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
11 - A Floating Republic? Conspiracy Theory and the Nore Mutiny of 1797
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
The ‘conspiracy theory’ view of history is as popular today as it has ever been. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that it is often used to explain the causes of the great naval mutinies at Spithead and the Nore from April to June 1797 and the motives of the mutineers themselves. This is particularly so in the case of the Nore. E. P. Thompson, for example, wrote that:
It is foolish to argue that, because the majority of the sailors had few clear political notions, this was a parochial affair of ship's biscuits and arrears of pay, and not a revolutionary movement. This is to mistake the nature of popular revolutionary crises, which arose from exactly this kind of conjunction between the grievances of the majority and the aspirations articulated by the politically conscious minority.
I am not denying some radical or even revolutionary involvement in the events at the Nore in May and June 1797. Given the social, political and military circumstances of the time, it would have been very surprising if radical elements, both in the mutinous ships themselves and on shore, had not taken advantage of such a golden opportunity to influence events.
There was certainly social and political unrest in Britain and Ireland. This included an increasing sense of war-weariness and a desire for political reform among some of the middle and working classes.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Naval Mutinies of 1797Unity and Perseverance, pp. 179 - 193Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011