is a creature of vagaries and caprices, and he is especially troubled when the anchor is dropt in port, or the ship brought alongside the jetty for the purpose of dismantling her and of paying off her crew. Re- turned from a long cruise, it is inevitable that Jack should pine for a frisk ashore, and sigh for leave. How much greater must be his longing when he sees fun going on all around him, the pa- geant of a launch where royalty is present, and the hands of other ahips enjoying the indulgence he covets. Unless there be some- thing mysterious in his nature which makes it dangerous to the state to grant him leave, it would seem only natural that on such occasions Jack should have his fling. Holidays are good for us all, and especially good for men who have been cooped up for many months in a line-of-battle ship. The Princess Royal arrived at Portsmouth to be paid off. She
had been long afloat, and no complaint is made against her crew. She was lying off the jetty on that Saturday evening in November when the Princess Frederick William of Prus- sia named the " Victoria." Naturally enough, the men wanted a holiday. Why should they not knock off work until Monday. ? What harm would happen to the service if they did? Captain Baillie, her commander, knew of the natural wish of the men, but he had never applied. to the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Bowles, for leave. On the evening of Saturday the 13th of No- vember, he did apply, and the Admiral, being assured by the Captain that he felt confident his men would return to work on Monday, gave permission for one watch to go on shore. Captain Baillie reported this to the men, and sent the watch ashore. Those who remained grumbled very much, and, instead of repressing their insubordination, Captain Baillie reported to the Admiral that the whole crew were in an excited state, without telling the Admiral that one watch had gone ashore. Admiral Bowles, seeing "it was a time to be firm," immediately revoked the leave just given and directed the Captain to grant no leave at all. The men already at the dockyard gates were marched back, and then arose that disturbance which ended in the committal of the men to prison, and sharp criticisms on Admiral Bowles. It ap- spears from the correspondence that the Admiral did not know that the men to whom leave was granted were not in any way mixed up with the "unreasonable demand" of the crew for no leave or leave for all. Had, he known that fact, he says he should have i
dected the liberty men to proceed according t4; his original in- tention.
Hence it appears that the men were thrown into a state bor- dering closely on mutiny by the injudicious mode in which Cap- tain Baillie managed his case. Our inference from the whole of the statements is, that Captain Baillie desired. to give the men . leave. When he had obtained leave for one watch, he seems to have thought that he might be able to obtain leave for the others by representing to the Admiral their highly excited state. If so, he miscalculated his man and his negligence in not 'discrimi- nating between the malcontents on board and the men on shore led to the grievous error of punishing the innocent for the offence of the guilty. No doubt Captain Baillie did everything for the best; but if he had made a plain statement of the facts, the Ad- miral would not have been betrayed into committing an act of unintentional injustice, and the men would not have been goaded- into inexcusable actions. That Captain Baillie meant well is evi- dent, but want of firmness of purpose and clearness of statement frustrated his good intentions. The men were really the victims of these blunders.
Admiral Bowles has been somewhat unjustly treated by those who have been compelled to form opinions from day to day. His views of granting leave are more liberal than those of the Admi- ralty. Writing on the subject to Lord Clarence Paget, on the 20th November, six clays after the disturbance, he says— "In my opinion nothing could be more injudicious or unjust than to treat the officers and men returning from lengthened foreign service as culprits, in whom no confidence could be placed, and who were to be imprisoned on board their ships lying alongside the dockyard while every possible indul- gence was extended to all around them. I do not consider such a reception either just or prudent ; and, although I am entirely of opinion that the cap- tain and all the officers should conbaue to reside on board, and that order and discipline should be strictly enforced, I see no cause why reasonable leave of absence should not be granted, on condition that the men returned
• steadily to their work in the morning, and that no time was lost in dis- mantling the ship and returning the stores. If this indulgence was abused, it must of course be withheld but, in my opinion, this would not often occur, and as a general rule the ship will be found ready before the books come down. In the present case of the Princess Royal, although one watch has been permitted to go on shore every evening during the past week, the i ship s completely dimwitted last night (November 19th), while the books will not be received here until the 26th, and the ship cannot be paid off be- fore the 29th instant."
These are not the words of a man who desires to play the naval martinet, and curtail Jack of reasonable leave. "My Lords," however, have laid it down that when a ship arrives in port to be paid off, no leave shall be given either to officers or men unless a Sunday intervene, in which ease the Commander-in-Chief is to exercise his discretion. In laying down what looks like a severe rule, we must say, in justice to the Admiralty, that the Board undertakes to pay the men off within a week of their arrival, so that the crew may be enabled to go to their homes as soon as pos- sible.
The ease of the Princess Royal, in which the men who did wrong were mainly led to do it by the bungling of their superiors, ought to be a lesson to all Admirals and Captains, that men should not be treated as culprits when they return from a lengthened foreign cruise. Admiral Bowles himself, who has behaved very well in the matter, must remember that if " artioles " are written calculated to sap the foundations of discipline in the navy, the actions of Captains and Admirals sometimes tend to dry up the sources of naval recruitment. When they remember their own blunders they should look leniently on those of others ; for it is possible that two or three Captains may do more to damage the Navy than all the leading articles ever written.
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