Mutiny in the North Sea Fleet (27 May to 15 June 1797)

Outbreaks of disobedience resulting from the mutiny at Spithead continued to affect the other home stations throughout the late spring of 1797. At the end of May the crews of the North Sea fleet based at Great Yarmouth fell victim to the disaffection, partly driven by extreme delay in paying their wages. Yet despite losing most of his ships to the mutineers, the fleet’s imposing commander, Admiral Adam Duncan, managed to maintain a blockade of the Dutch fleet in the Texel through a mixture of determination and bluff.

Demonstrating his prodigious combination of personality, passion and physical stature (he was a mighty 6ft 4″ tall and equally well-built), on Sunday 30 April Duncan personally aborted the first dissension aboard his flagship, the Venerable 74. Five days after the crew had learned of the Spithead outbreak, and as the admiral was hosting a dinner in his quarters, the men mounted the rigging and refused their duty. Ordering Major Thomas Trollope of the marines to gain control of the gangways and forecastle, Duncan went up on deck and addressed the ringleaders of the disaffected crew, demanding to know whether they intended to seize his ship. When they said they did, he raised his sword to strike a man down – only the intervention of the chaplain prevented him from doing so. Duncan’s towering fury was enough to persuade almost all of the men to show their loyalty by joining him on the starboard side of the ship. The half-dozen recalcitrant hands were clapped in irons; when they expressed their contrition, Duncan released them as a sign of good faith.

Admiral Adam Duncan

Over the next fortnight it was clear that trouble was brewing amongst the other ships. As a result, the commander-in-chief called his captains together and desired to know if any had doubts about their crews. When Captain William Hotham of the Adamant 50 indicated his concerns, Duncan shifted his flag into that vessel. Summoning the hands on deck, legend has it that he asserted his authority by dangling a mutineer over the side by the scruff of his neck and declaring to the cheers of the men, ‘look, my lads, at the fellow who dares deprive me of the command of the fleet’. Whatever the truth of the incident, the Adamant remained loyal, and further good news came the next evening when an outbreak aboard the Leopard 50, was put down. When a group of men gave three cheers on the forecastle (a common signal for mutiny), Captain William Hargood and his officers rushed up on deck and seized one of the ringleaders, George Burdon. He was given a dozen lashes the next morning.

But not even the popular Duncan could prevent the inevitable, and on 24 May delegates arrived at Great Yarmouth from the Nore to encourage the men of the North Sea fleet to join their mutiny. Three days later, when the signal was made to sail for the Texel, the Montagu 64 refused to move from the Lowestoft Sands. After the fleet anchored twenty miles out to wait for the Montagu, Duncan was informed that the Belliqueux 64 and Lion 64 were turning back. Aboard Captain Thomas Parr’s Standard 64, a battle of wills developed. Orders to set the mainsail were given and countermanded, but the mutineers won the argument, and the Standard was also lost to Duncan’s fleet.

For a desperate few hours other ships balanced on the precipice between mutiny and loyalty. Aboard the Leopard the malcontents again moved to seize the ship. Captain Hargood tried reasoning with the chief delegate, appealing to him not to leave the fleet, and a handful of loyalists supported him, but they were overwhelmed. In vain, Hargood tried to wrestle back control of the wheel, only to be forcibly carried below to his cabin where he fainted. That evening, Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, sent from London by the Admiralty, hobbled aboard on his one leg in attempt to persuade the men to return to their duties, but he was heckled and had to leave, his mission a failure.

On the Agamemnon 64, men threw up a barricade at the fore hatch and pointed two 24-pounder cannons aft. Captain Robert Fancourt tried to reason with the mutineers but was treated with scant respect and forced to withdraw. The men followed him aft, seized the wheel, and the ship bore away for Yarmouth. Once down below, Fancourt calmly dined with his officers, and when a master-at-arms tried to rally the loyalists, he ordered the wardroom to sit tight, reasoning that a counterstroke could well result in bloodshed. On board the Monmouth 64, Captain the Earl of Northesk and his first lieutenant, Charles Bullen, saw their authority seep away over the ensuing night. Both were popular officers, but the men had many grievances and were determined to see them redressed.

And so it continued. One by one all the fleet bar the Venerable (whose marines were summoned on deck to maintain order) and the Adamant, dropped away. On 28 May, six sail of the line, the Montagu, Belliqueux, Repulse, Standard, Lion and Nassau, in company with the sloop Inspector and fire-ship Comet, sailed from Great Yarmouth for the Nore to join the mutinous ships gathered there. Shortly afterwards men of the Monmouth, and then the Agamemnon, Ardent, Leopard and Isis also voted to go round to the Nore. Another of Duncan’s fleet, the Director 64, Captain William Bligh, was already involved in the Nore mutiny, having earlier sailed there to refit. Meanwhile, the Admiralty had requested Duncan to use his fleet to help to quell the Nore mutiny. Now he had to respond that it was simply not within his power to assist.

One smaller vessel that did remain loyal was the frigate Circe 28, Captain Peter Halkett. With the assistance of his officers, including the first lieutenant, Charles Richardson, Halkett defended the helm and posted marines at the hatchways in order to keep an initially mutinous crew below decks. Once the ringleaders surrendered, Halkett wisely refrained from requesting court-martials on them, although he did order several floggings. Thereafter the Circe remained loyal, and Halkett received Duncan’s permission to cruise to protect east coast merchant ships, and then sail to Hull, where she remained until the mutiny ended.

Admiral Duncan entreats his men not to join the mutiny.

Another ship that conspicuously failed to join the mutiny was the Glatton 56 commanded by Henry Trollope (Major Trollope’s brother). Despite their affection and respect for their captain, the men of the Glatton were eager to prove their loyalty to the cause, and they requested Captain Trollope to take them to the Nore. On 2 June, whilst the ship was becalmed off Harwich, yard-ropes appeared for the first time, indicating that a mutiny was imminent. Trollope was ordered to remain in his cabin, and a midshipman was severely punished for informing on the ringleaders. With the assistance of his first lieutenant, Robert Williams, Trollope managed to assemble his officers and gain control of the poop. At the other end of the ship the mutineers turned several cannons to point aft. Trollope and Williams marched forward to demand that the men stand down, and a hot but reasoned argument ensued before a ringleader stated that they were going to the Nore come what may. Trollope responded to the effect that they would then have to take on the officers and swim for it, as he had enough powder aft to blow the ship to pieces if they were attacked. The threat worked, and after giving three cheers each man swore his loyalty to the king.

It was not to be the end of Captain Trollope’s personal offensive against the mutiny. On the following night the Glatton anchored in the Downs between Admiral Joseph Peyton’s flagship, the Overyssel 64, Captain John Young, and the Beaulieu 40, Captain Lancelot Skynner, who had been sent ashore. Finding that the mutinous crew of the Overyssel was preventing a beef-boat from supplying the Glatton, Captain Trollope sent an emissary who advised the mutineers that the Glatton’s phenomenal 68-pound carronades were loaded and that ‘no action but that of loyal men would be brooked’ . Negotiations lasted for three days before it was resolved that the Overyssel would return to duty; twelve delegates aboard her who had arrived from the Nore to stir up trouble were allowed to return in peace to that station.

Meanwhile, after waiting in vain for twenty-four hours to be joined by two sail of the line from Spithead, (they had been delayed by adverse winds), Admiral Duncan had sailed to the Texel at the end of May in company with the Adamant, which by now was flying Vice-Admiral Richard Onslow’s flag. The two vessels anchored on the outer buoy of the Texel – if the Dutch put to sea they were determined to fight until they sank. To fool the enemy, Duncan maintained the illusion of strength by signalling to his imaginary fleet over the horizon. Fortunately, he was soon reinforced by the Sans Pareil 80, Caesar 80, Russell 74, Ganges 74 and Bedford 74 from the Downs, (some of which had been at sea under Rear-Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour when the mutiny had broken out at Spithead), and then in mid-June he was joined by a further six ships under Rear-Admiral Sir Roger Curtis.

In the first two weeks of June the mutiny at the Nore collapsed and the disaffected ships of the North Sea Fleet began to return to duty, replacing the ships that had been sent to reinforce Admiral Duncan. Just four months later, their morale and loyalty to the King would be put to the severest of tests when the Dutch fleet came out and gave battle They would not be found wanting.

• For events surrounding the North Sea ships which sailed to join the Nore Mutiny please see our article ‘MUTINY AT THE NORE (12 MAY – 15 JUNE 1797)’

Ships involved:

Loyal ships: