Mutinies were the natural fruit of the system which had prevailed in the navy, and it is only wonderful that obedience had been preserved so long.  All the stores were supplied by contract, and the check upon the contractor being generally inadequate, gross abuses prevailed.  Officers who recollect the state of the navy during the first American war can furnish a history which may now appear incredible.  The provisions were sometimes unfit for human food.  Casks of meat, after having been long on board, would be found actually offensive.  The biscuit, from inferior quality and a bad system of stowage, was devoured by insects,[9] until it would fall to pieces at the slightest blow; and the provisions of a more perishable nature, the cheese, butter, raisins, &c., would be in a still worse condition.  Among crews thus fed, the scurvy made dreadful ravages.  The Princessa, when she formed part of Rodney’s fleet in the West Indies, sent two hundred men to the hospital at one time.  The purser received certain authorized perquisites instead of pay, and one-eighth of the seamen’s allowance was his right, so that their pound was only fourteen ounces.  Prize-money melted away as it passed through the courts and offices.  Not even public charities could escape; and the noble establishment of Greenwich was defrauded by placing in it superannuated servants, and other landsmen, as worn-out sailors, and conferring the superior appointments, intended for deserving naval officers, upon political friends.  The well-known case of Captain Baillie,[10] who was removed and prosecuted for resisting some of these abuses, is a memorable, illustration.

A gradual improvement in all the departments of the public service commenced from the time of Mr. Pitt’s accession to power; and the worst of these abuses had been corrected long before 1797.  Still so much remained, that the demands of the seamen, when they mutinied at Spithead, were not less due to themselves than desirable for the general interests of the service.  A moderate increase in their pay, and Greenwich pensions; provisions of a better quality; the substitution of trader’s for purser’s weight and measure; and an allowance of vegetables, instead of flour, with their fresh meat, when in port, were their chief claims.  They did not resort to violent measures till petitions, irregular ones it is true, had been tried in vain.  They urged their demands firmly, but most respectfully; and they declared their intention to suspend the prosecution of them if their country should require their services to meet the enemy at sea.  But though their claims were most just, and their conduct in many respects was worthy to be much commended, that was a mistaken conclusion, and most deeply to be regretted, which made any concession to violence.  Hard as the principle may appear, no grievance can be held to justify a breach of discipline; and when the sailors at Spithead had placed themselves in the position of offenders, the question of redress