When a small group of vessels at the Nore mutinied, they sought specific changes in their conditions of naval service, however, the leaders were also more influenced by political aspirations than their comrades at Spithead. Supported by reinforcements for the North Sea Fleet, the mutineers turned to violence and blockade to achieve their goals, but the actions of the authorities in suppressing the unrest also drove the leaders to more extreme positions.

Dissatisfaction had already been brewing in the motley group of vessels gathered at the mouth of the Thames when the sailors learned that the Channel Fleet was in a state of mutiny. On 12 May, men aboard the Sandwich 90, which although serving as the local commander-in-chief’s flagship was temporarily also a receiving ship, voted to expel the first lieutenant, Philip Justice, and some other junior officers. News of their action was quickly carried to the Inflexible 64, Captain Solomon Ferris, which lay in the Medway, and which had been displaying mutinous tendencies for several days. The commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Charles Buckner, was presiding over a court-martial on the Inflexible, but his presence did not stop the men from joining the mutiny, nor from firing on a nearby frigate, the San Fiorenzo 36, Captain Sir Harry Neale, in order to bring her under their control. The crew of the San Fiorenzo were actually content with their lot, but rather than jeopardize the safety of their vessel, the officers instructed the men to jump into the rigging and start cheering as a signal that they too were joining the mutiny. Soon more vessels chose to follow the lead of the Sandwich and Inflexible, and their crews ordered a number of officers off the ships. On Saturday 13 May Lieutenant Justice arrived at the Admiralty to provide the lord commissioners with the first news of the mutiny at the Nore. Believing that they were on the cusp of resolving the Spithead mutiny, the tidings must have been a huge blow to the naval hierarchy.

Richard Parker – the President of the ‘Floating Republic’.

The various ships elected delegates (as was done at Spithead), and they met aboard the Sandwich. At this point, the seamen saw themselves as supporting their Spithead comrades, instituting the same rules and discipline aboard their ships. With the mutiny becoming more organised, four men were sent to consult with their counterparts in the Channel Fleet. Meanwhile the delegates elected Richard Parker, a carpenter’s mate aboard the Sandwich, to be president of the mutineers. Parker was a ‘quota man’ who had taken the government bounty to escape debtor’s prison. The son of a respectable baker from Exeter, he was undoubtedly intelligent, but he had a volatile personality and was even suspected of being slightly deranged.

With the return on 19 May of the men who had been to Portsmouth with the news of the settlement of the Spithead mutiny, the Nore delegates decided to request additional concessions, most of which were not on the face of it unreasonable. They included: liberty on shore for a proportion of the men aboard ships in harbour; payment of overdue wages (at least up to six months back) before going to sea; and a more equal division of prize money than the three-eighths currently allotted to the crew. These demands were communicated to Vice-Admiral Buckner, who forwarded them on to the Admiralty, where they were promptly rejected. It is clear that the government believed that if they granted the seamen’s new demands, they risked more such mutinous actions taking place in the future. On 20 May Buckner went aboard the Sandwich to announce that the Royal Pardon granted to those involved in the Spithead mutiny would also apply at the Nore, but that the additional demands would not be met. The delegates saw the Admiralty response as a flat rejection of all their grievances (including the items actually agreed to at Spithead) and were thus able to persuade the recalcitrant ships to continue with the mutiny. Some men wrote directly to the Admiralty protesting their loyalty – Henry Long, a seaman of the Champion 20, explained ‘damn my eyes If I understand your lingo or proclamations, but in short give us our due at once and no more of it till we go in search of the rascals the enemies of our country.’

Emboldened by their apparent ascendancy over the authorities, the mutineers paraded ashore behind the red flag, played popular tunes such as ‘Rule Britannia’ to keep their spirits up, and expelled more undesirable officers from their ships. On 23 May, upon learning that two regiments of militia had arrived at Sheerness, they seized eight gunboats and replaced Vice-Admiral Buckner’s flag aboard the Sandwich with a red one, the sign of mutiny. Nevertheless, morale was beginning to drop among the crews of the less-enthusiastic ships.

Two days later, a letter was sent to the Admiralty declaring that the men would not return to duty until a commissioner of the Admiralty had attended upon them and addressed their grievances. By now the self-styled ‘Floating Republic’ had embraced a manifesto that had probably been written by Parker, claiming that the ‘Age of Reason had evolved.’ On the 26th, the mutineers sent men halfway up the Thames to the city, with instructions to suborn the crew of the Lancaster 64, which was anchored in the Long Reach and had recently been supplemented by a number of men from the floating battery Albion 64, Captain Henry Savage. The delegates’ passage was accompanied by the disapproving hiss of the local townsfolk, but after temporarily being arrested by the citizens, the seamen escaped and managed to persuade the crew of the Lancaster to join the mutiny. Meanwhile other delegates were dispatched to gain support in Admiral Adam Duncan’s North Sea fleet at Great Yarmouth.

On 27 May the first lord of the Admiralty, Earl Spencer, visited Sheerness, but only after he had failed in his attempt to persuade Admiral Duncan to come south with the North Sea Fleet to suppress the mutiny. Spencer stayed for two days, during which time he saw enough to convince himself that this was a politically motivated mutiny, quite different to that of the dispute at Spithead, and that it would not last. Determining to break the will of the mutineers, he left instructions that all the ships involved should be denied food supplies from the shore.

On the drizzly and dank Tuesday 30 May details of the Act of Parliament agreeing to many of the Spithead seamen’s demands were smuggled aboard the wavering Director 64. The ship had put into Sheerness several weeks earlier, having come down from the North Sea fleet for a refit. There had already been trouble on board: in early April when Captain William Bligh, (the ‘Bounty Bastard’) had ordered eleven men flogged for dereliction of duty, but he had also confined three officers to their cabins on accusations that they had ill-used the men. On the 12th these officers had been turned off the ship; Bligh had followed them ashore a week later. Nevertheless, once the Act was read out on board the Director, indicating the acceptance many of the Spithead mutineers demands, the loyally inclined party set about retaking the ship from the more hardened mutineers. After a bitter fight the latter faction prevailed.

The loyalists had better luck aboard the Niger 32, Captain Edward Foote, which had been taken into Sheerness docks for repairs. After gaining the assistance of dockyard workers in the struggle with the mutineers, they were able to restore their frigate to the colours. On the night of the 30th there was a further blow to the mutineers when two loyal frigates escaped the ‘Floating Republic’. The Clyde 36, whose men had been persuaded to remain loyal by Captain Charles Cunningham but had been obliged to disguise their true sympathies for the previous seventeen days, slipped away quietly. Sir Harry Neale’s San Fiorenzo cut her cable the moment the seamen on the mutinous ships were piped to dinner, although she did have to run a gauntlet of fire before getting out of range.

In the light of these events, when Parker assembled the men of the Sandwich, voices from the ranks loudly advised him to surrender. However just when it appeared that Lord Spencer’s prediction of the mutiny’s failure would come true, at 5 p.m. on the 31st six disaffected sail of the line from Admiral Duncan’s fleet sailed in. Navigating their way past the escaping San Fiorenzo (which wisely cheered them), these ships were the Montagu 74, Belliqueux 64, Repulse 64, Standard 64, Lion 64 and Nassau 64, and in company were the sloop Inspector and fire ship Comet. In the general excitement occasioned by their arrival, the mutineers aboard the Montagu tarred and feathered their unpopular surgeon, whilst eleven officers were sent on shore including two obnoxious midshipmen who were ducked from the yardarm beforehand. Aboard the Nassau, the mutineers displayed their distaste for the government by hanging an effigy of the prime minister, William Pitt, from the yardarm. The disaffected ships were further reinforced two days later when the Monmouth 64, with Captain the Earl of Northesk confined aboard his command, joined from the North Sea squadron.

On Thursday 1 June, in response to the detention of men who had gone ashore, the mutineers proclaimed that those officers still aboard their ships at the Nore would not be allowed to leave until their imprisoned comrades were released. Yet the authorities resolve not to accede to any further demands held firm, and a day later Vice-Admiral Lord Keith arrived to effectively take command of the station from the beleaguered Vice-Admiral Buckner. One of his first acts was to sign an edict which prevented any person from approaching Sheerness unless they had a passport signed by one of the two admirals or the local Army commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Grey. At the same time, Commodore Sir Erasmus Gower, flying his flag aboard the Neptune 98, gathered a flotilla of gunboats in the Long Reach to protect London, and outraged citizens volunteered to man them. Gower also prepared a plan of attack on the ‘Floating Republic’ that would involve the Neptune, together with the loyal Agincourt 64, which was lying in the Long Reach, and the Lancaster 64, which by now was back under loyalist control. In retaliation, the mutinous fleet proceeded to stop all trade to London by mooring the Standard 64, Brilliant 28, Inspector 16 and Swan 16 across the river. The blockade was instituted as a way to put pressure on the government and the merchant community, but soon the mutineers found they could not feed the crews of the many vessels they stopped from moving upriver. A few days later they backed off, detaining only naval storeships that carried supplies that could supplement their dwindling resources.

Men who were sent ashore to purchase food were imprisoned and markets were closed – in an attempt to alleviate the situation Parker even sent a raiding party to the Isle of Grain to steal a flock of sheep. The resolve of the mutineers was further tested when letters arrived from the placated mutineers at Spithead and Plymouth deploring the conduct of their comrades at the Nore, and it became increasingly obvious that despite their blockade of London, the Admiralty was showing no sign of relenting. An indication of the fundamental loyalty of most of the sailors came on the King’s birthday on 4 June when every ship at the Nore ran the Royal Standard up alongside the republican red and fired the traditional salute. But once more, just when the end of the conflict seemed a possibility, the mutineers’ hand was again strengthened by the arrival of four more ships from Duncan’s fleet: the Ardent 64, Agamemnon 64, Leopard 50, and Isis 50.

Vice-Admiral Charles Buckner

On the afternoon of 6 June, Captain the Earl of Northesk, who was one of the few captains still determined to end the matter by conciliation, was brought before the delegates aboard the Sandwich and given the following instruction. ‘You are hereby authorised and ordered to wait upon His Majesty, wherever he may be, with the resolutions of the Committee of Delegates, and are directed to return back with an answer within fifty-four hours from the date hereof.’ Under a flag of truce, and with three cheers from the Sandwich, Northesk embarked on the Margate packet Duke of York, and after reaching London he was taken by Lord Spencer to the King. Suffice to say, the mutineer’s demands were rejected, and when Northesk was advised not to return to the fleet, Captain John Knight of the Montagu 74, was asked to convey the message of rebuttal to the seamen instead. Knight had earlier been paroled by the mutineers to go to London with his wife, who had been stuck aboard when the ship left Yarmouth unexpectedly. On his return to the Nore he took two copies of the Act of Parliament and a demand that Parker and the other ringleaders be arrested as traitors to the country.

The mutineers listened to Captain Knight with the greatest respect, and it soon became apparent to the more moderate men that Parker had kept them in the dark over the Royal Pardon and other concessions from the government. For his part, finding that he and his comrades were to be treated as traitors, on the 7th a furious Parker ordered effigies of Pitt and the secretary of state for war, Henry Dundas, to be hoisted aloft, an act which caused no little consternation ashore where there was a concern that officers were being hanged. The president and his comrades sent Knight back to London with revised proposals, and they then toured the fleet to exhort the men to uphold the mutiny. Generally, their speeches were met with jeers. The mutineers’ morale was then further weakened when an officer of Trinity House (in charge of navigational aids) removed all the buoys and lights marking the shallows and sandbanks in the estuary, for no sailor would attempt a passage to the open sea without these aids. At the same time a bill was passed in Parliament making it a crime to communicate in any way with the mutinous sailors. The government had realised that one of the reasons for the success of the Spithead actions was that the mutineers persuaded much of the press and popular opinion of the justice of their cause. Becoming more desperate, Parker ordered the fleet to sail to the Texel on 9 June, presumably so that it could be handed over to the Batavian Republic, France’s Dutch satellite state. The men simply ignored him.

On 10 June, the first lieutenant of the Leopard, Joseph Robb, oversaw the cutting of the ship’s cables and at 5 p.m., with a favourable wind and tide, a group of loyalists unfurled the sails. The majority of the Leopard’s crew had never really wanted to mutiny, and the ship had remained in good order throughout the dramatic few weeks. Several mutineers opened fire on the loyalists from the fighting tops, whilst another party attempted to turn two cannons aft on the officers and marines. In the struggle that followed a master’s mate by the name of Buchanan was fatally wounded before more members of the crew stepped forward to turn the fight in favour of the loyalists. For an hour, during which she temporarily grounded on the Middle Bank, the Leopard had to sustain fire from the Sandwich, Monmouth and Montagu before she eventually made her way upriver to Gravesend. Here, with the ship firmly back under the officers’ control, nineteen ringleaders were clapped in irons. (A further five delegates from the Leopard would later be arrested aboard the Agamemnon and taken away for interrogation at the New Tavern in Sheerness, whilst a sixth shot himself).

Meanwhile, other vessels were attempting to break free from the mutinous fleet. The Repulse, in trying to follow the Leopard, ran aground under the guns of both the Monmouth and the Director, but when Parker hastened aboard these two ships, he could only persuade the former to open fire. One of the resulting casualties aboard the Repulse was Lieutenant George Delanoe, who lost a leg. By nightfall the Repulse had escaped into deeper water, and she was followed in quick succession by the Ardent. The loyalists were less successful aboard the Iris where a fight between the mutineers and the officers and their supporters saw the former prevail with much bloodshed but no fatalities. By noon the next day, fights were breaking out between waverers and hard-liners on most of the remaining sail of the line and with the mutiny rapidly fragmenting, Vice-Admirals Lord Keith and Sir Thomas Pasley were able to get aboard many of the ships and calmly advise the crews to give in.

The stubborn Montagu, Inflexible and Sandwich remained rebellious for a few days longer, but they too surrendered on the 15th. Before the final surrender, a number of more active mutineers got ashore, hired a vessel, and made their escape to Calais. When the Sandwich finally came to anchor under the guns at Sheerness, Vice-Admiral Buckner sent a boat out to arrest Parker. The ringleader accepted his fate quietly and was led away in irons to Gravesend before being transferred to Maidstone jail under escort by the West Yorkshire militia.

Despite the opposition of several captains, including William Bligh, Vice Admiral Keith, now in effective control, was intent on punishing every sailor who had taken an active role in the mutiny. He requested each captain of a ship that had mutinied to provide the names of the ten most active mutineers on his ship. This meant that men in ships that had reluctantly conformed to the committee’s orders, were lumped in with the hard-line mutineers on the most extreme ships such as the Sandwich and Inflexible. Thus, over four hundred men would subsequently be court martialled for their part in the mutiny. Parker as spokesman and nominal head of the mutineers, was naturally made a scapegoat, and was one of the first condemned at a court martial presided over by Vice-Admiral Pasley. On 29 June, having shaken hands with his prosecutor, Captain James Mosse of the Sandwich, he was hanged from the topgallant yardarm of the flagship at Sheerness. Another twenty-eight mutineers shared his fate, whilst a further thirty-eight were imprisoned or flogged around the fleet. After the Battle of Camperdown in October, the several hundred men imprisoned aboard the Eagle awaiting trial were pardoned by the King, following entreaties by the victorious Admiral Duncan. Meanwhile, Buckner paid for his ineffectual handing of the mutiny by being superseded in command at the Nore by Vice-Admiral Skeffington Lutwidge, whilst on a happier note, the frigates Niger, San Fiorenzo and Clyde, were rewarded for their loyalty by being selected to attend the King on his annual holiday at Weymouth that autumn.

The question that has long occupied historians is to what extent the mutiny at the Nore was driven by the political beliefs of its leaders, rather than the specific shipboard concerns that motivated the Spithead mutineers. At the time, and for many years after 1797, the mutiny was ascribed to various combinations of disaffected ‘Quota men’, United Irishmen seeking independence for their island, and individuals influenced by the egalitarian rhetoric of the French Revolution. The modern consensus is that while all these elements were present, the mutiny at the Nore was initially organised and led by long-serving seamen, though as the government reaction stiffened, more extreme opinions came to the fore. Though Parker was the most visible and vocal among this group, he did not make the decisions, acting more as a figurehead than the dominant personality.

Principle ships involved: