Spithead and Nore mutinies

Sailors on 16 ships in the Channel Fleet, commanded by Admiral Lord Bridport, protested against the living conditions aboard Royal Navy vessels and demanded a pay rise, better victualling, increased shore leave, and compensation for sickness and injury.

Finally, the new wartime quota system meant that crews had many landsmen from inshore (including some convicted criminals sent in lieu of punishment) who did not mix well with the career seamen, leading to discontented ships' companies.

[6] When the situation calmed, Admiral Lord Howe intervened to negotiate an agreement that issued a royal pardon for all crews, reassignment of some of the unpopular officers, and a pay raise and abolition of the purser's pound.

Inspired by the example of their comrades at Spithead, the sailors at the Nore, an anchorage in the Thames Estuary, also mutinied, on 12 May 1797, when the crew of Sandwich seized control of the ship.

[8] Parker was a former master's mate who was disrated and court-martialled in December 1793 and re-enlisted in the Navy as a seaman in early 1797, where he came to serve aboard the brig-sloop Hound.

These demands infuriated the Admiralty, which offered nothing except a pardon (plus the concessions already made at Spithead) in exchange for an immediate return to duty.

Captain Sir Erasmus Gower commissioned HMS Neptune (98 guns) in the upper Thames and put together a flotilla of fifty loyal ships to prevent the mutineers moving on the city of London.

Meanwhile, Captain Charles Cunningham of HMS Clyde, which was there for a refit, persuaded his crew to return to duty and slipped off to Sheerness.

In Ireland there was talk of seizing British warships as part of a general insurrection, but it was only after the Spithead and Nore mutinies that United Irishmen awoke to "surprising effectiveness" of formulating sedition within the Royal Navy".

[24][25] In September 1797, the crew of HMS Hermione mutinied in the West Indies, killing almost all the officers in revenge for a number of grievances, including throwing into the sea, without proper burial, the bodies of three men killed by falling from the rigging in a desperate attempt not to be the last men on deck, which was punishable by flogging.

[27] On 27 December, the crew of HMS Marie Antoinette murdered their officers and took their ship into a French port in the West Indies.

As noted above, in July 1798 a court martial on board HMS Defiance took the evidence of the oaths of allegiance to the United Irishmen as a prelude to mutiny, and eleven men were sentenced to hang for it.

[30] Recent attempts have been made to class these approaches under a heading of masculine identity, arguing that interpretations of what it meant to be a man for sailors marked the difference of motivation between the two mutinies.