British Sea Power in the Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon

As Britain was in the midst of a highly threatening war with France and its allies Spain and the Netherlands, deadly issues were posed by serious mutinies in the British fleet in 1797, a topic well explored by James Davey in Tempest: The Royal Navy and the Age of Revolutions. These mutinies occurred against a background of lengthy and arduous service, and of the acute governmental need for manning that had led to the Recruiting (“Quota”) Acts of 1795 and 1796 and the Navy Act of 1795, which were intended to co-opt local government into the process of signing on seamen. Moreover, aside from the burdens of naval service and, far more, impressment, sailors faced uncertainties created by the variations in shipboard discipline and by naval pay and pensions, not least as government finances tottered. Drawing strength from the strong occupational identity of sailors, their role as wage earners, their firm contractual view of naval service, and the tradition of collective action -including in pushing for change - the 1797 mutiny started as a mass protest in April about conditions. Complaints surrounded the navy’s failure to raise wages (since 1632) in the face of inflation, the lessening of leave allowances as a result of the coppering of ships, the operation of the bounty system, food supply, and the treatment of the injured. “Mutiny” sounds martial, but there was scant violence in what were essentially.

conservative affairs aiming, like popular riots throughout the century, to restore a supposedly just system and moral economy that had formerly existed. The more frequent transfer of sailors between ships in the 1790s, a rate that reflected the exigencies of wartime pressures on the Admiralty, may have harmed relations between captains and men. Sailors were accustomed to leaving unhappy ships for what were believed to be better ones, a classic instance of rational choice by sailors and of the role of information and rumor, but the 1790s upended that convention.

The mutineers were ready to sail if the French left Brest, and they emphasized their loyalty, which helped reduce tension. King George III wanted “any neglect that may have given reason” for discontent remedied but was also keen on the enforcement of “due subordination.” He worried that.

“The spirit seems to be of a most dangerous kind, as at the same time that the mutiny is conducted with a degree of coolness it is not void of method; how this could break out at once without any suspicion before arising seems unaccountable . . . it must require a cruise and much time before any reliance can be placed on a restoration of discipline.”

The original mutiny ended when many of the demands were acceded to and a royal pardon was granted, but in May 1797 there were renewed disturbances reflecting the government’s failure to fulfill promises. King George noted the unfortunate consequences of Parliament’s delay in increasing naval pay. Vice-Admiral John Colpoys mishandled the situation on the London, sealing the crew below decks, refusing to talk with them, and then ordering the marines and officers to fire on sailors climbing out through the hatches. He was then obliged to surrender. The episode led to the verse:

    “The murdering Colpoys, Vice-Admiral of the Blue,

Once again, the mutiny ended when the mutineers’ complaints were met with higher pay and more rations for all sailors in the navy and not just the mutineers. There was then another mutiny, on the ships in the Nore anchorage off Sheerness who were masking the Dutch. Dissatisfaction over conditions provided a fertile basis for political discontent. The Board of Admiralty was opposed to further concessions, and the supply of fresh water to the ships was stopped, while the mutiny lost support as it became more extreme, ultimately collapsing in early June. There was also trouble in the British fleet off Cadiz. French and Irish nationalist agents played a smaller role in the mutinies than the government believed, beset as it was by the anxieties of a revolutionary age, although these agents were to be more apparent in 1798.

Later mutinies were on a smaller scale and more specific in their grievances. An aspect of the nature of naval service was suggested by the unpopularity of the brutal and unpredictable Captain Hugh Pigot of the Hermione, which led to a mutiny and the killing of Pigot and nine other officers in September 1797. Encouraged by King George, who was concerned about “the discipline of the navy,” officials spent much effort in trying to hunt down the mutineers. In December 1801, the crew of some of the ships ordered to sail for the Caribbean mutinied. The mutiny was crushed and the ringleaders executed.

Ill discipline had been a particular issue in 1797 due to the crisis of British naval power and the French threat to Ireland. George felt it necessary to affirm his “confidence in naval skill and British valour to supply want of numbers. I am too true an Englishman to have ever adopted the more modern and ignoble mode of expecting equal numbers on all occasions.”

In the event, battles enabled the British to transform the situation that year. On February 14 off Cape St Vincent, Admiral Sir John Jervis and fifteen of the line attacked a superior and far more heavily gunned Spanish fleet of twenty-seven of the line under Don José de Cordova, using tactics similar to those of Napoleon on land, to operate on interior lines and concentrate strength on assailing one section of the Spanish fleet. On his own initiative, and later copied by others, Horatio Nelson kept the two sections separated, while British warships took advantage of the melee Nelson had created and of their superior rate of fire to win a number of individual ship encounters. The Spaniards lost four ships of the line, including two 112-gunners, and had ten more ships badly damaged. Their fleet fell back into Cadiz, so that there was no conjuncture with the French at Brest, just as there was to be none in 1805, the year of Trafalgar. British skill thus helped exploit the difficulties in achieving cooperation and coordination between the French, Dutch, and Spanish fleets. The self-confidence of the Royal Navy increased.

James Davey’s well-researched book offers much on the political commitment of some sailors and on the degree to which warships had become a political space. Ultimately, however, as Davey points out, there was no revolution in the navy or in Britain, although there was one in Ireland in 1798. The absence of revolution has been a subject of considerable attention since Ian R. Christie’s 1984 volume Stress and Stability in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain: Reflections on the British Avoidance of Revolution. Davey, in contrast, underlines to a degree his sympathy with the radicals, which possibly colors his history, although he has striven to be objective. His book is interesting throughout and deserving of attention.

Note: Tempest is also available in e-editions.

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