o do away all
doubt with respect to the motives by which I was then influenced?' And,
in conclusion, he says, 'I beg leave most humbly to remind the members
of this honourable Court, that I did freely, and of my own accord,
deliver myself up to Lieutenant Robert Corner, of H.M.S. _Pandora_, on
the first certain notice of her arrival.'

_William Muspratt's Defence_

Declares his innocence of any participation in the mutiny; admits he
assisted in hoisting out the boat, and in putting several articles into
her; after which he sat down on the booms, when Millward came and
mentioned to him Mr. Fryer's intention to rescue the ship, when he said
he would stand by Mr. Fryer as far as he could; and with that intention,
and for that purpose only, he took up a musket which one of the people
had laid down, and which he quitted the moment he saw Bligh's people get
into the boat. Solemnly denies the charge of Mr. Purcell against him, of
handing liquor to the ship's company. Mr. Hayward's evidence, he trusts,
must stand so impeached before the Court, as not to receive the least
attention, when the lives of so many men are to be affected by it--for,
he observes, he swears that Morrison was a mutineer, because he assisted
in hoisting out the boats; and that M'Intosh was not a mutineer,
notwithstanding he was precisely employed on the same business--that he
criminated Morrison from the appearance of his countenance--that he had
only a faint remembrance of that material and striking circumstance of
Morrison offering to join him to retake the ship--that, in answer to his
(Muspratt's) question respecting Captain Bligh's words, 'My lads, I'll
do you justice' he considered them applied to the people in the boat,
and not to those in the ship--to the same question put by the Court, he
said they applied to persons remaining in the ship. And he notices some
other instances which he thinks most materially affect Mr. Hayward's
credit; and says, that if he had been under arms when Hayward swore he
was, he humbly submits Mr. Hallet must have seen him. And he concludes
with asserting (what indeed was a very general opinion), 'that the great
misfortune attending this unhappy business is, that no one ever
attempted to rescue the ship; that it might have been done, Thompson
being the only sentinel over the arm-chest.'

_Michael Byrne's Defence_

was very short. He says, 'It has pleased the Almighty, among the events
of His unsearchable providence