een the consequences? Ruin, eternal ruin, to yourselves and to
your families; a disgrace to your country, and the scorn of those
foreigners to whom you proposed delivering up the ship. Thank God you
did not succeed. Let our fate be a warning to you, and endeavour to
show by your future acts your deep contrition for the past. Now, sir,"
turning to the captain, "we are ready."

This beautiful speech from the mouth of a common sailor must as much
astonish the reader as it then did the captain and officers of the
ship. But Strange, as I have shown, was no common man; he had had
the advantage of education, and, like many of the ringleaders at the
mutiny of the Nore, was led into the error of refusing to _obey_, from
the conscious feeling that he was born to _command_.

The arms of the prisoners were then pinioned, and the chaplain led the
way, reading the funeral service; the master-at-arms, with two
marine sentinels, conducted them along the starboard gangway to the
forecastle; here a stage was erected on either side, over the
cathead, with steps to ascend to it; a tail block was attached to the
boom-iron, at the outer extremity of each foreyard-arm, and through
this a rope was rove, one end of which came down to the stage; the
other was led along the yard into the catharpings, and thence down
upon the main-deck. A gun was primed and ready to fire, on the fore
part of the ship, directly beneath the scaffold.

I attended poor Strange to the very last moment; he begged me to see
that the halter, which was a piece of line, like a clothes' line,
was properly made fast round his neck, for he had known men suffer
dreadfully from the want of this precaution. A white cap was placed on
the head of each man, and when both mounted the platform, the cap was
drawn over their eyes. They shook hands with me, with their messmates,
and with the chaplain, assuring him that they died happy, and
confident in the hopes of redemption. They then stood still while the
yard ropes were fixed to the halter by a toggle in the running noose
of the latter; the other end of the yard-ropes were held by some
twenty or thirty men on each side of the main-deck, where two
lieutenants of the ship attended.

All being ready, the captain waved a white handkerchief, the gun
fired, and in an instant the poor fellows were seen swinging at either
yard-arm. They had on blue jackets and white trousers, and were
remarkably fine-looking young men. They did not appea