Handy, who had a wife and child on board, immediately ran down to her, and fainted in her arms, which presented a most affecting scene. The tear of thankfulness and joy adorned the cheeks of the hardy tars; and Lawson addressing the clergyman, said, “I am afraid I shall never again be so well prepared for eternity.”
At a quarter past eleven, the signal for the execution of the remainder was made, by firing a gun, when Michael Cox, Robert M’Laurin, John Sullivan, Martin Ealey, and William Morrison, were launched into eternity. After hanging the usual time, their bodies were sent on shore, to the agent at sick quarters, for interment.
These unhappy men suffered for a mutiny on board the Defiance, then in Leith roads, in the month of October last.
Portsmouth, March 16th, 1796.
The following is the sentence passed yesterday at Portsmouth, on Captain Thomas Affleck, late of the Amethyst frigate, for the loss of that ship: “That the loss of His Majesty’s ship Amethyst was occasioned by her striking on a rock near the island of Guernsey, and by a hole being thereby beaten in her bottom; and that the same was attributable to the misconduct of the said captain, Thomas Affleck; and the court do adjudge him to be reduced from his rank on the list of post captains to the bottom of the said list, and to be incapable of being again employed in His Majesty’s naval service for the remainder of his life; and the court further agree, that the loss of the said ship was not attributable to any misconduct in any other of the officers or company of the said ship, and do adjudge them to be acquitted.”
W. Parker, Printer, Portsmouth and Gosport.