In order to put an end with all possible expedition to a mutiny that appeared so dangerous, Lord Spencer, Lord Arden and Admiral Young hastened immediately to Sheerness and held a board, at which Parker and the other delegates attended; but their behaviour was so audacious that the lords of the Admiralty returned to town without the least success. The principal article of complaint on the part of the mutineers was the unequal distribution of prize-money, for the omission of which they much blamed their fellow-seamen at Portsmouth. On the return of the lords of the Admiralty from Sheerness a proclamation was issued offering His Majesty's pardon to all such of the mutineers as should immediately return to their duty; intimating at the same time Admiral Buckner was the proper person to be applied to on such an occasion. All the buoys, by the order of government, were removed from the mouth of the Thames and the neighbouring coast; from which precaution any ships that might attempt to get away would be in danger of running aground. Great preparations were also made at Sheerness against an attack from the mutinous ships, which had manifested some strong indications of an intention to bombard that place; and furnaces and hot balls were kept ready. Emboldened by the strength of men and shipping in their hands, and resolved to persevere in their demand till they had exhorted a compliance, the mutineers proceeded to secure a sufficiency of provisions for that purpose by seizing two vessels laden with stores, and sent notice ashore that they intended to block up the Thames and cut off all communication between London and the sea in order to force government to a speedy accession to their terms. They began the execution of this menace by mooring four of their vessels across the mouth of the river and stopping several ships that were coming from the metropolis. These transactions, while they excited the greatest alarm in the nation, were violently reprobated by the seamen belonging to the two divisions of the fleet lying at Portsmouth and at Plymouth. Each of them addressed an admonition to their fellow-seamen at the Nore, warmly condemning their proceedings as a scandal to the name of British seamen, and exhorting them to be content with the indulgence already granted by government, and to return to their duty without insisting on more concessions than had been demanded by the rest of the navy.