Britain's Bloodiest Mutiny

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

Episode: Britain's Bloodiest Mutiny (July 30, 2026)

---

Episode Overview

This episode plunges listeners into the infamous 1797 mutiny aboard HMS Hermione, exploring its causes, the bloody events that ensued, and the lasting consequences for the Royal Navy. Hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling, joined by guest historian Dan (surname not specified), vividly recount this rarely paralleled case of mutiny for its brutality and the rupture of naval order, reflecting on discipline, power, and the unique social contracts binding ships’ crews at the time.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Life in the Royal Navy, Late 18th Century

• Brutal Discipline:
  • Sailors’ morale and order were enforced through "rum, sodomy and the lash"—a Churchill quote capturing the era’s infamous reputation (04:28).
  • Flogging was widespread, usually administered with the “cat o’ nine tails,” a rope with knotted ends capable of flaying flesh and causing lasting injury or even death.
    • “There’s a big debate in the world of history: was it awful to be on a Georgian ship? … The captains had a lot of latitude, so some captains were floggers, others weren’t. And we are going to meet a really, really sadistic captain today.” – Dan [04:34]
• Isolated, Hierarchical Worlds:
  • Ships were microcosms where the captain’s authority was divine—“the captain is second unto God.” The nature of a voyage depended heavily on his temperament.

2. Captain Hugh Piggott: The Tyrant at the Helm

• Background:
  • Piggott, son of an admiral, rose through the ranks with a blend of privilege and professional experience.
• Record of Brutality:
  • He was notorious for ordering extreme punishment: “he orders something like half his ship’s company to be whipped. … For comparison, historians looked at a wider sample … about 9% being flogged, and here, 50%.” – Dan [09:18—10:16]
• Excessive Flogging and Catastrophic Leadership:
  • Piggott’s arbitrary and sadistic punishments, including having the last “top men” down from a sail training exercise flogged, led to fatal accidents and eroded trust within the crew (10:47—11:50).

3. Breaking of the Social Contract & Immediate Causes of Mutiny

• The Royal Navy operated on an “invisible contract” wherein the captain protected his crew, and in return, they followed his orders—a system grounded in mutual survival and respect.
• Key Incident:
  • The captain publically humiliates a junior officer, Midshipman David O’Brien Casey, ordering him to his knees. Casey refuses and is flogged. This act crosses a crucial line, uniting the crew in their grievances (13:09—13:51).
    • “What do we all do when we’re in a tyrannical situation… an incompetent sadist? …That is a scary moment for us all.” – Dan [11:50]

4. The Night of Mutiny (21 September 1797)

• Atmosphere and Action:
  • As tension explodes, Boatswain’s Mate Thomas Nash leads veteran sailors to murder Piggott, overpowering the Marines guarding the officers’ quarters (17:02–18:53).
    • “They get some Dutch courage, they break into the stores, they get drunk on rumors and then they overpower the marine sentry at the captain’s door and they stab the captain to death.” – Dan [17:21]
  • The violence rapidly escalates, resulting in the deaths of 11 officers. Piggott is thrown overboard before dying.
    • “They throw him over before he’s actually quite dead. Right. Which is just… pretty grim.” – Maddy [19:34]
• Transgressing Unwritten Rules:
  • The killing spreads beyond the captain, violating unwritten norms among sailors and officers (20:41—21:19).

5. Aftermath: Treason, Flight, and Retribution

• Sailing to the Enemy:
  • Facing certain death if recaptured, Nash steers HMS Hermione into a Spanish-controlled port in Venezuela, surrendering it for a paltry $25 per mutineer (21:41–22:20).
    • “It’s also something to be said about… they’ve crossed a barrier again from mutiny now into treason.” – Anthony [22:20]
• Political and Irish Context:
  • The hosts speculate about Irish identity and rebellion—the leadership and crew are notably Irish, and 1798 would witness failed rebellion in Ireland (22:30–24:04).
    • “If you’re Irish, I wonder how that sits with you and where on the treason line you’re…” – Anthony [22:30]

6. The Naval & State Response

• Constructing the Narrative:
  • Survivors rushing back to British territory stress their victimhood, recasting events to clear themselves and reinforce the “bad apple” theory (24:53).
    • “It’s embarrassing for the authorities to hear that there was a sadistic captain who had it coming…” — Dan [25:39]
• Relentless Manhunt & Example Made:
  • The Royal Navy launches global efforts to hunt down the mutineers, emphasizing the existential threat mutiny poses (27:09–28:24).
    • “They need to tell their own workforce… you will be hunted down and extermin[ated]…” – Dan [27:09]
  • Public executions are staged.
    • “He is hanged from the rigging of a Royal Navy ship… a statement... fleet would have seen a corpse swinging in the shrouds…” – Dan [28:24]

7. Recapture and Wider Implications

• Reclaiming HMS Hermione:
  • The ship is retaken via a dramatic cutting-out action off Venezuela—a classic act of derring-do sealing the restoration of British honor (30:36–31:10).
    • “You go in and… clamber aboard, take it by stealth under the guns of the enemy… cut the anchor cable and you sail it back out.” – Dan [30:36]
• Legacy and Reform:
  • The Navy’s unyielding crackdown is paired with gradual reflection:
    • “The immediate legacy, yes, is that the British Empire asserts itself... But there’s a longer, more subtle legacy, which is these people are not monsters. And they realize… you can’t rule by fear. There has to be that… contract.” – Dan [31:46]
  • Over the next generation, flogging is curtailed, and broader reforms are implemented (32:57–33:29).

8. Enduring Lessons in Command

• Comparing disaster and survival:
  • The mutiny is contrasted with the success of other captains like Anson and Nelson, who maintained loyalty and discipline through care, fairness, and provision, underscoring the necessity of able, humane leadership for the functioning of the Royal Navy (34:46–35:46).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You get a big, strong boatswain’s mate to lash the naked back of a miscreant… For, you know, insubordination or, in fact, nearly anything you could think of, a man can be flogged in that respect.” – Dan [04:34]
• “It’s wild. We’re looking at 50% [of crew flogged] here and already that’s causing upset and concern and unhappiness on board. So there’s this perfect storm starting.” – Anthony [11:03]
• “There is a contract here, isn’t there?... The captain depends for his survival… on the crew being good at what they do.” – Dan [11:50]
• “It’s not a decision that’s taken lightly.” – Maddy, on the mutineers’ act (18:53)
• “It’s also something to be said about the fact that we’re talking about mutiny... but they’ve crossed a barrier again from mutiny now into treason.” – Anthony [22:20]
• “They need to tell their own workforce… you will be hunted down and extermin[ated] if you do this…” – Dan [27:09]
• “The Royal Navy… wouldn’t have been as effective if [brutality] was true... 99% of the time the crew do not rise up and kill their officers. 99% of the time they work together and get themselves out of that scrape.” – Dan [35:46]

---

Important Timestamps

• [04:28] – Realities of discipline and flogging discussed
• [09:16] – Captain Piggott’s background and brutality
• [13:09] – Officer humiliation as tipping point
• [17:21] – Thomas Nash and the mutiny’s outbreak
• [19:34] – Killing of the captain and officers
• [21:19] – Fate of the mutineers, surrender to the Spanish
• [27:09] – Overview of naval manhunt and punishments
• [30:36] – Recapture of HMS Hermione
• [31:46] – Discussion of the legacy and reforms
• [34:46] – Lessons from other captains on humane leadership

---

Final Reflections

This episode exposes the violent extremes of naval discipline and the human breaking points that could spark mutiny in the heart of the British Empire’s might. The story of HMS Hermione stands as cautionary history: despotism may provoke disaster, but out of blood comes reflection and reform. The legacy endures not just in folklore but in the evolution of naval practice—a testament to the power, and peril, of discipline and leadership at sea.

---

Transcript

[A]

Listener. Never fear. Tis I, Dr. Anthony Delaney from the After Dark podcast and I am possessing your phone or your car radio or however it is that you listen to podcasts to ask you to vote for us in the Listener's Choice Award at this year's British Podcast Awards. Ooh, it's that time of year again. You can vote for us while you're folding laundry or learning about mass poisonings, or while you assemble furniture and contemplate mutiny, which I would mutiny if I was assembling furniture. Or while you're lost in a graveyard that you thought was going to be a shortcut, but now you find yourself in the bowels of hell. Either way, you can Simply go to www.britishpodcastawards.com voting and search after Dark. Okay, off you go and do that and I promise we'll stop possessing your phone. Thank you. Love you. Bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye.

[B]

Yeah, Maxing is so maxing right now bro. Get ready for spicy chicken maxing because Carl's Jr. Is saving you big with a 5.99 maxed out double stack double stack double stack spicy chicken sandwich. Seriously, just 5.99 double stack spicy chicken. This is unreal value in the bromosphere. The new Spicy Chicken Max Wallet Friendly Max Tasty only at Carl's. Available for a limited time at participating restaurants. Tax unincluded, not valid for use within a combo or in combination with any other offered discount. Do you love your pets? Do you love suspense? Do you love it when your pets keep you in suspense because they ate something mysterious? And who knows what the vet visit will cost? If you answered yes twice and then no, you should protect your pet with Lemonade Pet insurance. It can save you up to 90% on vet bills for checkups, emergencies, diagnostics, all the stuff that leaves you financially on the edge of your seat. Get a quick and Easy [e-mail] pet and get your suspense somewhere else. Like from a riveting podcast.

[C]

I'm pretty confident talking into a mic. Hey, I'm doing it right now. But home projects? I second guess everything.

[B]

Is that noise normal?

[C]

Is that water damage? Who do I even call? That's where thumbtack comes in.

[B]

Just upload a photo or voice note and it uses AI powered search to match you with the right top rated local pro.

[C]

So instead of guessing you get clarity and can hire with confidence for your next home project. Try thumbtack.

[B]

Hire the Right Pro today.

[A]

It is the night of 21st September 1797 and the air aboard HMS Hermione is thick with tension. Men move silently through the darkness, hands tightening around knives and cutlasses. Every creak of timber threatens to give them away. Above them, Captain Hugh Piggott sleeps, unaware that his crew have reached breaking point. Now within hours, one of the bloodiest mutinies in Royal Naval history will leave officers butchered, a warship handed to Britain's enemy and an empire reeling. This is more than a tale of murder at sea, though. It's a story of power, brutality and the moment discipline gave way to chaos. From the blood stained decks of HMS Hermione, this is After Dark.

[D]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony and I hope you've brought your sea legs. Listeners, watchers, friends, because we're going aboard HMS Hermione on today's episode and it is a bit of a bloody and dark history.

[A]

It is, and it is right at the end of the 18th century. You know, we love a bit of Georgian frivolity, but this is not very frivolous. But we love a bit of Georgian history nonetheless. And to help us guide our way through this dastardly, cruel history, actually we have the one and only, of course D. Hey, guys.

[C]

Goodbye. Hello.

[A]

You're back, you're back, you're back. If you haven't listened to Dan's other episodes that we have done with him this month, then go and listen to that. We just did.

[D]

We've gone ship crazy.

[A]

We've gone ship crazy this month and Dan has helped us on our way. Now, Dan, we're gonna get straight into this one because we've been talking about chips this month. So we have a little bit of background going on life in the Royal Navy at the end of the 18th century. Walk me through it. Disaster or grey crack.

[C]

So the Royal Navy people, Winston Churchill called it rum sodomy and the lash Stop.

[A]

Of course he did, yeah.

[C]

So that the implication is it's your kind of your morale's propped up by that tot of rum, which was true to an extent, but. And then I'll leave part the sodomy there. And you know what he meant by that. And then the lash, it refers to the fact there's very, very strict discipline on board ships. So you're being physically beaten. There's something called the cat nine tails, about a meter and a half long piece of rope as big as your wrist. The last 60 centimeters of that piece of rope are you've undone the strands into the smaller cords that make up a rope and Then you tie knots in those and then you get a big, strong boatswain's mate to lash the naked back of a miscreant. He's tied to the shrouds or tied to a gun. And for, you know, insubordination or, in fact, nearly anything you could think of, a man can be flogged in that respect. So because that happens, it's brutal. It's bloody foreigners. Comment on it. The Chinese. We have Chinese sources who go, these Brits are wild, like, thrashing each other. It's horrible. People have got. There's a big debate in the world of history, was it awful to be on a Georgian ship or was it? And actually the answer is, it could be. And we'll discuss that today. The captains had a lot of latitudes, so some captains were floggers, others weren't. And we are going to meet a really, really sadistic captain today who I think we can say was a horrible met.

[D]

I went to the National Maritime Museum recently and they do have a cat of nine tails on display. And when you get up close to an object like that, you can almost kind of feel the lick of it. It's a really brutal thing and obviously something that would do enormous damage to a human being and people did die.

[C]

Laid your ribs and spine bare. If you get enough lashes.

[D]

Yeah. Which isn't great when you're on a dirty ship and you have a job to do and all of that at the end of the 18th century as well. Britain famously fighting the Spanish, the French, everyone. Yeah.

[C]

Napoleonic Revolutionary wars against France. So for the previous hundred years, Britain has been fighting France pretty much sort of global mastery. And there's been a series of wars which we have discovered and I've talked about and people be familiar with, and they. And the American Revolutionary War comes in the 17. 1780s. Then we get the French Revolutionary War, 1790s, and they are clashing in all the oceans of the world. Britain's launching military expeditions to Cape the Caribbean, which are very important. Sugar grown on those islands are the super commodity of the time. And ships are going out. They're little isolated worlds. They are very. No contact with home. The captain is second unto God. So the captain and the officers will sort of determine the nature of that ship, how happy it is or unhappy. Very interesting story, because if the Royal Navy can't be as bad as everyone says, people might think, because there are very few mutinies in the Royal Navy century. Interestingly, very few times when the crew rise up and just kill the captain, the times they do happen. Are super famous. We know about Mutiny on the Bounty. There are the very. There are the interesting mutinies in the 1790s in Britain which are around paying conditions. So. So park them slightly. They're around the sailors not getting enough money. There was never question that. It's not thought they were kind of political, radical, revolutionary. It was like, you're not paying us enough. We're annoyed about this. Interesting stories. You guys do them. And terrifying. I mean, that almost is the moment. That's almost Britain's sort of Russian revolution moment. If those had spiraled out of control.

[D]

Yeah. And I always want someone to make a film of those. But because they take place just off the coast of Britain, they're not very cinematic necessarily.

[C]

And they're just. Yeah, they're an interesting time and place. But in terms of a sort of a ship that rises up against an unpopular captain because he's an absolute dick, there's very few of those. And that's what's so interesting about. We're going to talk about today.

[D]

Well, we have one of those to discuss today. Anthony, do we know much about Captain

[C]

why on Earth Captain Hugh?

[D]

Because this is your episode. Yes, Dan, you tell us all about Captain Hugh.

[C]

Well, his dad was an admiral, so it's again, one of these families where naval. There's a naval tradition in the family, but it doesn't mean it's sort of. You just get parachuted into important positions. As we've talked about in previous podcasts, you have to know what you're doing in the navy. So that gives you kind of an entrance. It gets you work experience. It doesn't. And it helps your career, of course, but it's not everything. So you get. Age 13 is dad's influence, gets him a spot on the ship, but he has to sort of work his way up and prove himself. And he does prove to be. On the whole, Britain produces unbelievably good sailors at this point. There's a sort of vicious learnings because you're either, you know, and perhaps as Captain Pickett shows, you're fighting the elements, you're fighting disease, you're fighting the French and Spanish. You've got it. If you're not good, it's kind of a bit Darwinian. If you're not good, you're gonna.

[D]

It either makes your breaks. You.

[C]

It does. And in fact, that's what I find out. He does survive a few early breaking opportunities. He drives his ship to other ships twice and blames the other captains, which is perhaps forgivable so there are some question marks around his aptitude. He does, though, keep getting appointed to command. Now, possibly that's patronage, a sign of kind of corruption, but, you know, but. But also he may be decent, but what's clear from the beginning is as a flogger, he flogs like he orders his heart. Something like half his ship's company to be whipped. And for comparison, historians looked at a wider sample of a particular fleet in this period and he thinks flog about. Of sailors would be flogged in this period. So half is crazy. So he's got. He looks like he's a bit incompetent, he's not quite good enough. And he looks like he's a bit brutal. It's difficult for us to say at this range and that therefore it's not a surprise that this mutiny will happen under his command.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, obviously discipline's very important aboard these ships. And we've looked at things like mutiny on the Bounty. We know that when this command structure breaks down, things can go terribly wrong. But even so, I mean, he's an extreme case.

[C]

Like, he's on the out. He's an outlier. He's got a sort of. He's these top. Many people called top men who go up to the ray, up into the mast. Young. They're young, very keen, very agile boys and men. And they set the sails. And you know, sometimes in a storm, the ship's going like this in the waves and they are up there fighting, trying to get. Can you imagine the angle they're going through up there on the top?

[D]

I mean, the physical fitness you would need to do that and to not die.

[C]

Dexterity, fitness, bravery. And then he goes, they're doing an exercise or a training and the last of them to get back down the deck, he orders to be flogged.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Which is wild.

[A]

We're in September 1797 now and we have. Some of those top men have already died from falling as well.

[C]

Yes, we should say so, that suddenly you get accidents because they're desperate, they're falling terrible.

[A]

And it also says something which I think is really interesting and so easy to overlook about the expectations of responsibility of these captains on board here. You're talking about. You have been in and around 9% that's being flogged and. But we're looking at 50% here and already that's causing upset and concern and unhappiness on board. So there's this perfect storm starting. These three young boys are falling. They're dying the crew is start. And this is a. Their world, their wooden world at sea is being upset by the attitude of this captain. And that's unacceptable to the crew in many ways.

[C]

Well, because the whole thing does. There is a contract here, isn't there? Which is the captain will. The Hollywood version where the captain's like a mad tyrant, doesn't make sense. The captain depends for his survival and career progression on the crew being good at what they do. And there's a sort of mutual understanding. And actually, I think a lot of the time they would have been real communities, these crews. And what do you do when it went, look, what do we all do when we're in a tyrannical situation, when the person in charge of us with life and death power over us is an incompetent sadist? That is a scary moment for us all. And there are these chapters. The turning point seems to be when he humiliates another officer, which is interesting. It tells you a lot about the hierarchy.

[D]

I mean, this just shows that he fundamentally doesn't understand his position and how to maintain it. Right. That he is not only having people much lower down the scale from him flogged in this brutal, routine way and making that sort of ordinary in terms of his command, but then he's also trying to undermine people who hold power on the ship as well. It's wild.

[C]

You guys have got you guys rating so special. You probably know better than me. Socially, it does. It's another transgression when you humiliate, you try. He tries to get another. The most junior officer on board, effectively, who are very young, but they're often would be, I think, socially regarded as kind of equals. Yeah, he humiliates him.

[D]

Well, he tells him to get down on his knees, doesn't he?

[C]

He's a beg for forgiveness. He strips him from his command. And again, you guys probably understand that better than me, but that. That is again, a sort of line is crossed. And amazingly, the men, the sailors seem to be. Yeah, he's awful and horrible to them, but it's when he's turning against some of his own kind, they go, this guy is, wow.

[A]

And that transgression upsets. It says something about how this midshipman, whose name was David o' Brien Casey, that he starts to represent order on this ship, this middle person. And as soon as he. So he's asked to get down his knees and apologize for this, you know, relatively.

[D]

He refuses. Right?

[A]

He refuses twice. And he is lashed then 12 times for that. And this is seen as the transgression so this is all building. This unhappiness is really, really growing. I love this idea of a contract, Dan, that you were mentioning there, this invisible contract that's now being broken essentially. And what happens next, which we'll find out after the break, is the mutiny that we've come here to talk about.

[C]

So good, so good.

[D]

So good.

[C]

New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores. Get ready to save big with up to 60% off brands like Rag and Bone, Levi's, Adidas and Free people. Join the NordicLub to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack

[B]

maxing is so maxing right now, bro. Get ready for spicy chicken maxing because Carl's Jr. Is saving you big with a $5.99 max maxed out Double stack Double stack Double Stack Spicy chicken sandwich. Seriously, just 5.99 double stack spicy chicken. This is unreal value in the bromosphere. The new Spicy Chicken Max Wallet Friendly Max Tasty only at Carl's Jr available for a limited time at participating restaurants, taxon included. Not valid for use within a combo or in combination with any other offered discount. Do you love your pets? Do you love suspense? Do you love it when your pets keep you in suspense because they ate something mysterious? And who knows what the vet visit will cost if you answered yes twice and then no, you should protect your pet with Lemonade Pet Insurance. It can save you up to 90% on vet bills for checkups, emergencies, diagnostics, all the stuff that leaves you financially on the edge of your seat. Get a quick and Easy [e-mail] pet and get your suspense somewhere else, like from a riveting podcast. Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the Dark Web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, Dark Web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance all backed by 24, 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price. Competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial [e-mail] safety. Protect yourself [e-mail] safety.

[A]

By the way, we should probably say, dan, we're on HMS Hermione. Here it is, 1797. We've had this unhappy, this unhappy lot on the Hermione. Bring us to the group that's led by a man called Thomas Nash. There is a lot of unhappiness on board.

[C]

It's an unhappy ship. They are in a cauldron of heat. They're in, they're on the Spanish Main, which is the sort of the coast of Central, South Central and up into the Mexican coast. It's a tough place to be. There's disease, it's hot, it's sweltering. You'll realize that you've lost respect for the command structure and therefore the ship's just going to fall apart. You know, the whole thing operates on. You've got to trust the person above you that you think he knows what he's doing. And if you come to that decision, I can't imagine how intense that cauldron you're bumping shoulders each other all the time. You're like you're in a football crowd with these officers. You know their smell, you know, so, and, and a group of men decide that enough is enough and they're going to kill him. Now this guy, this, this an Irishman, he's a boatswain's mate. So he's a professional Boson's mates, one of the more kind of professional backbone of real like tough salts on board. Veteran, veteran sailors probably. And he takes it upon himself to lead a group of men and they're going to kill the captain. And this is obviously a hanging offense. This is mutiny. This is very rare. This is, this is. It shows how intense things have got. And they break in. The stern area of the ship is where the officers sleep. They're separated from rest of the ship's company by Marines, by soldiers at sea for their own safety. So these, these contingencies are planned for, but they get some Dutch courage, they break into the stores, they get drunk on rumors and then they overpower the marine sentry at the captain's door and they stab the captain to death.

[D]

It's such a remarkable moment, isn't it? Because like you say, Dan, it's the extreme situation that has arrived on board that has led them to make this decision. This is, as you say, it's a hanging offense. This is not a decision that's taken lightly.

[C]

No, it's not. And what I don't know about is that what's interesting is that 11 officers are killed on board as well. So I think, think the officers have to make a snap decision at this moment. They know the captain's a nightmare. Some of them were probably picked by. Some of them are probably loyalists. Others have to immediately choose. In the middle of the night, as a drunken crowd of sailors are rampaging the ship, they've thrown the mortally wounded captain overboard.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, they throw him over before he's actually quite dead. Right. Which is just so pretty grim.

[C]

And they have to make an immediate decision because the minute they go, well, they did have a point. They are complicit in High Tree. They're complicit. So they. A lot of them are killed. And you can imagine that would have been heartbreaking, that violence begets violence. And I imagine a lot of them were like, unfortunately, even though I hated that captain, I now have to fight back against these mutineers.

[D]

What I think is interesting in this kind of, as you say, crazed moment, everyone is drunk, everyone's making these snap decisions is the kind of decisions that are made. So I think I right in saying that Casey himself, who is humiliated and made to go down on his knees. That is one of the reasons why this happens in the first place, is spared when the officers are killed. But they kill people like they kill the ship's surgeon. That doesn't seem very smart when you're floating around the Caribbean at this point.

[C]

I just think. I think it's in sign of the intensity and the red mist and the frenzy and the chaos and the misunderstanding. You know, the surgeon comes out of his cabin door with a loaded pistol and noises. I mean, what. You know what?

[A]

It's also transgression, right? Because if it was the captain was the problem and they decide to mutiny against him, getting rid of him is one thing, but then killing the 11 officers starts to transgress again. It's this unwritten and this is fascinating about life at sea at this moment in time. There are written rules very clearly. So. But then there are unwritten rules, and killing those 11 officers is one of the unwritten rules where he starts to go. Nash and his comrades start to go beyond what potentially would be somewhat acceptable based on the. On Piggott's behavior. But we now don't have a captain. So Nash Takes control. What happens next?

[C]

Nash has now taken over control of one of the King's ships and killed the officers on the captain. So he is now going to die if the British Empire get their hands on him again. Most of the crew are now guilty by association. They either were absolutely involved or they didn't fight back against the mutineers because

[D]

there will be an expectation, right, that they should have stood up for the officers and fought back.

[C]

Everyone's got a big problem, but in a way that makes the decision for them. So they just have to sail to the nearest enemy port and hand the King ship over to the enemy, because my enemy's enemy is my friend here. And so they sail into a Spanish port. Imagine that. Spanish could not believe their luck.

[D]

So they sail into Venezuela, which is, as you say, under the control of the Spanish. And the Spanish give the mutineers $25 each in return for this ship, which seems like a pretty miserly amount for the prize that they're handing over and for the risk that is taken and the kind of, I suppose, the punishment that is floating over their heads should they make it home.

[A]

It's also something to be said about the fact that we're talking about mutiny. Right. But they've crossed a barrier again from mutiny now into treason.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

So the crimes are. The death crimes are adding up here. They are not doing themselves any favor. Although I totally appreciate what you're saying, Dan, in terms of my enemy's enemy is my friend. And I will also point out, as the Irishman on the podcast would probably, this is 1797. Nash is Irish. I have a feeling Casey was probably Irish too, based on that name. Pigot's also another very strong Irish name. So I don't know how Irish this is, but 1798 in Ireland is the year of attempted revolution. Turns out to be a failed rebellion. So Irish sentiment in terms of its identity amongst the British. So we talk about this being treason, but if you're Irish, I wonder how that sits with you and where on the treason line you're.

[C]

Yeah, that's a really good point. And that's what they. The British would worry about that all the time. And what they would, that's the great mutinies in British home waters. Yes, they often begin, they're triggered by pay conditions, terms, an officer being a dick. But there's always a terror that once you taste that sweet, sweet revolution, that freedom, you go, yeah. By the way, another thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's when you so called agitators emerge with a more political bent. Go, while we're complaining, should we kind of get some Thomas Paine going in here and say, why do we, why have we got King anyway? You know, so that's the kind of the danger of these moments. And so I'm sure you're right that it begins with this kind of. There's a crisis, but quite. It's easy for these things to take on a dangerously revolutionary or political bent and around Irishness or around class consciousness as well.

[D]

And there is real fear about this. So the Navy do get wind of it. As you would imagine, the news does travel back and there are survivors who don't stay with the Spanish who end up making it back into British held territory. And the narrative that is given back to the British is. I mean, I have a quote here from one of the survivors saying this had been in there, meaning the mutineers. This had been in their minds for months before it happened. So there's a sense that certainly this version of events, that the mutineers meant to do this, that it was this planned thing that was against, you know, King and country, against the might of the British Navy and not a sort of reaction to Piggott in real time in that kind of, you know, the heat of that melting pot that you talked about. Do you think there's a sort of discrepancy there in terms of how that story is being told?

[C]

It's hard. So the people that, the loyalists, if you like, so there's people like the Carpenter who go, well, I never wanted to be part of it. They made me. They made me come along and the minute I got to Spanish territory, I escaped and I made my way back to British territory and they tend to get a kind of. They tend to. And they get a good hearing. I think when they get back, everyone is trying to sort of justify this disaster and trying to kind of wash their own reputations. They were just to come back to. If you get back to Jamaica and you've survived this mutiny and you're back, you don't go, yeah, look, I didn't want to be part of it, but the captain was a real nightmare. So what you're probably more like says, yeah, they're total wrong. And they just totally go, we were. It was all fine. You know, you can understand why some of the survivors are desperate to clean their reputations, get back in British good books, survive, just get on with their lives.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And it's quite easy to throw mutineers under the bus. And if the authorities are like the authorities want to hear that there was just a bunch of bad apples. It's embarrassing for the authorities to hear that there was a sadistic captain who had it coming to him. Even if, by the way, the authorities sort of know that. And there are other examples of collective action that fall probably slightly short of mutiny, where it is the men are not punished quietly. Officers are removed. Like these naval officers. People know what's going on. Admirals have served on ships. They know about all this stuff. They have. It is a gossipy, smallish organization. You know that so and so served with so and so. And he's an absolute knobhead. So. But, but I think in public facing terms, you just want to hear there are a group of naughty, naughty men on board and disrupted the running of His Majesty's vessel. And that's kind of easier to deal with, I think.

[D]

Yeah. I mean, you get that in the famous Mutiny on the Bounty, don't you? That Captain Bligh is kind of crap. He's petty, he's, you know, there are issues. Exactly. And yet the narrative that is told, there is again, it's a selection of badass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Much like the Bounty, though, the mutineers are not going to be allowed to get away with it. Obviously in the case of the Bounty, some of them do escape and found their own colony. Piggott is dead. The mutiny has happened. The mutineers have thrown themselves on the mercy of the Spanish. But they cannot be allowed to be walking around the world having committed this crime against the Navy. There's a bit of a manhunt now, isn't there?

[C]

It's difficult to exaggerate the threat that this, this represents the Navy. If, if crews rise up, take control of naval ships, the most precious, expensive items that His Majesty's government has purchased, and hands it over to the enemy and then flaunt it. That's not. That is not going to work. You cannot allow that. That is an existential threat to the Navy. That's more important, I think, almost. So they launch a massive manhunt. They need to, they, they, the British need to tell their own workforce their own stuff. You will be hunted down and extermin do this and, and indeed we. And we will, cap, if we can. We're going to capture that ship back as well, until the stain on our honor is. Is erased. So there is a sort of enormous manhunt. They're marked men. They disappear. They change names. They go and live in the United, the young, the New Republic, the United States of America. But the British make that a top priority. They are hunted down and indeed they make a top priority to get their hands back. They can't have the Spanish colors flying at the mast of this British ship. That is. Is just humiliating.

[D]

I think it says so much about how much the Navy would not allow this, how much of, as you say, an existential threat. It was right that even in a time of global warfare, when the Navy is engaged in fighting, you know, on all fronts, they're still prepared to give resources to hunting down mutual.

[C]

Well, it shows, doesn't it? Yeah, it shows how important it is. And he is hanged from the rigging of a Royal Navy ship. You know, you couldn't have more a statement of that fleet would have. It's like raising a flag. I mean the fleet would have seen a corpse swinging in the shrouds, they'd have seen him kick, they'd have seen life drain from him and they'd have seen his lifeless corpse hanging up there. And that was deliberate. They wanted the whole fleet. Anyone in harbour would have seen it. And they'd of course told that news would have spread like wildfire through ship's crews over the months and years that followed. And indeed I think about 30, there's just some mid-30s, about 30 something people are recaptured, of which 25 or so are killed. Crews are moving around all the time. Everyone knows each other. There's powerful links. You're coming into harbor, you're drinking with each other. Those stories, people, the Navy need everyone to know what happened to those meetings. Can you imagine when news that mutiny gets to your ship and you're lying in your car at night thinking, I'm on a hot night and off the Spanish Main thinking, is my crew going to come for me? I mean it's very, very destabilizing. You want to be able to focus on the enemy, the weather. There's lots of things that can kill you at sea and you're really load. You're really hoping that on that list is not your own lads because that just makes it intolerable. If you can't trust your own menu, none of this works.

[A]

What I love about this, love Strongwood, is the idea of the mechanism of empire, even at this point. So you're talking about a manhunt that's essentially being operated from mainland Britain, but now is reaching other parts of the globe. And we're talking about, of course print culture here, that this has to spread the word. We're talking about word of mouth, we're talking about other ships Carrying the news of this mutiny and therefore and then resulting treason around the globe with them. And so it tells, it gives this idea of storytelling and how storytelling can knit the Navy together even over those vast distances in this really remarkable way that means that these men are on the run. Talk to us about the recapture of the HMS Hermione then, Dan, because as you say, this is a matter of national pride now. So what are the, the, what's the situation in which that they managed to get this back?

[C]

The Hermione is recaptured off the coast of Venezuela and it's just a classic. It's a cutting out expedition they're called. Oh, very, very gallant and dashing. You have a ship anchored off the coast and you, at night you go in and you kind of clamber aboard, take it by stealth under the guns of the enemy, you know, enemy forts. You cut the anchor cable and you sail it back out. And it's a classic French Revolutionary War and Napoleonic War Royal Navy operation.

[D]

Someone needs to make a film of hos wyony.

[C]

They do actually.

[D]

How has this not been done yet? This is so cinematic film featuring us

[C]

where the establishment Royal Navy wins at the classic Hollywood. I can see that falling over themselves to make that happen. The heroic Irish Mutiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

You know, they've done a spinner.

[D]

Oh dear. Yeah, maybe not. What do you think the legacy of this mutiny is? Because we, we have, you know, a handful of really famous mutiny stories in this period and know how important discipline is to the British Navy, the extent to which they're prepared to go to meet up punishment and to warn people off doing this in the future. What's the legacy of this particular case?

[C]

Well, the immediate legacy, yes, is that the British Empire asserts itself and control and it leaves no ambiguity around what will happen to people that do this. But there's a longer, more subtle legacy, which is these people are not monsters. And they realize that to have an effective Royal Navy you can't rule by fear. There has to be that. Those contracts have to be observed. You know, you are only as good as your crew who will sail and fight the ship. You are asking them to risk their lives on a daily basis, sometimes to storm ashore an enemy ship following you. You know, Nelson didn't ever look around, check if men were following him when he, when he, on Valentine's Day at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, when he attacks not one but two Spanish ships, he just leads as many knows they're behind him because he looks after them. He's Nelson's Letters are full of discussions of food and water and cleanliness of his ships. You know, so. So I think the longer term is that you do see a real discussion around flogging. This is part of that. Within a generation or two flogging will be ruled out of Royal Navy ships. Even corporal punishment under flogging. So starting there was a sort of knotted little rope that some people had just whack people occasionally as they go past, which as a parent I must

[D]

say I started quite thumped it up.

[C]

I do not do that. But I can understand why it might have been a useful kind of crowd control mechanism. And. And so things like that become. There's more regulations put in until inevitably that's kind of phased out as well. So I think yes, the short term consequence is smash. They are crushed. This is the Royal Navy making statement. But long term the Navy are learning and thinking and discussing with like this. We can't let sadists do this to the men. And there's a sort of jet, there's a, there's a slower decades long shot shift.

[A]

I want to, as a kind of a reflection over the last two episodes that we've done together, Dan just talk a little bit about Captain Anson again now. So this is from the previous episode we did with Dan where we asked was it the most disastrous Royal Navy expedition that had ever happened. And actually what's more remarkable now that we've spoken about Piggott and the fallout of that is actually how incredibly gifted a Captain Anson must have been given the conditions that that fleet endured to hold those men together. Because that's all disaster. Well on the surface of it that looks disastrous too. We have scurvy, we have storms, we have all of this. But they stick with him and they come those who are left alive, not many in the end, but 180, whatever it is. But they come back with him and he has another fleet. As you say, that's again very successful. I think it might be be really easy in some ways if you just center the heroism of these men to go oh, swashbuckling, blah blah, blah. But actually the psychology behind somebody that's Anson successful and the interpersonal skills that he has to have and you're talking about Nelson and talking about provisions. Actually what it comes down to is that you're a bloody good administrator in some capacity.

[C]

Anson was one of the greatest administrators the Navy has ever had. He in as he in the Seven Years War, he transforms the supply of ships at sea, the health and welfare of the men and he's doing that? Yes. I think they're doing that because there is a sense that it's sort of the right thing to do to keep men alive under your command. But of course, they're also doing that because that is your greatest resource. You can more effectively take the fight to the French if your men are healthy, if they've got some energy in them, if they're having a decent diet, if they're. They're not coughing up blood in the scuppers. So the Royal Navy, its reputation is of a kind of violent, tyrannical organization, but it wouldn't have been as effective if that was true. And there are hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of ships and many of them get into the most unimaginable scrapes. Terrible examples throughout history. And 99% of the time the crew do not rise up and kill their officers. 99% of the time they work together and get themselves out of that scrape. And that is really, really very striking.

[D]

Dan, thank you so much for sharing this history with us. If you are out there and you're a filmmaker and you want to make the film of Hosmione, get in touch. We will, you know, maybe rewrite some of the histories.

[A]

Oh, I don't have time. You can. I have enough time.

[D]

I'll do it. Yeah, yeah. Get in touch with me. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to be in touch, if you want to suggest more ship histories to us, then you can do [e-mail] See you next time.

[B]

Yeah, Maxing is so maxing right now, bro. Get ready for spicy chicken maxing because Carl's Jr. Is saving you big with a 5.99 max stout double stack. Double stack. Double stack spicy chicken sandwich. Seriously, just 5.99 double stack spicy chicken. This is unreal value in the bromosphere. The new spicy chicken Max wallet friendly Max Tasty only at Carl's Jr available for a limited time at participating restaurants. Tax on included. Not valid for use within a combo or in combination with any other offered discount.

[C]

So good, so good, so good. New markdowns up to 70% off are at Nordstrom rack stores. Now stock up and save big on shoes, shoes, tops, dresses, accessories and more must haves for summer. Join the NordicLub to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.