There seems to have been a general feeling at and before the court-martial, that Captain Edwards had exercised a harsh, unnecessary, and undue degree of severity on his prisoners. It is the custom, sanctioned no doubt by long usage, to place in irons all such as may have been guilty of mutiny in a ship of war, and the necessity of so doing is obvious enough--to prevent, in the most effectual manner, communication with the rest of the ship's company, who might be contaminated by their intercourse with such mischievous and designing men; men whose crime is of that dye, that, if found guilty, they have little hope to escape the punishment of death, to which a mutineer must, by the naval articles of war, be sentenced; no alternative being left to a court-martial, in such a case, but to pronounce a sentence of acquittal or of death. In the present case, however, most of the prisoners had surrendered themselves; many of them had taken no active part in the mutiny; and others had been forcibly compelled to remain in the ship. It was not likely, therefore, that any danger could arise from indulging them occasionally, and in turns, with a few hours of fresh air on deck. As little danger was there of their escaping; where indeed could they escape to--especially when the ship was going down, at a great distance from any shore, and the nearest one known to be inhabited by savages? All or most of them were desirous of getting home, and throwing themselves on God and their country. The captain, however, had no 'compunctious visitings of nature' to shake his purpose, which seems to have been, to keep them strictly in irons during the whole passage, and to deliver them over in that state on his arrival in England.