The plot was thus entirely disconcerted; for the crews of the other ships, who knew nothing of the attempt and its failure, but waited for the example of the Impetueux, followed her when she obeyed the Admiral’s signal.  On the 1st of June, Lord Bridport, who had now learned the course taken by the French fleet, sent off Sir Alan Gardner with sixteen sail, of which the Impetueux was one, as a reinforcement for Earl St. Vincent in the Mediterranean.  His orders on this occasion were promptly attended to; and no other attempt was made by any of the crews to resist the authority of their officers.

The Impetueux being now for a short time under Earl St. Vincent’s command, Sir Edward took the earliest opportunity to enforce the application for a court-martial, which he had previously made to Sir Charles Cotton.  The Earl, upon inquiry, was so startled at the magnitude of the plot, that he thought it better, as the mutiny had been so promptly suppressed, to conceal it altogether.  Sir Edward differed from him entirely.  He considered that the worst effects would follow, if the men were allowed to think that their officers feared to punish the ringleaders in such a conspiracy; and as the Earl, who was on the point of resigning the command from ill-health, appeared still reluctant, he decided the question by declaring that if the court-martial were not granted, he should immediately go on shore.  Accordingly, it was held on board the Prince, in Port Mahon, on the 19th and 20th of June, when three of the ringleaders received sentence of death.  One of them, after his condemnation, disclosed all the history and circumstances of the plot; and this, added to the consideration of his previous good character, to which Sir Edward had borne a strong testimony on the court-martial, made his captain think him a proper subject for mercy.  But upon this point, Earl St. Vincent was inflexible.  “I am glad of it,” he said, when Sir Edward spoke favourably of the prisoner’s former conduct; “those who have hitherto suffered had been so worthless before, that their fate was of little use as an example.  I shall now convince the fleet that no character will save the man who is guilty of mutiny.”  May there never be a recurrance of such unhappy times as shall make it the duty of an officer to act upon this stern principle!

The circumstances were concealed from the country, and the rest of the fleet, as effectually as if the court-martial had never been held.  The distant and retired harbour where the mutiny occurred; the quietness with which it was suppressed; the holding of the court-martial abroad; the frequency of aggravated mutinies within the preceding two years; the magnitude of the political occurrences at that period; and the anxiety felt at the movements of the enemy’s fleet, probably the largest they ever had at sea, for it numbered, with the Spaniards, forty sail of the line, all concurred to prevent it from becoming an object of public attention.  But Earl St. Vincent appreciated Sir Edward’s conduct very highly.  “Your brother,” he once said to Mr. Pellew, “is an excellent and valuable officer, but the most important service he ever rendered to his country was saving the British fleet in Bantry Bay.  We know that it was the intention to burn the ships, and join the rebels on shore.”