th and held an interview with the delegates from the ships, who
presented a list of their demands. The commissioners haggled; the men
stood firm, and further demanded that officers accused of tyranny should
be dismissed their ships. On the 25th the commissioners gave way on all
points; the pay of able seamen was to be the same as that of privates in
the army, though without deductions, 1s. a day, or a rise of 5s. 6d. a
month; ordinary seamen were to receive a rise of 4s. 6d.; their other
grievances were to be redressed; and a promise was given that the fleet
should not be sent to sea until the increase of pay had been voted by
the house of commons, and the king's pardon had been proclaimed. Various
hindrances, which might perhaps have been overcome if the government had
appreciated the need of promptitude, delayed the application to
parliament. Days passed by; the sailors heard nothing of a bill for the
rise in their wages or of a proclamation of pardon, and an ill-judged
order sent by the admiralty to the captains with reference to stores and
to mutinous conduct roused their suspicions. They believed that they had
been cajoled. Hitherto their conduct had been as blameless as the nature
of the case allowed. It was so no longer. Two of the ships remained at
Spithead; the rest had gone to St. Helen's. On May 7 all the crews again
mutinied and most of the officers were sent ashore. A struggle took
place on board the _London_; a mutineer was shot dead, and a midshipman
and a marine officer were wounded. Pitt proposed a grant for the
increase of pay on the 8th, and, as discussion might be mischievous,
asked for a silent vote. To their shame, Fox and his friends used this
crisis as an opportunity for a violent party attack on the
government.[273] The money was voted, and on the 10th Howe, the sailors'
favourite "Black Dick," went down to the fleet with the vote and the
king's proclamation. The men were pacified; more than 100 officers to
whom they objected were removed from the ships; discipline was restored,
and the fleet put to sea.

The admiralty commissioners, after contesting the just demands of the
men, had yielded to a dangerous point by removing officers at the
dictation of mutineers. Their vacillation encouraged the idea that
mutiny paid, and mutiny accordingly spread. On the 12th it broke out in
the ships lying at the Little Nore with reinforcements for the North sea
fleet. These ships contained a large number of Lon