The Delegates in Council, or beggars on horseback, a contemporaneous caricature
The Spithead and Nore mutinies were two major mutinies by sailors of the Royal Navy in 1797. They were the first in an increasing series of outbreaks of maritime radicalism in the Atlantic World.[1] Despite their temporal proximity, the mutinies differed in character. The Spithead mutiny was a simple, peaceful, successful strike action to address economic grievances, while the Nore mutiny was a more radical action, articulating political ideals as well, which failed.[2]
The mutinies were extremely concerning for Britain, because at the time the country was at war with Revolutionary France, and the Navy was the main component of the war effort. There were also concerns among the government that the mutinies might be part of wider attempts at revolutionary sedition instigated by societies such as the London Corresponding Society and the United Irishmen.
Spithead
Map of Spithead between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight
The mutiny at Spithead (an anchorage near Portsmouth) lasted from 16 April to 15 May 1797. Sailors on 16 ships in the Channel Fleet, commanded by Admiral Lord Bridport, protested against the living conditions aboard Royal Navy vessels and demanded a pay rise, better victualling, increased shore leave, and compensation for sickness and injury.[3] On 26 April a supportive mutiny broke out on 15 ships in Plymouth, who sent delegates to Spithead to take part in negotiations.[4]
Seamen's pay rates had been established in 1658, and because of the stability of wages and prices, they were still reasonable as late as the 1756–1763 Seven Years' War; however, high inflation during the last decades of the 18th century had severely eroded the real value of the pay. Pay raises had meanwhile been granted to the army, militia, and naval officers.[3] At the same time, the practice of coppering the submerged part of hulls, which had started in 1761, meant that British warships no longer had to return to port frequently to have their hulls scraped, and the additional time at sea greatly altered the rhythm and difficulty of seamen's work. The Royal Navy had not made adjustments for any of these changes, and was slow to understand their effects on its crews. Impressment (a common practice) meant that some of the seamen were onboard ship against their will. Finally, the new wartime quota system meant that crews had many landsmen from inshore (including some convicted criminals sent in lieu of punishment) who did not mix well with the career seamen, leading to discontented ships' companies.
The mutineers were led by elected delegates and tried to negotiate with the Admiralty for two weeks, focusing their demands on better pay, the abolition of the 14-ounce "purser's pound" (the ship's purser was allowed to keep two ounces of every true pound—16 ounces—of meat as a perquisite, equivalent to 57g in every 454g), and the removal of a handful of unpopular officers. Neither flogging nor impressment was mentioned in the mutineers' demands, even though ending impressment had been one of the motivations for the Mutiny.[citation needed] The mutineers maintained regular naval routine and discipline aboard their ships (mostly with their regular officers), allowed some ships to leave for convoy escort duty or patrols, and promised to suspend the mutiny and go to sea immediately if French ships were spotted heading for English shores.[5]
Because of mistrust, especially over pardons for the mutineers, the negotiations broke down, and minor incidents broke out, with several unpopular officers sent to shore and others treated with signs of deliberate disrespect.[6] When the situation calmed, Admiral Lord Howe intervened to negotiate an agreement that issued a royal pardon for all crews, reassignment of some of the unpopular officers, and a pay raise and abolition of the purser's pound. Afterwards, the mutiny was to become nicknamed the "breeze at Spithead".
Inspired by the example of their comrades at Spithead, the sailors at the Nore, an anchorage in the Thames Estuary, also mutinied, on 12 May 1797, when the crew of Sandwich seized control of the ship. Several other ships in the same location followed this example, though others slipped away during the mutiny despite gunfire from the ships that were attempting to use force to hold the mutiny together. The mutineers had been unable to organise easily because the ships were scattered along the Nore (and were not all part of a unified fleet, as at Spithead), but they quickly elected delegates for each ship.[7]
Richard Parker was elected "President of the Delegates of the Fleet". According to him, he was nominated and elected without his knowledge.[8] Parker was a former master's mate who was disrated and court-martialled in December 1793 and re-enlisted in the Navy as a seaman in early 1797, where he came to serve aboard the brig-sloopHound.[9] A list of eight demands was formulated and on 20 May 1797,[10] and presented to Admiral Charles Buckner, which mainly involved pardons, increased pay, and modification of the Articles of War,[7] eventually expanding to a demand that the King dissolve Parliament and make immediate peace with France. These demands infuriated the Admiralty, which offered nothing except a pardon (plus the concessions already made at Spithead) in exchange for an immediate return to duty.
Captain Sir Erasmus Gower commissioned HMS Neptune (98 guns) in the upper Thames and put together a flotilla of fifty loyal ships to prevent the mutineers moving on the city of London. It was largely fear of this blockade moving down river that made the mutineers reconsider their actions and begin to waver.[11]
The mutineers expanded their initial grievances[further explanation needed] and blockaded London,[12] preventing merchant vessels from entering the port, and the principals made plans to sail their ships to France, alienating the regular English sailors and losing more and more ships as the mutiny progressed. This gave rise to a fear in the Admiralty that ships still at sea might be taken to France, but that was generally unfounded. When word of the mutiny reached the squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren, cruising off Ushant, the crew of HMS Galatea seized her, confining her captain, Richard Goodwin Keats, but the whole squadron nonetheless followed orders to return to Plymouth.[13] There was seemingly no thought of treason – the men just wanted improvements in their conditions. When they returned to shore Keats was released and once prize money was secured and other matters of pay were settled, they returned to their station. Although the port of Brest was unwatched for some weeks the French missed the opportunity to get to sea.
On 5 June, Parker issued an order that merchant ships be allowed to pass the blockade, and only Royal Navy victualling (i.e., supply) ships be detained. The ostensible reason provided in the order was that "the release of the merchant vessels would create a favourable impression on shore", although this decision may have had more to do with such a wide and complex undertaking as interdicting all the merchant traffic on the busy Thames.[14] After the successful resolution of the Spithead mutiny, the government and the Admiralty were not inclined to make further concessions, particularly as they felt some leaders of the Nore mutiny had political aims beyond improving pay and living conditions.
The mutineers were denied food and water, and when Parker hoisted the signal for the ships to sail to France,[contradictory] all of the remaining ships refused to follow.
Meanwhile, Captain Charles Cunningham of HMSClyde, which was there for a refit, persuaded his crew to return to duty and slipped off to Sheerness. This was seen as a signal to others to do likewise,[15] and eventually, most ships slipped their anchors and deserted (some under fire from the mutineers), and the mutiny failed. Parker was quickly convicted of treason and piracy and hanged from the yardarm of Sandwich, the vessel where the mutiny had started. In the reprisals that followed, 29 were hanged, 29 were imprisoned, and nine were flogged, while others were sentenced to transportation to Australia. One such was surgeon's mate William Redfern who became a respected surgeon and landowner in New South Wales.[16] The majority of men involved in the mutiny were not punished at all, which was lenient by the standards of the time.[17]
After the Nore mutiny, Royal Navy vessels no longer rang five bells in the last dog watch, as that had been the signal to begin the mutiny.[18]
Death mask of Richard Parker taken shortly after he was hanged for mutiny in 1797; a fine original casting is held at the Hunterian Museum (London).
Alleged role of the United Irishmen
The authorities were more than ready to see in the mutinies, not only the hand of English radicals but also among the large contingent of Irish sailors, the hand of the United Irishmen.[19] Much was made of Valentine Joyce, among the delegates at Spithead, described by Edmund Burke as a "seditious Belfast clubist".[20]
That the Valentine Joyce in question was Irish and a republican has been disputed,[21] and while that "rebellious paper, the Northern Star" (from Belfast) may have circulated as reported among the mutineers,[22] no evidence has emerged of a concerted United Irish plot to subvert the fleet. In Ireland there was talk of seizing British warships as part of a general insurrection, but it was only after the Spithead and Nore mutinies that United Irishmen awoke to "surprising effectiveness" of formulating sedition within the Royal Navy".[23]
In September 1797, the crew of Hermione mutinied in the West Indies, killing almost all the officers in revenge for a number of grievances, including throwing into the sea, without proper burial, the bodies of three men killed by falling from the rigging in a desperate attempt not to be the last men on deck, which was punishable by flogging.[26] The Hermione was taken by the crew to the Spanish port of La Guaira.[27]
On 27 December, the crew of Marie Antoinette murdered their officers and took their ship into a French port in the West Indies.[27] Other mutinies took place off the coast of Ireland and at the Cape of Good Hope and spread to the fleet under Admiral Jervis off the coast of Spain. On HMS Defiance, a court martial took the evidence of the oaths of allegiance to the United Irishmen and eleven men were sentenced to hang for it.[24][25]
In the years following Spithead and the Nore, there was about a 50% increase in mutinies among European navies and merchant companies.[1] Scholars have linked it to the radical political ideologies developing at the time, including the development of working class consciousness among sailors.[28] Both explanations have been the subject of extensive academic investigation. Political analyses often emphasize the radical discourse and conduct of the Nore mutineers as evidence of their ideological motivation.[28] Class analyses often emphasize harsh discipline and economic grievances of the Spithead mutineers as pointing to "class solidarity".[29] Recent attempts have been made to class these approaches under a heading of masculine identity, arguing that interpretations of what it meant to be a man for sailors marked the difference of motivation between the two mutinies.[30]
In the arts
Mutiny on the Nore or British Sailors in 1797, a play (nautical drama) in three acts by Douglas Jerrold first performed at the Pavilion Theatre 7th June 1830 with Thomas Cobham (actor) as Parker, and Royal Coburg Theatre 23rd August 1830, and Tottenham Street Theatre 1830.
The Floating Republic – An account of the Mutinies at Spithead and The Nore in 1797, by G. E. Manwaring and Bonamy Dobrée published by Frank Cass & Co. 1935 is a history of these mutinies. In 1982, BBC Radio 4's Saturday Night Theatre broadcast a dramatised account of the book called The Floating Republic.
The 1962 film H.M.S. Defiant (released in the U.S. as Damn the Defiant!) and the 1958 novel Mutiny by Frank Tilsley is a fictional account of a ship's crew undertaking a mutiny based on the Spithead mutiny, which is part of the plot.
Ramage and the Freebooters (1969) by British novelist Dudley Pope begins when Lieutenant Ramage is given command of a ship anchored at Spithead during the mutiny, and must convince the crew to sail so that he may carry out his orders.
The Men They Couldn't Hang, an English folk-punk group, commemorated the executed leaders of the mutiny in the ballad "The Colours" (1988).
In William Kinsolving's 1996 novel Mister Christian, Fletcher Christian returns from the South Seas and witnesses the Nore mutiny.
Much of the Dewey Lambdin 2000 novel A King's Captain is set during the Nore Mutiny as seen by the protagonist, Alan Lewrie.
Mutiny (2004) by Julian Stockwin is a fictional account of the Nore mutiny.
1 2 Council of Delegates at Spithead "From the Delegates to the Admiralty" in The Naval Mutinies of 1797 ed. Conrad Gill (Manchester University Press, 1913), 362–363.
↑ Coats, Ann Veronica (2011). The Naval Mutinies of 1797. pp.2, 45.
↑ Earl Spencer "Spencer's Diary, 18 April 1797" in The Naval Mutinies of 1797 ed. Conrad Gill (Manchester University Press, 1913), 364.
↑ Earl Spencer "Spencer's Diary, 21 April 1797" in The Naval Mutinies of 1797 ed. Conrad Gill (Manchester University Press, 1913), 366-367
↑ Richard Parker, "The Dying Declaration of the late unfortunate Richard Parker, written two days previous to his execution, in a letter to a person he had known from his earliest infancy" in The Floating Republic: An Account of the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797 ed. G. E. Manwaring & Bonamy Dobree (Harcourt Brace and Co. 1935),273–276
↑ Coats, Ann Veronica (2011). The Naval Mutinies of 1797. p.158.
↑ "Ship's bell". Britannica. 2 August 2024. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
↑ Dugan, James (1965). The Great Mutiny. London: the Trinity Press. pp.420–425. ISBN9787070012751.
↑ Manwaring, George; Dobree, Bonamy (1935). The Floating Republic: An Account of the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797. London: Geoffrey Bles. p.101.
↑ Barnett, Len. "Valentine Joyce--Naval Mutineer of 1797"(PDF). Reality behind a Myth – the life of a Spithead Mutineer of 1797. Barnett Maritime. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
↑ Corbett, Julian (1816). Private Letter of George, Second Earl of Spencer. London: Publication of the Navy Records Society. pp.119–120.
Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people to oppose, change, or remove superiors or their orders. The term is commonly used for insubordination by members of the military against an officer or superior, but it can also sometimes mean any type of rebellion against any force. Mutiny does not necessarily need to refer to a military force and can describe a political, economic, or power structure in which subordinates defy superiors.
The Invergordon Mutiny was a mutiny by around 1,000 sailors in the British Atlantic Fleet that took place on 15–16 September 1931. For two days the sailors on the ships of the Royal Navy at Invergordon caused a disturbance and refused to take military orders in a dispute over pay.
The Battle of Camperdown was a major naval action fought on 11 October 1797, between the British North Sea Fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Batavian Navy (Dutch) fleet under Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter. The battle, the most significant action between British and Dutch forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, resulted in a complete victory for the British, who captured eleven Dutch ships without losing any of their own.
HMS Defiance was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Randall and Co., at Rotherhithe on the River Thames, and launched on 10 December 1783.
HMS Hermione was the lead ship of the Hermione class, a six-ship class of 32-gun fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 9 September 1782 at Bristol. Hermione was commissioned and then paid off a number of times during the 1780s. She underwent repairs between October 1790 and June 1792, followed by a period spent refitting at Chatham Dockyard until January 1793. She was recommissioned in December 1792 before sailing to the Jamaica in March 1793. Hermione served in the West Indies during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, participating in the British attack on Port-au-Prince, where she led a small squadron that accompanied troop transports.
Richard Parker was an English sailor executed for his role as president of the so-called "Floating Republic", a naval mutiny in the Royal Navy which took place at the Nore between 12 May and 16 June 1797.
Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower was a Welsh naval officer and colonial governor.
Captain Peter Turner Bover was an officer of the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars, who fired the first shot at the Spithead mutiny of 1797.
Admiral Sir John Colpoys, was an officer of the British Royal Navy who served in three wars but is most notable for being one of the catalysts of the Spithead Mutiny in 1797 after ordering his marines to fire on a deputation of mutinous sailors. Although this event resulted in his removal from active duty, Colpoys was a capable administrator who remained heavily involved in staff duties ashore during the Napoleonic Wars and was later a Lord of the Admiralty, Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath and Governor of Greenwich Naval Hospital.
Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Cunningham KCH was an officer of the Royal Navy during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. He saw action during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, eventually rising to the rank of rear-admiral.
Hugh Pigot was an officer in the Royal Navy. Through his connections and their patronage, he was able to rise to the rank of captain, despite apparently poor leadership skills and a reputation for brutality. Writing in 1826 William James stated, "...he has been described to us by those who knew him well, as one of the most cruel and oppressive captains belonging to the British navy." While he was captain of HMS Hermione (1782), he eventually provoked his men to mutiny. This mutiny became the bloodiest in the history of the Royal Navy and left Pigot and nine other officers dead. The Navy hunted down and executed a number of the mutineers and recaptured his ship from the Spanish, to whom the mutineers had turned it over.
Vice Admiral Sir Edward Griffith Colpoys KCB was a senior officer of the British Royal Navy during the early nineteenth century. The nephew of a prominent admiral, John Colpoys, Edward Griffith was able to rapidly advance in the Navy, until his involvement at his uncle's side in a violent confrontation aboard his ship HMS London in 1797 left a number of men dead and the Channel Fleet in a state of mutiny. Griffith's career recovered from the events of the Spithead Mutiny and he enjoyed a successful period as a frigate commander off the French coast, later becoming the captain of the ship of the line HMS Dragon during the Trafalgar campaign. Although Dragon did not fight at the climactic Battle of Trafalgar, Griffith was engaged at the preceding Battle of Cape Finisterre in July 1805.
Rear-Admiral James Walker CB, CvTE was an officer of the Royal Navy. He served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Thomas Eyles was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Ceres was an East Indiaman launched in 1787. She made three trips to China for the British East India Company (EIC). After the outbreak of war with France in 1793, the Admiralty, desirous of quickly building up the Royal Navy, purchased a number of commercial vessels, including nine East Indiamen, to meet the need for small two-decker fourth rates to serve as convoy escorts. The Admiralty purchased Ceres in 1795 and renamed her HMS Grampus. In 1797 the Admiralty converted her to a storeship. That year her crew participated in the Spithead and Nore mutinies. Grampus grounded in January 1799 and was destroyed.
The Cutting out of the Hermione, or Capture of Hermione, was a naval action that took place at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela on 25 October 1799. The formerly British frigate HMS Hermione, which had been handed over to the Spanish by its crew following a vicious mutiny, lay in the heavily guarded sea port of Puerto Cabello, now under the command of Don Ramón de Chalas.
Admiral Charles Buckner was a Royal Navy officer who became Commander-in-Chief, The Nore. He was the brother of John Buckner, Bishop of Chichester, and grandfather of portraitist Richard Buckner.
The complement of HMS Bounty, the Royal Navy ship on which a historic mutiny occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789, comprised 46 men on its departure from England in December 1787 and 44 at the time of the mutiny, including her commander Lieutenant William Bligh. All but two of those aboard were Royal Navy personnel; the exceptions were two civilian botanists engaged to supervise the breadfruit plants Bounty was tasked to take from Tahiti to the West Indies. Of the 44 aboard at the time of the mutiny, 19 were set adrift in the ship's launch, while 25, a mixture of mutineers and detainees, remained on board under Fletcher Christian. Bligh led his loyalists 3,500 nautical miles to safety in the open boat, and ultimately back to England. The mutineers divided—most settled on Tahiti, where they were captured by HMS Pandora in 1791 and returned to England for trial, while Christian and eight others evaded discovery on Pitcairn Island.
HMS Glenmore was a 36-gun Amazon-class frigate designed by William Rule for the Royal Navy. Tweed had been the intended name when she was laid down in March of 1795 but this was changed before her launch in March 1796. A fifth rate, the ship carried a main battery of twenty-six 18-pounder (8.2-kilogram) long guns on her gun deck.
HMS Beaulieu was a 40-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The ship was laid down in 1790 as a speculative build by the shipwright Henry Adams and purchased by the Royal Navy in June of the same year. Built to the dimensions of a merchant ship, Beaulieu was broader, with more storage capacity, than a standard frigate; though may not have had good sailing qualities. The frigate was commissioned in January 1793 by Lord Northesk and sent to serve on the Leeward Islands Station. She participated in the capture of Martinique in February 1794, and then was similarly present at the capture of the island of Saint Lucia in April. The frigate also took part in the initial stages of the invasion of Guadeloupe. Later in the year the ship's crew was beset by yellow fever and much depleted. Beaulieu was sent to serve on the North America Station to allow them to recuperate, returning to the Leeward Islands in 1795. In the following two years the ship found success in prizetaking and briefly took part in more operations at Saint Lucia. She returned to Britain at the end of 1796.
Tracy, Nicholas (2006), Who's Who in Nelson's Navy: 200 Naval Heroes, London: Greenhill Books/Chatham Publishing, ISBN1-86176-244-5
Neale, William Johnson (1842), History of the Mutiny at Spithead and the Nore: With an Enquiry into Its Origin and Treatment, and Suggestions for the Prevention of Future Discontent in the Royal Navy, T. Tegg, hdl:2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t2c827t0x
Manwaring, G. E.; Dobrée, Bonamy (1987) [1935], The Floating Republic: An Account of the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797, London: Cresset Library, ISBN0-09173-154-2 – 1st pub, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company 1935
The Historical Society of Hele's School Exeter (1950), "Richard Parker", Born in Exeter, Exeter: A. Wheaton & Company
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