When the time arrived for executing the mutineers, it was found that preparations had been made to give to their fate the appearance of a triumph.  For it strongly marks the general feeling in the navy during this unhappy period, that the individuals who thus suffered were regarded rather as martyrs than criminals.  Encouraged to hardihood by his mistaken shipmates, generally excited by spirits, and some times even decorated with knots of ribbon, the mutineer went boldly to execution, leaving the spectators less appalled at his fate, than admiring his fearless bearing.  Sir Edward quickly changed this feeling when the prisoners came up to the forecastle.  Addressing a few words, first to the men who had followed him from the Indefatigable, and afterwards to the rest of the crew, “Indefatigables” he said, “stand aside! not one of you shall touch the rope.  But you, who have encouraged your shipmates to the crime by which they have forfeited their lives, it shall be your punishment to hang them!” Quailing before their commander, their false feeling was destroyed in a moment; and as there is no medium between the hardihood and the cowardice of guilt, they felt as he intended, and many of them wept aloud.  Afterwards, there was not in the service a more orderly ship than the Impetueux, or a crew more pleasant to command.

Considerate as he was upon all occasions where human life was concerned, and unwilling to resort to punishment, he was always anxious to make it as impressive as possible, whenever it became necessary to inflict it.  He assisted to try one of the mutineers of the Hermione, whose crew had murdered their officers, and carried the ship into a Spanish port.  This man’s crime was attended with circumstances of peculiar aggravation.  He was coxswain to Captain Pigott, who, savage tyrant as he was in general, and richly deserving of the fate he provoked, had brought him up from a boy, and treated him with much kindness and confidence.  Yet he headed the murderers; and when they broke into the captain’s cabin, and that officer, perceiving their intention, called for his coxswain to protect him, he replied with an opprobrious epithet, “Here I am to despatch you!” He had been entrusted with the captain’s keys; and when the work of blood was over, the officers, even to unoffending midshipmen, being slaughtered, and the murderers were regaling themselves with wine, he told them that he knew where to get them better than what they were drinking.  His crime was fully proved; and the court being cleared, Sir Edward proposed that sentence should be executed immediately.  The circumstances of the case demanded, in his opinion, unusual severity, which might be expected to have a good effect upon the fleet; while there was every reason to conclude, from the prisoner’s demeanour before them, that if delay were allowed, he would meet his fate with a hardihood which would destroy the value of the example.  The court at first