Deane did not succeed in walking away from the affair without something of a breach to his standing. He had survived the often unpredictable and inconsistent ordeal of a Russian court martial. But a grain of doubt had been planted in the mind of Peter the Great. When the ships ran aground the first scrap of news that reached the tsar had been that a single vessel had run into trouble. This news alone had brought the tsar to Kronslot. When he heard that a second ship had run aground his mood had darkened considerably. Peter the Great took the loss of any of his ships personally. The London and the Portsmouth were two of his best. The fact that Deane had preserved the Devonshire counted for very little in the tsar’s eyes. Although John Deane had been technically exonerated, he was personally convinced that Peter the Great harboured suspicions about him. There were rumours circulating to the effect that the tsar privately believed the loss of his two beloved vessels was down to ‘party emulation’. Whether this was true or not, the perception was in the ether that Deane was a partisan who prized tribal enmities above service to the tsar and who would sacrifice a ship to prosecute a grudge.
For a long uninterrupted season, John Deane had triumphed in the Russian navy. He had captured numerous prizes. He had won the confidence of Admiral Apraxin. He had proven himself an expert and flamboyant thief of foreign shipping. In Russia success bred enmity. With royal and aristocratic patronage Deane had become somewhat untouchable, but now the tsar had removed his hand, Deane’s position had been weakened. It was evident that Deane had enemies. He had been assaulted. He had survived the assault but not without wounding. Blood was in the water and predators were being drawn to the scent.
The pretext for John Deane’s second great fall was an incident that was two years old and for which he had received no censure at the time. There was a groundswell of resentment toward Deane for the favour that he had won. His enemies were Russians, officers who did not share their tsar’s love of foreigners, who resented being tutored by them but nevertheless desired their rank and status. lt was a question of timing. Deane’s enemies exploited the current willingness to believe ill of the Englishman. Deane’s loss of the two ships to the English and the Dutch in 1717 was now seen as grounds for court martial. Deane was dragged before a military tribunal for the second time that year. The charge was collusion with the enemy. Deane was accused of taking money from the English and the Dutch in exchange for the captured merchantmen. Deane called on a dozen or so officers from the Samson to testify that he had done no such thing. Unlike the divided loyalties of the crew of the Nottingham Galley, Deane’s subordinates defended his reputation. Deane had one Russian ally. Admiral Apraxin did not interfere directly in the mechanics of the court martial but in a roundabout way Apraxin came to the aid of his protégé. He gave Deane a passport. The passport released Deane ‘from service at his own request to return to his homeland’. But Deane was finished. The trial was a formality. Deane’s fall was rapid. He was found guilty. His punishment was a year in prison. But there was a degree of mercy to leaven the judgment. Peter the Great himself commuted Deane’s sentence from imprisonment to service in Kazan, presumably a concession to Deane for years of exemplary service up until the point of disgrace. But John Deane was stripped of his rank and demoted to lieutenant.
Peter the Great’s act of mercy was double-edged. Deane’s sentence was still severe. Kazan was 130 miles from Moscow. Kazan was the main source of timber for the Russian navy. Deane’s punishment was to transport timber from Kazan to Lagoda Lake. The route was involved and perilous; a long and convoluted journey that took a transport vessel along the Volga and Tvertsa rivers, navigating shallow water near Vishni-Volochok, moving against the current. The transport vessel was at the mercy of the high water, travel in late summer being virtually impossible. The later stages of the journey were navigable by canal and a small river that granted the transport access to Lake June and then Lagoda Lake where the timber would be delivered and then taken to St Petersburg. Deane described the dangers of the later stage of the journey:
The navigation on the lake is very difficult by reason of the deep water, few harbours, sorry shipping and the inexperience of the Russian seamen; and great is the danger of passing the three falls, in the entrance to the Neva. So that many vessels are yearly lost, to the exceeding detriment of St Petersburg in point of merchandise and especially of provisions…
John Deane suffered the humiliation and danger of his new post and hazardous route for a year.
In 1721 the war with Sweden ended. Never again replicating the martial highs of the Battle of Hango Head, the Russian navy had nevertheless proved itself in an attritional campaign of raids, skirmishes and captured prizes. The war eased itself into a settlement at Nystead that heavily favoured Russian interests in the Baltic. To celebrate, Peter the Great offered amnesty to all disgraced officers. To some the amnesty was a restoration to the tsar’s good graces. Robert Little was given his former rank back. To others it was simply a cessation of punishment; technical clemency but no real forgiveness. In 1722 John Deane was set free but ordered to leave Russia and told never to return. His disgrace was total and complete but for one last concession from his sole Russian benefactor. Admiral Apraxin extended a kindness to John Deane that would last him the length of his days. The Admiral gave the Englishman another passport that formally referred to him as ‘Captain John Deane’. Apraxin had handed Deane his rank back. Deane had had the most important element of his status restored to him by the one Russian about whom he had nothing bad to say.
John Deane returned to England. He had little in the way of material possessions. His reputation had been destroyed for a second time. Russia had promised a form of exorcism for Boon Island. But when all was said and done, John Deane had simply exchanged one funereal world of wind and ice for another. Yet the twice-exiled Englishman could still call himself Captain John Deane. He also knew the power of the written word. Ink on paper had blunted the disgrace of Boon Island. Ink might yet mitigate against the bankruptcy of almost a decade wasted in the service of a fickle empire. Captain John Deane returned to England full of bile and malice, and a will to convert years of hatred into a written document. Unlike his account of the Boon Island episode, what Deane wrote next would not be for public consumption. It was for a few select eyes and would take him back to Russia clothed in the diplomatic mantle of his home nation.