think the end will be? Have you heard what happened at Spithead? The
seamen chivvied Admiral Alan Gardner and his colleagues aboard a ship.
He caught hold of a seaman Delegate by the collar and shook him. They
closed in on him. They handled him roughly. He sprang on the hammock-
nettings, put the noose of the hanging-rope round his neck, and said to
the men who advanced menacingly:

"'If you will return to your duty, you may hang me at the yard-arm!'

"That's the kind of stuff our admirals are made of. We have no quarrel
with the majority of our officers. They're straight, they're honest, and
they're true to their game. Our quarrel is with Parliament and the
Admiralty; our struggle is with the people of the kingdom, who have not
seen to it that our wrongs are put right, that we have food to eat, water
to drink, and money to spend."

He waved a hand, as though to sweep away the criticisms he felt must be
rising against him.

"Don't think because I've spent four years in prison under the sternest
discipline the world offers, and have never been a seaman before, that
I'm not fitted to espouse your cause. By heaven, I am--I am--I am--
I know the wrongs you've suffered. I've smelled the water you drink.
I've tasted the rotten meat. I've seen the honest seaman who has been
for years upon the main--I've seen the scars upon his back got from a
brutal officer who gave him too big a job to do, and flogged him for not
doing it. I know of men who, fevered with bad food, have fallen, from
the mainmast-head, or have slipped overboard, glad to go, because of the
wrongs they'd suffered.