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PIRACY AND PLUNDER 185
which had started from the Thames with supplies for
Lisbon, just before the news of the blockade was known
in London, was one of the first ships to be detained by
the mutineers. 1 There is no indication that any other
storeships were captured, and the absence of such prizes
may have been a further inducement to the delegates to
abandon the blockade. When the fate of the Maria was
known at the Admiralty, orders were naturally given that
no other victuallers should go down the river, 2 and
Admiral Peyton, who commanded at the Downs, was
instructed to keep back some storeships that were coming
from Ireland. 3
Thus the blockade came to an end, and the delegates
were deprived of their last hope of securing supplies.
It is a further sign of degeneration in the character of
the mutiny that some of the seamen, when they could no
longer find fresh supplies by means even so respectable
as the plunder of naval transports, fell to pillaging
private property. Fishing smacks were nominally free
to go up the river, and there is evidence that some were
actually allowed to pass; 4 but there is no doubt that
1. Buckner to Nepean, 2 June, C 349. Several incoming vessels,
including some American ships, were stopped about the same time.
2. Ibid.
3. C 354, 4 June.
4. E.g., a smack belonging to Walter Miller (Pro M 199, 7 June,
Digest). Parker's wife came from Leith in another of Miller's boats.
A schooner was also allowed to go up the river (J. and A. Anderson
to the Admiralty Pro. A 76, 6 June, Digest). The orders given by the
delegates were "to detain all vessels to and from the Port of London,
those excepted whose cargoes are perishable." In the case of these
ships a written permit was provided, signed by Parker.
were sentenced to death ; hence the crew of the Grampus must have
been distinguished as a particularly active body of mutineers. I have
not been able to ascertain the day on which the Grampus surrendered.
Apparently it was with the fleet through practically the whole of the
mutiny. About the beginning of June various ships that were in need
of stores were ordered to supply themselves from the Grampus (Papers
of the Bepulse, no. 27). Later in the year the Grampus sailed to
the West Indies, and her crew began a mutiny in the Jamaica squadron.