Rodger's study opens with an Admiralty order responding to dissension and mutiny aboard HMS Sunderland. The order separates the captain from his company, places the ship under another captain, and warns a lieutenant that renewed disorder will be blamed on him. A captain who settled a mutiny aboard ship could keep it from reaching the Admiralty. Another account describes a lieutenant publicly disputing his captain on the quarterdeck, showing why discipline depended on how an officer expressed disagreement as well as on the captain's authority.
Chapter · 0:54-2:36
Mutiny and officer discipline in the Age of Sail
N. A. M. Rodger's Command of the Ocean uses HMS Sunderland and a captain-lieutenant clash to show how discipline problems moved between shipboard authority and Admiralty intervention.