In the present case, however, most of the prisoners had surrendered themselves; many of them had taken no active part in the mutiny; and others had been forcibly compelled to remain in the ship.  It was not likely, therefore, that any danger could arise from indulging them occasionally, and in turns, with a few hours of fresh air on deck.  As little danger was there of their escaping; where indeed could they escape to—­especially when the ship was going down, at a great distance from any shore, and the nearest one known to be inhabited by savages?  All or most of them were desirous of getting home, and throwing themselves on God and their country.  The captain, however, had no ‘compunctious visitings of nature’ to shake his purpose, which seems to have been, to keep them strictly in irons during the whole passage, and to deliver them over in that state on his arrival in England.

Perhaps the circumstance of the crime of piracy, being superadded to that of mutiny, may have operated on his stern nature, and induced him to inflict a greater severity of punishment than he might otherwise have done, and which he certainly did far beyond the letter and spirit of his instructions.  He might have considered that, in all ages and among all nations, with the exception of some of the Greek states,[18] piracy has been held in the utmost abhorrence, and those guilty of it treated with singular and barbarous severity; and that the most sanguinary laws were established for the protection of person and property in maritime adventure.  The laws of Oleron, which were composed under the immediate direction of our Richard I., and became the common usage among maritime states, whose vessels passed through British seas, are conceived in a spirit of the most barbarous cruelty.[19] Thus, if a poor pilot, through ignorance, lost the vessel, he was either required to make full satisfaction to the merchant for damages sustained, or to lose his head.  In the case of wrecks, where the lord of the coast (something like our present vice-admiral) should be found to be in league with the pilots, and run the ships on rocks, in order to get salvage, the said lord, the salvers, and all concerned, are declared to be accursed and excommunicated, and punished as thieves and robbers; and the pilot condemned to be hanged upon a high gibbet, which is to abide and remain to succeeding ages, on the place where erected, as a visible caution to other ships sailing thereby.  Nor was the fate of the lord of the coast less severe,—­his property was to be confiscated, and himself fastened to a post in the midst of his own mansion, which being fired at the four corners, were all to be burned together; the walls thereof demolished; and the spot on which it stood be converted into a market-place, for the sale only of hogs and swine, to all posterity.

These and many other barbarous usages were transferred into the institutions of Wisbuy, which formed the jus mercatorum for a long period, and in which great care was taken for the security of ships against their crews.  Among other articles are the following.—­Whoever draws a sword upon the master of a vessel, or wilfully falsifies the compass, shall have his right hand nailed to the mast.—­Whoever behaves riotously shall be punished by being keel-hauled.—­Whoever is guilty of rebellion (or mutiny) shall be thrown overboard.