Chapter 3

by Herman Melville

　　At the time of Billy Budd's arbitrary enlistment into theIndomitable that ship was on her way to join the Mediterranean fleet.No long time elapsed before the 'unction was effected. As one of thatfleet the seventy-four participated in its movements, tho' at times, onaccount of her superior sailing qualities, in the absence of frigates,despatched on separate duty as a scout and at times on less temporaryservice. But with all this the story has little concernment, restrictedas it is to the inner life of one particular ship and the career of anindividual sailor.It was the summer of 1797. In the April of that year had occurredthe commotion at Spithead followed in May by a second and yet moreserious outbreak in the fleet at the Nore. The latter is known, andwithout exaggeration in the epithet, as the Great Mutiny. It was indeeda demonstration more menacing to England than the contemporarymanifestoes and conquering and proselyting armies of the French Directory.To the British Empire the Nore Mutiny was what a strike in thefire-brigade would be to London threatened by general arson. In a crisiswhen the kingdom might well have anticipated the famous signal that someyears later published along the naval line of battle what it was thatupon occasion England expected of Englishmen; that was the time whenat the mast-heads of the three-deckers and seventy-fours moored in herown roadstead -- a fleet, the right arm of a Power then all but the solefree conservative one of the Old World -- the blue-jackets, to benumbered by thousands, ran up with huzzas the British colors with theunion and cross wiped out; by that cancellation transmuting the flag offounded law and freedom defined, into the enemy's red meteor ofunbridled and unbounded revolt. Reasonable discontent growing out ofpractical grievances in the fleet had been ignited into irrationalcombustion, as by live cinders blown across the Channel from France inflames.The event converted into irony for a time those spirited strains ofDibdin -- as a song-writer no mean auxiliary to the English Governmentat the European conjuncture -- strains celebrating, among other things,the patriotic devotion of the British tar:"And as for my life, 'tis the King's!"Such an episode in the Island's grand naval story her navalhistorians naturally abridge; one of them (G.P.R. James) candidlyacknowledging that fain would he pass it over did not "impartialityforbid fastidiousness." And yet his mention is less a narration than areference, having to do hardly at all with details. Nor are thesereadily to be found in the libraries. Like some other events in everyage befalling states everywhere, including America, the Great Mutiny wasof such character that national pride along with views of policy wouldfain shade it off into the historical background. Such events can not beignored, but there is a considerate way of historically treating them.If a well-constituted individual refrains from blazoning aught amiss orcalamitous in his family, a nation in the like circumstance may withoutreproach be equally discreet.Though after parleyings between Government and the ringleaders, andconcessions by the former as to some glaring abuses, the first uprising-- that at Spithead -- with difficulty was put down, or matters for thetime pacified; yet at the Nore the unforeseen renewal of insurrection ona yet larger scale, and emphasized in the conferences that ensued bydemands deemed by the authorities not only inadmissible but aggressivelyinsolent, indicated -- if the Red Flag did not sufficiently do so --what was the spirit animating the men. Final suppression, however, therewas; but only made possible perhaps by the unswerving loyalty of themarine corps and voluntary resumption of loyalty among influentialsections of the crews.To some extent the Nore Mutiny may be regarded as analogous to thedistempering irruption of contagious fever in a frame constitutionallysound, and which anon throws it off.At all events, of these thousands of mutineers were some of the tarswho not so very long afterwards -- whether wholly prompted thereto bypatriotism, or pugnacious instinct, or by both, -- helped to win acoronet for Nelson at the Nile, and the naval crown of crowns for him atTrafalgar. To the mutineers those battles, and especially Trafalgar,were a plenary absolution and a grand one: For all that goes to make upscenic naval display, heroic magnificence in arms, those battles,especially Trafalgar, stand unmatched in human annals.