The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-08-31

the reply, ''rll find a dozen ways to
make him wish he'd never been born"
had committed an offense, but moth
ing deserving such punishment as | re-
ceived for the next three days. was
logged, kicked, cutfed, and maltreated
in every way Captain and mate could
think of, and was more than once rem
dered insensible by their cruelty. |
heard the men cursing the officers for
their conduct, and encouraging each
other to Interfere, but L was passive.
Indeed, after a beating or two, was
so harried that could scarcely remem-
Der my eva name. On the afternoon
of the fourth day. soon after dinner,
while | was forward with the watch
and assisting the sailmaker to repair
a sail, the first mate called me aft. The
wind was light and the sea smooth,
and few fathoms astern of the brig
was an enormous shark. 1t had oc-
Cured to the two brutes to have some
fun with me. The mate noosed rope
and passed it around my waist and
then, while | struggled and shrieked
and begged for mercy, he carried me
10 Tire" port quarter and dropped me
overheard for shark bait. The shark
made rush for me, but was hauled up
just in advance of his jaws. The Cap
tain and mate laughed uproariously,
and the latter had picked me up to
drop me from the other quarter when
the entire crew came running aft. l
saw that much and then tainted away,
and what took place while [ was I'M
conscious was never clearly related to
me.
The crew had determined to inter-
fere, and their action excited the Cap
tain and mate to terrible degree. The
former had revolver in his pocket,
and when the crew refused to go for
ward he fired at and wounded one of
them. This brought on fight, in
which both officers and one of the sailors
were killed. 1t was rebellion-not
mutiny. The sole idea of the crew was
to protect me from further cruelty. In
carrying this out murder was done and
all were liable to the gallows. The dead
bodies were lying ON deck when l re-
covered consciousness, while the men
had cOngregated in the waist of the
brig for consultation. The second mate,
whose name was Chapman, had SYM
pathized with the crew, although he
had no hand in the fight. He was now
asked to take command of the brig
until it could be determined what
should be done, and he did so. The
three dead men were prepared for
burial in the usual way, and launched
over the side without service, and an
hour after the fight not trace of it
was left.
When the question of what should
be done came up for discussion most
of the men were appalled, at the seri-
BUSINESS of the case, 1t was the first
duty of the mate to set a signal of dis
tress, but. of course, nothing of the
sort was done. Under the law he
should head for the nearest port and
there surrender brig and crew, but. of
| course he had no thought of this.
While he had not melted the crew to
resistance, he had not come to the aid
of the officers. 1t would have been
easy to prove his sympathy for me, and
that would have made him the Access
sorry of the crew, 1t was realized that
all had outlawed themselves. and the
question was, where to go and what to
do with the brig. 1t was finally deci-
ded to haul up for the Solomon
Islands. The brig was bound home
through Torres Strait, as she had two
ports of call to make before reaching
the Cape of Good Hope, and we were
not over $50 miles out of Sidney when
the murders occurred. We therefore
had a voyage of quite 1,500 miles be-
fore us.
For the first week men could not
have behaved more sensibly. The dis
cipline was good, and all were under
proper restraint We were sighting
vessels daily, and on several occasions
we were passed so closely that we had
to signal our number and report all
well. On the third day man-of-war
exchanged signals with us, and through
some bungling on our part his suspic-
ions seemed to have been aroused, and
he would perhaps have boarded US had
not a change in the weather occurred.
After about week, however. the men
began to get independent and to bring
forward new plans. and there was no
longer any harmony among the crew.
| While Chapman was the only one who
could navigate a ship. and while he
had been put in charge of the brig, the
men finally refused to do any work be-
You'd that of sailing the craft. Some
openly advocated that we turn pirate,
and others wanted to run into some
port and sell brig and cargo and divide
the money. This was hooted at by the
more intelligent, and gave rise to
further ill-feeling.
The brig had light or contrary winds
and made slow progress, and at the
end of two weeks the situation on board
could not have been much worse.
There were nine of us. including the