.

THE HOUR BEFORE THE MUTINY.
In the days when Dyck Calhoun was on the verge of starvation in London, evil naval rumours were abroad.

Newspapers reported, one with apprehension, another with tyrannous comment, mutinous troubles in the fleet.
At first the only demand at Spithead and the Nore had been for an increase of pay, which had not been made since the days of Charles II.
Then the sailors' wages were enough for comfortable support; but in 1797 through the rise in the cost of living, and with an advance of thirty per cent.

on slops, their families could barely maintain themselves.

It was said in the streets, and with truth, that seamen who had fought with unconquerable gallantry under Howe, Collingwood, Nelson, and the other big sea-captains, who had borne suffering and wounds, and had been in the shadow of death--that even these men damned a system which, in its stern withdrawal of their class for long spaces of time from their own womenfolk, brought evil results to the forecastle.
The soldier was always in touch with his own social world, and he had leave sufficient to enable him to break the back of monotony.