Nor, indeed, is it at all necessary that the punishment for mutiny should admit of any palliation.

Whenever an act of tyranny, or an unnecessary degree of severity, is exercised by a commanding officer, let the fact only be proved, and he is certain to be visited with all the rigour that the degree of his oppressive conduct will warrant.

Had Christian but waited patiently the arrival of the _Bounty_ in England, and the alleged conduct of Bligh towards his officers and crew had been proved, he would, unquestionably, have been dismissed from his Majesty's service.
With regard to Adams, though his subsequent conduct was highly meritorious, and to him alone it might be said is owing the present happy state of the little community on Pitcairn's Island, his crime like that of Christian's can never be considered as wiped away.

Sir Thomas Staines, the first British officer who called at the island, it may well be supposed, had to struggle, on this trying occasion, between duty and feeling.

It was his imperative duty to have seized and brought him a prisoner to England, where he must have been tried, and would no doubt have been convicted of a crime for which several of his less active accomplices had suffered the penalty of death; though he might, and probably would, from length of time and circumstances in his favour, have received the king's pardon.