It is not in my power to describe my feelings upon seeing the captain as I did, who, with his hands tied behind him, was standing on the quarter-deck, a little abaft the mizen-mast, and Christian by his side.

My faculties were benumbed, and I did not recover the power of recollection until called to by somebody to take hold of the tackle-fall, and assist to get out the launch, which I found was to be given to the captain instead of the large cutter, already in the water alongside the ship.

It were in vain to say what things I put into the boat, but many were handed in by me; and in doing this it was that my hand touched the cutlass (for I will not attempt to deny what the carpenter has deposed), though, on my conscience, I am persuaded it was of momentary duration, and innocent as to intention.

The former is evident, from its being unobserved by every witness who saw me upon deck, some of whom must have noticed it had it continued a single minute; and the latter is proved by the only person who took notice of the circumstance, and has also deposed that, at the moment he beheld me, I was apparently in a state of absolute stupor.

The poison, therefore, carries with it its antidote; and it seems needless to make any further comment on the subject, for no man can be weak enough to suppose, that if I had been armed for the purpose of assisting in the mutiny, I should have resumed a weapon in the moment of triumph, and when the ship was so completely in the possession of the party, that (as more than one witness has emphatically expressed it) all attempts at recovering her would have been impracticable.
'The boat and ship, it is true, presented themselves to me without its once occurring that I was at liberty to choose, much less that the choice I should make would be afterwards deemed criminal; and I bitterly deplore that my extreme youth and inexperience concurred in torturing me with apprehensions, and prevented me from preferring the former; for as things have turned out, it would have saved me from the disgrace of appearing before you as I do at this day--it would have spared the sharp conflicts of my own mind ever since, and the agonizing tears of a tender mother and my much-beloved sisters.
'Add to my youth and inexperience, that I was influenced in my conduct by the example of my messmates, Mr.Hallet and Mr.
Hayward, the former of whom was very much agitated, and the latter, though he had been many years at sea, yet, when Christian ordered him into the boat, he was evidently alarmed at the perilous situation, and so much overcome by the harsh command, that he actually shed tears.
'My own apprehensions were far from being lessened at such a circumstance as this, and I fearfully beheld the preparations for the captain's departure as the preliminaries of inevitable destruction, which, although I did not think could be more certain, yet I feared would be more speedy, by the least addition to their number.
'To show that I have no disposition to impose upon this Court, by endeavouring to paint the situation of the boat to be worse than it really was, I need only refer to the captain's own narrative, wherein he says that she would have sunk with them on the evening of the 3rd May, had it not been for his timely caution of throwing out some of the stores, and all the clothes belonging to the people, excepting two suits for each.
'Now what clothes or stores could they have spared which in weight would have been equal to that of two men?
(for if I had been in her, and the poor fellow, Norton, had not been murdered at Tofoa, she would have been encumbered with our additional weight), and if it be true that she was saved by those means, which the captain says she was, it must follow that if Norton and myself had been in her (to say nothing of Coleman, M'Intosh, Norman, and Byrne, who, 'tis confessed, were desirous of leaving the ship), she must either have gone down with us, or, to prevent it, we must have lightened her of the provisions and other necessary articles, and thereby have perished for want--dreadful alternative! 'A choice of deaths to those who are certain of dying may be a matter of indifference; but where, on one hand, death appears inevitable, and the means of salvation present themselves on the other, however imprudent it might be to resort to those means in any other less trying situation, I think (and hope even at my present time of life) that I shall not be suspected of a want of courage for saying, few men would hesitate to embrace the latter.
'Such, then, was exactly my situation on board the _Bounty_; to be starved to death, or drowned, appeared to be inevitable if I went in the boat; and surely it is not to be wondered at, if, at the age of sixteen years, with no one to advise with, and so ignorant of the discipline of the service (having never been at sea before) as not to know or even suppose it was possible that what I should determine upon might afterwards be alleged against me as a crime--I say, under such circumstances, in so trying a situation, can it be wondered at, if I suffered the preservation of my life to be the first, and to supersede every other, consideration.
'Besides, through the medium of the master, the captain had directed the rest of the officers to remain on board, in hopes of retaking the ship.