ST. HELENA 61 



regiment having been guilty of mutiny and rebellion on the night 

 of the 23rd, by outrageously seizing the Lieut. -Governor and avowing 

 their desperate intention of attempting to seize the Governor : it 

 is therefore the Governor's positive orders that the men keep in 

 their barracks, and that the main guard shall not get under arms 

 without the sanction of the Commanding Officer of Ladder Hill, 

 who has been ordered to depress guns loaded with grape, and to 

 fire upon the main guard if it shall presume to get under arms 

 without his previous permission. Under the present state of 

 affairs, the Governor deems it expedient to notify to the troops 

 that if any non-commissioned officer or soldier shall be guilty of 

 disobedience to his officers, or shall evince by words or actions the 

 smallest symptoms of mutinous spirit, he will instantly be seized, 

 tried by Drumhead Court Martial, and hanged. 



" By order of the Governor, 



"C. R. G. HODSON, 

 " Town Major." 



Then a general Court Martial was called, and nine prisoners 

 tried upon a charge of mutiny ; names Henry Sisell, Thomas 

 Berwick, Archibald Nimmo, Robert Anderson, privates ; and Arthur 

 Smith, Thomas Edgeworth, Peter Wilson, and John Seager, corporals 

 in St. Helena regiments, and Richard Kitchen, gunner in Artillery. 

 All these prisoners were found guilty and condemned to death. Six 

 were executed at High Knoll at sunset, and Wilson, Seager and 

 Kitchen were remanded. The general Court Martial reassembled 

 on the 26th for the trial of three others ; and of these one, Hewitt, 

 was ordered to be executed. The whole garrison was drawn up in 

 lower parade, and prisoners led along the front. The ' Dead 

 March ' was played, and Hewitt hanged. Sefton and Lindsay were 

 pardoned under the gallows. 



This awful scene made a strong impression : the mutinous 

 spirit was gone and obedience restored. In order however to 

 prevent a return of such disgraceful proceedings, I gave orders to 

 seize and confine every man who had been active in the late mutiny. 

 Between twenty and thirty have been placed in close confinement, 

 whom it is my intention to send off the island by the first favourable 

 opportunity. On the 3Oth December I granted an amnesty to the 

 remainder of prisoners taken in arms. They were paraded at Planta- 

 tion House, and after admonishing them to behave in future 

 like good soldiers, and telling them that I freely forgave them, 

 although they had taken up arms against me, I ordered their return 

 to their duty. 



In an after report Beatson says : 



The Governor feels much satisfaction and pleasure in publicly 

 expressing to the officers of St. Helena his warmest approbation of 

 their conduct ; and he requests that they will accept his best acknow- 

 ledgement and thanks for the signal and important services they 

 have rendered. The uniformly steady conduct of the corps of 



