We must remember that seamen in the royal navy in those old days had a good deal to complain of. The pay was inadequate, the food was often unfit for human consumption, leave was seldom given in port, and discipline was often maintained by the cat-o'-nine-tails, the services of which might in nine cases out of ten have been dispensed with. Just a word or two about the mutiny at the Nore, and I have done, for ever I trust, with so shocking a subject. The men here were far more insolent and overbearing in their demands. The president of the mutineers--fancy calling a mutineer a president!--was, worse luck, a Scotsman from Perth, of the name of Parker. He indeed ruled it for a time with a high hand, and was virtually admiral of the fleet at Sheerness, up and down the streets of which, carrying red flags, his fellows marched, in order to secure the sympathy of civilians. At this time, it will be remembered, Admiral Duncan was blockading the Texel, hemming in the Dutch fleet so that they might not join the French. Was it not a terrible thing that with the exception of two ships--the _Venerable_ (the flagship) and the _Adamant_--his fleet should desert him, sail across the water and join the scoundrel Parker at the Nore? Poor Scotch Duncan! When even the men of the flagship showed signs of revolting, he drew them around him, and in a voice which seemed almost choked with rising tears addressed them in words that were at once simple and touching. His concluding sentences were somewhat as follows:-- "Often and often, men, it has been my pride with you to look into the Texel on a foe which dreaded to come out to meet us. But my pride is humbled now indeed; and no words of mine can express to you the anguish and sorrow in my heart. To be deserted by my fleet in the presence of the enemy is a disgrace that is hard, hard to bear, for never could I have deemed it possible." That speech settled Jack as far as the flagship was concerned; for British sailors really have soft, kind hearts. It is as true even to this hour what Dibdin wrote about Jack as it was in the dashing days of old:-- "'Longside of an enemy, boldly and brave, He'll with broadside on broadside regale her; Yet he'll sigh to the soul o'er that enemy's grave, So noble's the mind of a sailor. "Let cannons roar loud, burst their sides let the bombs, Let the winds a dread hurricane rattle, The rough and the pleasant he takes as it comes, And laughs at the storm and battle. "To rancour unknown, to no passion a slave, Nor unmanly, nor mean, nor a railer, He's gentle as mercy, as fortitude brave, And this is a true British sailor."