Admiral Gyllenhielm asked why he had not discussed this with the captain.
Jönsson replied that he was an artilleryman and pretended to be nothing else. The captain, he said, should be better able to judge whether the ship was properly ballasted.
Gyllenhielm pointed out that the ship’s builder had said that if he had been informed the ship was top-heavy he would have recommended loading her down another foot.
How could that have been done, Jönsson asked, when the gunports already lay but three feet from the surface?
Lieutenant Petter Gierdsson, who had been in charge of rigging, told the court that he, too, considered the ship top-heavy. When asked why he had kept this opinion to himself he replied that ballast was something about which he knew nothing. He did not even know what sort of ballast the Vasa carried. He had been concerned only with the rigging.
Jöran Matsson, sailing master, was formally charged with having paid too little attention to the ballast “and other things as his calling and office made incumbent upon him, whereby disaster had befallen His Majesty’s ship.”
Matsson answered that he had stowed as much ballast as possible. Furthermore, he said, he personally had supervised this work. He had gone down into the bilge with a light to inspect the loading. He felt that he had done whatever was incumbent upon him.
Did he notice that the ship was top-heavy?
Matsson then revealed what everybody in Stockholm except the high officers of the court must have known—that while the Vasa was still at her mooring Captain Hansson, in the presence of Admiral Fleming, had ordered a capsizing test. Matsson then repeated a short discussion between himself and the admiral in which the admiral said that the ship rode too low in the water because of so much ballast. To this criticism Matsson had replied: “God grant that she’ll stay on an even keel.” And to this Admiral Fleming replied: “The builder has built ships before. You need not worry about it.”
After questioning several other people the court summoned the builder, Hein Jacobsson. He had not begun the work, but he had completed it after the death of Henrik Hybertsson. He was asked why he had made the Vasa so narrow. He answered that he had not laid the keel, he had only finished what already was begun. Furthermore, King Gustav had approved the plans. There were no blueprints in the seventeenth century, merely a table known as a “sert” which listed the principal dimensions and which was regarded also as a contract to build. Hybertsson had drawn this sert, said Jacobsson, in accordance with the king’s wishes.
Arent Hybertsson de Groot, the original builder’s brother, was questioned. Why, he was asked, did the Vasa have such a large superstructure?
His Majesty had approved it, said de Groot. And all who saw or inspected the ship had agreed that she was irreproachably built.
If that is true, asked the court, why did she capsize?
“God must know,” de Groot answered. “His Majesty the King was told by me how long and how broad the ship was, and His Majesty was pleased to approve and wished to have it so.”
The court probed this delicate situation. Although the king had approved the sert, should not the builder in good conscience have informed His Majesty as to the correct dimensions?
Neither Jacobsson nor de Groot would argue. Both of them replied: “The King wished it so.”
Too many footsteps led toward Gustav’s palace. The inquiry ended without establishing a cause and without finding anyone responsible—as far as we know.
If that actually is how the investigation concluded, it’s hard to believe. Could everybody be innocent? Fifty people were drowned, either through incompetence or negligence; therefore somebody must be guilty. Yet whom would you convict?
The ordnance officer? Beyond doubt the cannons were tied down. Even if they were not, they couldn’t have been the cause.
The sailing master? Unquestionably he checked the ballast. Furthermore, he had spoken to Admiral Fleming about the ship’s instability.
The builder? He didn’t plan the Vasa, he only completed it.
The designer, Henrik Hybertsson?—because it was he who drew the sert and laid the keel. Would you accuse and convict a dead man?
Or perhaps Captain Hansson? He, more than anyone else, had been worried. He had demonstrated very clearly to Admiral Fleming what might happen.
Would you charge Admiral Fleming? He had no part in constructing the ship, nor in the sailing, though he could have prevented the launching. That is, he might have suggested this to his superior, Lord High Admiral Gyllenhielm.
Did Fleming in fact suggest it? We don’t know. Yet even if the records were complete they would not likely settle the question. Powerful men seldom expose themselves, as we have learned these past few years. Their fortunes depend too closely on the fortunes of their associates. That could be why Fleming was not charged with negligence.
Let us suppose he did urge his superior to cancel the launching and Gyllenhielm refused. Would you then charge the presiding officer of the investigative court? How many men in Gyllenhielm’s position would take such a risk?—because surely it would earn the king’s wrath. Gustav himself had approved the ship. He was most anxious for the Vasa to be launched.
Well then, the king. Gustav himself must be at fault. But who would be foolish enough to accuse the king?
What a shame the records are incomplete. How many scenes from this eerily familiar drama were lost? Did the court choose a scapegoat? Perhaps a sailor was flogged to death.
Alas, without the full account we can only speculate, and the vaporous conclusion remains not quite believable—until we reflect that, given a change of centuries and circumstances we might be reading yesterday’s newspaper. Ask yourself what punishment was administered for the crime at My Lai. Consider what happened. More than 100 civilians were shot by American soldiers: a fact as obvious as Old Glory. Yet the American government, in view of an expectant nation and most of the world, could not find anybody guilty. Years after the massacre one lieutenant was restricted to his barracks for a while, that was all. One lieutenant could not go dancing.
And why was nobody guilty? Because everybody was following orders. The king wished it so.
In other words, nothing changes. As the French aphorism tactfully reminds us: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
Well, even before the inquiry opened, almost before the Vasa touched bottom, scavengers were descending on Stockholm: a Dutch shipwright, a Scottish baron, a “mechanicus” from Riga, somebody named “Classon,” “a man from Lubeck,” and various others.
First to obtain permission from the privy council was an Englishman, Ian Bulmer, who started to work less than three days after the catastrophe. He strung ropes from the Vasa’s masts to shore, hitched up teams of horses, and managed to pull the ship into a vertical position. What he planned to do next is not known, but the scheme failed and he either quit or was replaced.
For a while Admiral Fleming took charge. In July of 1629 he notified King Gustav: “As far as Vasa is concerned, we have been working with all industry, trying to raise her, but until now we have accomplished little . . . I have again fixed seventeen stout hawsers and chains with which, this week, if weather permits, we shall try to see what can be done. It is a heavier weight down there than I could have supposed.”
Some time after that the Scottish baron, Alexander Forbes, obtained the rights to all salvage operations in Swedish waters for a period of twelve years, though he knew nothing about marine salvage. When he was unable to raise the Vasa he leased the rights to a syndicate that included a Swedish colonel named Hans Albrekt von Treileben. Hans must have been a clever fellow; not only did he jiggle Baron Forbes out of the picture,