ought to have been preceded by unconditional, and, if necessary, enforced submission.  It was humbling the majesty of the law to negotiate with criminals, and destroying its authority to submit to them.  If the sailors had first been compelled to return to their duty, and their grievances had afterwards been properly investigated and redressed, the whole fleet would have respected the authority which enforced obedience, and received every favour with gratitude.  Nor is there reason to believe that it would have been difficult to bring men to their duty, whose hearts were still sound.  It is most honourable to the character of the country, that respect for the law, and obedience to the constituted authorities, are so much the habit and the principle of Englishmen, that invincible as they are in a good cause, they have always shown themselves cowards in crime.  A few soldiers are sufficient to disperse the largest mob.  The timely decision of an officer has seldom failed to quell the most formidable mutiny.  Timorous as the men are from conscious guilt, uncertain in their plans, and doubtful of the firmness of their companions, the respect involuntarily felt for the noble bearing of a man whom they have always been accustomed to obey, and who in a good cause is standing as it were alone against a multitude, gives a commander all the power he could desire.  But if he would take advantage of this feeling, he must be prompt to assert his authority.  If he waver—­if he allow the men once to feel their strength, and to stand committed to one another—­his influence is gone.  And if Government should stoop to parley with them, it sanctions their proceedings, strengthens their hands by the confession of its own weakness, and raises them from being offenders against the law, to the dignity of injured men, honourably asserting their rights.  Thus, when the Lords of the Admiralty, and the first Admiral of the British navy, received on terms of courtesy criminals whose lives were forfeited, and negotiated with them as with equals—­when the Government submitted to demands which it evidently feared to resist—­and the Parliament hastened to legislate at the bidding of triumphant mutineers, the navy was taught a fatal lesson.  The fleet at the Nore mutinied almost immediately after, without the shadow of a pretext; and the idea of mutiny once become familiar, the crews of the best ordered ships thought little of seeking redress for any real or fancied grievance by resisting the authority of their officers.  Almost every ship on the home station mutinied in the course of the year; and considering bow naturally the first fault leads to more guilty excesses, and how many worthless characters were swept into the navy, disgracing the service by making it the avowed punishment of crime, and corrupting it by their example, nothing can appear more natural than that mutiny should at length display itself in a darker character, and proceed in some unhappy instances to murder and treason.