In his absence the savages were encouraged to attack the ship in their war-canoes; but were repulsed by a sharp musketry-fire opened upon them by the remainder of the crew, who, losing heart by the protracted absence of the captain, quitted his fatal harbour, and sailed for the Thames, which they reached in safety.
Meanwhile the unfortunate captain, after landing on one of the Canaries, presented a petition to the Spanish governor to the effect that he might be permitted to purchase food; but that officer, inflamed by national animosity, cruelly threw him into a dark and damp dungeon, and kept him there without pen, ink, or paper, on the accusation that he was a spy. Being thus utterly without means of making his case known, he contrived another way of communicating with the external world. One account has it that he concealed a pencilled note in a loaf of bread which fell into the hands of the British consul; another states that he wrote with a piece of charcoal on a ship-biscuit and sent it to the captain of a British man-of-war that was lying off the island, and who with much difficulty, and after being imprisoned himself, effected the release of Glass. The latter, on being joined by his wife and daughter, who had come in search of him, set sail for England in 1765, on board the merchant brig Earl of Sandwich, Captain Cochrane.
Glass doubtless supposed his troubles were now over; but the knowledge that much of his property and a great amount of specie, one hundred thousand pounds, belonging to others, was on board, induced four of the crew to form a conspiracy to murder every one else and seize the ship. These mutineers were respectively George Gidly, the cook, a native of the west of England; Peter M'Kulie, an Irishman; Andrew Zekerman, a Hollander; and Richard H. Quintin, a Londoner. On three different nights they are stated to have made the attempt, but were baffled by the vigilance of Captain Glass, rather than that of his country man, Captain Cochrane; but at eleven o'clock at night on the 30th of September, 1765, it chanced, as shown at their trial, that these four miscreants had together the watch on deck, when the Sandwich was already in sight of the coast of Ireland; and when Captain Cochrane, after taking a survey aloft, was about to return to the cabin, Peter M'Kulie brained him with "an iron bar" (probably a marline-spike), and threw him overboard.
A cry that had escaped Cochrane alarmed the rest of the crew, who were all dispatched in the same manner as they rushed on deck in succession. This slaughter and the din it occasioned, roused Captain Glass, who was below in bed; but he soon discovered what was occurring, and, after giving one glance on deck, hurried away to get his sword. M'Kulie, imagining the cause of his going back, went down the steps leading to the cabin, and stood in the dark, expecting Glass's return, and suddenly seized his arms from behind; but the captain, being a man of great strength, wrenched his sword-arm free, and on being assailed by the three other assassins, plunged his weapon into the arm of Zekerman, when the blade became wedged or entangled. It was at length wrenched forth, and Glass was slain by repeated stabs of his own weapon, while his dying cries were heard by his wife and daughter—two unhappy beings who were ruthlessly thrown overboard and drowned.
Besides these four victims, James Pincent, the mate, and three others, lost their lives. The mutineers now loaded one of the boats with the money, chests, and so forth, and then scuttled the Sandwich, and landed at Ross on the coast of Ireland. But suspicion speedily attached to them; they were apprehended, and, confessing the crimes of which they had been guilty, were tried before the Court of King's Bench, Dublin, and sentenced to death. They were accordingly executed in St. Stephen's Green, on the 10th of October, 1765.
THE STORY OF RENÉE OF ANGERS.
Though it occurred so long ago as the time of Henry IV. of France, the story we are about to relate formed one of the most remarkable causes célèbres before the Parliament of Paris, when Renée Corbeau, a young demoiselle of Angers, in Normandy, by her eloquence in a court of justice, and by her singular self-sacrifice, saved the life of a false and dastardly lover, to whom she was devotedly attached.
In the year 1594, when Henry IV., justly surnamed the Great (though his passions betrayed him into errors and involved him in difficulties), was on the throne of France, a young man named M. Pousset, a native of Tees, an old episcopal city of Normandy, was studying the Civil and Canon Law at the University of Angers, in those days a famous seat of learning. While thus engaged, M. Pousset was introduced to Mademoiselle Renée Corbeau, the daughter of a citizen. She is described as having been a girl of great beauty of person and with great modesty of manner, though witty and lively in spirit, folatré et caressante, and full of nameless graces. Everyone loved and admired Renée, and when but a youth Pousset sighed for her. He soon learned to love her passionately, and we are told "that he no longer lived but to see and converse with her."
She in turn became deeply attached to Pousset, who proposed marriage, and gave her, in writing, a document to that effect, though her parents were in circumstances so limited that he dared not consult his own (who were people of wealth, rank, and ambition) on this important subject. So the lovers dreamed on, and on the faith of the written promise, Renée, it would appear, yielded too far, and fell, as her mother Eve fell before her; and then repentance came when too late.