Mutiny(86)

'Thank you, gentlemen, for your prompt attendance — you will find your celerity is amply justified by events.' Pitt rubbed his eyes in weariness, staring at the new Corinthian columns as though they were on the point of dissolving.

They filed in: Grenville, the stern and principled Foreign Minister; the Duke of Portland, Home Secretary; the Secretary of State for War and the War Minister, still pale from their experience in the carriage. The big oval table was bare except for a small sheaf of papers and a glass of port before the Prime Minister.

'Do be seated. A muzzier, Henry? I heard you were accosted by the mob.'

'If you please, Prime Minister.'

'Good. Now, this is the essence.' Pitt's pale, noble face was slashed with lines of strain.

Windham wondered how any single person could take the whole weight of this utterly new kind of war, let alone keep aloof from the fierce political brawling in the Commons every day.

'The situation abroad is critical.' Taking up his port Pitt gestured to Grenville to continue.

'Indeed. Since Rivoli the Austrians have lost heart. I now find they are dickering secretly with General Buonaparte for peace, their price Venice - which, of course, is now in his gift. We've been thrown out of the Mediterranean, not a ship further in than Gib, and we find that the French by autumn will be in occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. This is something that last happened a thousand years ago.' Grenville stopped, and looked grimly about the table. 'In short, we've not a single friend left. The coalition is finished.'

Pitt put down his glass with extreme care. 'The whole business of war has put an intolerable stress on our resources. The National Debt frightens me, and I won't hide it from you, gentlemen, that unless a miracle occurs or we can think of a radical new way of taxing, we shall be bankrupted.'

The Home Secretary muttered indistinctly; the others stared grimly.

'You will ask what more can happen — then I shall tell you. If our standing abroad is so sadly diminished, our domestic is worse. Those bad harvests leave us with precious litde to show for four years of war, we are balanced on a knife edge of economics, but our precious trade, the life-blood of our islands, this is to be guarded with all we have. And we nearly lost it all to those mutinous wretches at Spithead. Fortunately they've been appeased, and Dundas tells me the Channel fleet is now back at sea again. A damn near thing, gentlemen, for a run on 'Change would ruin us in every chancellory in Europe.'

His eyes glazed, and he made a visible effort to recruit his strength. 'Now, it seems, we have a new mutiny, this time at the Nore. I was assured — the Admiralty were confident — this would blow over just as soon as we'd acceded in the Spithead case. But now, far from returning to duty, they're making new demands and saying our general pardon doesn't cover them. The admiral in those parts — that useless ninny — says that guns have been fired at a king's ship, and the Sheerness fort has been bombarded.

'My friends, this is a far more serious matter altogether. Grenville has unimpeachable intelligence that the Dutch are preparing a major fleet challenge from the Texel at the goading of the French. If they succeed by our ships useless at their moorings, then they can within hours secure the Channel for a massed landing. If they get wind of this mutiny it will be all up with us, I fear.'

He finished his port in one and set down his glass. 'I — we cannot withstand a second mutiny and consequent concessions. This administration would certainly fall. Added to which, each hour the mutineers are free to strut about is encouragement to every crackpot radical in the land. As we talk, Sheerness is en fete for their mutinous heroes, and the garrison is now considered unreliable. What we are faced with must be accounted the worst crisis I have ever encountered.

'So, I want suggestions, plans, strategies, anything, but this rising must be stopped - now! Charmed or crushed, it has to be over speedily and the ringleaders punished, visibly. I trust I'll have your strongest recommendation for action.

'Oh, and quite incidentally, I have the Lord Chancellor's ruling on the applicability of the King's Pardon to the Nore. It is that the mutineers were right in the essentials, their offences are indeed not within the purview of the Spithead pardon.'



'Th' poxy, slivey, cuntbitten shicers!' Hulme would not be consoled.

'An' so say we all,' Kydd agreed, with feeling. 'Dick,

I owns y' was right. I'd never have thought 'em shabs enough f'r that grass-combin' move. If we'd accepted th' pardon we could all be— Well, we didn't.' It was a low blow, a cold-blooded act of policy. 'We stands fast,' Kydd said sturdily.

'Yes, Tom, the only thing we can do.' Parker seemed to find strength in Kydd's words, and raised his voice: 'Do you all listen! We know where we stand now. There's no going back, lads. We either win or die.