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3. Trial by Perception
It seemed like a number of the officers and crew of The Wager wanted their case tried in the court of public opinion. Aside from any comments you may have on how this reflects on modern times (observations which you are welcome to make, for my two cents), how effective do you think the competing narratives were in affecting the outcomes?
Comments
My curiosity is about how much value people put on a) escaping prison vs. b) peer judgment. IOW, would I rather spend a few years in jail but be thought of as "a good guy who got a raw deal" by the public, or would I rather be shunned by the public but free from consequence? I get the feeling that their legend meant more to some of these people than their liberty.
I'm wondering to what degree 'good guy who got a raw deal' is really an American conceit, what with it's culture of renegade worship. Same for Australia, perhaps. It's much less a thing up here (and I presume in Britain). If you went to jail here, most people would assume it was because you deserved it. Almost nobody would see you as a 'good guy'. Maybe if you were held in a foreign jail for years.
For, for my part, I'd rather not spend time in jail, thanks - nobody's going to think I'm a good guy wronged, unless I really hustle to get my story out there, which I would not.
I think the competing narratives were very effective. They made the Royal Navy decide to sweep the whole thing under the rug when it came to the court martial. That resulted with a very unsatisfying ending from a dramatic point of view, but what can you do when you're retelling a true story?
In this situation, I don't think "a few years in prison" and "thought of as a good guy" were viable options for anyone from the Wager. No-one was blameless, and prison would have ruined anyone's chance of any sort of life afterwards.
@NeilNjae neatly sums up my own position on this.
I think IRL some of us like to think that public perception has no place in/doesn't affect rulings ... but reality falls short of the ideal. Not to get too political, but the media I consume has been a bit befuddled by Trump attacking the judge who will ultimately hand down a decision in Trump's NY case. To my thinking, it's smart. (God help me, I just referred to something Trump did as smart.) It ensures that any penalty the judge hands down will be under the scrutiny of partisanism. Either the judge will err on the side of caution to not appear that he is allowing personal opinion to enter in, or he won't. Either way Trump wins something - he gets lighter penalties or he's seen as a martyr. There's no point in kissing the judge's ass really because he has summarily ruled for fraud. .... Anyway, my point is, rhetoric outside the courtroom certainly can influence the reality inside the courtroom and ultimately weighs heavily on the whole event. As it did in this book.
Did the stories influence the Court Martial? Of course it did! Did it change the Court's opinion? Who knows? Any ship lost requires the Captain be Court Martialed. Without exception if the Captain is living. That was going to happen regardless. Did the Court need to bring in evidence of mutiny? No, it did not. The Court chose not to include this question. Why? Until we locate secret journals of the officers in question, there is no way to tell for certain. They may have felt political pressure. They may have felt the stories already out told the tale sufficiently. They may have not wanted to clarify whether or not a Captain's rule lasts beyond the destruction of their ship. The power given to the captain could easily be interpreted as being tied to the ship. They may have felt they did not want to establish precedents over this particular situation. Precedents are powerful things, especially in British Law.
Yes, totally - British law as enacted in courts is almost entirely about precedent and analogy with previous cases, so I can easily imagine a court not wanting to set a precedent where they weren't sure about the rights and wrongs of the matter.
> Yes, totally - British law as enacted in courts is almost entirely about precedent and analogy with previous cases, so I can easily imagine a court not wanting to set a precedent where they weren't sure about the rights and wrongs of the matter.
I'm pretty certain that courts can make rulings with the proviso that this judgement doesn't set a precedent. It's not often done, but I think there's a precedent for it.