don roughs and some
disaffected Irishmen. Unlike the mutiny at Spithead, it was a violent
and criminal movement. It was directed by Richard Parker, a seaman of
some education on board the _Sandwich_ (90), who is said to have entered
the navy as a midshipman, to have been dismissed his ship for
immorality, and as mate to have been broken for insubordination; he had
been imprisoned for debt at Perth, and had volunteered for the navy in
order to obtain his release. Delegates were chosen; the red flag was
hoisted, and the officers were deprived of command. From the first an
element of weakness existed in the movement, for the men were not
unanimous; two loyal frigates were forced to join the mutiny, and there
was a loyal minority on the others. The squadron moved out to the Great
Nore, and the mutineers paraded Sheerness with a red flag. Lord Spencer
and his colleagues went down to Sheerness and had an interview with the
delegates; they failed to persuade them to return to their duty, and
Parker treated them with insolence. Besides the demands made by the
channel fleet, which were already granted, the mutineers required that
no officer that had been removed from his ship should again be employed
in her without the consent of the ship's company, and that the articles
of war should be revised. Demands of that kind, of course, could not be
discussed. The first sign of weakness in the movement appeared on the
29th; the two loyal frigates left the squadron and, though fired on by
the rest, made good their escape. The mutineers, however, soon received
an accession of strength which encouraged them to proceed to further
acts of rebellion.

The mutiny spread to Duncan's fleet then in Yarmouth Roads. The men knew
that the Dutch fleet was preparing for an invasion of the kingdom, and
they left the way open. All the ships, save Duncan's flagship and one
other, deserted him and joined the mutineers at the Nore. Nevertheless,
the stouthearted admiral sailed with his two ships to his station off
the Texel, determined if the Dutch came out to fight them. While there
he concealed his weakness from the enemy by making signals as though his
fleet lay in the offing. England was in imminent danger, and Count
Vorontsov (Woronzow), the tsar's ambassador, directed the Russian
squadron, then at Yarmouth and under orders for home, to delay its
departure and join Duncan until he could be reinforced from Spithead,
the greatest service, wrote Grenvill