Mariners verge on mutiny, lose 3-1

I’m hearing grumbling below deck, captain

It’s April 1797. Britain’s war with Revolutionary France has just entered its fifth year. Britain’s greatest weapon, its navy, lies at anchor in Spithead near Portsmouth, and The Nore on the Thames estuary. Battered by cold wind and constant rain, the seamen, the “jolly Jack Tars” that protected Britain from French invasion, were planning a mutiny.

Life in the British Navy was miserable for sailors and seamen.