o_199m9vaui14ib1cnu10di10pocoj4h.pdf

PREFACE.
The first four books of this volume give an account of
the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore; 1 the fifth and
sixth books deal with the causes of the unrest. The
information is largely drawn from original letters of the
officers and seamen concerned in the risings and from
other contemporary documents. These letters provide
most of the material needed for a consecutive account of
the Mutinies, but published works have been used in
matters of detail to help the sequence of the story.
Cunningham's book on the Nore Mutiny, which can
almost be classed as contemporary, has been particularly
useful as a supplement to Buckner's rather jejune
dispatches. A list of authorities, with a short appreciation
of their value, is given below, in Appendix C ; and
throughout the book reference is made, in footnotes, to
the sources of information. The footnotes also contain
some discussions on points of fact or opinion or
chronology, and some illustrative matter ; but I have tried
to include in the text everything that is essential to the
main argument,
so that any readers who may wish to
follow the general course of the Mutinies, but do not
desire a critical study of details, will be able to neglect
the notes without losing anything that is important for
their purpose. In this volume I have not dealt with the
scattered Mutinies which preceded the risings of 1797,
nor with the mutiny at Plymouth, or the later troubles in
the Mediterranean fleet, in the West Indies and at the
Cape of Good Hope. The earlier risings were only
slight outbreaks of discontent; the later were only echoes
of the disturbances in the Channel and North Sea fleets.
1. These four books were first written at Cambridge as a dissertation
for the certificate of research.