Near the Cape of Good Hope, according to Frederick Jacobson, Ryan and Leverson spoke of murdering the captain, his mate, the steward, and the boatswain, and of cutting Tom West’s throat whilst he slept. Jacobson could not name the precise day. These alleged words led directly to the London trial, wherein master and mariners likewise accused one another of violence and insubordination. The opening indictment charged Ryan and Leverson with conspiracy, and placed Ryan and Clifford under a count of assault against Couch and Cousins. The testimonies agreed neither upon the condition of the vessel nor upon the events that unfolded between decks.
The Argosy, a British schooner belonging to a Plymouth shipowner, took on hands at Port Adelaide. Couch stated that he engaged Ryan as boatswain, and Leverson and Clifford as able seamen, advancing them their pay. Ryan and Leverson were subsequently to maintain that the ship made water and that the officers ill-treated the men; Couch recounted a sequence of insubordinations, threats, and assaults. The foundation of the prosecution thus did not open upon a scene of bloodshed, but upon a disputed passage wherein each faction insisted that the safety and governance of the craft had been jeopardized by the other.
On the 11th of February, Couch observed the point of a knife protruding from the stern. On the following day, Leverson asked him what he intended to do regarding the ship’s sides, through which, he claimed, the water was pouring in. The master replied that the Argosy was seaworthy, two surveyors having examined her on the previous day. Leverson had, in the interim, addressed a letter to the vessel’s agents, Messrs. Caner and Gay, warning them that Couch had shifted the cargo after the survey in order to conceal the leaking seams. He described fissures into which, so he asserted, one might thrust the blade of a knife up to the hilt. Couch acknowledged that the craft had a slight list, which was corrected prior to the second inspection; he denied having moved the lading to mask a leak.
This letter likewise made clear why the dispute soon reached a court of law. Leverson maintained he had done no more than caution the owners; Couch perceived in this démarche an intolerable meddling, and in the sailor’s conduct gross insubordination. He admitted that the Argosy’s pumps were worked regularly—at times every two hours throughout the voyage—yet contended that the leak was trifling and had been known ever since the vessel was new. Upon their return, he stated, the craft was placed in dry dock, where a small bolt-hole in the hold was found to account for the ingress of water. The report of the Adelaide surveyors, according to his account, had pronounced the ship seaworthy. The archival record reports his statements alongside the men’s contestations, though it does not reproduce the surveyors’ findings in full.
On the 18th of February, whilst the vessel lay in Adelaide roads, Ryan asked leave to go ashore to lay a complaint before a magistrate. Couch bade him return quietly to his duty; whereupon Ryan struck him. The master called out to Cousins, the mate, and fetched handcuffs. Ryan subsequently appeared before a magistrate, but Couch requested that he be returned to the ship under guard. He stripped him of his rating as boatswain. Cousins confirmed having witnessed the blow and related that Ryan had refused sundry orders, boasting that he would take command of the craft had he but two men to back him. These particulars proceeded from officers whose own authority and conduct were sharply assailed by the mariners.
During the passage home, Couch described numerous altercations. He accused Ryan of abandoning the wheel to assist Leverson in a fray with West; he stated that Clifford lay asleep when he ought to have been on watch, and that Ryan repeatedly threatened to kill him or cast Cousins into the sea. In April, Cousins recounted two violent clashes: the first wherein several hands purportedly hemmed him in upon the forecastle, and a second wherein Ryan and Clifford set upon him—the latter striking him with a boat-hook until he lost his senses. He noted that no witness had seen him beaten during this second encounter, the weather being foul and the spray breaking heavy over the bulwarks.
Cousins kept the ship’s log. He stated that he recorded the occurrences every four-and-twenty hours, and produced leaves from the book which likewise noted the working of the pumps, the rough weather, and the ship’s daily routine. Ryan, it was alleged, had threatened that on some dark night the mate would be found “missing,” and that none would be able to contradict him once they reached London. Cousins took these words as a direct threat to throw him overboard. The log might well fix dates and incidents; it remained, nevertheless, the composition of the very officer who accused the men, and it afforded no independent corroboration of the scenes it transcribed.
Frederick Jacobson furnished the narrative that served as the direct basis for the alleged conspiracy. He claimed to have overheard Ryan and Leverson, in Clifford’s presence, speak of killing the captain, the mate, the steward, and the boatswain, and of cutting Tom West’s throat in his sleep. He situated this first colloquy near the Cape of Good Hope, without being able to name the exact day; the master, consulting the log, fixed the episode at the 21st of April. Some two days later, according to Jacobson, the men spoke anew of making away with the officers, carrying the Argosy into Bahama Bay, and selling the vessel. The men, he swore, had urged him to join their plot.
Yet Jacobson was by no means a detached witness to the feud. He related that the captain had struck him in the face, and that Cousins had attempted to strike him with a boat-hook after hauling him from his berth. He added that Couch had offered him ten shillings and a recommendation to the owners if he would keep the captain informed of what passed aboard. The witness acknowledged that his memory was faulty on certain points; he affirmed that West was asleep during that first conversation. The defence was thus entitled to weigh both the precise words he attributed to the seamen and the posture of a man who declared he had been beaten by those very officers who now brought him forward.
Tom West offered a limited yet material contradiction. He could not recall hearing any threats uttered against the master, though he recounted an exchange wherein Ryan had asked him why he took part with the officers, urging him to “be with us.” West replied that he took part with neither side. He was not present, by his own account, during the murderous talk described by Jacobson; his silence did not directly refute that testimony. It added, however, another depiction of a divided crew, wherein allegiance to one camp or the other had become an open question.
The officers insisted that the crew mustered only eight hands, a complement too slender to navigate the craft in safety should several mariners refuse their work. The seamen, for their part, complained of broken rest, hectoring commands, oaths, and blows. Jacobson depicted a harsh discipline: threats of punishment, delayed meals, and the master armed on one occasion with a revolver. Couch denied ever striking the men, firing upon a sailor, or using abusive language; Cousins denied having ill-used them. Both versions were laid before the jury, yet the record affords no independent findings wherewith to settle each clash.
The accounts of the arrests upon their arrival in the Thames do not agree. Couch stated that Cousins caused Ryan and Clifford to be apprehended at St. Katharine’s Docks on the 6th of July for the assault on the high seas; Leverson, who had quitted the ship, was arrested on the Monday following Jacobson’s deposition before the magistrate at Arbour Square. Police-constable John Tupper, on the other hand, asserted that he took Ryan and Leverson into custody on the 6th of July upon Cousins’s charge. The transcript does not reconcile these statements. Blanchard Wontner relates that the private solicitor subsequently applied to have all three men committed for conspiracy, whereupon the Treasury undertook the prosecution.
This committal did not determine guilt. The opening indictment names Ryan and Leverson upon the count of conspiracy; it associates Ryan and Clifford with the assault upon Couch and Cousins. At the close, the record details a charge of felonious wounding against Cousins, without fully harmonizing these diverse captions. These distinct accusations did not all rest upon the same body of evidence.
The proceedings bring the charge of conspiracy against Ryan and Leverson to a close with the entry “NOT GUILTY.” As to the final count of wounding against Ryan and Clifford, touching Cousins, no evidence was offered; both were likewise pronounced not guilty. The initial summary had described the assault upon Couch and Cousins in broader terms. Wontner relates that a private solicitor had sought to charge all three men with conspiracy, yet the opening indictment names only Ryan and Leverson under that head; the text does not permit one to assign to Clifford any verdict upon the conspiracy.
The Argosy completed her voyage and regained the port of London, but the trial did not lay to rest the grievances of the passage. Couch pronounced the vessel staunch, whilst Leverson denounced open seams; the officers spoke of mutinous insubordination, the seamen of blows and unlawful commands. The jury brought an end to the indictments submitted to their judgment, without determining each separate brawl or consecrating either narrative as the truth. Jacobson was heard; his accusation did not suffice to establish that a criminal conspiracy had been formed.