On his way to receive sentence on board the _St. George_ Admiral Byng told some of his friends that he expected to be reprimanded, and possibly he might be cashiered; "because," added he, "there must have been several controverted points: the court martial has been shut up a long time, and almost all the questions proposed by the court have tended much more to pick out faults in my conduct than to get a true state of the circumstances; but I profess I cannot conceive what they will fix upon." When he arrived on board the _St. George_, and as he was walking on the quarter-deck, a member of the court martial came out and told one of his relations that they had found the admiral capitally guilty, and requested him to prepare him for his sentence. The gentleman to whom this communication was made went up to him immediately, but was unable to address him for some time; his countenance, however, and the embarrassment of his manner, led the admiral to suspect that he had some unpleasant intelligence to communicate; and he said to him, "What is the matter? have they broke me?" The gentleman, perceiving from this question that he was totally unprepared for his sentence, hesitated still more: upon which the countenance of the admiral changed a little, and he added, "Well, I understand--if nothing but my blood will satisfy, let them take it." A few minutes afterwards one of his friends endeavoured to support and reconcile him to his fate by observing that a sentence without guilt could be no stain; and adding that it was extremely unlikely that the sentence would be carried into execution, begged him to indulge the hope of obtaining a pardon; he replied, "What will that signify to me? What satisfaction can I receive from the liberty to crawl a few years longer on the earth with the infamous load of a pardon at my back? I despise life upon such terms, and would rather have them take it." When the respite for fourteen days came down to Portsmouth, his friends endeavoured to encourage the expectation that he would be honourably pardoned, and dwelt upon every circumstance which gave countenance and probability to this idea; to them he replied, in a calm and unembarrassed manner, "I am glad _you_ think so, because it makes you easy and happy; but I think it has now become an affair merely political, without any relation to right or wrong, justice or injustice; and therefore I differ in opinion from you."