ave you heard what happened at Spithead? The
seamen chivvied Admiral Alan Gardner and his colleagues aboard a ship.
He caught hold of a seaman Delegate by the collar and shook him.
They closed in on him. They handled him roughly. He sprang on the
hammock-nettings, put the noose of the hanging-rope round his neck, and
said to the men who advanced menacingly:

"'If you will return to your duty, you may hang me at the yard-arm!'

"That's the kind of stuff our admirals are made of. We have no quarrel
with the majority of our officers. They're straight, they're honest,
and they're true to their game. Our quarrel is with Parliament and the
Admiralty; our struggle is with the people of the kingdom, who have
not seen to it that our wrongs are put right, that we have food to eat,
water to drink, and money to spend."

He waved a hand, as though to sweep away the criticisms he felt must be
rising against him.

"Don't think because I've spent four years in prison under the sternest
discipline the world offers, and have never been a seaman before, that
I'm not fitted to espouse your cause. By heaven, I am--I am--I am--I
know the wrongs you've suffered. I've smelled the water you drink. I've
tasted the rotten meat. I've seen the honest seaman who has been for
years upon the main--I've seen the scars upon his back got from a brutal
officer who gave him too big a job to do, and flogged him for not doing
it. I know of men who, fevered with bad food, have fallen, from the
mainmast-head, or have slipped overboard, glad to go, because of the
wrongs they'd suffered.

"I'll tell you what our fate will be, and then I'll put a question
to you. We must either give up our stock of provisions or run for it.
Parker and the other Delegates proclaim their comradeship; yet they have
hidden from us the king's proclamation and the friendly resolutions of
the London merchants. I say our only hope is to escape from the Thames.
I know that skill will be needed, but if we escape, what then? I say if
we escape, because, as we sail out, orders will be given for the other
mutiny ships to attack us. We shall be fired on; we shall risk our
lives. You've done that before, however, and will do it again.

"We have to work out our own problem and fight our own fight. Well, what
I want to know is this--are we to give in to the government, or do we
stand to be hammered by Sir Erasmus Gower? Remember what that means.
It means that if we fight the government ship