With Richard Parker’s surrender and imprisonment, the inevitable retribution began. The British Navy had a tradition of leniency towards certain kinds of mutiny but by the same token ruthlessly suppressed mutinies which struck at the authority of the captain. The Nore mutiny clearly fell into the latter category and the mutineers, by their blockade of the Thames, had forfeited any claim to being considered loyal subjects, a theme, we will recall which was relentlessly repeated by Valentine Joyce and the Spithead mutineers.

The sailors involved in the mutiny were under no illusions about what was coming.

As early as June 11 a large boat filled with mutineers sailed from The Nore and was chased by a revenue cutter but escaped. From what we know of the Revenue Service of the era the escape may or may not have been a function of the skill of the crews and sailing properties of the ships.

On the 15th, three boatloads of mutineers from Inflexible, effectively the Ground Zero of the no-surrender faction of the mutiny, seized a small private ship named Good Intent and sailed to Calais. Some men from Montague fled to Holland. Undoubtedly many more of the more visible mutineers were feeling the scratch of hemp rope on their necks and looking for any way out.

Most were not successful. The president of the delegates aboard Standard shot himself when Standard defected from the mutiny on June 13. Two mutineers who had seized a fishing smack were arrested by a revenue cutter about the time of the flight of the Inflexibles to Calais. On June 16 another boat containing thirteen mutineers was captured by a revenue cutter as it left the Thames.

Parker’s court martial convened on board Neptune on June 22, a Thursday, he was convicted on June 26 and on the morning of Friday, June 30 he was hanged from the foreyard of HMS Standard.

Parker’s final words were, “I wish only to declare that I acknowledge the justice sentence under which I suffer, and I hope than my death may be deemed sufficient atonement, and save the lives of others.”

His hope was in vain.

Over the coming weeks one court martial after another was convened. Over four hundred sailors were tried. Fifty-nine were sentenced to death, though in the end only twenty-nine were executed. Nine were flogged through the fleet and we don’t know how many of these died. Twenty-nine more were sentenced to terms of imprisonment which undoubtedly resulted in some of them dying. The tally of actions is below:

Sandwich, 25 court martialed, 15 condemned, 6 hanged, 2 flogged, 9 imprisoned.
Montague, 16 court martialed, 9 condemned, 4 hanged, 6 imprisoned, 4 pardoned.
Director, 12 court martialed, 12 pardoned.
Inflexible, 41 court martialed, 41 pardoned.
Monmouth, 51 court martialed, 11 condemned, 6 hanged, 4 flogged, 4 imprisoned, 29 pardoned.
Belliqueux, 3 court martialed, 2 pardoned.
Standard, 28 court martialed, 10 condemned, 3 hanged, 3 flogged, 7 imprisoned, 15 pardoned.
Lion, 46 court martialed, 46 pardoned.
Nassau, 20 court martialed, 19 pardoned.
Repulse, 6 court martialed, 4 pardoned.
Grampus, 6 court martialed, 5 condemned, 3 hanged, 1 imprisoned.
Prosperine, 7 court martialed, 7 pardoned.
Brilliant, 14 court martialed, 13 pardoned.
Iris, 2 to be court martialed but both deserted before trial.
Champion, 22 court martialed, 22 pardoned.
Comet, general pardon for crew.
Tysiphone, 11 court martialed, 11 pardoned.
Pylades, 8 court martialed, 8 pardoned.
Swan, 11 court martialed, 11 pardoned.
Lancaster, general pardon for crew.
Inspector, 9 court martialed, 5 pardoned.
Vestal, 7 court martialed, 7 pardoned.
Isis, 42 court martialed, 42 pardoned.
Leopard, 41 court martialed, 9 condemned, 7 hanged, 2 imprisoned, 32 pardoned.
Agamemnon, 13 court martialed, 13 pardoned.
Ranger, 13 court martialed, 12 pardoned.

All was not well in the Fleet after this. The wounds were too deep and the mutual trust between the men who sailed the ships and the officers who commanded them was severely damaged. Within the ships there were additional divisions created between those who had been active in the mutiny and those who had tried to thwart it. Sailors who had not been convicted by courts martial were in daily contact with shipmates who had testified against them.

Ships which were thought to remain unreliable were packed off to the Mediterranean Fleet then under St. Vincent. St. Vincent was not a man to be trifled with and he dealt swiftly with rumors of mutiny in his fleet, so much so that St. Vincent complained, “What do they mean by invariably sending the mutinous ships to me? Do they think that I will be hangman to the fleet?”

Mutiny continued to strike the British Navy throughout the Napoleonic wars but never again did it experience anything resembling that tumultuous spring of 1797.

Visit all our posts on the Spithead Mutiny and the mutiny at The Nore.

The arrival of part of Admiral Duncan’s Yarmouth based fleet at The Nore gave a new boost the morale of the mutineers which had been battered by the change of attitude of the people of Sheerness towards them and the defection of several ships to the government, (that story is detailed here).

While their morale may have improved their situation had not. They were cut off from shore, denied supplies, and the government refused to enter into further negotiations with them. Some unnamed genius came up with the idea that two could play at that game and conceived the idea of a blockade of the Thames and, therefore, of London. Accordingly, on the evening of May 31, Richard Parker presented himself at the home of the port commissioner at Sheerness and announced that London was under blockade.

At first, it seemed like this was mere bluster but on June 2 HMS Swan, sloop, began intercepting inbound merchantmen and detaining them. The traffic soon outpaced the capabilities of a single ship and HMS Brilliant (28), HMS Standard (64), and HMS Inspector (16) were called upon to lend a helping hand.

Parker and the mutineers desperately needed a bring the mutiny to an end and this move seems calculated to do just that.

At the same time the government was moving in something of a blind panic of its own. At Pitt’s behest, Parliament passed an act on June 1 which established death as the penalty for anyone who incite soldiers or sailors to mutiny or disobedience. It was followed in short order by another bill which forbade trade with the mutineers. Most importantly, though, the blockade changed the entire climate of opinion in England.

The Spithead mutineers had been assiduous in asserting their readiness to return to duty if the French sailed and had kept frigates and smaller ships out of the mutiny and at their duty protecting convoys. These actions, coupled with the justness of their demands, won the sympathy of the public and prevented the government from taking punitive actions. The blockade of London broke that trust and now the public was not sure The Nore mutineers remained loyal to the nation. This, in turn, gave the government much more leeway in dealing with them and much less incentive to come to a negotiated settlement.

Rumors began to swirl of ominous meetings between delegates and unnamed, though presumably nefarious, persons. Parker was required to repeatedly declare that the mutineers were not in league with French revolutionaries.
On June 6th, Captain William Carnegie, 7th Earl of Northesk, of HMS Monmouth received an order to go on board HMS Sandwich and receive orders from the delegates. Northesk was a highly regarded captain, an accomplished mariner as well as an advocate for his sailors.

To the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Northesk

My Lord,

I am commanded by the Delegates of the Fleet to inform your Lordship that you are requested to repair on board the Sandwich to receive your instructions. A barge will attend your Lordship, and every mark of respect paid your Lordship could wish for.

Northesk, anxious to bring the mutiny to a close, did as requested. After an examination of his record as captain, the delegates presented him with a petition they wished to lay before the King. The objected strongly to the being characterized as rebels and reiterated their loyalty to the Crown. At the same time the petition presented an ultimatum:

[…]Outlaws are contradicted, till we have all our Grievances redress’d and till we have the same supply from and communications as usual with the shore, we shall consider ourselves masters of Nore Shipping. We have already determined how to act, and should be extremely sorry we should be forced to repose in another country, which must evidently be the case if we are denounced as Outlaws in our own.

[…]

And with respect to our own Grievances, we shall allow 54 hours from 8 o’clock on Wednesday June the 7th 1797 to know Your Majesty’s final Answer. […]

Rational men would have immediately seen that pledging loyalty while simultaneously issuing an ultimatum and threatening to take the fleet in to French or Dutch ports would hardly receive a dispassionate hearing within the government but rational men were no longer in charge. The quarantine of the mutinous fleet began to have dire consequences. By the first week of June, some of the ships were running short of potable water and sent messages to other vessels requesting resupply. On June 5th, a tender carrying about 60 sick and injured sailors from the fleet was turned back from the hospital ship at Sheerness and told to take the men back to their ships. Adding insult to injury their pockets were stuffed with pamphlets encouraging the mutineers to capitulate.

Lord Northesk dutifully bore the petition to London and argued their case before the King but to no avail. Captain Knight of HMS Montague was delegated by the Crown to return the complete and utter refusal to the fleet. Lord Northesk resigned from the Navy.

While the government has been rather open about quarantining the mutineers from contact with the shore, it remained very worried that the mutineers would ultimately attempt to take the fleet into enemy ports rather than surrender. To that end Trinity House was ordered to begin removing the buoys and other navigation aids marking the safe channels at the Nore. On June 8 Trinity House announced:

His Majesty having thought fit, by his order in council, to direct the buoys in the several channels to be removed, and the beacons to be cut down:
Notice is hereby given that the several buoys in the North, Nab, and Queen’s Channels are removed, and the beacons cut down accordingly: and further notice will be given as soon as it is judged proper to replace the same.

Working surreptitiously during the day as well as at night all buoys and lights had been removed or destroyed by June 9. The sole remaining navigational aid was the Nore lightship and she had survived only because she was anchored under the guns of Sandwich. The mutineers were outraged and threatened to hang the first senior member, termed an “Elder Brother,” of Trinity House to fall into their grasp.

Such an opportunity shortly came their way, for shortly after the announcement by Trinity House an Elder Brother, a Captain Calvert, was taken as his yacht was returning from a summer pleasure trip. As proved in most cases, the bark of the mutineers was much worse than their bite. He was brought aboard Sandwich but his manner impressed the mutineers and they released him on the condition that he tell them what public opinion was. Calvert, honestly, told them that the country was against them.

As Calvert was leaving he was approached by a group of masters who had been delegated to help sail the ships out of the Nore. They asked Calvert what they should do. He told them that if they piloted the ships they would be hanged. This was underscored later in the day when Captain Knight of Montague brought aboard not only the King’s refusal of their petition but the proclamation outlawing the mutineers.

The mutiny began to collapse. As Parker went from ship to ship to make his case for continuing the mutiny he was met with jeers and catcalls. Aboard HMS Ardent he was accused of using the mutiny to enrich himself. All hope of a negotiated agreement ended, Parker resolved to take the fleet into Texel. On the morning of Friday, June 9, Parker ordered the signal made for the fleet to sail. None of the other ships made any movement to follow the order.

Officers in the fleet were keenly alert to the change of tenor. On the afternoon of June 9 the officers and loyal petty officers and marines on HMS Leopard (50) took her back from the mutineers. A meeting of delegates had taken the leadership of the mutineers from the ship. Lieutenant Joseph Robb organized the loyal crew in the wardroom area of the main deck to load several guns and aim them down the length of the deck. Then on signal he had the canvas and deal wall setting off the wardroom struck and called upon the mutineers to surrender. Meanwhile, another officer led a small group to the lower gun deck where they poured vinegar into the vents of all the guns then cut the anchor cables while a third party made sail.

Almost immediately a similar scene took place aboard HMS Repulse (64). Leopard made good her escape but Repulse came under fire by the mutinous fleet and then, as the tide was out, ran aground. For nearly an hour and a half Repulse withstood the fire of the fleet before the tide came in an she floated free. For all the cannonade, Repulse suffered only one casualty, a lieutenant whose leg was shot away.

Late that night HMS Ardent slipped away exchanging a few shots with Monmouth.

Parker’s desperation became more apparent. On June 10th he again called upon Montague’s Captain Knight to take a message to the King. Now he only demanded a pardon for the mutineers and that the most disagreeable officers be dismissed from their ships. As Knight was departing Montague, his crew presented him with a petition which undercut Parker’s position.

They didn’t even demand a pardon or the removal of offensive officers. They only asked that the King give consideration to granting those requests. The Thames was immediately reopened to commercial traffic.

Of course, now that the government had the mutineers on the ropes it had very little incentive to negotiate and no response was forthcoming. No one knows what transpired in the fleet during the next two days. To observers it seemed like ships were torn in loyalties, first hoisting the Union Jack and then the red flag of mutiny. One after another the ships gave up.

On the 13th, Parker handed the keys of the magazine of HMS Sandwich to Third Lieutenant Nicholas Flatt and the mutiny was effectively ended. Only Inflexible, Montague, and Belliqueux remained outside the control of the government and even they flew the Union Jack. On June 15, they folded and the mutiny was over.

The government was not inclined towards generosity and the stage was set for retribution.

Visit all our posts on the Spithead Mutiny and the mutiny at The Nore.

HMS Clyde escapes from the mutinous fleet at The Nore

When we last visited the mutiny at The Nore, the Lords Commissioner of the Admiralty had departed their conference with the mutineers disappointed. Their offer, to apply the same conditions as those received by the mutineers at Spithead and to offer them a royal pardon, was rejected by the delegates.

It was now obvious that lines were being firmly drawn. On the one hand the controlling forces behind the mutiny at The Nore, and those forces weren’t necessarily the delegates themselves, were unwilling to settle for less than their demands — and their actions actually lead one to believe that no concessions by the government were going to end the mutiny but rather the demands represented a ever moving set of goal posts — and the government did not feel that it could given into mutineers so soon after caving to the Spithead mutiny.

Lord Spencer felt confident, despite the breakdown in negotiations, that things were finally going his way. He knew from his visit to The Nore that at least five and most likely seven ships were on the cusp of swearing allegiance to the government. Now he was told that HMS Serapis (44), HMS Pylades (16), and Captain William Bligh’s HMS Director (64) were ready to desert the mutiny. The militia regiments whose sympathies to the mutineers were in question had been replaced with staunchly loyal units. Even though no violence had erupted, Spencer was now viewing the mutiny as a rebellion rather than a labor dispute.

But all was not well.

A message had been sent to Admiral Duncan, then blockading the Dutch ports, asking if he could, if necessary, bring the North Sea fleet into action to crush the mutiny. Duncan responded the he would try to do so if ordered but he couldn’t guarantee his fleet would carry out the orders.

Spencer also began ratcheting up the pressure. On May 30 he issued an order to the victualing office in Sheerness directing that no further stores of any type be sent aboard the mutinous ships. Sir Charles Grey, the commander of troops at Sheerness, placed the barracks and parade ground used by the troops as well as the dockyard and any part of the shoreline off limits to the mutineers.

Grey, apparently for the first time, conducted a thorough inspection of the fortifications guarding Sheerness with a view to stopping any sortie by the fleet while in a state of mutiny. His findings were appalling. The mortar had rotted from the brick fortifications at Sheerness and the walls were held up by gravity alone in many places. The outlying forts did not even have cannon. If the fleet decided to defect to France, as many in the government feared was imminent, there was nothing England could do to prevent it.

All of this did not pass unnoticed among the mutineers and their solidarity began to erode. Armed boats now rowed around the suspect ships at night to prevent them from weighing anchor.

Now the Admiralty engaged in a high stakes game. The frigates Clyde and San Fiorenzo were ordered to leave Sheerness for Harwich to take on board the newlywed Duke of Wuerttemburg and his bride. Despite the rather confidential nature of the orders, soon the crew of Director heard of the departure and wanted to join. The captains of the two frigates consulted with the Admiralty and it was felt that there was too great a chance of Director not obeying the sailing order, so the two frigates were ordered to proceed alone.

In the early morning hours of May 30th, Clyde cut her cables and drifted on the tide. Her delegates were all aboard Sandwich and no one raised an alarm. As soon as sails were hoisted, however, the mutinous ships noticed and several discharged broadsides. These were more shouts of anger than anything else as no attempt was made to aim at the departing frigate.

San Fiorenzo made her dash to freedom at noon. As the crews were all piped to the midday meal, her cable was cut. However, it was cut too soon and San Fiorenzo was pointing in the wrong direction and she had to run the gauntlet through the anchored fleet under fire. Though no one was hurt she had her sails and rigging badly cut up. On her way to sea she passed three ships of the line and four or five smaller ships on their way to the Nore. Unsure if they were joining the mutiny or about the suppress it, the San Fiorenzo’s manned the rigging and cheered.She made her way to Portsmouth, capturing a French privateer en route.

This was a blow to the mutiny which overshadowed the defection of HMS Espion and HMS Niger to the government and their use for harbor defense. Grey had set to work with commendable speed and soon had batteries covering Sheerness manned day and night. The prohibition against delegates from the fleet coming ashore was made absolute and some who challenged the ban were detained. Women and children were ordered evacuated from Sheerness and other civilians were encouraged to leave unless their presence was necessary. Rifts were becoming evident in the ranks of the mutineers also.

Above all, the fact that two frigates had deserted the mutiny without a hint of their intentions being brought to the attention of even the delegates from their own ships made it very clear that those leading the mutiny were losing control rapidly.

Just as the morale reached low ebb, as San Fiorenzo sailed out of sight, three ships of the line were spotted sailing up river to The Nore. At first the mutineers must have thought they were sent to put down the mutiny. As they came closer it was apparent they were flying the red flag. The mutiny had spread to Admiral Duncan’s fleet.

Though the North Sea fleet had been hit with some incidents of mass insubordination, by and large it was Duncan’s oversized person and personality which had effectively kept the fleet loyal to the government.

Mutiny broke out in Duncan’s fleet on May 26. On May 24th seventeen delegates seized the cutter HMS Cygnet, to take a message of solidarity to the North Sea fleet at Yarmouth. He had been warned about the mission of Cygnet and had detailed HMS Vestal (28) and the hired lugger Hope and hired cutter Rose to intercept Cygnet before she could rendezvous with his fleet.

On the morning of the 26th cheering was heard coming from HMS Lion (64) and a boat was seen to be dispatched from Lion to HMS Standard (64). The men from Lion were not allowed on board, but the men of Standard disobeyed orders to hoist their own boats aboard. The men from Lion next tried to approach HMS Belliqueux (64) and HMS Glatton (64). They were rebuffed by the crews of both and rather harshly by the crew of Sir Henry Trollope’s Glatton.

Duncan called all captains aboard his flagship to find out where he stood and was told that all ships would obey his orders, except HMS Nassau (64) which refused to sail until the sailors had been paid. The men from Lion and Standard sent a apology to Duncan for their conduct but Duncan viewed their loyalty, in an circumstances short of a sortie by the Franco-Dutch fleet, as problematic. Standard, in particular, had a troubled history. On May 5, the crew had taken over the ship and trained cannon on officer’s country over the issue of pay in arrears. To gain control of the fleet he ordered all ships to sail at 5am on May 27.

When time came to sail, HMS Montague (74) joined Nassau in refusing to sail until pay was brought up to date. HMS Repulse (64) initially refused to weigh anchor and it was only after a prolonged negotiation by her captain that she set sail.

Even as the fleet moved into Yarmouth Roads in preparation for going to sea, the unease continued. At four in the afternoon there was a burst of cheering from HMS Venerable (74), a sign which in the past had presaged mutiny, which resulted in the marine detachment clapping six presumed ringleaders in irons. It was in this atmosphere that he received the Admiralty letter asking him if his fleet could be relied upon to suppress the mutiny. His demurral was completely understandable.

As 7pm the situation became dramatically worse. The crew of the Belliqueux demanded to be allowed to send boats to the Lion and when Duncan made the signal to stand out to sea, Belliqueux responded with a signal for “disability.” There was some good news that evening. The patrol he had sent to intercept Cygnet returned in possession of Cygnet and with the delegates in chains aboard Hope.

Sunrise on the 29th revealed that Lion and Standard had departed the squadron during the night and Montague, which had refused to sail the day before, was seen on the horizon on a course for The Nore. Now Standard, Lion, Nassau, and Belliqueux were lying in Yarmouth flying the red flag of mutiny. Duncan gave the order to set sail and his fleet reluctantly obeyed. As he headed east towards the Dutch coast, one by one his ships turned back to port. He was eventually left with HMS Venerable, HMS Adamant (50), HMS Trent (36), and HMS Circe (28).

On June 1 he arrived off Texel and for three days blockaded 14 ships of the line and 8 frigates in the face of a favorable wind for them to sortie. To do so he used the now famous ruse of having his four ships imitate the actions of the Inshore Squadron of a larger fleet and send regular flag signals to that imaginary fleet lurking over the horizon.

Glatton deserted Duncan in early afternoon and headed for The Downs instead of Yarmouth. After a few days she returned to the fleet off Texel.

Duncan’s fleet was now largely gathered in Yarmouth and joined the mutiny by electing delegates and moving to The Nore. It was Montague, Standard, Lion, and some assorted smaller ships the San Fiorenzo had cheered on its way out.

But now the atmospherics had changed. The fleet had abandoned its post off Texel placing the nation in jeopardy. This was no longer an arguably justified request for redress of grievances, this was rebellion and treason.

Visit all our posts on the Spithead Mutiny and the mutiny at The Nore.

Ramage and the Guillotine opens in the summer of 1801. Ramage is home awaiting employment after his exploits in Ramage’s Prize and Britain is on tenterhooks expecting Napoleon to invade.

The Pitt government has fallen and Ramage’s patron, First Lord of Admiralty, Lord Spencer, is out of office and is replaced by Lord St. Vincent, someone with whom Ramage is on equally good terms.

Major spoilers follow.

At a ball Ramage is asked to meet St. Vincent and Lord Nelson.

His mission is simple. He is to find his own way to the French harbor of Boulogne and evaluate the condition of the French invasion fleet now under construction there as well as the intensity of the ship building effort. Ramage has been asked to take the mission because he speaks fluent Italian, very good French, and has a well deserved reputation for interpreting his orders broadly. He asks for three of his former Tritons to be assigned to him for the mission and he receives them.

The use of a British navy warship to insert him into Boulogne, convey situation reports, and extract him at the end of the mission is not a satisfactory solution so he uses family connections to make contact with smugglers operating out Dover. In the event he finds the master of the smuggling ship is a navy deserter whom he’d had flogged aboard Triton.

As it turns out, the man is thankful Ramage had him flogged for drunkenness rather than hanged or flogged through the fleet for mutiny and energetically applies himself to the task at hand.

Ramage does the basic elements of his task well. He plays the role of a Genoese shipbuilder who is traveling to Boulogne to assist with building the ships and barges for the invasion of Italy. He is assisted by the smuggling operation in Boulogne which bears a great deal of ill will against the forces of the Revolution. He begins to pass messages to Lord Nelson, via the smugglers, which lead one to conclude the invasion cannot happen because of the lack of men and materiel to construct and man the fleet.

The operation could be fortuitously brought to a definitive conclusion by a series of serendipitous events. A messenger travels every week from Boulogne to Paris to report on the status of the invasion fleet. As it turns out the brother of Ramage’s inn keeper is also an inn keeper in Amiens. His daughter and the courier have a budding romance and the courier stops there en route to Paris and again on his way back to Boulogne.

Ramage conceives a plan, using the skill of one of his seamen, Stafford, a former locksmith and picklock, to gain access to the dispatches which will definitively describe the current inventory of vessels, the production schedule, and shortcomings in men an equipment.

Stafford is surprised while burglarizing the courier’s room, his luck having run out after three previous successful expeditions, and escapes. Suspicion, however, immediately falls upon Ramage. He is arrested and his forged documents can’t withstand close scrutiny brought about by the investigation. No one understands what he is up to, but in the climate of Revolutionary France, being a foreigner is sufficient to see him sentenced to the guillotine.

Fortunately, the smuggling network brings its forces to bear to effect his release and he returns to the fleet after nearly becoming a friendly fire casualty.

This is one of the least satisfying of the Ramage novels thus far. It does little to move Ramage’s story forward, we learn little that we didn’t know about him, and there are familiar echoes of Drumbeat when he, along with Stafford, burglarized the quarters of a Spanish admiral. The success he meets with is just a little too pat, to be credible. Being inserted cold into an enemy port with instructions to discern a closely held national secret of your enemy is a tall task to accomplish yet Ramage does just that. The series of fortuitous events he encounters is also just a bit too pat. Pope does manage to get you to temporarily send your left brain on a vacation and the story is enjoyable despite its flaws.

I’ve noted at several places on this blog that a great many of the adventures of our favorite fictional naval officers are actually real incidents with some characters, sometimes not that many characters changed. Such is the case with Dudley Pope’s Lord Ramage novel, Ramage’s Prize.

Sit back and relax, this is a longish story but an interesting one.

When Britain entered the War of the First Coalition, which seamlessly mutated into the Napoleonic Wars in due course, she found herself engaged in a global war and timely communications with her colonies and military units was critical to survival. This placed an enormous responsibility upon the Post Office Packet Service. The hub of the Packet Service was Cornish town of Falmouth. In fact, the leading industry in Falmouth was the Packet Service. The service employed 30 plus packets and about 1200 men. The ships were build locally and the men were recruited there. The men and the masters of these packets were friends, neighbors, and relatives.

As an aside we should note that Britain had a desperate tendency to try to fight its wars on the cheap. Both the army and navy were dreadfully underpaid and carried on vestiges of various medieval proprietorship arrangements. Ten men, for instance, in each infantry company were officially condoned ghost soldiers whose wages belonged to the captain who was essentially the owner of the company. Navy pursers were subjected to very sharp practices by the Navy Board and likewise resorted to sharp practice in dealing the sailors. Dockyard workers, until St. Vincent’s brief reign of terror as First Lord, were allowed to claim sections of wood shorter than three feet as scrap resulting in lots of perfectly good planks being sawn into 29″ sections and lots of homes being built with sections of lumber less than three feet in length. Likewise the Packet Service was poorly paid. In fact, they drew lower rates of pay than sailors in either the navy or customs service. The masters had to provide their own ships, which the Packet Service subsequently leased from them, and which the Packet Service would replace or repair if the ship was lost or damaged in line of duty. The only advantage the Packet Service had, on paper, was that the men were exempt from impressment. So what was the attraction of the Packet Service? The illegal but officially condoned (and after 1798 the legal and officially sanctioned) practice of allowing the packet crew to carry, duty free, goods to and from Britain, the West Indies, Portugal, etc., and sell those goods on their own account. Packets were allowed to carry any volume of goods the master allowed so long as they didn’t put the vessel “out of trim.”
The access to rather large sums of tax free money always leads someone to push the envelope and this was no exception. Sixteen packets covered the Falmouth-Kingston route with one ship leaving every two weeks. A voyage took, under the best of conditions, some fifteen weeks to complete, so you could count on making two trips per year. When you consider that a common seaman could make the equivalent of a decade or more’s wages on a single voyage, the limitation on earnings became a function of how many trips a packet could make in a year.
In 1797 and the first half of 1798, the Packet Service suffered a series of losses to French privateers. Indeed, by December 1798 the number of packets available for the West Indies route had been reduced to seven. The Packet Service hired three additional vessels but they were inferior to the purpose-built packets in speed. The nine packet commanders stayed ashore to supervise the construction of their new ship. Construction proceeded at a very leisurely pace, one man took 29 months to complete his.

One must suspect that the fact that the ships were being built with government funds in Falmouth shipyards and fitted out with sails and rope made in Packet Service facilities in Falmouth coupled with the commanders lack of interest in returning to sea indicates that construction money was find its way into their pockets in the meantime.
Mail service to Britain’s empire was at a crisis.
But all good things must come to an end. In 1798, William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland and George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland. succeded to the position of Joint Postmaster. Their arrival may not have been as significant, both being political appointees, had Francis Freeling not simultaneous ascended to the role of Secretary to the Post Office. Freeling was a career postal employee and his cooperation with the postmasters gave them access to an expert who shared their agenda of making the Packet Service reliable.
The crisis seemed to abate in 1799, one packet Chesterfield was taken in April and another, Carteret lost to privateers in July. West Indies merchants, colonial governors, and military commanders stopped complaining.
Then in November Lady Harriet on the Lisbon route was taken, followed shortly by the loss of Halifax inbound from the West Indies. In December Westmoreland, also inbound from the West Indies and Adelphi, you guessed, inbound from the West Indies were lost.
Auckland and Freeling faced a fresh resurgence of the crisis they had thought past. Instead of panicking, Auckland undertook a systematic review of all the Packet Service losses.
When Auckland first took the Postmaster position he had noticed that most packet losses occurred on the inbound leg of the voyage. He had written this off as an anomaly that would be corrected as more numbers became available. The latest series of losses called that premise into question.
As 1800 dawned, the losses were even more heavily weighted in the direction of inbound packets. The Princess Royal on February 27, Carteret (I was warned by Pope of the deadly lack of imagination in the naming of packets) on March 9, the Jane on March 12, Princess Charlotte on May 4, Marquis of Kildare on May 6, Princess Amelia on May 8th were all lost with only Jane being outbound. The Duke of Clarence, also inbound, was lost later that summer.
The rapidity of losses was staggering and the pattern of inbound packets being lost to privateers was now unmistakable. Another fact coming to light was that none of the captured packets had attempted to resist capture.
Auckland was under pressure to fix the situation. Henry Dundas, later 1st Viscount Melville, who was Secretary of State for War directed army commanders in the West Indies to send duplicate and triplicate dispatches home by armed merchantmen.
Auckland’s inquiry discovered another anomaly in the Packet Service. If an navy officer lost his ship he was subjected to a court martial and had to explain his conduct and actions under oath. The master of a packet was only require to attest to a statement of how the ship was lost in front of a Falmouth notary. This statement was sent to the Postmaster as justification for reimbursing the master for the loss of his ship.
Auckland also began evaluating the impact of the trade goods carried as private ventures by the packet crews. He found that the value of goods ran to £4000 per voyage and the local economy of Falmouth was somewhat dependent upon the trade. No duties were paid on inbound ventures and a corps of female peddlers, known as “troachers,” were employed to sell the goods door to door.
Ominously, for some years there had been intimations that the losses were not accidental.
All members of the packet crew were insuring their personal ventures both out and back. When the goods were sold in Lisbon or the West Indies they would purchase letters of credit which they would send home via secure, i.e. not a mail packet, means. When they encountered a privateer inbound they would meekly surrender. While in theory they faced the possibiity of waiting in a French prison for exchange, in practice, French privateers often put the crews ashore in Britain. They would then use the master’s notarized statement to make a claim against the insurance for loss of goods which, in reality, never existed.
Incredibly, Auckland refused to believe the packet crews could concoct such a fraud and the Post Office Inspector of Packets produced a report declaring such a fraud to be impossible. The issue seemed to vanish.
Then two events took place which demonstrated the level of corruption in the Packet Service.
In June 1801 the Earl Gower commanded by a Captain Deak was inbound from Lisbon and encountered a French privateer. Half the crews went below leaving the packet unable to either run or fight. If they had been merely afraid, logic dictates they would have tried to run. Their actions could only be interpreted at to mean they intended for the packet to be taken.
On September 18, 1803, Duke of York was inbound from Lisbon. She was under the command of her master, the commander not having been aboard for the voyage. She encountered a French privateer barely half her size. She was chased for the entire day and as dusk fell the master asked the surgeon what he should do as even though the privateer was over a mile away she was gaining on them. The surgeon advised surrender. Instead of attempting to escape under cover of the rapidly falling night, the master struck his colors and sent a boat to the privateer to announce their surrender.
Auckland was dumbfounded by the latter story and over the objections of the Inspector of Packets ordered a court of inquiry empanelled to investigate the loss. The court, structured like a naval court martial, was composed of packet captains who were resentful of Auckland’s inserting himself into what they viewed as their business. The acquitted the master.
Their attitude towards the court of inquiry, however, raised suspicions on the part of the same Inspector of Packets who had opposed Auckland over the court of inquiry. He began his own investigation.

One man, he found, admitted that he had gained £300 by his misfortune. The surgeon, who advised the surrender, had certainly made .£250 out of it; but, by a remarkable lapse of memory, he was quite unable to recollect what sum he had received in Lisbon for goods sold there; so that it was impossible to arrive at the full amount of his profit. The steward’s mate was richer by £250; one of the seamen by £200; and most of the crew had pocketed substantial sums, made in the identical way indicated by the rumours spoken of above.
The next step was to ascertain whether any of these men, and especially those who had made large profits on this occasion, had been captured before.
The surgeon, who had been foremost in counselling surrender, and who was also (probably) the largest gainer among this pack of scoundrels, had also been captured more frequently than any of the crew, except three men, having been taken prisoner no less than three times before. How much money he had made on those three occasions is not stated. Three of the crew had been equally lucky. Four other men had been captured twice before, most of the rest once, and eight of them had been on board the Earl Gower at the time of the disgraceful circumstances related above.
The inference from these facts was so plain that not even the Inspector of Packets could fail to draw it. His report was hesitating, but on the whole conclusive: and it contained this striking passage, ” I cannot help being of opinion that if during the war officers and seamen are permitted to carry out merchandise on commission or otherwise, there is reason to fear that the loss of Packets may be very considerable, unless indeed under disinterested or high-spirited commanders.”

The master and surgeon were dismissed and forbidden ever to be employed again by the Packet Service.
This was the beginning of the end of the golden days of being a packet crewman. Private ventures were abolished. There was a mutiny among the packet crews which the government weathered and eventually the Packet Service was returned to a state of professionalism.
If you want more information on the trials and tribulations of the Packet Service, read History of the Post Office Packet Service on Google Books.