of the captain's speaking to me, it follows, of course, that if I did not hear him speak, there could be no crime in my laughing. It may, however, very fairly be asked, why Mr. Hallet did not make known that the captain was calling to me? His duty to the captain, if not his friendship for me, should have prompted him to it; and the peculiarity of our situation required this act of kindness at his hands.* I shall only observe further upon this head, that the boatswain, the carpenter, and Mr. Hayward, who saw more of me than any other of the witnesses, did say in their evidence that I had rather a sorrowful countenance on the day of the mutiny.

"Fourth. That I remained on board the ship instead of going in the boat with the captain.-That I was at first alarmed and afraid of going into the boat I will not pretend to deny; but that afterward I wished to accompany the captain, and should have done it, if I had not been prevented by Thompson, who confined me below by the order of Churchill, is clearly proved by the evidence of several of the witnesses. The boatswain says, that just before he left the ship I went below, and in passing him said something about a bag-(it was, that I would put a few things into a bag and follow him); the carpenter says he saw me go below at this time; and both those wit

* Captain Bligh states in his journal, that none of his officers were suffered to come near him while held a prisoner by Christian; and Hallet was, no doubt, mistaken, but he had probably said it in the boat, and thought it right to be consistent on the trial.

It has been said that Hallet, when in the Penelope, in which frigate he died, expressed great regret at the evidence he had given at the courtmartial, and frequently alluded to it, admitting that he might have been mistaken.-There can be very little doubt that he was so. But the editor has ascertained from personal inquiry of one of the most distinguished flag-officers in the service, who was then first lieutenant of the Penelope, that Hallet frequently expressed to him his deep contrition for having given in evidence what on subsequent reflection he was convinced to be incorrect; that he ascribed it to the state of confusion in which his mind was when under examination before the court; and that he had since satisfied himself that, owing to the general alarm and confusion during the mutiny, he must have confounded Heywood with some other person.

U

nesses say, that they heard the master-at-arms call to Thompson to keep them below." The point, therefore, will be to prove to whom this order, "keep them below," would apply. The boatswain and car penter say, they have no doubt of its meaning me as one; and that it must have been so, I shall have very little difficulty in showing, by the following statement:

"There remained on board the ship after the boat put off twenty-five men. Messrs. Hayward and Hallet have proved that the following were under arms :-Christian, Hillbrant, Millward, Burkitt, Muspratt, Ellison, Sumner, Smith, Young, Skinner, Churchill, M'Koy, Quintal, Morrison, Williams, Thompson, Mills, and Brown,-in all eighteen. The master (and upon this occasion I may be allowed to quote from the captain's printed narrative) mentions Martin as one, which makes the number of armed men nineteen, none of whom we may reasonably suppose, were ordered to be kept below. Indeed, Mr. Hayward says that there were at the least eighteen of them upon deck when he went into the boat; and if Thompson, the sentinel over the arm-chest, be added to them, it exactly agrees with the number above named; there remains then six to whom Churchill's order, "keep them below," might apply, namely, Heywood, Stewart, Coleman, Norman, M'Intosh, and Byrne.

"Could Byrne have been one of them? No, for he was in the cutter alongside.-Could Coleman have been one of them? No, for he was at the gangway when the captain and officers went into the launch, and aft upon the taffrail when the boat was veered astern.-Could Norman have been one of them? No, for he was speaking to the officers.→ Could M'Intosh have been one of them? No, for he was with Coleman and Norman, desiring the captain and officers to take notice that they were not concerned in the mutiny. It could then have

applied to nobody but to Mr. Stewart and myself; and by this order of Churchill, therefore, was I prevented from going with the captain in the boat.

"The foregoing appear to me the most material points of evidence on the part of the prosecution. My defence being very full, and the body of evidence in my favour too great to admit of observation in this concise manner, I shall refer for an opinion thereon to the minutes of the court-martial.

6

(Signed)

"P. HEYWOOD."

There is a note in Marshall's Naval Biography,* furnished by Captain Heywood, which shows one motive for keeping him and Stewart in the ship. It is as follows:-"Mr. Stewart was no sooner released than he demanded of Christian the reason of his detention; upon which the latter denied having given any directions to that effect; and his assertion was corroborated by Churchill, who declared that he had kept both him and Mr. Heywood below, knowing it was their intention to go away with Bligh; in which case,' added he, what would become of us, if any thing should happen to you; who is there but yourself and them to depend upon in navigating the ship?" It may be suspected, however, that neither Christian nor Churchill told the exact truth, and that Mr. Heywood's case is, in point of fact, much stronger than he ever could have imagined; and that if Bligh had not acted the part of a prejudiced and unfair man towards him, he would have been acquitted by the court on the same ground that Coleman, Norman, M'Intosh, and Byrne were, namely, that they were detained in the ship against their will, as stated by Bligh in the narrative on which they were tried, and also in his printed report. It has before been observed, that many things are set down in Bligh's original manuscript

* Vol. ii. p. 778.

journal, that have not appeared in any published document; and on this part of the subject there is, in the former, the following very important admission. "As for the officers whose cabins were in the cockpit, there was no relief for them; they endeavoured to come to my assistance, but were not allowed to put their heads above the hatchway." Το say, therefore, that in the suppression of this passage Bligh acted with prejudice and unfairness is to make use of mild terms; it has more the appearance of a deliberate act of malice, by which two innocent men might have been condemned to suffer an ignominious death, one of whom was actually brought into this predicament;-the other only escaped it by a premature death. It may be asked, how did Bligh know that Stewart and Heywood endeavoured, but were not allowed, to come to his assistance? Confined as he was on the quarter-deck, how could he know what was going on below? The answer is, he must have known it from Christian himself; Churchill, no doubt, acted entirely by his leader's orders, and the latter could give no orders that were not heard by Bligh, whom he never left but held the cord by which his hands were fettered till he was forced into the boat. Churchill was quite right as to the motive of keeping these young officers; but Christian had no doubt another and a stronger motive: he knew how necessary it was to interpose a sort of barrier between himself and his mutinous gang; he was too good an adept not to know that seamen will always pay a more ready and cheerful obedience to officers who are gentlemen, than to those who may have risen to command from among themselves. It is indeed a common observation in the service, that officers who have risen from before the mast are generally the greatest tyrants.* It was

* Some few captains were in the habit of turning over a delinquent to be tried by their messmates, and when found guilty it invariably

Bligh's misfortune not to have been educated in the cockpit of a man of war, among young gentlemen, which is to the navy what a public school is to those who are to move in civil society. What painful sufferings to the individual, and how much misery to an affectionate family might have been spared, had Bligh, instead of suppressing, only suffered the passage to stand as originally written in his journal!

The remarks of young Heywood above recited were received and transmitted by his sister Nessy in a letter to the Earl of Chatham, then first lord of the Admiralty, of which the following is a copy:—

"Great Russell-Street, 11th Oct. 1792.

"My Lord,

"To a nobleman of your lordship's known humanity and excellence of heart I dare hope that the unfortunate cannot plead in vain. Deeply impressed as I therefore am with sentiments of the most profound respect for a character which I have been ever taught to revere, and alas! nearly interested as I must be in the subject of these lines, may I request your lordship will generously pardon a sorrowful and mourning sister for presuming to offer the enclosed [remarks] for your candid perusal. It contains a few observations made by my most unfortunate and tenderly beloved brother, Peter Heywood, endeavouring to elucidate some parts of the evidence given at the court-martial lately held at Portsmouth upon himself and other prisoners of his majesty's ship Bounty. When I assure you, my lord, that he is dearer and more precious to me than any object on earth-nay, infinitely more valuable than life itself—that, deprived of him, the word

happened that the punishment inflicted was doubly severe to what it would have been in the ordinary way. This practice, which, as giving a deliberative voice to the ship's company, was highly reprehensible, it is to be hoped, has entirely ceased.