o_199m9vaui14ib1cnu10di10pocoj4h.pdf

DISSIPATED EFFORTS 345
were in port. At another time a single soldier would be
waylaid, instructed in the evils of the tyrannical system
which he was supporting and invited to help with his
influence and arms the stealthy advance of the golden
age of liberty and reason. And again, a seaman would
receive by the post a parcel of revolutionary papers and
books from some acquaintance who had adopted the
cause of reform ;
or a slopseller would be induced by the
love of liberty or the hope of a reward to hide the
seditious literature among his wares.
But all these methods could only produce slight
simmerings of discontent : they could not in themselves
account for a general rising. The events of the Mutinies
showed that very few of the seamen were thoroughly
infected with the new political opinions; and in the army,
where the occasion of murmuring was very small, there
was not even a suspicion of a mutiny.
The political agitators were at a great disadvantage
because all their work had to be done in secret. Popular
opinion is commonly stirred by methods which give the
widest publicity to the views that are to be pressed
forward. Newspapers and pamphlets are freely circulated,
and orators profit by the instinct that allows the emotions
of a crowd to overwhelm the individual reason. But the
political consciousness of the navy could not be quickened
in this way, because it was only possible to deal with a
single man, or a small group of men, at a time.
Moreover, the spreading of sedition in the defensive
forces of the country was only one of many schemes for
injuring the government. Some people hoped for a
general desertion of soldiers and sailors ; some for a rising
in England, helped by an army of Irishmen, who should
cross the sea in small detachments and converge on
London. Some thought that the Dutch force from the
Texel would land on the east coast of England and take
London by surprise ; and others held that the Dutch
would have better success if they were to land at Leith