Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1795 to 1872, Volume 1 (4th ed, 1915).djvu/68

44 Tremendous, and the mutineers were informed by proclamation that if they did not return to duty and send the ringleaders ashore within two hours from the discharge of a signal gun, fire would be opened upon them. The crews of the three ships then surrendered and gave up the ringleaders to the number of twenty-two, who were placed in confinement in the castle.

The Crescent arrived in Table Bay on the 16th of October, but anchored off Robben Island on account of an outbreak of small pox on board a Spanish prize with slaves from Mozambique, which she had captured. On the 9th of November, just as the last-named disturbances were quelled, her crew mutinied and set some obnoxious officers ashore on the island. A delegate was then sent to the admiral, but was at once seized and committed to prison. The Jupiter was despatched to bring the Crescent up to the anchorage before the Amsterdam battery, where one hour was given to her crew to send the ringleaders ashore. They gave up six, and the mutiny was ended.

Captain Stephens was honourably acquitted by the court martial of the charges brought against him, and then followed the trials of the leading mutineers. On the 21st of November Philip James, seaman of the Tremendous, and Daniel Chapman, seaman of the Sceptre, were sentenced to death under the nineteenth article of war, which forbade making a mutinous assembly on any pretence whatsoever, and were hanged at the yard arms on the 23rd. On the 5th of December Richard Foot and James Reese, seamen of the Tremendous, were sentenced to death, and were executed on the 24th. Three others received severe punishments, but had their lives spared, and the remainder of the mutineers were admitted to mercy.

In an account of these occurrences quoted by Sir John Barrow, Lord Macartney wrote that "from the most minute investigation of the second mutiny he could not discover that there was the shadow of a grievance to be