HMS Hermione was the lead ship of the , a six-ship class of 32-gun fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 9 September 1782, at Bristol. Hermione was commissioned and then paid off a number of times during the 1780s. She underwent repairs between October 1790 and June 1792, followed by a period spent refitting at Chatham Dockyard until January 1793. She was recommissioned in December 1792, before sailing to the Jamaica in March 1793. Hermione served in the West Indies during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, participating in the British attack on Port-au-Prince, where she led a small squadron that accompanied troop transports.
In February 1797 — the year of the Spithead and Nore mutinies — Captain Hugh Pigot took command of Hermione. She saw action in 1797, under Pigot including leading a squadron that cut out nine ships at the Battle of Jean-Rabel without suffering any casualties. Pigot was a cruel officer who meted out severe and arbitrary punishments to his crew. This treatment of the crew led to the bloodiest mutiny in British naval history in September 1797, which saw Pigot and most of the ship's officers murdered. The mutineers then handed the ship over to the Spanish on 27 September 1797, who renamed her Santa Cecilia. On 25 October 1799, boats from under Captain Edward Hamilton, cut her out of Puerto Cabello harbour. She was returned to Royal Navy service under the name Retaliation and the British Admiralty later renamed her Retribution on 31 January 1800. She returned to Portsmouth in 1802, and in October 1803, she was fitted for service for Trinity House. She was broken up at Deptford in June 1805.
Early years HMS Hermione was the lead ship of a six-ship class of frigates designed by Edward Hunt and termed the Hermione class. She was long with a keel, a beam of , a draught of , and a hold depth of . She was 714 (bm) tons burthen. She was ordered 20 March 1780, and the keel was laid down in June 1780. She was launched on 9 September 1782 from Teast's of Bristol, having cost £11,350.14s.4d to build, with a further £4,570.2s.2d spent on dockyard expenses, and £723.16s.9d on fitting out.
Hermione was commissioned initially under Captain Thomas Lloyd, who commanded her until she was paid off in April 1783. She recommissioned that same month under Captain John Stone, who sailed her to Nova Scotia on 17 October, after which she was paid off in 1785. Hermione may have then been recommissioned under Captain William H. Ricketts during the Spanish Armament of 1790, though this is uncertain. She did, however, undergo a repair between October 1790 and June 1792, followed by a period spent refitting at Chatham Dockyard until January 1793. She was recommissioned in December 1792, under Captain John Hills, under whom she sailed to Jamaica on 10 March 1793.
Hermione served in the West Indies during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars. On 2 June 1794, under Hills, the ship participated in the British attack on Port-au-Prince, where she led a small squadron that accompanied troop transports. Hermione had five men killed and six wounded in the attack.HMS Hermione muster April 1792 to 7 July 1797, p. 8, British National Archives, ADM 36120117 The British captured the port and its defences, and in doing so captured a large number of merchant vessels. Hermione was also among the vessels that shared in the capture on 17 July, of the Lady Walterstasse."Many of the Hermione crew came down with yellow fever or malaria during the course of 1794. Of these, some 40 died." In late August, Hills himself fell ill, first with dysentery and then yellow fever. He died at Port Royal on 4 September 1794.The Gentlemans Magazine (1850). Vol. 188, p. 662. Captain Philip Wilkinson replaced Hills and was himself replaced in February 1797 — the year of the Spithead and Nore mutinies — by Captain Hugh Pigot. Pigot was a cruel officer who meted out severe and arbitrary punishments to his crew. During a nine-month period, as captain of his previous command he ordered at least 85 floggings, the equivalent of half the crew; two men died from their injuries.
Hermione was sent to patrol the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Under Pigot, she destroyed three privateers at Puerto Rico on 22 March 1797. On 20 April, Hermione was the lead ship in a squadron formed of the 32-gun frigates and , the 14-gun brig , and the cutter HMS Penelope. The squadron cut out nine ships at the Battle of Jean-Rabel without suffering any casualties. On 6 September 1797, she was in company with and HMS Renommee when Diligence captured a Spanish 6-gun packet ship with troops on board.
Mutiny The disrating of Midshipman David O'Brien Casey, an experienced junior officer who had served competently under Captain Pigot during the previous months, was one of the primary triggers to the mutiny. About a week before the mutiny, Casey was at his station on the main top, and Pigot noticed that a gasket, one of the ties that held the sail securely, had not been tied by one of the sailors under Casey's supervision. Brought before Pigot, Casey apologized and took responsibility for the oversight. Pigot demanded that Casey apologize on his knees, an unacceptable and debasing demand of a gentleman. When Casey twice refused to be humiliated in such a way, the captain ordered that he receive 12 lashes (more commonly a sailor's punishment than that of a junior officer), and he was disrated, which would effectively end his career as a naval officer. Casey was a popular officer amongst the crew and they felt that he was punished unfairly. The topmen began to plot mutiny.
Pigot had also developed the practice of frequently flogging the last sailor down from working aloft. On 20 September 1797, he ordered the topsails to be reefed after a squall struck the ship. Dissatisfied with the speed of the operation because "these would be the yard-arm men, the most skilful topmen" he gave the order that the last men off the yard would be flogged. This policy was particularly unreasonable as the men would be spaced along the yard, and the two whose stations were furthest out would always be the last down. Three young sailors, in their haste to get down, fell to their deaths on the deck. One of the sailors hit and injured the master, Mr. Southcott. Pigot ordered their bodies thrown into the sea with the words "throw the lubbers overboard"; a particularly offensive insult in the seaman's vocabulary. He then instructed two boatswain's mates to flog some of the topmen when they complained. Other topmen were flogged the next morning.
The combination of the humiliation of Casey, the deaths of the three topmen, and the severe punishment of other sailors appears to have driven some of the crew to mutiny. These immediate factors were, however, also the final events in a series of harsh and brutal punishments by Pigot. Dudley Pope, in his book The Black Ship, argues that it was not Pigot's cruelty that drove the men to mutiny but his showing favouritism to some crewmen while inflicting overly harsh punishment on others. Had Pigot been more even-handed in his discipline, the mutiny might have been avoided.
The last surviving muster book, July 1797, reflects Hermione had a diverse crew, with about half of the crew born in England, and a fifth in Ireland. The remaining sailors were from Germany, Norway, America, Canada, Denmark, and Portugal. Two of the men were of African descent. At least twenty of these seaman were Americans, "among them mariners from Charleston, Norfolk, Philadelphia, New York and Nantucket." Of the twenty Americans aboard the Hermione, a slight majority appear to have received bonuses for "enlisting", with a distinct likelihood that the remainder had been pressed." As he had when in command of , Captain Pigot continued to impress seamen. Many of these men were "pressed" or forcibly conscripted from merchant vessels. For example, six Americans were pressed on 4 July 1795, from the American merchant ship Two Brothers. This led to a diplomatic incident and the intervention of the American Consul, Silas Talbot, with their eventual release. Seaman John Farrel of New York and Bosun's Mate Thomas Nash of Waterford, Ireland would both take significant leadership roles during the mutiny. Thomas Nash aka Jonathan Robbins in 1799, after his extradition to Great Britain, was convicted of murder by court-martial and hanged. However his case United States vs Robbins 1799 led to the historic decision to grant political asylum to refugees.
Mrs. Fanny Martin, the wife of boatswain William Martin, was aboard with Captain Pigot's approval. Her husband was murdered during the mutiny, and Mrs. Martin, on 16 February 1798, swore out a deposition against some of the mutineers. As a prosecution witness, however, Mrs. Martin was a mixed blessing, having by then blamed Captain Pigot's cruelty for the mutiny in a widely printed newspaper story. In 1803 though, Mrs. Martin was granted a pension by the Court of Navy Commissioners.
On the evening of 21 September 1797, a number of the crew, drunk on stolen rum, rushed Pigot's cabin and forced their way in after overpowering the marine stationed outside. They hacked at Pigot with knives and cutlasses before throwing him overboard. The mutineers, probably led by a core group of just 18 men, went on to murder another eight of Hermiones officers: the first lieutenant, Samuel Reed; the second lieutenant, Archibald Douglas; the third lieutenant, Henry Foreshaw; the marine commander, Lieutenant McIntosh; boatswain William Martin; purser Stephen Turner Pacey; surgeon H.T. Sansum; and the captain's clerk. Two midshipmen were also killed, and all the bodies were thrown overboard.
Subsequent court-martial testimony by a surviving midshipman describes the behavior of the mutineers as "truly savage and brutal". Pigot and a number of other victims were still alive when they were thrown overboard, while the marine officer McIntosh was dying of yellow fever when the mutineers dragged him from his bunk. Third Lieutenant Foreshaw had fallen on a mizen chain whaler platform extending from the side of the ship, but was hacked to death when he regained the deck. The majority of the crew emerged leaderless from their sleeping quarters to a scene of chaos. No effort was made to oppose those actively involved in the mutiny, even by the sailors whom Pigot had brought with him from his previous ship and generally favoured.
Three warrant officers survived: the mutineers refrained from killing the gunner and carpenter because they were considered useful to the ship, and Southcott, the master, was spared so he could navigate. Southcott lived to be a key witness, along with Casey, who was also spared, and their eyewitness accounts and testimony were critical to the trials of many of the mutineers. Three petty officers joined the mutiny together with one midshipman, Surgeon's Mate Cronin, and Master's Mate Turner.
Fearing retribution for their actions, the mutineers decided to navigate the ship toward Spanish waters. One reason the master's life was spared was that Turner could not navigate the ship properly without his help. Hermione sailed to La Guaira, where the mutineers handed the ship over to the Spanish authorities. The mutineers claimed they had set the officers adrift in a small boat, as had happened in the mutiny on the Bounty some eight years earlier. The Spanish gave the mutineers just 25 dollars each in return, and presented them with the options of joining the Spanish colonial army, heavy labour, or being employed in refitting their ship. The Spaniards took Hermione into service under the name Santa Cecilia; her crew included 25 of the former seamen, who remained under Spanish guard.