Has there been a recorded account of a cabin boy inspiring mutiny on board a ship?

Question

I’ve googled... Ask.com’ed... Nothing... I havent found ANY account of a cabin boy either killing a captain or leading a mutiny on any vessel or ship anywhere. Anyone have any recorded account or historic journal space where they have? I’m sure there has... Maybe a captian going too far in training or the like had to have happened!

Answer 1

Courtesy of a bit of a phase of mine where I was inexplicably interested in the topic of mutiny I've done a fair bit of reading on the subject and I have to say I'm not aware of this ever having happened and to be honest I don't think it's particularly likely.

I have to say though that even if it did happen it's exceptionally unlikely that we would have a recorded account of it.

Successful mutinies generally ended one of two ways - either the deposed captain and loyalists were killed or they were put off the ship.

Losing your ship to a cabin boy would be at the very least incredibly humiliating, and depending upon era and the navy/fleet that the ship sailed in the captain could easily have found himself facing dereliction of duty or similar charges and gotten themselves executed - I imagine any such captain/officers would be far more likely to talk up the mutineer force - ten disgruntled crewmembers with knives and clubs could easily become fifty bloodthirsty maniacs with swords to paint the losers in a better light.

If on the other hand the captain and loyalists were killed:

1. Mutineers weren't exactly likely to go around advertising the fact - in many periods of history mutiny has been punishable by death and mutineers would often be hunted down to fairly extreme lengths. Lieing low sounds like a sensible strategy.

2. Assuming said cabin boy succeeded what happens next? Could you see the crew just saying "well, you killed thre captain - guess you're in charge now!" or do you think it's more likely that they toss said cabin boy over the side and take the ship for their own. And in that scenario they would be more likely to brag about taking the ship themselves and convientently "forget" about the cabin boy.

3. In the unlikely event that the crew does decide to follow a lowly cabin boy following their mutiny, who is going to be going around advertising that fact? The former cabin boy would be unlikely to do so, not only because of the fact that going around bragging that you're a mutineer is going to get in you in trouble with those pesky authorities but also it's not exactly a great way to establish an intimidating reputation or recruit new crew.

Maybe a captian going too far in training or the like had to have happened!

Certainly there were captains that went too far in treating their crew harshly, and certainly this resulted in more than one mutiny, but in the vast majority of such cases it would be much more likely that a more senior member of the crew would snap and mutiny.

One such example actually includes the closest scenario I can think of to your question - in the Mutiny on the HMS Herminoe in 1782 a 12 year old boy was charged with mutiny - however it's not quite as cut and dried as all that:

At the time the "Mutiny Act" was in force in Britain and under the act you could be charged with mutiny not just for actively participating in or leading a mutiny but also for "failing to suppress or report a mutiny" and this was the case here - the 12 year old and his father (an elderly servent of the captain) were charged with mutiny because they failed to fight back against the mutineers (who were generally responding to any resistance by hacking resistors to death with swords).

They were actually pardoned by Admiral Bligh who presumably felt it was unreasonable to have expected them to be able to stop the mutineers (remember the swords and the hacking?) although Bligh's boss disagreed and promptly forced Bligh to resign.