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- thousands, ran up with hurrahs the British colours with the union and
cross wiped out; by that cancellation transmuting the flag of founded
law and freedom defined, into the enemy’s red meteor of unbridled and
unbounded revolt. Reasonable discontent growing out of practical
grievances in the fleet had been ignited into irrational combustion as
by live cinders blown across the Channel from France in flames.
The event converted into irony for a time those spirited strains of
Dibdin--as a song-writer no mean auxiliary to the English Government--at
this European conjuncture, strains celebrating, among other things, the
patriotic devotion of the British tar--
‘And as for my life, ’tis the King’s!’
Such an episode in the Island’s grand naval story her naval historians
naturally abridge; one of them (G. P. R. James) candidly acknowledging
that fain would he pass it over did not ‘impartiality forbid
fastidiousness.’ And yet his mention is less a narration than a
reference, having to do hardly at all with details. Nor are these
readily to be found in the libraries. Like some other events in every
age befalling states everywhere, including America, the Great Mutiny was
of such character that national pride along with views of policy would
fain shade it off into the historical background. Such events cannot be
ignored, but there is a considerate way of historically treating them.
If a well-constituted individual refrains from blazoning aught amiss or
calamitous in his family, a nation in the like circumstance may without
reproach be equally discreet.
Though after parleyings between Government and the ringleaders, and
concessions by the former as to some glaring abuses, the first
uprising--that at Spithead--with difficulty was put down, or matters for
a time pacified; yet at the Nore the unforeseen renewal of insurrection
on a yet larger scale, and emphasised in the conferences that ensued by
demands deemed by the authorities not only inadmissible but aggressively
insolent, indicated, if the red flag did not sufficiently do so, what
was the spirit animating the men. Final suppression, however, there was;
but only made possible perhaps by the unswerving loyalty of the marine
corps, and a voluntary resumption of loyalty among influential sections
of the crews. To some extent the Nore Mutiny may be regarded as
analogous to the distempering irruption of contagious fever in a frame
constitutionally sound, and which anon throws it off.
At all events, among these thousands of mutineers were some of the tars
who not so very long afterwards--whether wholly prompted thereto by
patriotism, or pugnacious instinct, or by both--helped to win a coronet
for Nelson at the Nile, and the naval crown of crowns for him at
Trafalgar. To the mutineers those battles, and especially Trafalgar,
were a plenary absolution, and a grand one; for that which goes to make
up scenic naval display is heroic magnificence in arms. Those battles,
especially Trafalgar, stand unmatched in human annals.
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