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Hayward followed on the witness stand, but for all my questioning he would not acknowledge that Tinkler had come down to the berth with me on the night before the mutiny. And yet he must have heard us bid each other good-night. At that time we were standing within two paces of his hammock, and he had said that he heard me come in. Hallet clung to his story that I had laughed and turned away when, as he said, Captain Bligh spoke to me. But I could see that his sullen, insolent manner of clinging to it had made an unfavourable impression upon the Court.

My case rested here, and Morrison was next called for his defense. He was cool and self-possessed. His story was perfectly clear, well presented, and, I thought, wholly convincing. He confirmed my story as to the reason we had been below at the time the launch was veered astern. Of the witnesses he called, Fryer, Cole, Purcell, and Peckover bore out all that he said, with the exception of his reason for not being on deck in time to go with the launch; for of this matter, of course, they could know nothing. Hallet and Hayward were the only witnesses who had testified to having seen him under arms, and he forced both of them to admit that they might have been mistaken.