Conspiracy in Canada

[margotdarby]

For John, augmenting his post to Laurie on P.C. Martin's background:

I believe our Patrick C. Martin is the same Patrick C. Martin who was convicted and imprisoned for a mutiny on the merchant brig 'Cicero' in May 1841. Martin was part-owner of the Cicero. Suspecting some thievery, Martin stabbed his captain, who subsequently drowned.

This was in the Caribbean, near Panama/Columbia. Martin was imprisoned in Cartagena until the US Consul sent him to New York on a Navy brig. In US Circuit Court, 11 March 1842, he was sentenced to two years in state prison and a $500 fine, reduced from three years/$3000. The court received several letters requesting leniency, including one from the Vicar General of New York.

Martin's father wrote the court that his son had been raised and schooled in Baltimore, then went to sea at 16 for three years. After his return he married a girl from Oxford, PA (a hamlet near Wilmington, Delaware); and joined his father in a business called Charles Martin & Son. He was on a business voyage for the firm, with his brother-in-law, when the incident happened. Martin's imprisonment effectively ended the firm.

The foregoing mostly comes from the New York Herald, March 12, 1842, PDF here: http://bit.ly/11LGNVN
although it was covered in other newspapers and picked up in the Army & Navy Chronicle, with his name miscopied as Charles P. Martin:
http://bit.ly/16zBk7G

While searching I also turned up a book endnote mentioning "Patrick C. Martin, who sold Catholic prayer books, pictures, beads, and crucifixes for a Baltimore-based company," in the 1830s, in the Wilmington, Delaware area. If this is he, it might explain how it was he married a girl from Oxford PA in 1838. It would also suggest that the Martin family kept good relations with the Catholic hierarchy, hence the Vicar General letter.

The 'Cicero' case fills in a lot of background about Patrick Martin and his family. He had spent much of his life in merchant shipping. He was not a "liquor dealer from New York" as we sometimes read, nor did he grow up among south Maryland farmers. He was a mainly a shipowner and importer, not a tea-time captain running the blockade. He was suspected of having a dark stain in his past because in fact he did.