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his Working of the said Ship in the said Voyage, design'd to lose her." He was seconded by the testimony of the boatswain, Nicholas Mellen, and a seaman, George White. Both claimed that Deane had left the security of a naval convoy on the cruise from London to Ireland with the intent of turning his ship over to privateers so that the owners might collect insurance money. They argued that the captain "was prevented by the Depondent, Christopher Langman, by whose Assistance the said Ship arrived at her Port." They also claimed that Deane endeavored to hand the ship over a second time during the Atlantic passage, that he physically assaulted Langman on the night of the disaster while attempting intentionally to wreck the ship, and that the mate was responsible for getting the crew safely from the sinking ship to Boon Island.7

Though the original has not survived, Captain Deane wrote a manuscript account of the voyage and shipwreck soon after his return to England. Jasper Deane, the captain's older brother, owned the vessel and, with Charles Whitworth, the cargo. He immediately moved to protect his interest by rushing the captain's account to publication. In the introduction Jasper wrote that he hoped to preempt "the Design of others, to publish the Account without us." In the postscript he refutes what he calls the "barbarous and scandalous Reflection, industriously spread abroad and level'd at our ruine, by some unworthy, malicious

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Persons (viz.) That we having ensur'd more than our Interest in the Ship Nottingham, agreed and willfully lost her, first designing it in Ireland, and afterwards effecting it at Boon Island." He argues that the vessel was seriously underinsured and the charges "preposterous" that the captain would endeavor intentionally to wreck his ship in midwinter at such a forbidding place. "One wou'd wonder [if] Malice itself cou'd invent or suggest anything so ridiculous," he notes disdainfully. 8

Langman, Mellen, and White published a response to the captain's account, condemning him for incompetence and renewing their charge against him. Their True Account of the Voyage of the Nottingham Galley was published immediately after Deane's Narrative and describes the ship as "cast away ... by the Captain's Obstinacy, who endeavour'd to betray her to the French, or run her ashore." Taking issue with the "Falsehoods in the Captain's Narrative," it depicts the crew as "Sufferers in this unfortunate Voyage ... from the Temper of our Captain, who treated us barbarously both by Sea and Land." Disputing Deane's Narrative point by point, it concludes with the argument that if "the said Master had taken the Mate's Advice, the ship, with God's Assistance, might have been in Boston Harbour several Days before she was lost." Langman warns others ''not to trust their Lives or Estates in the Hands of so wicked and brutish a Man."9

A third account was published in 1711, an abridged and sensationalized version taken from Deane's Narrative and published by J. Dutton near Fleet Street, apparently issued after both Deane's Narrative and Langman's True Account. Describing itself as A Sad and Deplorable, but True Account, it announces that the shipwreck was "very well known by most Merchants upon the Royal Exchange." The last page contains the printed signatures of "Jasper Dean," "John Dean, Captain," and "Miles Whitworth, lately dead," but it does not append Jasper Deane's introduction or afterword. On the cover it sensationally asserts that "having

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no food, [the survivors] were fain to Feed upon the dead Bodies, which being all Consum'd, they were going to Cast lots which shou'd be the next Devor'd...." It enlarges upon the cannibalism on Boon Island by adding that "the dismal Prospect of future Want obliged the Captain to keep a strict watch over the rest of the Body, lest any of them shou'd get to it, and then being spent, [we would] be forced to feed upon the living. Which we must certainly have done, had we stayed a few days longer." Unlike the Narrative, which was written in