On the morning following the seizure of the _Princess Royal_ by her misguided crew, the day broke tardily, revealing to the mutineers a wild, threatening sky, a high and increasing sea, the curling foam-crests of which raced after the ship menacingly, and an unbroken horizon all round. Not a solitary sail of any description was visible; they were alone, at the mercy of the towering mountain-surges, and of the gale which howled deafeningly past them. The sight which on that morning presented itself from the poop of the crippled ship was one to make the stoutest heart quail, to impress the onlooker with an overpowering sense of his own insignificance compared with Him who holds the ocean in the hollow of His hand, and of the blasphemous arrogance of those who would presume to take upon themselves one of the functions of the Almighty, and, in the blindness of their anger, attempt to mete out to their fellow-men that justice which it is His alone to repay. Yet no such idea presented itself to the mutineers; or, if it did, each man was careful to conceal it from all the rest. They had been systematically down-trodden and ill-treated from the commencement of the voyage; their lives had been made a burden to them; and now--having at last been provoked into the throwing off of their yoke of insupportable bondage--they thirsted for revenge upon the authors of their miseries. As might be expected, the whole internal economy of the ship was upset from the moment that she fell into the hands of the mutineers. Their first act, on the morning in question, was to transfer the male passengers from the cabin to the forecastle, and to remove their own belongings aft into the state-rooms thus rendered vacant. The ladies, of whom, fortunately, there were only half a dozen on board, were permitted for the present to retain possession of their state-rooms, being given to understand, however, that it was only upon the express condition that they were to make no attempt whatever to meddle with the arrangements of the mutineers, nor to communicate in any way with the male passengers confined in the forecastle. These arrangements completed, Rogers ordered the steward to prepare and serve to the mutineers in the saloon the best breakfast that the resources of the ship would allow; the passengers in the forecastle to be served with such a meal as ordinarily fell to the lot of the seamen; while the deposed captain and the two mates were to be left entirely without food of any kind. These orders were carried out to the letter; the unfortunate ladies being compelled to take their seats as usual at the breakfast table, and share the meal of the mutineers. This being over, the table was cleared; spirits and tobacco were called for, and Rogers, from his seat at the head of the saloon-table, gave orders that the captain and the two mates should be brought aft, and put upon their trial before a court of the whole crew.