it sanctions their proceedings, strengthens their hands by the confession of its own weakness, and raises them from being offenders against the law, to the dignity of injured men, honourably asserting their rights. Thus, when the Lords of the Admiralty, and the first Admiral of the British navy, received on terms of courtesy criminals whose lives were forfeited, and negotiated with them as with equals--when the Government submitted to demands which it evidently feared to resist--and the Parliament hastened to legislate at the bidding of triumphant mutineers, the navy was taught a fatal lesson. The fleet at the Nore mutinied almost immediately after, without the shadow of a pretext; and the idea of mutiny once become familiar, the crews of the best ordered ships thought little of seeking redress for any real or fancied grievance by resisting the authority of their officers. Almost every ship on the home station mutinied in the course of the year; and considering bow naturally the first fault leads to more guilty excesses, and how many worthless characters were swept into the navy, disgracing the service by making it the avowed punishment of crime, and corrupting it by their example, nothing can appear more natural than that mutiny should at length display itself in a darker character, and proceed in some unhappy instances to murder and treason. Sir Edward Pellew deeply lamented the submission of the Government. He was satisfied that a proper firmness would have quelled the present, and prevented the future evil; and he was strengthened in his opinion by the circumstances of the mutiny on board one of the ships at Spithead, in which one of his own officers was a principal actor. Captain Williams, of the marines, formerly lieutenant in the _Arethusa_, applied to his captain for authority to act, assuring him of the good disposition of his own men, and pledging himself by their means to save the ship. But his captain, though one of the bravest and best men in the service, shrank from committing the marines to a possible conflict with the sailors, and recommended a little delay. In a few minutes the marine officer returned: it was not yet too late, but not another moment could be spared. The humane feelings of the commander impelled him still to temporize, and when the marine officer returned, it was to say that his men must now save themselves, and the ship was lost. The more desperate mutiny at the Nore was not quelled by submission.