In the declining days of the practice a grim game at life and death was played upon the deck of a king's ship lying in the River St. Lawrence. The year was 1760. Quebec had only recently fallen before the British onslaught. A few days before that event, at a juncture when every man in the squadron was counted upon to play his part in the coming struggle, and to play it well, three seamen, James Mike, Thomas Wilkinson and William M'Millard by name, deserted from the _Vanguard_. Retaken some months later, they were brought to trial; but as men were not easy to replace in that latitude, the court, whilst sentencing all three to suffer the extreme penalty of the law, added to their verdict a rider to the effect that it would be good policy to spare two of them. Admiral Lord Colvill, then Commander-in-Chief, issued his orders accordingly, and at eleven o'clock on the morning of the 12th of July the condemned men, preceded to the scaffold by two chaplains, were led to the _Vanguard's_ forecastle, where they drew lots to determine which of them should die. The fatal lot fell to James Mike, who, in presence of the assembled boats of the squadron, was immediately "turned off" at the foreyard-arm. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 482--Admiral Lord Colvill, 10 July 1760; Captains' Logs, 1026--Log of H.M.S. _Vanguard_.] Encouraged in this grim fashion, desertion assumed alarming proportions. Nelson estimated that whenever a large convoy of merchant ships assembled at Portsmouth, at least a thousand men deserted from the fleet. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 580--Memorandum on the State of the Fleet, 1803.] This was a "liberty they would take," do what you could to prevent it. Of those who thus deserted fully one-third, according to the same high authority, never saw the fleet again. "From loss of clothes, drinking and other debaucheries" they were "lost by death to the country." Some few of the remainder, after drinking His Majesty's health in a final bowl, voluntarily returned on board and "prayed for a fair wind"; but the majority held aloof, taking their chances and their pleasures in sailorly fashion until, their last stiver gone, they fell an easy prey to the press-gang or the crimp.