A King's Cutter

Nat. Lord, but what a glorious thing is a fleet action. How I envied you Rodney's action here in '80 and how you must envy us ours! Our fellows were so cool and we raked Salvador del Mundo wickedly. The Dons fought better than I thought them capable of and it was tolerably warm work…

Drinkwater was envious. Envious and not a little amused in a bitter kind of way at Richard White's mixture of boyish enthusiasm and sober naval formality. There was a good deal more of it, including the significant phrase Sir John was pleased to take notice of my conduct. Drinkwater checked himself. He was pleased for White, pleased too that his old friend, now clearly on the path to success, still considered the friendship of an obscure master's mate in an even more obscure cutter worth the trouble of an informative letter. So Drinkwater shared vicariously in the euphoria induced by the victory. The tide, it seemed, had turned in favour of British arms and the Royal Navy reminded her old antagonists that though the lion lay down, it was not yet dead.

Then one morning in April Kestrel rounded the Scroby Sands and stood into Yarmouth Road with the signal for despatches at her masthead. Coming to her anchor close to Venerable her chase guns saluted the blue flag at the flagship's main masthead. A moment or so later her boat pulled across the water with Lieutenant Griffiths in the stern.

When Griffiths returned from delivering his message from the frigates off the Texel he called all the cutter's officers into the cabin.

Drinkwater was the last to arrive, late from supervising the hoisting of the boat. He closed the lobby door behind him, aware of an air of tense expectancy. As he sat down he realised it was generated by the frigid gleam in Griffiths's eyes.

'Gentlemen,' he said in his deep, clear voice. 'Gentlemen, the Channel Fleet at Spithead is in a state of mutiny!'

Chapter Twelve A Flood of Mutiny

 May-June 1797

'Listen to the bastards!' said Jessup as Kestrel's crew paused in their work to stare round the crowded anchorage. The cheering appeared to come from Lion and a ripple of excitement ran through the hands forward, several staring defiantly aft where Jessup, Drinkwater and Traveller stood.

Yarmouth Roads had been buzzing as news, rumour, claim and counter-claim sped between the ships anchored there. The red flag, it was said had been hoisted at the Nore and Duncan's ships vacillated between loyalty to their much respected admiral and their desire to support what were felt to be the just demands of the rest of the fleet.

The cheering was enough to bring others on deck. Amidships the cook emerged from his galley and the knot of officers was joined by Appleby and Thompson. 'Thank God we're anchored close to the flagship,' muttered the surgeon. His apprehensions of mutiny now having been confirmed, Appleby feared the possibility of being murdered in his bed.

Kestrel lay anchored a short cannon shot from Venerable. The battleship's guns were run out and the sudden boom of a cannon echoed flatly across the anchorage. A string of knotted bunting rose up her signal halliards to jerk out brightly in the light breeze of a May morning.

'Call away my gig, Mr Drinkwater,' growled Griffiths emerging from the companionway. Admiral Duncan was signalling for his captains and when Griffiths returned from the conference his expression was weary. 'Call the people aft!'

Jessup piped the hands into the waist and they swarmed eagerly over the remaining boat on the hatch. 'Gentlemen,' said Griffiths to his officers, 'take post behind me.'

The officers shuffled into a semi-circle as ordered, regarding the faces of the men. Some open, some curious, some defiant or truculent and all aware that unusual events were taking place.

'Now hark you all to this, do you understand that the fleets at Spithead and the Nore are in defiant mutiny of their officers…' He looked round at them, giving them no ground, despite his inner sympathy. 'But if any man disputes my right to command this cutter or proposes disobeying my orders or those of one of my officers,' he gestured behind him, 'let him speak now.'

Griffiths's powerful voice with its rich Welsh accent seemed to come from a pulpit. His powerful old body and sober features with their air of patriarchy exerted an almost tangible influence upon his men. He appeared to be reasoning with them like a firm father, opposing their fractiousness with the sure hand of experience. 'Look at me,' he seemed to say, 'you cannot rebel against me, whatever the rest of the fleet does.'

Drinkwater's palms were damp and beside him Appleby was shaking with apprehension. Then they saw resolution ebb as a sort of collective sigh came from the men. Griffiths sent them forward again.

'Get forrard and do your duty. Mr Jessup, man the windlass and inform me when the cable's up and down.'

It was the season for variable or easterly winds in the North Sea and Duncan's preoccupation was that the Dutch fleet would leave the Texel, taking advantage of the favourable winds and the state of the British squadrons. The meeting to which Griffiths had been summoned had been to determine the mood of the ships in Duncan's fleet. The small force still off the Texel was quite inadequate to contain De Winter if he chose to emerge and it was now even more important to keep him bottled up. There was a strong possibility that the mutinous ships at the Nore might attempt a defection and this was more likely to be to the protestant Dutch than the catholic French, for all the republican renunciation of formal religion. A demonstration by De Winter to cover the Nore Squadron's exit from the Thames would be all that was necessary to facilitate this and strengthen any wavering among the mutineers. It was already known at Yarmouth that most of the officers had been removed from the warships with the significant exception of the sailing masters. They were held aboard the Sandwich, the 'flagship' of the self-styled admiral, Richard Parker.

For a few days Kestrel remained at anchor while Duncan, who had personally remonstrated with the Admiralty for redress of many of the men's grievances and regarded the mutiny as a chastisement and warning to the Admiralty to mend its ways, waited on events.

The anonymous good sense that had characterised the affair at Spithead was largely responsible for its swift and satisfactory conclusion. Admiral Howe was given special powers to treat with the delegates who knew they had 'Black Dick's' sympathy. By mid-May, amid general rejoicing, fireworks and banquets the Channel Fleet, pardoned by the King, returned to duty.

There was no evidence that foreign sedition had had anything to do with it. The tars had had a case. Their cause had been just, their conduct exemplary, their self-administered justice impeccable. They had sent representatives to their brethren at the Nore and it would only be a matter of days before they too saw sense.

But it was not so. The Nore mutiny was an uglier business, its style aggressive and less reasonable. By blockading trade in the Thames its leaders rapidly lost the sympathy of the liberal middle-class traders of London and as the Government became intransigent, Parker's desperation increased. The tide in favour of the fleet turned, and as the supplies of food, fuel and merchandise to the capital dwindled, troops flooded in to Sheerness and the ships flying the red flag at the Nore felt a growing sense of isolation.

At the end of May there arrived in Yarmouth an Admiralty envoy in the person of Captain William Bligh, turned out of the Director by his crew and sent by the authorities to persuade Duncan to use his ships against Parker's. He also brought news that four delegates from the Nore had seized the cutter Cygnet and were on their way to Yarmouth to incite the seamen there to mutiny.

Duncan considered the intelligence together with the mooted possibility of Parker defecting with the entire fleet to Holland or France. In due course he ordered the frigate Vestal, the lugger Hope and the cutter Rose to cruise to the southward to intercept the visitors. If Parker sailed for the Texel or Dunquerque then, and only then, would the old admiral