Chapter VIII (3)

The ship being in the centre between the two lines of the fleet,
the boat was soon alongside, and the man was speedily placed on
the cathead and haltered. A few awful minutes of universal silence
followed, which was at last broken by the watch-bells of the fleet
striking eight o'clock. Instantly the flag-ship's gun fired, and
at the sound the man was lifted well off; but then, and visibly
to all, he dropped back again; and the sensation throughout the
fleet was intense. For, at this dreadful moment, when the eyes
of every man in every ship were straining upon this execution,
as the decisive struggle between authority and mutiny, as if it
were destined that the whole fleet should see the hesitating
unwillingness of the "Marlborough's" crew to hang their rebel,
and the efficacy of the means taken to enforce obedience,
by an accident on board the ship the men at the yard-rope
unintentionally let it slip, and the turn of the balance seemed
calamitously lost; but then they hauled him up to the yard-arm
with a run,—the law was satisfied, and, said Lord St. Vincent at
the moment, perhaps one of the greatest of his life, "Discipline
is preserved, sir!"

When the sentence was executed, and not any disturbance appeared,
that it might be again made perceptible to all the fleet that
abundant force had been provided to overpower any resistance
which a line-of-battle ship could offer, Captain Campbell broke
his line, and rowing down, placed his launches as close alongside
the "Marlborough" as their oars would permit; and then re-forming
them, resumed his station across her bows, continuing there until
the time for the body's hanging having expired, it was taken
down, sewed up as is usual in its own hammock with a shot, and
was carried in one of the "Marlborough's" boats to half a mile
from the ship, and sunk; upon which, Captain Campbell withdrew his
force, and the "Marlborough's" signal was made to take her station
in the line.

This was the fatal blow to the mutiny in the fleet before Cadiz;
not that violent insubordination, treasonable conspiracies, and
open resistances did not again and again occur, to be as often
and as instantaneously quelled; for the ships were many that were
sent out from England, several arrived in almost open mutiny, and
they brought a profusion of infection to the rest. The dreadful
sentence was again and again inflicted, and in all cases of
insubordination the crews were invariably the executioners of
their own rebels; but never again was the power of the law doubted
by any one.—_Tucker's Memoirs of Earl St. Vincent_, vol. i. pp.
303-309.