And in any case the business was not going to be so easy. The men had tasted power, they were still uncertain whether the authorities really meant to play the game with them, and Howe, the old idol, had shown in March that one of his feet at least might well be made of clay. But the aged Admiral, though bowed under his infirmities and his glories, put his whole heart into setting matters right: if the business had been a little his fault, he would at any rate make up for it a hundredfold now; he would spare neither his flesh nor his spirit, and the latter, blown into a blaze by a tremendous exercise of will, would emit one final illumination before it went out for ever.
He did not waste time, or even rest at Portsmouth, but at once had himself rowed across the Solent to St. Helens, where he boarded the Royal George. It was not altogether certain in what temper he would be met by the crew. The day before, Wednesday, 10th, Bridport had loyally distributed copies of the healing Act of Parliament, but even so it was not by any means sure that everyone was appeased. The men of the Mars and the Duke were inclined to be stiff-necked, those of the latter ship especially, attempting to incite the Fleet to further demands, possibly on the point of the distribution of prize-money. They insisted on interviewing the Assembly, which poured cold water on their ardour, upon which they made pilgrimages to all the other ships to try to stir them up, but in every instance met with rebuffs; far from being allowed to board the ships, they were greeted with torrents of picturesque seafaring abuse, punctuated with shouting and hissing. The fever on both these ships appeared so dangerous to the temporary commanders of the Fleet, that they stationed guard-boats near by, and forbade all except official Admiralty communication with them. For the general feeling of the Fleet had crystallised into something peaceable, which was probably well expressed by the crew of the Robust, who sat down to compose a work of high, not to say highfalutin, literature, to air their minds—and their talents; and even if it is “singularly free from grammatical restraint,” it was certainly found none the worse for that:
Robust,
11th May 1797.
The favours and goodness our officers confer upon us, are such as can be equalled by few officers in the fleet; and that is our just and grateful sense of the officers of his majesty’s ship Robust. Is there a man so poor in spirit, that praises such as we have without imitating the actions worthy of them?
How pleasant would be the toils of war, did all employed in it meet with the same recompense! [Was this a side-glance at prize-money?] It is our deeds alone render us worthy their indulgence, and preserve their good opinion. To inform you with how much ardency we wish to serve them, if ever accidents fall in our way, we are thoroughly resolved to lead them into the paths of glory; and they might rest assured that all of us will rejoice in an opportunity of testifying our duty, affection, gratitude, and submission, which we flatter ourselves they will not hereafter disapprove.
We are, with the utmost respect and submission,
Your Honours’ eternally devoted servants,
Robust SHIP’S COMPANY.
But it is unlikely that Howe should have seen this before stepping upon the flagship: if he had, it may have done something to sustain him at that first awkward moment of meeting Bridport, who, very correct, very aloof, was waiting to receive him.
Black Dick then talked to the men of the Royal George. He had first of all to re-establish himself in their confidence as the sailors’ friend, and then to convince them that the Act really was water-tight, that the Admiralty meant to deal squarely by them, and that the Royal Pardon was all-embracing. From the first he dealt with them as man to man; there was no getting upon the high horse for him, or refusing to recognise the authority of the Delegates, as there had been on the part of Spencer’s Board when it had come down in April. His own intuition guided him there, though it may have been strengthened by the advice of Lady Howe, a woman of “discretion and excellent understanding,” according to Benjamin Franklin. But apart from all other difficulties, there was one that lay deep in the old hero’s nature, and a grave one in the circumstances—sheer incapacity to state his meaning directly. He meant what he said honestly enough, but it was not always easy to discover what, precisely, he had tried to convey.* As an Admiral who knew him well remarked: “Lord Howe possessed a very peculiar manner of explaining himself, both in correspondence and conversation ;” so it is not surprising that his conference on the Royal George took three whole hours. He then went on to the Queen Charlotte, to preside in his old state cabin under conditions his queerest nightmares could not have foreshadowed, and finally tackled the recalcitrant Duke. That was enough for the day: he had arrived at Portsmouth only at eleven o’clock, and had done work which would have been creditable in a man far less than seventy-one years old.
The next day he spent doggedly going from ship to ship, till he had been to every one, arguing, explaining, cajoling. His patience was infinite, his manner at once sympathetic and sorrowful. He explained in long, tortuous phrases, of which the men understood the spirit if not always the meaning, how blameless the Admiralty had really been; that
Black Dick then talked to the men of the Royal George. He had first of all to re-establish himself in their confidence as the sailors’ friend, and then to convince them that the Act really was water-tight, that the Admiralty meant to deal squarely by them, and that the Royal Pardon was all-embracing. From the first he dealt with them as man to man; there was no getting upon the high horse for him, or refusing to recognise the authority of the Delegates, as there had been on the part of Spencer’s Board when it had come down in April. His own intuition guided him there, though it may have been strengthened by the advice of Lady Howe, a woman of “discretion and excellent understanding,” according to Benjamin Franklin. But apart from all other difficulties, there was one that lay deep in the old hero’s nature, and a grave one in the circumstances—sheer incapacity to state his meaning directly. He meant what he said honestly enough, but it was not always easy to discover what, precisely, he had tried to convey.* As an Admiral who knew him well remarked: “Lord Howe possessed a very peculiar manner of explaining himself, both in correspondence and conversation ;” so it is not surprising that his conference on the Royal George took three whole hours. He then went on to the Queen Charlotte, to preside in his old state cabin under conditions his queerest nightmares could not have foreshadowed, and finally tackled the recalcitrant Duke. That was enough for the day: he had arrived at Portsmouth only at eleven o’clock, and had done work which would have been creditable in a man far less than seventy-one years old.
The next day he spent doggedly going from ship to ship, till he had been to everyone, arguing, explaining, cajoling. His patience was infinite, his manner at once sympathetic and sorrowful. He explained in long, tortuous phrases, of which the men understood the spirit if not always the meaning, how blameless the Admiralty had really been; that nobody had ever dreamt of not keeping faith with the seamen; and then—so he reported—he made the men aware of the enormity of their behaviour. He declared that he must have an expression of the whole Fleet’s sense of this before he would proceed in the matter, and wrote that he only left the Fleet “under agreement with the Delegates that the seamen, at large, should request, in suitable terms of decency and contrition, my interposition to obtain the King’s pardon for those transgressions.” The sailors were for the most part far too realistic to boggle at forms or formalities, and willingly made such a very mild gesture of humiliation; but on what mattered they were stubborn. The wording of the pardon Howe found to be the most tricky point of all: it contained the word “promise,” and the sailors, having made up their minds never again to be “amused or diverted by fair promises,” would have none of this specious word. The phrase, “we do hereby promise our most gracious pardon,” had to be altered to, “meaning further to extend our most gracious pardon” ; and if this involved sending the draft back to be altered, this could not be helped. The men were so difficult about points such as this, which seemed to Howe 114 mere pettifogging, that he suspected there must be some agency at work to put a spoke in the wheel of reconciliation: he knew “the too easy facility of working upon the unsuspecting minds of the well-disposed seamen.”
Thursday and Friday, then, the indomitable old man spent in being rowed from one ship to another, climbing up and down ladders, making long and tiring speeches, listening no doubt to still longer and more tiring arguments, till he was so fatigued that he had to be lifted in and out of his boat. He decided that on the 13th he would himself be visited, and appointed the Delegates to meet him on the Royal William at Spithead. It was there, he decided, that he would receive petitions from the crews about their officers, for on this point of “particular grievances” the Delegates had been firm as a rock; they would no longer be commanded by bullies. Since they expressed an “unalterable adherence” to these changes, Howe again saved face by demanding that each petition should be a prayer to His Majesty to indulge them with the appointment of other officers. The sailors did not mind, in fact they rather welcomed the procedure; they could state their reasons, and prove that “their complaints were merely tendered of show that they had not acted from a spirit of disobedience, but that they meant to represent what they deemed just ground of complaint.” 136 What happened on the Royal William might be the test of Government good faith.
At a quarter-past ten the procession of boats containing the Delegates was seen swinging across from St. Helens; an hour later the petitioners climbed on board, and within a quarter of an hour Howe was received on deck with full honours. It was not, however, until noon that the Earl invited the anxiously waiting Delegates into the Admiral’s cabin, where after two hours’ talk the “treaty,” as some contemptuously called it, was agreed upon. Howe had been unable to make a stand: in fact, he had not tried very hard. What, after all, could he do, in the circumstances, when the petitions he received from the ships were of so clear a nature, so determined and yet so decorous?
Our first Lieutenant, he is a most Cruel and Barberous man, Beating some at times untill they are not able to stand, and not allowing them the satisfaction to cry out. If your honr. be pleased to look Round you may find many ships that Want men and as wee want another ship by grantg one Wee will Remain In duty Bound to Remain
Your Ever lasting Servants and petitioners,
Ship’s Company of the Amphitrite.
It was clearly the officers and not the men who were in the wrong; and, as Howe said, “However ineligible the concession, it was become indispensably necessary.”
The diehards were furious against him for giving way on this point. Are men to dictate who shall command them? they asked indignantly. Then farewell discipline! But it had not been discipline the men had objected to, only its hideous perversion. Howe, for form’s sake, offered them courts martial on officers complained against, which was the regulation procedure suggested with such a lack of humour by the Board in reply to the early petitions. But the men naturally rejected this: the insufferable delay apart, they knew what the outcome would probably be, what it had so often been in the past. Not that there was anything deliberately malign or unfair in such courts martial, but that the dice were inevitably loaded against inarticulate sailors bringing a complaint against an officer who probably had a tongue nimble enough to argue his case, with judges, moreover, who were of his own kind, and who would, even if unconsciously, sympathise with him rather than with the men. Besides, courts martial at this date would only inflame passions, by raking up old scores, and add to the excitement. Howe undoubtedly did the sensible, the humane, and the statesmanlike thing: all through he had shown that at last he realised the implications of the mutiny, and in dealing direct with the Delegates he gave the first example of the proper way to 116 settle industrial disputes. Such an innovation, in the Navy too, of all places, revealed surprising imaginative powers. And besides, the unflinching dismissal of fifty-nine officers and warrant officers, including one admiral and four captains, was the very thing to impress the men with the sense that the Government was going to play fair, and also to show them that the country had confidence in its sailors. And as a final answer to those who have heaped obloquy upon Howe, it can be pointed out that he had been instructed to let the officers go, rather than fail in his mission: 139 and that the officers themselves did not want to return.
About half of those, then, who had been landed so humiliatingly at the beginning of the week were allowed to rejoin their ships, among them Sir Alan Gardner, whose crew, by deputation, begged him to come back. He was greeted home with three terrific cheers as he stepped on to his quarter-deck, and these—the temptation to harangue was irresistible—incited him to make “a very pathetic speech,” telling the men how eagerly he longed to see justice spread an equal mantle over officers and men alike; but he grumbled privately at the “cursed yard-ropes still being there. Peter Bover, as we know, came happily back to the unlucky London and reported to his family, a little incorrectly:
… The delegates have finally determined not to receive any of the officers that have been turned on shore from the ships, and insist that no two of them shall ever be appointed to the same ship. You see “it is an ill wind that blows nobody good,” and I am peculiarly lucky in not only remaining in the ship, but likewise enjoying the most thorough confidence of the ship’s company, who, I am happy to tell you, are, in common with the rest of the fleet, most excessively enraged at the idea of any republican agents stirring them up to sedition, and are unalterably resolved not to meddle with anything but what they have already asked, and which immediately concerns themselves only.
The deposed officers did not suffer; they were placed on full pay until they could be employed again on other ships.
Aaron Graham might have saved himself a deal of bustling about, and idle gossip at street corners, if he had heard Hover’s view on the loyalty of the men, their detestation of republican principles; and perhaps the letter of submission the too fervent Mars sent to the rest of the Fleet might have disappointed him:
Our intentions were to act with the fleet: nor had we any other intentions, being convinced our grievances would be redressed. As to our captain and officers, we esteem and respect them for their humane behaviour, and consider ourselves as happy with them as with any other men m the service. We also beg leave to remark, that no set of men in his Majesty’s service are more attached to their sovereign and country, and are ready to defend their cause to the last drop of their vital blood, than are the
Seamen of the Mars
There was, in short, no effective sedition in the Fleet; and Howe himself put his finger on what might have given rise to the notion when he described his labours as having been to quiet “the most suspicious but most generous minds I think I ever met with in the same class of men.”
The conference on the Royal William had completely cleared the air; more than the air, indeed. It had broken to smithereens the poor barricades of pride set up by the Board, for the “total and final answer” had been totally and finally acceded to—pay, food, leave, redress of grievances: all that was needed was a solemn ratification in the form of the King’s pardon. It was arranged that on the next day, Sunday, the Delegates were to meet the Earl on the Royal William, and then, at this final solemn conclave, the whole business would be concluded. Howe had done a good day’s work. But still his labours for that day were not yet over, for in the afternoon eight ships of the line sailed into Spithead, alarmingly flying red flags to proclaim that they were in full defiant mutiny. This was 118 Curtis’s squadron from the west, which, on receiving the exciting message of the 7th from Spithead, had obeyed that summons rather than the Admiralty order to put to sea, which had arrived too late to prevent the insubordinate dash eastward. Howe immediately went on board the Prince, at some risk to himself, to seize this fresh bull by the horns, once more taking up his interminable task of persuasion; and soon the squadron, seeing that everything was settled, agreed to return to duty, but—they were going to get some fun for their trouble—they first insisted that sixty-five officers and warrant officers should be cast out of their ships. All then was over except for the rejoicings.
But there was to be plenty of those attending the great and glorious reconciliation which was to make that Sunday a gala day. A dense fog hung over the Solent that morning, and when Sir Peter Parker went on board the Royal William at twenty past nine, nothing could be seen of what was going on at St. Helens; but at ten o’clock the Delegates’ boats could be discerned through the mist rowing “in two lines in great regularity.” A few minutes later Lord Howe’s figure broke through the veil, close at hand, upon which the Delegates turned out the guard to receive him. At twenty past they were admitted to the Admiral’s cabin; but the meeting failed of its intended glamour, for the pardon had not arrived, and at eleven o’clock the Delegates re-emerged with nothing done.143 However, it was sure to come that day, and to make up for the disillusion it was arranged to have a superbly jubilee procession the next. At midday Lord Howe went ashore again, to be received by an immense multitude shouting itself hoarse with acclamation. As he came near the Governor’s house — where he was staying—Joyce came up to him to ask at what time he would like the procession to start. Howe, all courtesy, answered that the Delegates’ time would be his, and did not flinch when Joyce named seven o’clock as the hour when the tide would serve.
Encouraged by Howe’s tone, Joyce then turned to Lady Howe, who had come to meet her husband, and begged her to honour them with her company, assuring her that she need have no qualms: to which Lady Howe answered that she was not in the least afraid, and would be delighted to come. Matters being on this social footing—mutinies, yardropes, shootings, and other disagreeables swept out of mind—Howe then invited Joyce into the Governor’s house to drink a glass of wine with him, an invitation which the “seditious clubist” accepted “with a manly freedom, unaccompanied by the least particle of familiarity or rudeness.” To round off these amenities news was received through the Admiralty telegraph—an ingenious means of communication by signal—that the revised pardon was on the way; and indeed it arrived that afternoon, the messenger having made the journey in the record time of four and a half hours. All was prepared for the grand finale. Everybody was rapturously pleased; the whole town of Portsmouth, with Gosport and Southsea, was in boisterous holiday mood: the only person at all irritated was Bridport, who had kept very mute and invisible throughout the proceedings, and girded at the extra delay which prevented him from carrying out the order to put to sea which the Admiralty, still without a grain of tact, repeatedly sent him.
The whole affair was a tremendous success, and went off without a hitch—more like an armistice rejoicing than the end of a grim and dangerous mutiny. Early in the morning —Monday, the 15th of May—the Delegates rowed over headed by the boat of the Formidable cheerfully flying the Union Jack. They landed at the Sally Port (adjoining what is now Victoria Pier), and marched up to Sir William Pitt’s house, their bands alternately playing “God Save the King” and “Rule Britannia” with all the gusto of early morning, an exercise in which they were soon joined by the band of the marines. They were invited into the house, partook of refreshments, appeared on the balcony to the vociferous crowds below, and in fact hugely enjoyed their now honourable notoriety till it was time to make a start. At about eight the high and mighty were ready, and all made for the Sally Port once more, near which a curious incident occurred. It was noticed that Joyce was accosted by four men in plain clothes, with whom he talked a little, and then took along with him into his boat. They were sailors from the Nore, where another mutiny had broken out, and they had come, somewhat belatedly, to arrange collaboration with their fellows at Spithead; 145 the best argument for them, Joyce thought, would be to see what was happening that banyan day. So everybody embarked, to the accompaniment of lustily blaring bands. The first boat flew a Union Jack at the fore, and contained the sailors’ enthusiastic instrumentalists; the second, which was the Royal Barge, conveyed Lord Howe reclining in solitary, almost regal grandeur, and this was followed by one containing Sir William Pitt and the Lieutenant-Governor, seated amid the glitter of their aides-de-camp’s uniforms; then came Lady Howe with Lady Pitt and other ladies, while the marines’ band of music brought up the rear. The Delegates’ boats, with the crews arrayed in their smartest clothes, formed in line ahead on either side; and as each row of boats passed the platform an impressive shooting off of guns stunned the ears of the crowds which blackened the beaches, eagerly watching the whole gay procession dwindling away towards St. Helens.
The peacemaker went first to the Royal George—upon which Joyce introduced his visitors from the Nore—and there, on the quarter-deck, read out the Royal Pardon. It was shown to such few seamen as could read, and when these had expressed their approval, it was passed round for the illiterate majority to see, and to gaze upon the Royal Seal attached to it, which to them was the surest of guarantees. Even ministers, full of duplicity, could not get round that. The enthusiasm was immense; the crew gave vent to three ear-splitting cheers, tore down the now outmoded yard-ropes, and replaced the bloody flag with the Royal Standard. So far as they were concerned the mutiny was over, and the other ships, observing these portents, joyfully followed suit. But Howe, for all his years, was not going to leave the job half done, and visited nearly every ship; and still not content, in the afternoon he had himself taken to Curtis’s squadron, where things were yet uncertain. The Prince, however, instantly accorded him a guard of honour, and after a short time displayed the Union and Standard under a royal salute as a signal that that squadron too had returned to perfect obedience. Officers old and new boarded the ships everywhere, amid hearty cheers, and once more order reigned in the Channel Fleet.
But the fun was not quite over yet. Wearied almost to death, Howe landed at the Sally Port at six o’clock: he was so exhausted that he had to be lifted from the barge. The Delegates, who had rowed back in three lines abreast in the most perfect order, not only refused to allow mere beasts to draw his carriage, but hoisted him, far too spent to walk, upon their shoulders, and bore him triumphantly to Sir William Pitt’s house, the Union Jack symbolically held fluttering over his head all the way. Every yard of the road was crammed with crowds such as Portsmouth had never yet seen, cheering themselves husky in uproarious efforts to drown the din’ of the feux de joie rattled off by the West Kents, the South Downs, and the marines: the powder which had been provided for a possible (but very improbable) tussle with an invading horde of sailors being thus burned as incense at the noble ceremony of reconciliation. And then Richard, Earl Howe, once more the old beloved Black Dick, threw off the hero to become the host, and entertained the Delegates at dinner in all the forms; 148 and if there were toasts and speeches, as probably there were, they will have been shorter and less boring than usual. At last, as the ending of a long day, the men, filled with peace and good cheer, rowed their way back to St. Helens in the moonlight, singing perhaps the ballad of the occasion:
The tars of old England have long toil’d in vain.
From the time of King Charles down to the present reign:
But their royal master their wages doth raise,
So join, British sailors, in King George’s praise.
The fleet of Lord Bridport, the terror of France,
Petition’d the throne that their pay.might advance.
Their petition was granted, each grievance redress’d
In the heart of each seaman great George he is bless’d.
And then the Delegates prosaically reported for duty.
At last, on the 17th, after a month’s delay, Bridport put to sea. It had been a stimulating because successful mutiny; the Fleet was the better for it, with happier men and worthier officers, and no grudge felt. At least, none was shown on either side. Bover is witness that the men felt none. And « at the very end, on the 14th, the myopic Admiralty itself had gone so far as to make a sensible, even a generous gesture. In an order of two paragraphs, issued to all flag officers, captains and commanders, they promulgated an act of total oblivion for all or any deeds of disobedience, mutiny, breach and neglect of duty, and ordained that no seaman or marine should be “disquieted by any reproof or reproach”’in respect of such deeds. This order was loyally adhered to; there was no victimisation of any kind —so far from it, indeed, that several of the Delegates were promoted within a year, one of them that very month to the rank of midshipman. The only people who, perhaps, were disillusioned were the sailors who had come from the Nore to concert great actions. One of them, who had never been in favour of the mutiny, ran away; one stayed a while in Portsmouth; the other two, with the documents of peace which Howe had given them, returned sadly to a far less pleasant scene.