A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY AT SEA.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 592, 12 May 1876, Page 3

A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY AT SEA.

(Home News.) The Lennie, a three-masted vessel of 950 tons, owned in Yarmouth, sailed from Antwerp on the 22nd of October last, and was bounftl for Nova Scotia. The crew consisted of Captain Hatfield, Joseph Wortley (the first mate), and Robert Macdonald, second mate, all of whom were murdered, the eleven alleged murderers in custody, and the other two survivors, Van Hoydek (the steward) and a boy named Henry Trusillo, to whose praiseworthy conduct, especially tnat of the steward, the credit of saving the ship and the arrest of the murderers is due. When the vessel had got into the Bay of Biscay, and after she had been five days at sea, the crew manifested signs of insubordination, which eventually broke out into the most terrible mutiny. As early as four o'clock on the morning of the 31st of October the steward, who was sleeping in his berth, heard on the deck above a frightful commotion. Dressing himself as speedily as he could, he ran to get on deck, but found he was prevented by the hatchway being fastened down. As he stood listening to the horrible violence and uproar going on above he heard terrible moans and gurgling sounds as of the captain's voice, and as if the captain was speaking with his throat cut, and almost in the last throes of death, was saying, " Oh, yon are not sailors ; you are slaughterers—you are slaughterers ! " Directly after that h<? heard another rush, and footsteps as of a man running away, and from what he could hear it seemed as though a rush was then being made after the second mate, who was probably trying to escape to the rigging. Immediately upon this he heard five shots fired, and then a heavy thud on the deck as though a man had been fetched down. After this murderous work had proceeded for about an hour and a half, at halfpast 5 some one came down to the steward. One of the mutineers then addressing him said :—" Well, we are finished now." The steward, affecting surprise, said, " Oh, what have you finished 1 " " The captain and the mate'," replied the mutineer; "and naw, can you take charge of the. ship ? " The steward replied, " Yes, where do you want to go?" To Greece," replied the mutineed. " You take us to Gibraltar, and we'll find Greece." The steward replied that it was all right; he would take the ship safe. When he got on deck he saw that the deck was covered with blood, and that five of the men were engaged in washing it off. Three others were over the bows, and three besides them were over the stern engaged in cutting away the name of the boat. Some of the men then went down below and got the captain's Rothes, whilst others went about and ransacked the ship, and another man took possession of the medicine chest. In thiß dreadful situation, with the murderous gang masters of the situation, and feeling by their looks that they were uncertain as to whether they should trust him alive with their dreadful secret, he came to the conclusion that he had no other alternative but apparently to become their willing gervant. He then asked them whether they had any further orders to give, and the reply was, " No ; work the ship to Gibraltar." After endeavouring to deceive them by first making sail that way, in the middle of the following night be steered for the Bristol Channel. The next morning one of the men went to the steward and said—" Why, you ain't going to Gibraltar ; you are making for the Bristol Channel." The steward replied, "You never mind where I am going; you mind your own business." The mutineer then went forward, and, calling the gang together, told them that the steward was selling them. A consultation was held among them, and they seemed uncertain whether they should butcher him too, or still trust him with the ship. They then came forward to him in a body and said : "Look here, steward, you had nothing to do with the murder, so you are all right; but mind you din't try to sell us, at your peril." The steward replied—"Oh, never mind what that man says. Don't you think I would try to sell you." He then put out to sea ; but as soon as the mutineers were off their guard, or the principal asleep, he, early on the following morning, changed the course towards the coast of France. Some of the more desperate and suspicious challenged him again, and in a meuacing manner said, " Why, steward, where are you going ?" As night was now coming on, and the sea was very rough, he thought that it would be best, to stay where they were until it became a fair wind; and on the men becoming a little more satisfied he shortened sail, and lowered the three topsails in the hope that soaie friendly ship "would come in sight. Ma'ters now assumed a very serious crisis, as one of the men, growing still more suspicious, came forward and insisted on taking charge of the ship. After this man had had charge of her for two" days, the crew generally became dissatisfied and uncertain as to the course, and after another consultation, they called on the steward again to take charge of the ship and obey their orders, and they threatened to cut off the ears of the first man who attempted to interfere with him. The steward then replied that before he could take the ship in safety, they must have con fidence in him, and he would see it all right. Something like confidence now being achieved, he got every man to go to his post. When working order was now restored, the steward went to the boy Harry Trusillo, he being the only one he thought he could trust, and said to him, " Now, look here, Harry, if we take these fellows to where they want to go, there is no knowing what they may do. When they know where they are they will be very likely to murder us and throw us over too. Let us try to save the ship and our own lives as well. Now, can I trust you ? " " Yes, all right," replied the boy. " Well, then," said the steward,

" now you go down into the cabin, and I will lock you in. Then you write twenty-four notes in French and in English stating that the captain and officers on board of the Lennie are all murdered, and that the crew have seized the ship, and we two are waiting assistance. Then while you are doing that I will go and get twenty-four empty bottles to put them in, and than we'll throw them overboard, and see what they'll send us." The boy did so, and when everything was all ready, the steward again altered the course of the vessel towards the French coast, and arriving there again on the Bth of November, they threw the bottles over, hoping they would drift towards the coast, or they might attract the attention of the French authorities. The weather became very rough, and the steward said to the men it would be no use for them to go to sea to lose their sails, and |if they chose to go on shore he would put them near to land at a small place he knew where there were no police. The six Greeks approving of this suggestion, took one of the ship's boats, and lowering it, went on shore on the French coast, and landed at Les Sables d'Olonne. The steward by this strategy having got rid of six of the mutineers, lay for two days near the coast. In the meantime some of the bottles had been picked up, aud within two days afterwards a pilot boat came alongside, followed by the Travailleur, a French man-of-war. The assistance had promptly been sent by the French Government, who in the first place demanded to know the reason of the Ltnnie'B name being obliterated, and of the ship being without the captain and mates. Van Hoydek, the steward, and the boy Harry Trussillo now came forward, and, claiming the immediate protection of the French authorities, at once told the whole story of the murders and the mutiny. The remaining five of the mutineers who had remained on board were charged with complicity in the murder, and arrested and placed in irons, and taken ou shore by the Travailleur. In the meantime the news of the dreadful occurrence was privately communicated to the French gendarmes. While all this had been going on the six Greeks who had landed at Sables d'Olonne had attracted the attention of the B'rench police there, they haviDg with them their officers' clothes and other things they had seized to sell. Eventually they applied to the Commissioner of Marine, and represented themselves as being destitute, and having belonged to. the Greek brigantine St Georges, which had foundeied with all hands but themselves. By this time the news of the murder had spread through the French provinces, and they being suspected as the six Greeks wanted were soon arrested. The whole of the eleven having undergone their preliminary examination before the French authorities, were handed over to the English Government on February 25th. Next day they were examined at Bow street, and further remanded.