’But may they not both be mistaken?  Let it be remembered that their long intimacy with Captain Bligh, in whose distresses they were partakers, and whose sufferings were severely felt by them, naturally begot an abhorrence towards those whom they thought the authors of their misery,—­might they not forget that the story had been told to them, and by first of all believing, then constantly thinking of it, be persuaded at last it was a fact within the compass of their own knowledge.

’It is the more natural to believe it is so, from Mr. Hallet’s forgetting what the captain said upon the occasion, which, had he been so collected as he pretends to have been, he certainly must have heard.  Mr. Hayward, also, it is evident, has made a mistake in point of time as to the seeing me with Morrison and Millward upon the booms; for the boatswain and carpenter in their evidence have said, and the concurring testimony of every one supports the fact, that the mutiny had taken place, and the captain was on deck, before they came up, and it was not till after that time that the boatswain called Morrison and Millward out of their hammocks; therefore to have seen me at all upon the booms with those two men, it must have been long after the time that Mr. Hayward has said it was.  Again, Mr. Hayward has said that he could not recollect the day nor even the month when the Pandora arrived at Otaheite.  Neither did Captain Edwards recollect when, on his return, he wrote to the Admiralty, that Michael Byrne had surrendered himself as one of the Bounty’s people, but in that letter he reported him as having been apprehended, which plainly shows that the memory is fallible to a very great degree; and it is a fair conclusion to draw that, if when the mind is at rest, which must have been the case with Mr. Hayward in the Pandora, and things of a few months’ date are difficult to be remembered, it is next to impossible, in the state which every body was on board the Bounty, to remember their particular actions at the distance of three years and a half after they were observed.

’As to the advice he says he gave me, to go into the boat, I can only say, I have a faint recollection of a short conversation with somebody—­I thought it was Mr. Stewart—­but be that as it may, I think I may take upon me to say it was on deck and not below, for on hearing it suggested that I should be deemed guilty if I stayed in the ship, I went down directly, and in passing Mr. Cole, told him, in a low tone of voice, that I would fetch a few necessaries in a bag and follow him into the boat, which at that time I meant to do, but was afterwards prevented.

’Surely I shall not be deemed criminal that I hesitated at getting into a boat whose gunnel, when she left the ship, was not quite eight inches above the surface of the water.