“And with this rebel crew!” cried Beaumont; “think, Mr. Palmer, what a situation he was in, knowing, as he did, that every rascal of them would sooner go to the devil than go home, where they knew they must be tried for their mutiny.”
“Well, sir, well!” said Mr. Palmer. “Did they run away with the ship a second time? or how did he manage?”
He called them all one morning together on deck; and pointing to the place where the gunpowder was kept, he said—‘I have means of blowing up the ship. If ever you attempt to mutiny again, the first finger you lay upon me, I blow her up instantly.’ They had found him to be a man of resolution. They kept to their duty. Not a symptom of disobedience during the rest of the voyage. In their passage they fell in with an enemy’s ship, far superior to them in force. ‘There, my lads!’ said Walsingham, ‘if you have a mind to earn your pardons, there’s your best chance. Take her home with you to your captain and your king.’ A loud cheer was their answer. They fought like devils to redeem themselves. Walsingham—but without stopping to make his panegyric, I need only tell you, that Walsingham’s conduct and intrepidity were this time crowned with success. He took the enemy’s ship, and carried it in triumph into Portsmouth. Jemmison was on the platform when they came in; and what a mortifying sight it was to him, and what a proud hour to Walsingham, you may imagine! Having delivered the Dreadnought and her prize over to his captain, the next thing to be thought of was the trial of the mutineers. All except Jefferies obtained a pardon, in consideration of their return to duty, and their subsequent services. Jefferies was hanged at the yard-arm. The trial of the mutineers brought on, as Jemmison foresaw it must, many animadversions on his own conduct. Powerful connexions, and his friends in place, silenced, as much as possible, the public voice. Jemmison gave excellent dinners, and endeavoured to drown the whole affair in his choice Champagne and London particular Madeira; so his health, and success to the British navy, was drunk in bumper toasts.
“Ay, ay, they think to do every thing now in England by dinners, and bumper toasts, and three times three,” said Mr. Palmer.
“But it did not do in this instance,” said Beaumont, in a tone of exultation: “it did not do.”
“No,” continued Mr. Walsingham; “though Jemmison’s dinners went down vastly well with a party, they did not satisfy the public. The opposition papers grew clamorous, and the business was taken up so strongly, and it raised such a cry against the ministry, that they were obliged to bring Jemmison to a court-martial.”
“The puppy! I’m glad of it, with all my soul. And how did he look then?” said Mr. Palmer.
“Vastly like a gentleman; that was all that even his friends could say for him. The person he was most afraid of on the trial was Walsingham. In this apprehension he was confirmed by certain of his friends, who had attempted to sound Walsingham as to the nature of the evidence he intended to give. They all reported, that they could draw nothing out of him, and that he was an impracticable fellow; for his constant answer was, that his evidence should be given in court, and nowhere else.”
“Even to his most intimate friends,” interrupted Mr. Beaumont, “even to me, who was in the house with him all the time the trial was going on, he did not tell what his evidence would be.”
“When the day of trial came,” pursued Mr. Walsingham——