[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Foolscap and Favored Sons

[michael at intrafi.com]

The article below from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by michael at intrafi.com.



/--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\

THE CLEARING - NOW PLAYING IN SELECT CITIES

THE CLEARING stars ROBERT REDFORD and HELEN MIRREN as Wayne
and Eileen Hayes - a husband and wife living the American
Dream. Together they've raised two children and struggled to
build a successful business from the ground up. When Wayne
is kidnapped by Arnold Mack (WILLEM DAFOE), and held for
ransom in a remote forest, the couple's world is turned
inside out.

Buy tickets now at:
http://movies.channel.aol.com/movie/main.adp?mid=17891

\----------------------------------------------------------/


Foolscap and Favored Sons

July 23, 2004
 By CAROLINE ALEXANDER 



 

I t had come late in the day, but it was more than I had
hoped for. Scanned from the original document held by the
British Public Record Office, Admiralty File 29/5 contained
the complete service record of a man whose life I had been
researching for more than two years: William Purcell,
carpenter, had concluded 25 years of naval service on Dec.
31, 1812. The last of the 16 ships on which he had served
was the Boscawen; the first, on which he had mustered on
Aug. 27, 1787, was the Bounty. 

The Admiralty archives are a superb resource, if
notoriously difficult to navigate, and the holdings are
uneven. Nonetheless, in the course of researching the
history of the Bounty, I was continually astounded that so
much material had survived from the 18th and early 19th
century. 

So when the Pentagon announced that critical pay records
that could have shed light on a gap in President Bush's
service record in 1972 and 1973 had been inadvertently
destroyed several years ago, it struck me as particularly
incredible; apparently it is easier to reconstruct the
25-year career of a British Naval seaman in the 18th
century than the National Guard service of a president. Not
only does this gaffe deny the American public information
that could answer questions about the president's past, but
it is also a loss to future historians. 

The Admiralty archives taught me a great deal about William
Purcell, whose cantankerous ways plagued Lt. William Bligh
throughout the voyage (though in the end, he proved loyal
to his captain in the mutiny that deprived Bligh of his
ship). From contemporary descriptions, I had imagined
Purcell to have been an older man, with a long naval record
behind him. Now I learned that the Bounty was his first
ship. The new information also made it possible to check
the muster rolls, log books, pay records and captain's
letters of his later ships. These would reveal at the very
least the parts of the world Purcell later visited, under
which captains he had sailed, whether his home port changed
over the years. 

The same trove of Admiralty papers revealed that George
Simpson, the quartermaster's mate on the Bounty, had died
in the ship's hammock, and his personal effects returned to
his father in the Lake District, and that a pardoned
mutineer, James Morrison, had gone down with all hands on
the Blenheim. The Greenwich Hospital records, folded and
stacked in neat piles tied with faded ribbon, included both
the dates that the Bounty's armorer, Joseph Coleman, had
been admitted and a list of every ship on which he had
served. 

As anyone who has conducted even amateur genealogical
research knows, a single entry on a single scrap of paper
can be revelatory. Often the bald fact provides not only a
nugget of hard information, but also the means to connect
dots leading to other webs of information. 

Stark facts in the records of a Bounty midshipman, Peter
Heywood, for example, were very suggestive. Brought before
a court-martial, Heywood was found guilty of mutiny,
although he was later pardoned. His surviving records
revealed the curious fact that the years he had spent on
Tahiti as a fugitive had been credited toward the years of
service required for his promotion to lieutenancy. A little
more digging prompted by this anomaly disclosed the fact,
little known even in his time, that Heywood enjoyed the
good fortune of being related to one of the highest naval
figures in the kingdom, Admiral Lord Howe. 

The records of the men who served on the Bounty reveal more
than the prosaic facts of their individual careers. They
add to the evidence of a relentless campaign to
rehabilitate young Peter Heywood. Cumulatively, they tell a
whole new story - the real story, as opposed to the version
spun by his defenders. 

The Admiralty papers are part of the Public Record Office's
armed services holdings, which are punctuated by numerous
painful lapses; soldiers' records from World War I, for
example, casualties of the London blitz, are almost wholly
lacking. The lost service records of President Bush,
according to a Pentagon spokesman, were casualties of
"deteriorating microfilm" and a failed preservation
strategy. 

Timing aside, the disappearance of Mr. Bush's service
records is important for reasons that go beyond mere
politics. Military records are a cornerstone of a nation's
archival history. Buried among the lost papers are the
records of other men, in whom other researchers at another
time might be interested, whose simple facts of service
might contribute to the building of a larger historical
picture that could clarify the stories spun by the politics
of the time. 

Clearly the Department of Defense needs to raise the
standard of its record-keeping. Perhaps future records
should be kept on foolscap paper tied with ribbon: these
seem to last for centuries. 

Caroline Alexander is the author, most recently, of "The
Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/23/opinion/23alex.html?ex=1091603235&ei=1&en=de9a7ef72ab5f328


---------------------------------

Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine
reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like!
Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy
now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here:

http://homedelivery.nytimes.com/HDS/SubscriptionT1.do?mode=SubscriptionT1&ExternalMediaCode=W24AF



HOW TO ADVERTISE
---------------------------------
For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters 
or other creative advertising opportunities with The 
New York Times on the Web, please contact
onlinesales at nytimes.com or visit our online media 
kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
help at nytimes.com.  

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company