THE MUTINY AT THE NORE. RICHARD PARKER. EXECUTED FOR MUTINY.

IN the year 1797, when the threatening aspect of affairs abroad made the condition of her naval force a matter of vital consequence to Britain, several most alarming mutinies broke out among the various fleets stationed around the shores of the country. In April of the year mentioned, the seamen of the grand fleet lying at Portsmouth disowned the authority of their officers, seized upon the ships, and declared their determination not to lift an anchor, or obey any orders whatsoever, until certain grievances of which they complained were redressed. After some delay, satisfactory concessions were made to them by the government, and the men returned to their duty. But the spirit of insubordination had spread among other squadrons in the service, and about the middle of May, immediately after the Portsmouth fleet had sailed peacefully for the Bay of Biscay, the seamen of the large fleet lying at the Nore broke out also into open mutiny. The most prominent personage in this insurrection was an individual named Richard Parker, whose history it is our object in this paper to lay before the reader.

Richard Parker was a native of Exeter, where he was born about the year 1765 or 1766. His father was a reputable tradesman, and kept a baker’s shop at St. Sidwell’s, in the bounds of the city mentioned. Young Parker received an excellent education, and in the course of time went to sea, which he had chosen as the scene of his future career. He served for a considerable period in the royal navy as midshipman and master’s mate, and at one period also, it is said, held the post of lieutenant. He appears to have given up the naval profession on his marriage with Miss Ann Machardy, a young lady resident in Exeter, but of Scottish origin, being a member of a respectable family in the county of Aberdeen. This connexion led Parker to remove to Scotland, where he embarked in some mercantile speculations that proved unsuccessful. The issue was, that he ere long found himself involved in difficulties, and without the means to maintain his wife and two children. In Edinburgh, where these embarrassments fell upon him, he had no friends to apply to, and, in a moment of desperation, he took the king’s bounty, and became a common sailor on board a tender at Leith. When he communicated to his wife the step he had taken, she was in the greatest distress, and resolved to set off instantly for Aberdeen, in order to procure from her brother there the means of hiring two seamen as substitutes for her husband. Though successful in raising the necessary funds, no time was allowed her to complete her project. On her return from Aberdeen, she was only in time to see the tender sail for the Nore, with her husband on board. Her grief on this occasion was bitterly aggravated by the death of one of her children. Parker’s sufferings were shown to be equally acute by his conduct when the vessel sailed. Exclaiming that he saw the body of his child floating on the waves, he leaped overboard, and was with difficulty rescued and restored to life.

It was in the beginning of May 1797 that Parker reached the Nore, or point of land dividing the mouths of the Thames and the Medway. Probably on account of his former experience and station as a seaman, he was drafted on board the Sandwich, which was the guard-ship, and bore the flag of Admiral Buckner, the port-admiral. The mutinous spirit which afterwards broke out, certainly existed on board of the Nore squadron before Parker’s arrival. Communications were kept up in secret between the various crews, and the mischief was gradually drawing to a head. But though he did not originate the feeling of insubordination, the ardent temper, boldness, and superior intelligence of Parker, soon became known to his comrades, and he became a prominent man among them. Their plans being at length matured, the seamen rose simultaneously against their officers, and deprived them of their arms, as well as of all command in the ships, though behaving respectfully to them in all other respects. Each vessel was put under the government of a committee of twelve men, and, to represent the whole body of seamen, every man-of-war appointed two delegates, and each gun-boat one, to act for the common good. Of these delegates Richard Parker was chosen president, and, in an unhappy hour for himself, he accepted the office. This representative body drew up a list of grievances, of which they demanded the removal, offering to return immediately afterwards to their duty. It is unnecessary to specify these demands further, than that they related to increase of pay and provisions, a more equal division of prize-money, liberty to go on shore, proper payment of arrears, and other points of naval discipline. A committee of naval inquiry subsequently granted almost all that was demanded, thereby acknowledging the general justice of the complaints made. Parker signed these documents, and they were published over the whole kingdom with his name, as well as presented to Port-admiral Buckner, through whom they were sent to government.

When these proceedings commenced, the mutineers were suffered to go on shore, and they paraded about Sheerness, where a part of the fleet lay, with music, flags (red in colour—the customary hue of insubordination), and other appendages of a triumphal procession. But, on the 22d of May, troops were sent to Sheerness to put a stop to this indulgence. Being thus confined to their ships, the mutineers, having come to no agreement with Admiral Buckner, began to take more decisive measures for extorting compliance with their demands, as well as for insuring their own safety. The vessels at Sheerness moved down to the Nore, and the combined force of the insurgents, which at its greatest height consisted of twenty-four sail, proceeded to block up the Thames, by refusing a free passage, up or down, to the London trade. Foreign vessels, and a few small craft, were suffered to go by, first receiving a passport, signed by Richard Parker as president of the delegates. In a day or two the mutineers had an immense number of vessels under detention. The mode in which they kept these was as follows:—The ships of war were ranged in a line, at considerable distances from each other, and in the interspaces were placed the merchant-vessels, having the broadsides of the men-of-war pointed to them. The appearance of the whole assemblage is described as having been at once grand and appalling. The red flag floated from the mast-head of every one of the mutineer ships. It may be well imagined that the alarm of the citizens of London was extreme. The government, however, though unable at the period to quell the insurgents by force, remained firm in their demand of “unconditional submission as a necessary preliminary to any intercourse.” This, perhaps, was the very best line of conduct that could have been adopted. The seamen, to their great honour, never seemed to think of assuming an offensive attitude, and were thereby left in quiet to meditate on the dangerous position in which they stood in hostility to a whole country. They grew timorous; the more so, as the government had caused all the buoys to be removed from the mouth of the Thames and the adjacent coasts, so that no vessel durst attempt to move away for fear of running aground. The mutineering vessels held together, nevertheless, till the 30th of May, when the Clyde frigate was carried off through a combination of its officers with some of the seamen, and was followed by the St. Fiorenzo. These vessels were fired upon, but escaped up the river.

On the 4th of June, the king’s birth-day, the Nore fleet showed that their loyalty to their sovereign was undiminished, by firing a general salute. On the 5th, another frigate left the fleet, but its place was supplied by a sloop and four men-of-war, which had left Admiral Duncan’s fleet at the Texel to join the mutiny. On the 6th, Lord Northesk met the delegates by desire on board the Sandwich, and received from them proposals for an accommodation, to which the unfortunate Parker still put his name as president. The answer was a direct refusal, and this firmness seems to have fairly humbled the remaining spirit of the mutineers. From that time one vessel after another deserted the band, and put themselves under the protection of the fort at Sheerness. On the 10th, the merchantmen were allowed by common consent to pass up the river, and such a multitude of ships certainly never entered a port by one tide. By the 12th, only seven ships had the red flag flying, and on the 16th the mutiny had terminated, every ship having been restored to the command of its officers. A party of soldiers went on board the Sandwich, and to them the officers surrendered the delegates of the ship, namely, a man named Davies, and Richard Parker.

Richard Parker, to whom the title of Admiral Parker had been given by the fleet and by the public during the whole of this affair, was the individual on whom all eyes were turned as the ringleader of the mutineers. He was brought singly to trial on the 22d of June, after being confined during the interval in the black-hole of Sheerness garrison. Ten officers, under the presidency of Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Paisley, composed the court-martial, which sat on board the Neptune, off Greenhithe. The prisoner conducted his own defence, exhibiting great presence of mind, and preserving a respectful and manly deference throughout for his judges. The prosecution on the part of the Crown lasted two days, and on the 26th, Parker called witnesses in his favour, and read a long and able defence which he had previously prepared. The line of argument adopted by him was—that the situation he had held had been in a measure forced upon him; that he had consented to assume it chiefly from the hope of restraining the men from excesses; that he had restrained them in various instances; that he might have taken all the ships to sea, or to an enemy’s ports, had his motives been disloyal, &c. &c. Parker unquestionably spoke the truth on many of these points. Throughout the whole affair, the injury done to property was trifling, the taking of some flour from a vessel being the chief act of the kind. This was mainly owing to him. But he had indubitably been the head of the mutineers. He was proved to have gone from ship to ship giving orders, and haranguing the men—to have been cheered as he passed along, and treated with the honours of a chief. Nothing could save him. He was sentenced to death. When his doom was pronounced, he stood up, and uttered these words in a firm voice: “I shall submit to your sentence with all due respect, being confident of the innocence of my intentions, and that God will receive me into favour; and I sincerely hope that my death will be the means of restoring tranquillity to the navy, and that those men who have been implicated in the business may be reinstated in their former situations, and again be serviceable to their country.”

On the morning of the 30th of June, the yellow flag, the signal of death, was hoisted on board of the Sandwich, where Richard Parker lay, and where he was to meet his fate. The whole fleet was ranged a little below Sheerness, in sight of the Sandwich, and the crew of every ship was piped to the forecastle. Parker was awaked from a sound sleep on that morning, and after being shaved, he dressed himself in a suit of deep mourning. He mentioned to his attendants that he had made a will, leaving his wife heir to some property belonging to him. On coming to the deck, he was pale, but perfectly composed, and drank a glass of wine “to the salvation of his soul, and forgiveness of all his enemies!.” He said nothing to his mates on the forecastle but “Good bye to you,” and expressed a hope that “his death would be deemed a sufficient atonement, and save the lives of others!” He was strung up to the yard-arm at half-past nine o’clock. A dead silence reigned among the crews around during the ceremony. In closing their account of this affair, the journals of the day state that the body of Parker was put into a shell, and interred, within an hour or two after the execution, in the New Naval Burying Ground at Sheerness. A curious sequel to this account, however, it is now in our power to present to the reader.

Richard Parker’s unfortunate wife had not left Scotland, when the rumour came to her ears that the Nore fleet had mutinied, and that the ringleader was one Richard Parker. She could not doubt that this was her husband, and immediately took a place in the mail for London, to save him if possible. On her arrival, she heard that Parker had been tried, but the result was unknown. Being able to think of no way but petitioning the king, she gave a person a guinea to draw up a paper, praying that her husband’s life might be spared. She attempted to make her way with this to his majesty’s presence, but was obliged finally to hand it to a lord-in-waiting, who gave her the cruel intelligence that all applications for mercy would be attended to, except for Parker. The distracted woman then took coach for Rochester, where she got on board a king’s ship, and learnt that Parker was to be executed next day: she sat up, in a state of unspeakable wretchedness, the whole of that night, and at four o’clock in the morning went to the river-side, to hire a boat to take her to the Sandwich, that she might at least bid her poor husband farewell. Her feelings had been deeply agonised by hearing every person she met talking on the subject of her distress, and now, the first waterman to whom she spoke exclaimed, “No! I cannot take one passenger. The brave Admiral Parker is to die to-day, and I will get any sum I choose to ask for a party.” Finally, the wretched wife was glad to go on board a Sheerness market-boat, but no boat was allowed to come alongside the Sandwich. In her desperation she called on Parker by name, and prevailed on the boat-people, by the mere spectacle of her suffering, to attempt to go nearer, when they were stopped by a sentinel threatening to fire at them. As the hour drew nigh, she saw her husband appear on deck between two clergymen. She called on him, and he heard her voice, for he exclaimed, “There is my dear wife from Scotland.” Immediately afterwards, she fell back in a state of insensibility, and did not recover till some time after she was taken ashore. By this time all was over, but the poor woman could not believe it so. She hired another boat, and again reached the Sandwich. Her exclamation from the boat must have startled all who heard it. “Pass the word,” she cried, in her delusion, “for Richard Parker!” The truth was now told to her, and she was further informed that his body had just been taken ashore for burial. She immediately caused herself to be rowed ashore again, and proceeded to the churchyard, but found the ceremony over, and the gate locked. She then went to the admiral and sought the key, which was refused to her. Excited almost to madness by the information that the surgeons would probably disinter the body that night, she waited around the churchyard till dusk, and then, clambering over the wall, readily found her husband’s grave. The shell was not buried deep, and she was not long in scraping away the loose earth that intervened between her and the object of her search. She got the lid removed, and then she clasped the cold hand of her husband in her own!

Her determination to possess the body aroused the widow from the enjoyment of this melancholy pleasure. She left the churchyard, and communicated her situation to two women, who, in their turn, got several men to undertake the task of lifting the body. This was accomplished successfully, and at three o’clock in the morning, the shell containing the corpse was placed in a van, and conveyed to Rochester, where, for the sum of six guineas, Mrs. Parker procured another waggon to carry it to London. On the road they met hundreds of persons all inquiring about and talking of the fate of “Admiral Parker.” At eleven P.M. the van reached London; but here the poor widow had no private house or friends to go to, and was obliged to stop at the Hoop and Horse-Shoe on Tower-Hill, which was full of people. Mrs. Parker got the body into her room, and sat down beside it; but the secret could not long be kept in such a place, more particularly as the news of the exhumation had been brought by express that day to London. A great crowd, by and bye, assembled about the house, anxious to see the body of Parker, which, however, the widow would not permit. The Lord Mayor heard of the affair, and came to ask the widow what she intended to do with her husband’s remains. She replied, “To inter them decently at Exeter or in Scotland.” The Lord Mayor said that the body would not be taken from her, but prevailed on her to have it decently buried in London. Arrangements were made with this view, and finally the corpse of the unfortunate Parker was inhumed in Whitechapel churchyard; although not until it had to be removed to Aldgate workhouse, on account of the crowds attracted by it, and which caused some fears lest “Admiral Parker’s remains should create a civil war.” After the closing ceremony was over, Mrs. Parker, who had in person seen her husband consigned to the grave, gave a certificate that all had been done to her satisfaction. But, though strictly questioned as to the parties who had aided her in the disinterment, she firmly refused to disclose their names.

Parker, as has been said, made a will, leaving to his wife a small property on which he had claims near Exeter. This she enjoyed for a number of years, but ultimately her rights, whether erroneously or not, were decided to be invalid, and she was deprived of the pittance which had formed her maintenance. She was thrown into great distress, and was compelled to solicit assistance from the charitable, having become nearly if not entirely blind. The late King William gave her at one time 10l., and at another 20l. In 1836, the forlorn and miserable condition of poor Parker’s widow was made known to the London magistrates, and a temporary refuge was provided for her. But temporary assistance was of little avail to one whose physical infirmities rendered her incapable any longer of helping herself, and again her miserable condition came under the cognizance of the public authorities. An appeal to the charitable has recently been made, by a portion of the daily press, in her favour, but with what success we are unable to say. She is now seventy years of age, blind, and friendless. Time and misfortune have not quenched her affection for the partner of her early days. Of him she yet speaks with all the enthusiasm of youthful affection, and still mourns his fate.