A nod from him would have sealed the fate of the delegates. I thought then, (and I am not certain that I was wrong) that we might at that moment have seized the whole of the scoundrels, and carried them off prisoners to Sheerness. It would have been too great a risk to have run them up to the yard-arm, or hove them overboard, as our men wished, lest their followers might have retaliated on the officers in their power. No man was more careful of human life than Sir Harry, and it was a plan to which he would never have consented. The delegates, therefore, carried things with a high hand, and, convinced that our crew were loyal to their king and country, they ordered us to take up a berth between the _Inflexible_ and _Director_, to unbend our sails, and to send our powder on board the _Sandwich_, at the masthead of which ship the flag of the so-called Admiral Parker was then flying. That man, Richard Parker, had been shipmate with a considerable number of the crew of the _San Fiorenzo_, as acting lieutenant, but had been dismissed his ship for drunkenness, and having lost all hope of promotion, had entered before the mast. Our people had, therefore, a great contempt for him, and said that he was no sailor, and that his conduct had ever been unlike that of an officer and a gentleman. Such a man, knowing that he acted with a rope round his neck, was of course the advocate of the most desperate measures. Everything that took place was communicated immediately to Sir Harry, who advised the men to pretend compliance, and, much to our relief, the other delegates took their departure. As soon as they were gone, Sir Harry told the ship's company that, provided they would agree to stand by him, he would take the ship into Sheerness, as before intended. The men expressed their readiness to incur every possible risk to effect that purpose. The almost unarmed condition of the ship at the time must be remembered. The men set zealously to work to prepare for the enterprise. Springs were got on our cables. All was ready. The flood had made. The object was to cast in-shore. The men were at their stations. We were heaving on the spring--it broke at the most critical moment, and we cast outward. There was no help for it. Nothing could prevent us from running right in among the two ships of the mutinous fleet which I have mentioned, and which lay with their guns double shotted, and the men at quarters, with the lanyards in their hands, ready to fire at us. Our destruction seemed certain; but not for a moment did our captain lose his presence of mind. Calm as ever, he ordered the quartermaster Aynsley to appear on deck as if in command, while the officers concealed themselves in different parts of the ship, he standing where he could issue his orders and watch what was taking place. All was sheeted home in a moment, and we stood in between the two line-of-battle ships, the _Director_ and _Inflexible_. The ship, by