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One of the oddest letters published in The Times is possibly this, from Thomas Dudley, captain of the yacht Mignonette, accused of murder for killing and eating his cabin boy, and writing to thank the Editor and readers of The Times for their support. May I through the medium of The Times express my thanks for numerous favours of sympathy to myself and companions for our past unparalleled sufferings and privations on the ocean, and our present torture under the ban of the law; being charged with an act which certatinly was not accompanied by either premeditation or malice in the true sense of the word, as my conscience can affirm.
Trusting that you will favour by inserting this. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, THOMAS DUDLEY
Three days earlier, on September 19, 1884, The Times reported that Dudley, captain, Edwin Stephens, mate, and Edmund Brooks, seaman, survivors of the wrecked yacht, Mignonette, had been charged with the wilful murder of Richard Parker, a 17-year-old cabin boy, on the high seas.
The crew had been sailing the yacht, from Southampton to Syndey, Australia, where she had been bought by a wealthy lawyer.
Everything went well until the 5th July, when a very heavy sea struck the yacht and stove in her side. Within five minutes the yacht went down, and the men had no time to get anything out of her; they had no water, and only two small tins of turnips.
They remained in this boat for a considerable time, but after several days they caught a turtle, upon which they lived for a few days, and except this they had nothing in the way of solid food to subsist upon, while for drink they were driven to the direst extremity.
The experienced crew survived by drinking their own urine, but Parker succumbed to the temptation to drink sea water and became ill, eventually losing consciousness.
Dudley described the ordeal in a letter to his wife, intending it to be found after his death. It was retrieved and published in The Times, after his arrival back in England.
To my dear wife, Mignonette foundered yesterday. Weather knocked side in. We had five minutes to get in boat, without food or water; 9th, picked up turtle. July 21, We have been here 17 days; have no food. We are all four living, hoping to get passing ship. lf not, we must soon die.
Mr Thompson will put everything right if you go to him, and I am sorry, dear, I ever started on such a trip, but I was doing it for our best. Thought so at the time. You know. dear, I should so like to be spared. You would and I should lead a Christian life for the remainder of my days.
If ever this note reaches your hands you know the last of your Tom and loving husband. I am sorry things are going against us thus far, but I hope to meet you and all our dear children in heaven. Dear, do love them, for my sake.
Dear, bless them and you and I love you all dearly, you know; but it is God's will if I am to part from you; but have hopes of being saved. We were about 1,300 miles from Cape Town when the affair happened. Good-bye, and God bless you all, and may he provide for you all. Your loving husband, Tom Dudley
Perhaps at this stage Dudley decided to fight back. Invoking what was known as a Custom of the Sea, he suggested that the crew should draw lots "in order that one might be killed for the others to subsist on". Stephens and Brooks were not keen on a lottery, but Dudley suggested that, since Parker was anyway unconscious, they should kill him and drink his blood.
When Brooks was lying in the bow of the boat, and it is not quite clear whether he was asleep or not, the captain and Stephens between them killed the boy, the captain telling Stephens to stand by and hold the boy's legs if it should be necessary. The captain then ran a penknife into the lad's throat, and they drank his blood. Brooks, although not assenting to the crime, being tortured by thirst, eagerly ran forward and drank the blood.
Within days, the lifeboat was spotted by a passing ship, and the crew delivered back to England. Dudley and Stephens made full statements of what had happened at the Customs House in Falmouth, assuming that the Custom of the Sea justified their actions.
In his account, Dudley described how Parker died. No one warned him not to incriminate himself, and he clearly had no idea that he was likely to be prosecuted.
Mate and I arranged that he was to hold his legs if he moved. I then offered up a prayer, asking judgment for us all if either was tempted to commit a rash act, and that our souls might be saved. I then said, "Now, Dick, your time has come." The poor lad murmured out, "What, me, Sir?" I said, "Yes, my boy." In less than 15 seconds he lay lifeless, and we then caught the drop of blood and divided between the three of us as well as we could.
A local policeman thought different, and arrested them. Although there had been well-known cases of cannibalism among shipwrecked sailors before, no such case had come to court and the legal status of the Custom of the Sea defence was so unclear that Dudley and Stephens's arrest was referred to the Home Secretary. Hoping to establish a precedent and clarify the law, he decided to proceed with a charge of murder.
The news of the arrest had already provoked a public outcry, and the launching of a legal aid fund. The court case became a cause celebre, attracting a flurry of letters to The Times, invoking references to Cicero, an Edgar Alan Poe story with a dramatically similar plot, and others.
The judges decided that necessity could not be used as a defence in a case of murder. They ruled:
To preserve one's life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it. War is full of instances in which it is a man's duty not to live, but to die. The duty, in case of shipwreck, of a captain to his crew, of the crew to the passengers, of soldiers to women and children ... these duties impose on men the moral necessity, not of the preservation, but of the sacrifice of their lives for others, from which in no country, least of all, it is to be hoped, in England, will men ever shrink, as indeed, they have not shrunk
Dudley and Stephens were sentenced to death, as the law demanded, but with a recommendation to mercy. They actually received six-months' hard labour, but Dudley still never believed that he should have had to serve any time at all.
Lindaland
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