o_199m9vaui14ib1cnu10di10pocoj4h.pdf

—;
74 THE NAVAL MUTINIES OF 1797
command. 1
His mediation was the one thing needed to
bring the mutiny quietly and happily to an end.
He set out from London on 10 May accompanied
by his wife, and he arrived at Sir William Pitt's house
in Portsmouth early on the nth. 2 In spite of his gout
and his seventy-one years, he began his business at once.
By noon he was at St. Helens, on board the Royal
George; 3 and on the same day he visited the Queen
Charlotte, his old flagship, and the Duke, and talked to
the delegates of some other ships. 4 He spoke in a
conciliatory way, as became his character ; and the olive
branch was more acceptable to the mutinous seamen
than it had been to the rebellious Americans. Howe's
procedure was to tell the mutineers that the government
had all the time intended to grant them everything
promised by the Admiralty, and that as they knew, the
act for the increase of their wages and provisions had
already been passed before he left London. He impressed
them with a due sense of their misconduct in renewing
the mutiny through idle suspicion ; and when they had
expressed their regret and contrition, he read a fresh
1. Mason (pp. 83, 84), quoting from an article in the British Magazine,
says that it had been Howe's practice " to go below after an action, and
talk to every wounded man, sitting by the side of their cradles, and
constantly ordering his live-stock and wines to be applied to their use
at the discretion of the surgeon, and at all times for the sick on board."
Howe's kindness and courage, together with the memory of his great
victory of 1794, gave him a moral authority over the seamen which
belonged to no other admirals of the time, except perhaps St. Vincent,
Duncan and Nelson.
2. Schomberg (vol. iii, p. 20) says that Howe arrived on the 14th
and this curious mistake has been copied by Brenton (vol. i, p. 419),
Mason (Life of Howe, p. 85), Clowes (vol. iv, p. 171) and other writers.
The right date is given by Hannay in the Political History (vol. x,
p. 392) and by Neale, p. 117. But even the cautious James has fallen
into the trap (vol. ii, p. 39). Sir Byam Martin tells a curious and in
some points unlikely story of Sir William Pitt ; that he had once been a
midshipman in the navy, but deserted, and after some time entered the
army, where he rose to a high position. The improbable part of the
story is that he refused to apply for a regular discharge from the navy,
and so remove the reproach of having run—until he was a General in the
army (Letter® of Sir T. B. Martin, vol. iii, pp. xix, 305-307).
3. A.S.I. 107, J 280. His interview on the Boyal George lasted three
hours. Times, 15 May.
4. A.S.I. 579 (Admirals Unemployed), 12 May.