Abstract The 1797 Spithead and Nore mutinies were vast in scale and potentially catastrophic in their consequences. This dramatic moment, when the British state seemed to totter on the brink of disaster, has long fascinated historians. Yet scholars have always struggled to explain the contradictions and fluctuations observed in the behaviour of the mutinous sailors. This article presents an entirely new interpretation that offers to reconcile the full sweep of mutineer behaviour within a single explanation. More than any specific material grievance, it was a feeling of being denied fair treatment – ‘good usage’ – that underpinned the sailors’ cause. These mutinies should be recognized as practical processes of negotiation: active dialogues with the state, during which a range of different strategies could be used. Ultimately, it was contrasting state responses, one conveying respectful attention, the other aloof neglect, that led the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore to take such radically divergent paths.
Callum Easton (Tue,) studied this question.