The Court was then opened and audience admitted, and sentence passed accordingly.

CHAPTER VII

THE KING’S WARRANT

           Well, believe this—­
     No ceremony that to great ones ’longs,
     Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,
     The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
     Become them with one half so good a grace,
     As mercy does.

It was a very common feeling that Heywood and Morrison, the former in particular, had been hardly dealt with by the Court in passing upon them a sentence of death, tempered as it was with the recommendation to the king’s mercy.  It should, however, have been recollected, that the Court had no discretional power to pass any other sentence but that, or a full acquittal.  But earnestly, no doubt, as the Court was disposed towards the latter alternative, it could not, consistently with the rules and feelings of the service, be adopted.  It is not enough in cases of mutiny (and this case was aggravated by the piratical seizure of a king’s ship) that the officers and men in his Majesty’s naval service should take no active part;—­to be neutral or passive is considered as tantamount to aiding and abetting.  Besides, in the present case, the remaining in the ship along with the mutineers, without having recourse to such means as offered of leaving her, presumes a voluntary adhesion to the criminal party.  The only fault of Heywood, and a pardonable one on account of his youth and inexperience, was his not asking Christian to be allowed to go with his captain,—­his not trying to go in time.  M’Intosh, Norman, Byrne, and Coleman were acquitted because they expressed a strong desire to go, but were forced to remain.  This was not only clearly proved, but they were in possession of written testimonies from Bligh to that effect; and so would Heywood have had, but for some prejudice Bligh had taken against him, in the course of the boat-voyage home, for it will be shown that he knew he was confined to his berth below.

In favour of three of the four men condemned without a recommendation, there were unhappily no palliating circumstances.  Millward, Burkitt, and Ellison were under arms from first to last; and Ellison not only left the helm to take up arms, but, rushing aft towards Bligh, called out, ‘D—­n him, I’ll be sentry over him.’  The fourth man, Muspratt, was condemned on the evidence of Lieutenant Hayward, which, however, appears to have been duly appreciated by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and in consequence of which the poor man escaped an ignominious death.