MUTINIES AT SPITHEAD AND THE NORE.

£4,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington

Nine provincial military broadsides expressing loyalty to the King. Unrecorded by ESTC, these broadsides variously commit to ferreting out sedition, offer rewards for exposing traitors in the ranks, and thank the King for pay increases approved by Parliament on 24 May 1797. Arguments that a foreign-backed disloyal minority are trying to "seduce" a loyal majority betray concern that mutinous feeling could spread quickly through the ranks.Loyalty paid. One broadside offers soldiers in the Oxfordshire Regiment Militia, then stationed in Norfolk, three days' pay for apprehending those who put "scandalous, wicked and seditious handbills" by the entrance to the barracks. In another, the signatories subscribe to a pot of 100 guineas payable to anyone discovering future mutinous activity.a) "To Field-Marshal His Royal Highness the Duke of York … the Humble Address of the Non-commissioned Officers, Trumpeters and Privates of His Majesty's Fourth or Somerset Regiment of Fencible Cavalry …" Undated. 233 x 185 mm, partial watermark of "I Taylor."b) "We, the Non-commissioned Officers, Drummers and Privates of the Shropshire Regiment of Militia, cannot sufficiently express the indignation … William Loader, Serg.Maj. and Pay-Mast. Lieut. Colonel F. Powell's Company…" Head Quarters, Blythe Camp: undated. 321 x 195 mm, watermarked "J. Wickwar 1794".c) "Whereas on Wednesday Evening, the 24th Instant, a Number of most scandalous, wicked and seditious Handbills were put under the Gate of the Bar

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