Pending payment of the ransom, the hostages were kept in prison. Ordinarily, their confinement was not of long duration; and if we cite an instance to the contrary, it is because it aptly illustrates the rough-and-ready sort of justice which was administered in those days. Clies, the captain of the _Expedition_, after many desperate engagements in which he had come off victorious, had been forced at last to strike his colours. Four French men-of-war had surrounded him, and having lost his masts, he had no choice but to yield. The ransom agreed upon was £550, and as security for payment of this amount the master of the _Expedition_ and Clies's son, who was a midshipman on board the same vessel, were taken as hostages. This was in February, and they did not return to England until November. Meanwhile they had been imprisoned at Cadiz, where they endured the severest privations. Cold and damp and the want of the common necessaries of life, while affecting the health of both, had permanently disabled the master and brought him to the point of death. This appeared to the postmasters-general to be a case for compensation. And yet whence was compensation to come? They were not long in solving the question. It was a mere accident, they argued, that these particular hostages had been selected. The selection might have fallen upon any others of the ship's company. Yet these others had been receiving their pay and enjoying their liberty. Surely it was for them to compensate those at whose cost they had themselves escaped captivity and its attendant horrors. Accordingly the ship's company were mulcted in a whole month's pay, amounting to £118, of which sum the midshipman received £20 and the master £98; and the decision appears to have evoked neither murmur nor remonstrance.