CHAEL BYRNE }

In all fourteen. The other two, which made up the sixteen that had been
left on the island, were murdered, as will appear presently.

Captain Edwards will himself explain how he disposed of his prisoners.
'I put the pirates,' he says, 'into a round-house which I built on the
after part of the quarter-deck, for their more effectual security in
this airy and healthy situation, and to separate them from, and to
prevent their having communication with, or to crowd and incommode, the
ship's company.' Dr. Hamilton calls it the most desirable place in the
ship, and adds, that 'orders were given that the prisoners should be
victualled, in every respect, the same as the ship's company, both in
meat, liquor, and all the extra indulgences with which they were so
liberally supplied, notwithstanding the established laws of the service,
which restrict prisoners to two-thirds allowance; but Captain Edwards
very humanely commiserated their unhappy and inevitable length of
confinement.' Mr. Morrison, one of the prisoners, gives a very different
account of their treatment from that of Edwards or Hamilton. He says
that Captain Edwards put both legs of the two midshipmen in irons, and
that he branded them with the opprobrious epithet of 'piratical
villains': that they, with the rest, being strongly handcuffed, were put
into a kind of round-house only eleven feet long, built as a prison, and
aptly named '_Pandora's_ Box,' which was entered by a scuttle in the
roof, about eighteen inches square. This was done in order that they
might be kept separate from the crew, and also the more effectually to
prevent them from having any communication with the natives; that such
of those friendly creatures as ventured to look pitifully towards them
were instantly turned out of the ship, and never again allowed to come
on board. But two sentinels were kept constantly upon the roof of the
prison, with orders to shoot the first of its inmates who should attempt
to address another in the Otaheitan dialect.

That Captain Edwards took every precaution to keep his prisoners in safe
custody, and place them in confinement, as by his instructions he was
directed to do, may be well imagined,[14] but Mr. Morrison will
probably be thought to go somewhat beyond credibility in stating that
orders were given 'to _shoot_ any of the prisoners,' when confined in
irons. Captain Edwards must have known that such an act would have cost
him his commission