All this while Captain Merlotte with his Frenchmen were in arms, and had possession on the quarter-deck to the number of twenty-three stout men; I had possession of the main-deck with eighteen men and the sixteen Dutchmen, and my chief mate with the midshipman, had possession of the cook-room and quarter-deck; the Dutch captain, our supercargo, the surgeon, and the other captain, kept the great cabins with a guard of twelve musketeers without the door, and about eight more within, besides servants. Captain Merlotte's man also had a guard of eight men in the roundhouse. I had now nothing to do but with my men who were on shore; and of these, six were no way culpable, being men not embarked in the design, but carried on shore by the chief mate, with a design to engage them with him; so that, indeed, they fell into a punishment before they fell into the crime, and what to do with these men was a nice point to manage. The first thing I did, was to dismiss my visitor, the Dutch captain, whom I had a great deal of reason to think myself exceedingly obliged to: and, first, I handsomely rewarded his men, to whom I gave four pieces of eight a man; and having waited on the captain to the ship's side, and seen him into his boat, I fired him twenty-one guns at his going off; for which he fired twenty-five when he came on board his ship. The same afternoon I sent my pinnace on board him for my drunken cockswain, and with the pinnace I sent the captain three dozen bottles of English beer, and a quarter cask of Canary, which was the best present I had to make him; and sent every one of his other seamen a piece of eight per man; and, indeed, the assistance I had from the ship deserved it; and to the mate, who acted so bravely with my men on shore, I sent fifty pieces of eight. The next day I went on shore to pay my respects to the governor, when I had all the prisoners delivered up to me. Six men I caused to be immediately set at liberty, as having been innocent, and brought all the rest on board, tied hand and foot, as prisoners, and continued them so, a great while afterward, as the reader will find. As for the second mate, I tried him formally by a council of war, as I was empowered by my commission to do, and sentenced him to be hanged at the yard-arm: and though I suspended the execution from day to day, yet I kept him in expectation of the halter every hour; which, to some, would have been as grievous as the hanging itself. Thus we conquered this desperate mutiny, all principally proceeding from suffering the private disputes among ourselves, which ought to have been the arcana of the whole voyage, and kept as secret as death itself could have kept it, I mean so as not to come among the seamen afore the mast.