d.

If mutiny could be supposed to admit of palliation, a fatal blow would
be struck not only at the discipline, but at the very existence, of the
navy; any relaxation in bringing to condign punishment persons guilty of
mutiny, would weaken and ultimately destroy the efficiency of this great
and powerful machine. Nor, indeed, is it at all necessary that the
punishment for mutiny should admit of any palliation. Whenever an act of
tyranny, or an unnecessary degree of severity, is exercised by a
commanding officer, let the fact only be proved, and he is certain to be
visited with all the rigour that the degree of his oppressive conduct
will warrant. Had Christian but waited patiently the arrival of the
_Bounty_ in England, and the alleged conduct of Bligh towards his
officers and crew had been proved, he would, unquestionably, have been
dismissed from his Majesty's service.

With regard to Adams, though his subsequent conduct was highly
meritorious, and to him alone it might be said is owing the present
happy state of the little community on Pitcairn's Island, his crime like
that of Christian's can never be considered as wiped away. Sir Thomas
Staines, the first British officer who called at the island, it may well
be supposed, had to struggle, on this trying occasion, between duty and
feeling. It was his imperative duty to have seized and brought him a
prisoner to England, where he must have been tried, and would no doubt
have been convicted of a crime for which several of his less active
accomplices had suffered the penalty of death; though he might, and
probably would, from length of time and circumstances in his favour,
have received the king's pardon. Perhaps, however, on the whole, it was
fortunate, that in balancing, as it is known this gallant officer did,
between the sense of duty and the sense of feeling, the latter
prevailed, and justice yielded to mercy. Had a Bligh or an Edwards been
placed in his situation it is to be feared that, judging from their
former conduct, passion in the one, and frigidity in the other, would
most likely have consigned the criminal to captivity in irons, and the
innocent and helpless family, solely dependent on him, to misery and
destruction--and yet, in so doing, they would not have deviated from
their strict line of duty,--_Dis aliter visum_.

The _Blossom_ was the first ship of war that John Adams had been on
board of since the mutiny; and, as Captain Beechey observes, his mind