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The Court: Robert Tinkler was your brother-in-law, was he not?

Fryer: He was.

The Court: He has been lost at sea?

Fryer: He has been reported lost with his ship, the Carib Maid, among or near the West Indies.

The Court: Were your relations with Captain Bligh cordial or the reverse?

Fryer: They were far from cordial.

Cole, the boatswain, was summoned next, and was followed by Mr. Purcell. I put to each of them the same questions I had asked of the master, and they replied to them as he had done. The questions asked by the members of the Court were much the same, and both men were examined particularly as to whether either Bligh or Tinkler had ever referred to my conversation with Christian, upon which the fact of my guilt or innocence so strongly depended. Neither of them could remember having heard any reference made to this conversation. I had strongly hoped that Mr. Peckover, the gunner, and officer of the middle watch, might have overheard something of this conversation, but he could say only what further incriminated me, that he had seen Christian and me in conversation on the quarter-deck during that watch.