Billy Budd Herman Melville\'s \"Billy Budd\" --

Billy Budd

Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" -- Guilty as Charged!

With this singular word, "guilty" the reader draws his or her breath in horror, when contemplating the moral character of Billy Budd against the character of the sailor's accusers and also those who judge him according to the naval code of law. Yet if the author of this paper sat alongside Chief Justice of the Court of Naval Review and, after all nine judges had gone over this case, the author of this essay as well would must conceded that Vere was right in hanging Billy Budd from the point-of-view of a sailor and a justice at sea.

From a purely disinterested, democratic human perspective, outside of the law of the sea, Billy Budd of course, should indeed be seen as a saintly young man in terms of Budd's own moral attitudes and conduct towards his fellow human beings. Yet, when considering the votes of the other maritime judges, whom have, in the given scenario, voted to a tie 4-4 one cannot simply look upon the case with the eyes of a landlubber, and the character of Budd in the abstract as a Christian representation of all that is good in the world, as some commentators are apt to do when reading the novella. Instead, a cautious reader and a cautious justice must view the circumstances of the case and the laws regarding mutiny with the eyes of a sailor, weighing the need for strict discipline at sea against the potential value of the individual life of a sailor such as Budd whom has mutinied, according to the facts of the case available.

Mutiny at sea can never be tolerated, no matter what the circumstances. This is a hard fact. But in an area of space as concentrated as a ship, nothing else can be allowed save obedience to protocol and the law of the captain. Although in the eyes of a reader, Budd may cut a young and dashing figure and according to the nation and to the land's democratic system of values, he and all he represents morally and politically as well as personally, should hold sway, like a military troop in a foxhole, democracy cannot reign upon the sea, even under the thumb of the worst leaders.

Ironically, of course, as is noted in Chapter Six of Melville's short masterpiece, of Captain the Honorable Edward Fairfax Vere, when "ashore in the garb of a civilian, scarce anyone would have taken him for a sailor, more especially that he never garnished unprofessional talk with nautical terms, and grave in his bearing." But even if emotionally one sides with Budd against the law as weakly represented by Vere (which in Latin means truth), this does not erase the need for obedience at sea or the scope of Budd's crime. When making decisions regarding justice, the law rather than character must reign. "The criminal paid the penalty of his crime. The promptitude of the punishment has proved salutary. Nothing amiss is now apprehended aboard H.M.S. Indomitable." (Chapter 30)