All round the margin of the letter were the signatures, seven of them, and several score of crosses, with a note against each cross—’Henry Wilson, his mark’; ‘William Owen, his mark’, and so on; they indicated the usual proportion of literates and illiterates in an average ship’s company. Hornblower looked up at St. Vincent when he finished examining the letter.

“Mutinous dogs,” said St. Vincent.

Maybe they were, thought Hornblower. But they had a right to be, he also thought. He could imagine perfectly well the sort of treatment to which they had been subjected, the unending wanton cruelty added to the normal hardship of life in a ship on blockading service; miseries which only death or mutiny could bring to an end—no other way out at all.

Faced with the certainty of a flogging in the immediate future, they had risen in mutiny, and he could not blame them. He had seen enough backs cut to ribbons; he knew that he himself would do anything, literally anything, to avoid such torture for himself if he were faced with the prospect of it. His flesh crept as he made himself seriously consider how he would feel if he knew he were to be flogged next week. The men had moral right on their side; it was not a matter of justice, but one of expediency, that they should be punished for their justifiable crime. The national existence of the country depended greatly on seizing the mutineers, hanging the ringleaders, flogging the rest; cauterising before the disease could spread farther this new plague spot which had appeared in England’s right arm. They must be hanged, morally innocent or not—it was a part of war, like the killing of Frenchmen who were possibly admirable husbands and fathers. But it would be as well not to let St. Vincent guess at his sentiments—the First Lord obviously hated mutineers just as mutineers, without troubling to think more deeply about their case.

“What orders do you have for me, my lord?” asked Hornblower.