o_199m9vaui14ib1cnu10di10pocoj4h.pdf

2o THE NAVAL MUTINIES OF 1797
Monday if possible. You must send them and your letters to
Mr. Pink, the Bear and Ragged Staff, as that is our post
office. Direct one petition to Evan Nepean, Secretary to the
Admiralty. The other to Honourable Charles James Fox,
South vStreet, Grosvenor Square.
Success to the proceedings." l
The state of affairs on the 15th may be judged fairly
accurately from this letter, though it is impossible to
reconstruct the actual events in any detail.
It was a time
of suspicion and suspense. The seamen were still
obedient to their officers; but every one knew that the
obedience would soon end. The officers did not yet
know whether they would have to attempt the hopeless
task of enforcing their orders on a majority of turbulent
men. And the men themselves had by no means settled
their plan of action. On this day they evidently expected
that the officers would soon be deprived of their command
and sent ashore—a measure which might well be
resisted with violence. They were not certain when the
mutiny was to begin : it might be on the Monday or the
Tuesday (17 or 18 April), according to the time at which
the petitions were ready.
The opening of the mutiny was heralded with a great
outburst of petitions. 2 All the previous petitions had
been ignored, and up to the very eve of the mutiny it
was still believed at the Admiralty that they were the
work of a single mischievous individual. This time the
seamen were determined that there should be no doubt
as to the scale of the discontent. The petitions were
signed—one written on the sixteenth was signed by the
delegates of the whole fleet—and all the ships' companies
1. A.S.I. 1022, A 355. This letter was sent to Parker by Captain
Wells, of the Defence, together with a copy of the original petition from
the Queen Clmrlotte. This copy was sent to the Defence, as it had
probably been sent to several other ships before, so that two fresh
copies could be taken and dispatched in the name of the Defence to
the Admiralty and to Fox. The petition and the letter fell into the
hands of some petty officers of the Defence, who gave them to the first
lieutenant. The letter is dated 15 April.
2. I have found sixteen that were written on 15, 16 or 17 April.