'A vivid account of a forgotten chapter of British naval history.' Dan Snow, Historian, TV Presenter and Broadcaster The true story of one of the most notorious mutinies in naval history, which provided inspiration for Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin and C.S. Forester's Hornblower novels. In 1797 the 32-gun Royal Navy frigate HMS Hermione was serving in the Caribbean, at the forefront of Britain's bitter sea war against Spain and Revolutionary France. Its commander, the sadistic and mercurial Captain Hugh Pigot ruled through terror, flogging his men mercilessly and pushing them beyond the limits of human endurance. On the night of 21 September 1797, past breaking point and drunk on stolen rum, the crew rebelled, slaughtering Pigot and nine of his officers in the bloodiest mutiny in the history of the Royal Navy. Handing the ship over to the Spanish, the crew fled, sparking a manhunt that would last a decade. Seeking to wipe clean this stain on its name, the Royal Navy pursued the traitorous mutineers relentlessly, hunting them across the globe, and, in 1801, seized the chance to recover its lost ship in one of the most daring raids of the Age of Fighting Sail. Anchored in a heavily fortified Venezuelan harbour, the Hermione – now known as the Santa Cecilia – was retaken in a bold night-time action, stolen out from under the Spanish guns. Back in British hands, the Hermione was renamed once more – its new identity a stark warning to would-be mutineers: Retribution. Drawing on letters, reports, ships' logs, and memoirs of the period, as well as previously unpublished Spanish sources, Angus Konstam intertwines extensive research with a fast-paced but balanced account to create a fascinating retelling of one of the most notorious events in the history of the Royal Navy, and its extraordinary, wide-ranging aftermath.

Mutiny on the Spanish Main tells the dramatic story of HMS Hermione, a British frigate which, in 1797, was the site of the bloodiest mutiny in British naval history, which saw the death of her captain and many of her officers. Though her crew handed her over to the Spanish, Hermione was subsequently recaptured in a daring raid on a Caribbean port two years later. Drawing on letters, reports, ship's logs, and memoirs of the period, as well as previously unpublished Spanish sources, Angus Konstam intertwines extensive research with a fast-paced but balanced account of the mutiny and its consequences.

For Ireland, the year 1798 saw a major rebellion breaking out against rule from London, a time in which Britain was in its fifth year of a hard-fought war against revolutionary France. Set in motion by the Society of United Irishmen, an underground organization with links to Paris, the rebellion was eventually crushed by an overwhelming force of arms. In this new, dramatic account, Philip MacDougall shines a light on a little covered aspect of this history: the United Irish plot to capture a number of British warships and the planned use of those vessels in support of the rebellion that broke out in 1798. The means by which those ships were to be taken, not by direct external attack but by mutinous intrigue directed from on board, is fully explored. While ships blockading the French port of Brest returned to re-victual in Cawsand Bay, with many of the officers on shore leave, it was an ideal time for the plotting of mutinies. United Irishman alongside English and Scottish republicans could safely mix with those on other ships to develop a unified strategy. This book offers a micro study of how the planned mutiny plot developed and was co-ordinated. Personalities, cliques and idealists are seen as taking leading roles, with attention given to the motivating issues that lay behind those risk takers who knew that failure would result in likely hanging from the yardarm. Based on research from the National Archives, contemporary newspaper reports and the detailed hand written minutes of the courts martial held upon those identified as rebel leaders and some of their supporters (containing the actual words of the people of the lower deck) this is a full and balanced account of the plot which, if successful, would have re-written history.

Parallels mutinies in today's business organizations with the shipboard rebellions of old. 15,000 first printing.

Whenever leadership emerges within a group, there will be resistance to that leadership. Discontent may manifest in a number of ways, and action will always be determined by factors such as resource, numbers, time, space, and the legitimacy of the resistance. What, then, turns discontent into mutiny? Mutiny is often associated with the occasional mis-leadership of the masses by politically inspired hotheads, or a spontaneous and unusually romantic gesture of defiance against a uniquely overbearing military superior. In reality it is seldom either and usually has far more mundane origins, not in the absolute poverty of the subordinates but in the relative poverty of the relationships between leaders and the led in a military situation. The roots of mutiny lie in the leadership skills of a small number of leaders, and what transforms that into a constructive dialogue, or a catastrophic disaster, depends on how the leaders of both sides mobilise their supporters and their networks. Using contemporary leadership theory to cast a critical light on an array of mutinies throughout history, this book suggests we consider mutiny as a permanent possibility that is further encouraged or discouraged in some contexts. From mutinies in ancient Roman and Greek armies to those that toppled the German and Russian states and forced governments to face their own disastrous policies and changed them forever, this book covers an array of cases across land, sea, and air that still pose a threat to military establishments today. The critical theoretical line also puts into sharp relief the assumption that oftentimes people have little choice in how they respond to circumstances not of their own making. If mutineers could choose to resist what they saw as tyranny, then so can we.