Scapegoating and Injustice

Scapegoating and injustice take shape most clearly in the accusation that McKendrick murdered Joseph Hannah. Henry Drax knowingly redirects suspicion toward the carpenter, and the ship’s officers and crew turn a contested story into a settled judgment before the evidence has been fairly tested. Patrick Sumner’s physical findings expose weaknesses in the accusation, but they do not immediately free McKendrick. The episode shows how social prejudice and an official record can make a convenient suspect seem guilty, while a credible alternative remains difficult to establish.

Making a Suspect

Drax’s plan is not merely to offer a mistaken identification. He privately thinks of McKendrick as his scapegoat: the man who will be hanged while Drax watches. That intention gives the accusation its moral and practical force. Drax has a specific person to divert suspicion toward, and he understands that the carpenter’s reputation can help his story take hold. When Drax asks Cavendish what kind of evidence Brownlee wants, Cavendish explains that the captain seeks a witness who saw the men together. Drax then supplies the account that the formal inquiry requires.

In Brownlee’s cabin, Drax says he saw McKendrick touching the dead boy and trying to kiss and cuddle with him near the deckhouse. Brownlee asks why Drax waited to report this, but accepts the statement as a basis for bringing McKendrick up from the hold in irons. He asks Cavendish whether the men bear ill will toward one another or whether there is reason to suspect a malicious story. Cavendish says he knows of none. The inquiry thus gives attention to possible motive, but its answer depends on what Cavendish has heard; it does not independently establish that Drax’s account is true.

Reputation as Evidence

Cavendish repeatedly treats McKendrick’s reputation as proof of the crime. He invokes his alleged sexual conduct and claims that men will testify to it, then insists that this reputation makes him guilty regardless of whether the physical evidence supports the charge. In the questioning, he calls McKendrick a plausible liar but presents the carpenter’s supposed reputation as a reason to distrust him. The distinction between evidence about the murder and condemnation of the accused’s character steadily collapses.

McKendrick denies touching Hannah and says he has never faced accusations or complaints from the men with whom he has had relations. He also accuses Drax of worse conduct, but his protest does not shift the officers’ judgment. When McKendrick appeals to the contrast between a white Christian man and a supposed cannibal, he tries to expose the racial assumptions that make Drax’s word more acceptable. Brownlee dismisses the exchange as desperate nonsense and orders McKendrick taken below and chained to the mainmast. The scene shows that a plea can identify the prejudices shaping a hearing without overcoming the authority that gives those prejudices practical effect.

Physical Evidence and Official Judgment

Sumner resists the apparent certainty. He examines McKendrick and finds no fresh cuts or scratches on his arms or neck of the kind that might have resulted from a struggle. More decisively, McKendrick’s left thumb is damaged beyond repair. Sumner argues that this makes it physically impossible for him to have committed the crime as the evidence indicates. His sketchbook contains a detailed drawing of Hannah’s injuries, including the patterned marks on the neck, and a diagram of the boy’s broken ribs. These records allow Sumner to compare the accusation with bodily evidence rather than reputation alone.

Brownlee does not accept the conclusion. He regards McKendrick as a convincing culprit because Drax says he saw him approach Hannah and because McKendrick is known as a sexual transgressor. He dismisses Sumner’s drawings as inconclusive and keeps the carpenter confined, suggesting that Sumner can present his view to a magistrate after the ship returns to England. Sumner warns that the real killer may leave the ship and disappear by then; he identifies Drax as the likeliest alternative and argues that Drax is lying to save himself. Brownlee rejects this as an implausible story and refuses to examine Drax as Sumner examined McKendrick.

The contrast is between different kinds of credibility. Drax’s accusation is entered into the ship’s log after McKendrick has been taken away, and Brownlee tells Drax that he may be required to testify at trial. The written account gives Drax’s version institutional durability. Sumner’s medical findings, although concrete, are treated as opinion, while McKendrick’s damaged thumb does not undo the suspicion already attached to him. The record does not simply preserve what happened; it preserves which witness the captain has chosen to believe.

From Accusation to Social Fact

After the arrest, news of McKendrick’s supposed guilt spreads through the ship. Some men who considered themselves his friends struggle to believe he is a murderer, but the crew’s general certainty overwhelms their doubts. Chained in the forehold, eating alone and dependent on others to empty his bucket, McKendrick is gradually recast in the crew’s imagination as someone who was always separate and strange. His confinement becomes part of the apparent case against him: isolation and disgrace help make the accusation look like an established truth.

Sumner cannot share that certainty. Even with laudanum, he sleeps only briefly and keeps returning in thought to Hannah’s body and McKendrick standing naked during the examination. He cannot make the two bodies fit together into a coherent account of the crime. About a fortnight after McKendrick’s arrest, he visits him in the forehold and later argues again to Brownlee. This persistence contrasts with the crew’s readiness to let rumor settle the question. Yet Sumner’s doubts do not immediately change McKendrick’s conditions or reverse the official judgment.

A Wider Economy of Blame

The episode belongs to a larger world in which people try to arrange appearances so that financial gain survives scrutiny and someone else bears the risk. Baxter tells Brownlee that twelve thousand pounds will be divided three ways and urges him to remember that whaling cannot earn as much. Brownlee insists that Campbell must be present when needed, while Baxter describes money as something that finds its way around any attempted restraint. Their conversation reveals a profit scheme whose success depends on controlling circumstances and how they will look to others.

The plan to sink the Volunteer similarly turns appearance into a practical concern. Campbell cautions that the ship must be sunk in a way that will not provoke questions from the underwriters; Cavendish says he can sink it later if it does not go down at once, and Drax observes that a ship resting on an ice dock will not look convincing. These details do not make the financial plot identical to McKendrick’s prosecution, but they echo its central danger: those with power work to shape the account that others will accept. Much later, Baxter describes an intended sequence in which Drax would shoot Sumner and Stevens would then shoot Drax, leaving matters apparently neat and tidy. The plan misfires, and Baxter uses the two deaths in the timber yard, including the man Sumner has killed, to argue that Sumner needs his assistance. Across these situations, control over the story of an event becomes a means of controlling who is exposed to punishment. McKendrick’s case makes that mechanism especially stark: the accusation is not only a false account, but one made persuasive by stigma, authority, and the crew’s willingness to treat suspicion as proof.