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336 THE NAVAL MUTINIES OF 1797
known to the French government of the discontent among
the British seamen. 1 Moreover, Wolfe Tone himself,
although he would naturally have been the chief agent
in securing help from France during the Mutinies, knew
nothing about them until the end of April. His opinion
of the rising and his ignorance of its origin are clearly
shown in his diary.
On April 29 Tone wrote :
He [Deputy Van Amstell] gives me another piece of intelligence,
which, if it be true, I regard as scarcely of less
importance than the peace with the Emperor, viz., that there
has been a mutiny aboard the English fleet ; that the seamen
had nearly thrown their Admiral overboard, and that they had
tried, condemned and hanged one of their comrades for
opposing their measures. This is too good news to be true,
and I long most anxiously to see it explained. It has been
communicated to the Comite des Relations Exterieures from
Hamburgh, so I shall probably learn the truth when I meet
my family at Groningen.2
He did learn the truth, both of this news and of the
later rumours of disaffection in the North Sea fleet ; and
he saw with anxiety and despair that the ministries of
marine in France and Holland were allowing this unique
opportunity of invasion to go by, while they delayed and
disputed and changed their plans. When he was in
Coblentz, on 21 June, he reported a conversation with
Hoche, who was expected to lead the next expedition
from France. Hoche told him that Truguet, the Minister
of Marine, wanted to make the expedition "ona grand
scale," and that the fleet would not sail for two months
at least. "To which I," said Tone, "knowing Brest
of old, and that two months, in the language of the
1. See Moreau's Aventvres de Guerre, vol. i, pp. 424—461. But his
statements are not reliable enough to be treated as history. Moreau's
autobiography seems to be a Dichtung und Wahrheit, in which his
imagination was allowed to break loose from the restraint of his
statistical work.
2. Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 207. Tone was in Holland at this time, urging
on the preparations in the Texel. He had just had news of the Peace
of Campo Formic