Green’s Dictionary of Slang

in trouble, dead, in jail.

1552		G. Walker Detection of Vyle and Detestable Use of Dice Play 21: Ye have suddenly brought yourself, unawares to me, so far under the hatches, and are shaken with lavish dispence, that ye cannot find the way to rise again.
1606		Marston The Fawne Act IV: Remember hee got his elder brothers wife with child [...] that will follow him vnder hatches, I warrant you.
1611		Middleton & Dekker Roaring Girle IV ii: Well since you’ll needs be clapped under hatches, if I sail not with you both till all split, hang me up in the maine yard and duck me.
1632–1704		Locke cited in Ency. Dict. n.p.: He assures us how this fatherhood continued its course, till the captivity in Egypt, and then the poor fatherhood was under hatches [F&H].
1645		J. Howell Familiar Letters (1737) II 3 Jan. 342: Hodge Powell commends him to you, he is here under hatches as well as I.
a.1661		‘A Medley’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) I 260: And all her Orphans bestow’d under hatches.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Under the Hatches, in Trouble, or in Prison.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 318: He drew the rest of the Convicts into a Conspiracy, to get the Ship’s Company under the Hatches.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
a.1790		C. Dibdin ‘Poor Tom’ Collection of Songs I 231: For though his body’s under hatches, / His soul has gone aloft.
c.1805		‘Poor Tom’ in Jovial Songster 115: For though his body’s under hatches, / His soul is gone aloft.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		R. Waln Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd Ser. 23: What the devil’s the matter, Tom? you look pale about the gills; — under the hatches, eh?
1835		J.B. Buckstone Dream at Sea 3: Good-bye, dame, cheer up; you may not always be under hatches [F&H].
1851		‘Tom Bowling’ Jack Tar’s Songster 50: For tho’ his body’s under hatches, / His soul has gone aloft.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1916		E. Pound letter 31 Jan. in Read Letters to James Joyce (1968) 68: I have never found the organized world of publication much use, they usually try to get one under the hatches and then stop the bread and water ration.
1945		(con. early 19C) Baker Aus. Lang. 42: Considerable stress was laid on the gulf separating those who came out and those who were sent out under hatches.