to screen the infliction of an unauthorized punishment. To return to the events on the island. It is pretty certain that Governor Wall’s mind must have been thrown off its balance after he had dismissed the party headed by Armstrong. He was either actually apprehensive for the safety of his command, or was momentarily blinded by passion at the seeming defiance of discipline, and he felt that he must make an example if his authority was to be maintained. Although many old comrades of high rank bore witness at his trial to his great humanity and good temper, there is reason to fear that to those under his command he was so severe and unaccommodating as to be generally unpopular, and this no doubt told against him at his trial. He was not a strong, self-reliant commander. It is nearly certain that he gave trifles exaggerated importance, and was only too ready to put in practice the severest methods of repression he had at hand. In this instance, however, he did not act without deliberation. It was not until six in the evening that he had resolved to punish Armstrong as the ringleader of the mutiny. By that time he had fully laid his plans. The “long roll” was beat upon the drums, the troops were assembled hurriedly as in the case of alarm, and a gun-carriage was dragged into the centre of the parade. The Governor then constituted a drum-head court-martial, which proceeded to try Armstrong for mutiny, convict, and sentence him without calling upon him to plead to any charge, or hearing him in his defence; so that he was practically punished without a trial. He was ordered eight hundred lashes, which were forthwith inflicted, not as in ordinary cases by the regimental drummers, whom the Governor thought were tinged with insubordination, but by the black interpreter and his assistants; nor was the regulation cat-of-nine-tails used, as the Governor declared they had all been destroyed by the mutineers, but with a thick rope’s end, which, according to the surgeon’s testimony, did more mischief than the cat. Armstrong’s punishment was exemplary. It was proved that the Governor stood by, threatening to flog the blacks themselves unless they “laid on” with a will, and crying again and again, “Cut him to the heart! cut him to the liver!” Armstrong begged for mercy, but he received the whole eight hundred lashes, twenty-five at a time; and when he was cast loose, he said that the sick season was coming on, which with the punishment would certainly do for him. A surgeon was present at the infliction, but was not called upon to certify as to Armstrong’s fitness or otherwise for corporal punishment, nor did he enter any protest. Armstrong was taken at once to hospital, and his back was found “as black as a new hat.” From the moment of his reception the doctors had no hope of his recovery: he gradually grew worse and worse, and presently died.