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INTRODUCTION |
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excepting the Droits de 1'Homme, seventy-four, which fell in with Sir Edward Pellew, in the Indefatigable, forty-four, and Captain Reynolds in the Amazon, thirty-six, was badly mauled, and wrecked "with all her crew on the coast of France. This engagement, which took place on January 13, 1798, is celebrated in The Amazon Frigate (p. 276). An earlier exploit of Pellew's, the capture of the Cleopatre on June 18, 1793, is also the subject of a ballad (p. 267). The fight between the Pique and the Blanche on June 4, 1795, and that between the Mars and the Hercule, on April 21, 1798, and an action fought by the sloop Arrow in September 1799, are commemorated in the same way (pp. 285, 289).
In the civil history of the navy the great event was the mutiny of 1797, illustrated here by five ballads. The Neil/ Song- about ' the seventeen bright stars ' gives a sailor's history of the origin and progress of the mutiny of the fleet at Spithead, and was evidently written about the end of May (p. 277). British Tars Rewarded expresses the satisfaction of the fleet at the concessions obtained from the Government, and The Genius of Britain shows the sympathy with which the movement was regarded by the Radical politicians of the time (pp. 279, 280). The more dangerous mutiny of the ships at the Nore, which began on May 20 and lasted till about the middle of June, is represented by A New Song on Parker the Delegate and The Death of Parker (pp. 281, 282). The latter is one of the commonest of all ballads relating to the navy, and the frequency with which it was reprinted seems to show that popular feeling was inclined to regard Parker as a hero and a martyr.
The period from the renewal of the war with France in May 1803 to the general peace in 1815
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