Spotlight on Books: WFM’S All Time Best: “Billy Budd” by Herman Melville

I came late to Herman Melville’s Billy Budd.  My previous experience with Melville had been unsatisfying- I had found Moby Dick turgid and uninspiring and I confess I rooted for the whale. When Billy Budd appeared on the reading list for an Aspen Institute Law and Justice seminar in 2010, I approached it with low expectations.  Instead, I discovered a literary revelation. Melville delivered a spare, powerful novella - a brilliant story framing a moral dilemma involving law, justice and order. 

The story takes place on the British frigate HMS Bellipotent in 1797 during Britain’s war with France. There had been two crew mutinies on British ships the same year.  Discipline became draconian. The Articles of War prescribed a penalty of death for striking a superior officer. It was a strict liability rule with no exceptions for self defence or other mitigating circumstances.  The narrative revolves three characters. Billy Budd is a sailor, twenty one years of age, handsome, powerful and innocent.  He possesses a natural nobility and his shipmates adore him.  He has one notable flaw- when agitated or nervous, a severe stutter renders him incapable of speech. John Claggart is the Master at Arms- a key leadership figure on the ship.  He is educated and outwardly proper, but he develops an inexplicable seething hatred for the charismatic Billy Budd. Captain Vere is the novella’s most complex figure.  He is an excellent officer- brave, conscientious and devoted to duty. He is a fair man, but is also a by the book officer. 

Their worlds converge in an incident created by Claggart’s false charge that Billy is fomenting mutiny- the most serious charge imaginable on a British warship.  Vere is skeptical, but arranges a private confrontation in his cabin.  Billy is stunned by the accusation, but his stutter renders him speechless and he is unable to defend himself verbally. Vere urges him to take his time, but Billy, rendered mute, suddenly lashes out physically. His fist connects with Claggart’s forehead and the Master at Arms falls to the ground- stone cold dead. Per Navy regulations,  Vere immediately convenes a drumhead court to try Billy for the capital crime of striking and killing a superior officer.  The trial is brief. The facts are undisputed.  The hearing  officers are sympathetic to the defendant- they know Claggart had brought Billy up on false charges and they recognise the accidental nature of the death. Ultimately, however, Captain Vere guides the tribunal to the issuance of a guilty verdict. Captain Vere concluded that conviction was the only possible verdict under the law and argued that private conscience cannot override the clear dictates of the Navy’s legal code.  The sentence is death by hanging and Billy Budd’s last words are “God Bless Captain Vere.”  Captain Vere dies not long after after being wounded in action and his last words are “Billy Budd, Billy Budd.”  An emotional roller coaster! 

The narrative challenges the reader to examine fundamental questions of law versus justice.  Many “liberal” commentators criticise the ruling of the Navy court and they reject the reasoning preferred by Captain Vere. Billy is seen as factually innocent. He struck only when rendered incapable of speech by a malicious and false accusation and the blow was reflexive.  There was no criminal intent and its fatal outcome was unfortunate but purely accidental. If anything the Christlike Billy is the victim here.  From this perspective,  Captain Vere’s decision to rigidly apply  military rules is an act of cowardice that led to an unjust outcome. The best judges should seek justice and not hide behind military necessity or legal proprieties. The counter argument is that Billy is unquestionably guilty of a capital offence. The absence of malicious intent was real, but irrelevant to the court’s actual function. The tribunal existed to maintain the legal order that made successful naval operations possible.  The Articles of War prescribed death for striking an officer because upholding the chain of command was essential.  Any exceptions would risk a catastrophic and sustain breakdown of discipline.  Under this analysis, Vere’s decision, while tragic, was correct.  

When our Aspen Institute seminar finished discussing Billy Budd, the moderator polled the group on whether they would have convicted Billy Budd. The majority said NO. A minority, including myself, agreed with Captain Vere’s decision. The lawyers tended to support the verdict and the non lawyers opposed it.  Perhaps, legal training cultivates an understanding that legal systems work by creating credible and predictable legal frameworks necessary for a society to function.  Hard cases make bad law and carving out ad hoc exceptions for sympathetic defendants or causes can undermine the principles that make the rule of law effective.  The non lawyers saw the injustice to Billy as the paramount lesson and thought a fair system should be agile enough to issue rulings that may not strictly comport with the language of the law. 

I always refer to St Thomas More’s famous statement about the necessity of law.  In A Man for All Seasons, his son in law, Richard Roper, frustrated by More’s legalistic scruples, declares that he would “cut down every law in England to get at the devil.” More’s response cuts to the heart  of why the rule of law matters even when it produces uncomfortable or unjust outcomes: “Oh, and when the last law was down and the Devil then turned his eyes on you- where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?” More’s warning is precisely what Captain Vere understood when judging the guilt or innocence of Billy Budd. Interestingly, and a “fun fact” is that the challenges and choices presented in Billy Budd were known intimately to Melville from his own family history and experience.  His father in law was Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and a fierce abolitionist on the question of slavery. BUT- he enforced the Fugitive Slave Act from the bench because he believed judicial duty required that he apply the law as written, not as he wished it to be.  He sent escaped slaves back to bondage while personally abhorring slavery, prioritising legal consistency over individual compassion. Melville put Captain Vere in the same position here. 

I believe Captain Vere was right- or rather I believe Melville wants us to recognise that Vere’s choice, however painful, was defensible and necessary. Vere’s final words suggest he never stopped questioning whether he could have found another way. This doubt confirms his humanity but doesn’t mean he was wrong. This book is Melville’s meditation on the choice between law and justice, duty and mercy and individual compassion and societal order.  It is brilliant and refreshingly simple. It is an essential read.