After dark George Forrest swam ashore and bribed a boatman to put him aboard his vessel again with five gallons of a vile brand of whisky. His fellow conspirators pulled him and his purchase in through a berth deck port, and the crew proceeded to hold high carnival. When the watch below was called the boatswain was knocked down with a belaying pin and an officer who tried to quell the disturbance was saluted with oaths and every kind of missile within reach. The captain was immediately notified, and ordered a beat to quarters. The officers appeared armed and charged forward, assisted by the sober portion of the crew, and after a sharp fight succeeded in securing the worst of the mutineers. Captain Semmes had the drunken sailors drenched with buckets of cold water until they begged for mercy. Forrest was identified by a guard from the shore as the man who bought the liquor, and he was placed in double irons and under guard. Captain Semmes had said to people on shore that the Alabama would go to sea during the night. But she did not go, and early the next morning the stars and stripes were floating outside the harbor at the masthead of the steam sloop San Jacinto, mounting fourteen guns. "We paid no sort of attention to the arrival of this old wagon of a ship," writes Semmes in his memoirs. Nevertheless, it must be recorded that he beat to quarters and kept the Alabama close under the guns of the French fort in the harbor.[2] He might be able to outsail the San Jacinto, but he knew very well that one or two of her broadsides would be very apt to send the Alabama to the bottom, in case Captain Ronckendorff should take it into his head to violate the neutrality of a French port. Moreover, his crew were hardly in a condition either of mind or body to meet a determined enemy. The captain of the San Jacinto refused to receive a pilot or come to an anchor, because his vessel would then come within the twenty-four hour rule, and the Alabama would be permitted that length of time to get out of reach when she chose to depart, before the San Jacinto, according to international law governing neutral ports, would be permitted to follow her. During the day Governor Candé sent a letter to Captain Ronckendorff warning him that he must either come to anchor and submit to the twenty-four hour rule, or keep three miles outside the points which formed the entrance to the harbor. Being well aware that the governor had correctly stated the law governing the case, Captain Ronckendorff readily promised acquiescence.