“The body of Parker, the mutineer, which was taken out of the new naval
burying-ground at Sheerness, was brought to the Hoop and Horse Shoe
public-house, Queen-street, Little Tower-hill, on Saturday evening. So
large a concourse of persons assembled before the house next day, that a
party of constables were stationed there, in order to keep the mob from
breaking into the house; and the corpse was removed in the afternoon to
the workhouse, in Nightingale-lane, by order of the parish officers.
Mrs. Parker was taken before the sitting magistrates in Lambert-street,
and examined touching the object of her taking up the body. Her answer
was, ‘For the purpose of a more decent interment.’ It was buried this
morning early in the vaults of Whitechapel church.”
Mrs. Parker long survived her husband, and latterly fell into distress;
and among other relief received by her was at one time £10, and at
another £20, from King William IV.
In the year 1797 lay in his death-illness the master spirit of that
political period, the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, who, heart-broken at the
loss of his only son, took no further interest in the concerns of
private life, but devoted his whole mind to the state of public affairs.
Amid the startling and depressing news of Napoleon’s triumphant campaign
in Italy, the victory of St. Vincent somewhat revived Burke’s spirits,
but then these naval mutinies came to sadden him again—to sadden but not
to subdue him. The ministry of the day sought counsel and courage from
the dying man’s energy. One of the conferences of Government with him is
thus referred to in an able biography of Wilberforce:—“During the awful
crisis of the mutiny, he (Wilberforce) saw the last gleams of (take him
for all in all) the greatest luminary of the eighteenth century.”
Wilberforce, in his own diary, says:—“Monday, April 17.—Heard of
Portsmouth mutiny; consultation with Burke ... The whole scene is now
before me. Burke was lying on a sofa much emaciated, and Windham,
Laurence, and some other friends were around him. The attention shown to
Burke by that party was just like the treatment of Ahithopel of old; it
was as if one went to inquire of the oracle of the Lord.”
In one of his last letters, dated May 12, 1797, Burke thus refers to the
mutiny at the Nore:—“The times are so deplorable that I do not know how
to write about them. Indeed, I can hardly bear to think of them. In the
selection of these mischiefs ... are those of the navy and those of
Ireland.... As to the first, ... I trust in God that these mutineers may
not, as yet, have imbrued their hands deeply in blood. If they have, we
must expect the worst that can happen.”
Burke’s spirit revolted at what he thought he perceived—viz., that the
mutiny at home and the French abroad were making the British Government
lose courage. A short time before his decease he used these remarkable
words: “Never succumb to these difficulties. It is a struggle for your
existence as a nation, and if you must die, die with the sword in your
hand. But I have no fears whatever for the result. There is a salient
living principle of energy in the public mind of England which only
requires proper direction to enable her to withstand this or any other
impending danger.” Burke spoke with the foresight of a prophet; the
mutiny subsided even before he breathed his last, and, not long after,
naval successes restored public confidence. Justice was satisfied by the
execution of Parker and a few other executions, and by some minor
punishments. The British navy soon showed that it possessed its “living
principle of energy.” The sailors speedily redeemed themselves, and
wiped away the recent stigma with victory upon victory. The battle of
Camperdown was won in the October of this same 1797. King George III.,
on the 30th of that October, visited the fleet, and the victor of
Camperdown, Admiral Lord Duncan, at the Nore, and the royal clemency was
extended generally to such mutineers as still remained under sentence.
The following year the Nile was won. These triumphs were “happy
prologues to the swelling act of the imperial theme”—Trafalgar. Yet
while, through the halo of these glories, we look, less angrily, back to
the sad insubordination that preceded them, we may offer up a fervent
prayer that, for the honour and vitality of our navy, no such outbreak
may ever occur again as the mutiny at the Nore.