'Send that boatswain's mate to me that he may answer for himself,' said the Admiral. 'Why would you not beat the Quaker?' he demanded in a terrible voice, when the boatswain's mate was brought before him. 'I have beat him very sore,' the mate answered, 'I seized his arms to the capstan bars, and forced them to heave him about, and beat him, and then sat down; and in three or four times of the capstan's going about, the lashings were loosed, and he came and sat down by me; then I called the men from the capstan, and took them sworn, but they all denied that they had loosed him, or knew how he was loosed; neither could the lashings ever be found; therefore I did and do believe that it was an invisible power which set him at liberty, and I did promise before God and the company, that I would never beat a Quaker again, nor any man else for conscience' sake.' The Admiral told the mate that he must lose both his cane of office and his place. He willingly yielded them both. He was also threatened with the loss of his right hand. He held it out and said, 'Take it from me if you please.' His cane was taken from him and he was displaced; but mercifully his right hand was not cut off: that was only a threat. The Commander had now to find some one else to beat Richard Sellar. So he gave orders to seven strong sailors (called yeomen) to beat Richard whenever they met him, and to make him work. Beat him they did, till they were tired; but they could not make him work or go against his conscience, which forbade him in any way to help in fighting. Then an eighth yeoman was called, the strongest of all. The same order was given to him: 'Beat that Quaker as much as you like whenever you meet him, only see that you make him work.' The eighth yeoman promised gladly in his turn, and said, 'I'll make him!' He too beat Richard for a whole day and a night, till he too grew weary and asked to be excused. Then another wonderful thing happened, stranger even than the disappearance of the lashings. After all these cruel beatings the Commander ordered Richard's clothes to be taken off that he might see the marks of the blows on his body. 'He caused my clothes to be stript off,' Richard says, 'shirt and all, from my head to my waist downward; then he took a view of my body to see what wounds and bruises I had, but he could find none,--no, not so much as a blue spot on my skin. Then the Commander was angry with them, for not beating me enough. Then the Captain answered him and said, "I have beat him myself as much as would kill an ox." The jester said he had hung me a great while by the arms aloft in the shrouds. The men said they also had beaten me very sore, but they might as well have beaten the main mast. Then said the Commander, "I will cause irons to be laid upon him during the king's pleasure and mine."'