Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Preface
- About the Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction, Analysis and Interpretation
- 1 Spithead Mutiny: Introduction
- 2 The Delegates: A Radical Tradition
- 3 What Really Happened On Board HMS London?
- 4 The Spirit of Kempenfeldt
- 5 Voices from the Lower Deck: Petitions on the Conduct of Naval Officers during the 1797 Mutinies
- 6 Crew Management and Mutiny: The Case of Minerve, 1796–1802
- 7 The 1797 Mutinies in the Channel Fleet: A Foreign–Inspired Revolutionary Movement?
- 8 The Nore Mutiny: Introduction
- 9 The East Coast Mutinies: May–June 1797
- 10 Reporting the Mutinies in the Provincial Press
- 11 A Floating Republic? Conspiracy Theory and the Nore Mutiny of 1797
- 12 Lower Deck Life in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
- 13 ‘Launched into Eternity’ Admiralty Retribution or the Restoration of Discipline?
- 14 Discipline, Desertion and Death: HMS Trent 1796–1803
- 15 ‘We went out with Admiral Duncan, we came back without him’: Mutiny and the North Sea Squadron
- 16 The Influence of 1797 upon the Nereide Mutiny of 1809
- Select Bibliography
- Index
16 - The Influence of 1797 upon the Nereide Mutiny of 1809
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Preface
- About the Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction, Analysis and Interpretation
- 1 Spithead Mutiny: Introduction
- 2 The Delegates: A Radical Tradition
- 3 What Really Happened On Board HMS London?
- 4 The Spirit of Kempenfeldt
- 5 Voices from the Lower Deck: Petitions on the Conduct of Naval Officers during the 1797 Mutinies
- 6 Crew Management and Mutiny: The Case of Minerve, 1796–1802
- 7 The 1797 Mutinies in the Channel Fleet: A Foreign–Inspired Revolutionary Movement?
- 8 The Nore Mutiny: Introduction
- 9 The East Coast Mutinies: May–June 1797
- 10 Reporting the Mutinies in the Provincial Press
- 11 A Floating Republic? Conspiracy Theory and the Nore Mutiny of 1797
- 12 Lower Deck Life in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
- 13 ‘Launched into Eternity’ Admiralty Retribution or the Restoration of Discipline?
- 14 Discipline, Desertion and Death: HMS Trent 1796–1803
- 15 ‘We went out with Admiral Duncan, we came back without him’: Mutiny and the North Sea Squadron
- 16 The Influence of 1797 upon the Nereide Mutiny of 1809
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In 1808 the small naval sloop Otter was part of the Indian Ocean fleet, charged with defending the waters between Bombay and the Cape of Good Hope from the French on Isle de France (Mauritius) and Madagascar. As Knight and Wilcox highlight, the East Indies station was the most remote Royal Naval location throughout the 1793–1815 wars: ‘The sheer distance from home [a minimum of four months' sailing from England] made co-ordination from England impossible and gave the commander-in-chief on the station considerably greater independence than admirals on stations nearer to home.’ On 17 August the ship's company of the Otter wrote to Vice Admiral Albermarle Bertie in Cape Town:
Honured Sir,
Your honor being the only person we can apply to this side of the Board of Admiralty, to redress our grievances, humbly implore your protection; ever since Captain Davis left the ship our treatment is cruel & severe, especially the last cruise [we] were out, getting continually starting, and flogging, altho' we were superior in any kind to the Nereide, or Charwell, or in short we were not beat by any ship in the Navy since the Otter has been in Commission.
‘Starting’ was a naval word for the customary informal beatings to force men to work, to ‘start’ them working. Otter often sailed in company with Nereide and Cherwell, and her new captain was concerned that his men perform well and his ship sail as fast as the others.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Naval Mutinies of 1797Unity and Perseverance, pp. 264 - 279Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011