l my actions (except in neglecting
to do what, if I had done, must have endangered the lives of
those who were so fortunate as to quit the ship) I showed
myself faithful to the last moment of the captain's stay, what
is there to leave a doubt in the minds of impartial and
dispassionate men of my being perfectly innocent? Happy indeed
should I have been if the master had stayed on board, which he
probably would have done, if his reasons for wishing to do so
had not been overheard by the man who was in the bread-room.

'Captain Bligh in his narrative acknowledges that he had left
some friends on board the _Bounty_, and no part of my conduct
could have induced him to believe that I ought not to be
reckoned of the number. Indeed from his attention to and very
kind treatment of me personally, I should have been a monster
of depravity to have betrayed him. The idea alone is
sufficient to disturb a mind where humanity and gratitude
have, I hope, ever been noticed as its characteristic
features; and yet Mr. Hallet has said that he saw me laugh at
a time when, Heaven knows, the conflict in my own mind,
independent of the captain's situation, rendered such a want
of decency impossible. The charge in its nature is dreadful,
but I boldly declare, notwithstanding an internal conviction
of my innocence has enabled me to endure my sufferings for the
last sixteen months, could I have laid to my heart so heavy
an accusation, I should not have lived to defend myself from
it. And this brings to my recollection another part of Captain
Bligh's narrative, in which he says, "I was kept apart from
every one, and all I could do was by speaking to them in
general, but my endeavours were of no avail, for I was kept
securely bound, and no one but the guard was suffered to come
near me."

'If the captain, whose narrative we may suppose to have been a
detail of every thing which happened, could only recollect
that he had spoken generally to the people, I trust it will
hardly be believed that Mr. Hallet, without notes, at so
distant a period as this, should be capable of recollecting
that he heard him speak to any one in particular; and here it
may not be improper to observe that, at the time to which I
allude, Mr. Hallet (if I am rightly informed) could not ha