o_199m9vaui14ib1cnu10di10pocoj4h.pdf

EFFECT OF ISOLATION 211
the government and the seamen, a trial in which nearly
all circumstances favoured the government. By carrying
thoroughly into effect their policy of isolation, the
authorities on shore made their ultimate success almost
certain ; and as their prospect grew brighter, the hope of
the mutineers correspondingly failed.
Spencer had reason in writing "
: I think they wilJ
soon find their situation more alarming than they have
been used to consider it." 1 The delegates left Sheerness
on the 29th, with a great show of defiance. But when
two of them, Parker and Davis, went ashore on the next
day, they found themselves helpless and unpopular.
The
inhabitants of Sheerness wanted to arrest them and hold
them as hostages; 2 and the commander of the garrison
afterwards said that if the townspeople had been allowed
hand they would have hung every mutineer who
a free
came ashore. 3 So greatly had public opinion changed
since the beginning of the mutiny. Unpopularity was
discouraging to the mutineers, whose main reliance was
in the support of the nation. But they soon encountered
greater and more pressing difficulties. They found that
they would be prevented from landing at Sheerness, and
—a still more serious discovery—that the provisions
which had been supplied to them regularly would no
longer be forthcoming. Outwardly the delegates showed
indignation at the change in their treatment. Three of
them went ashore on 31 May to protest against the
stoppage of provisions, and to deliver as a counterblast
1. A.S.M. 137, 29 May (Rochester).
2. Apparently some of the townspeople actually tried to detain them,
ior on the same day they wrote a curious letter, asking that if they
were taken into custody their arrest should be carried out in a decent
and official manner (Pro. P 21, Digest; Pro. P 20, 30 May, Digest).
The Admiralty also doubted the wisdom of letting Parker and Davis
xeturn to the fleet (A.S.M. 137, 31 May).
3. Grey to Dundas, 25 June (A.S.I. 4172).