2.2 ST. H E L E N A .
lights which the mutineers had imprudently with them), and immediately
after to rush upon them with the bayonet.
“ I had just given these orders when Major Wright arrived, and
informed me that the mutineers had halted within fifty or sixty
yards of Major Kinnard’s post, and had sent forward to offer the
conditions on which they would surrender. The negotiations were
intentionally protracted until daylight on the 24th, which having
terminated in the unconditional surrender of the whole party, the
attempt to rescue Colonel Broughton became unnecessary.
Jf “ The first proposals sent to me by the mutineers were, ‘ that
grievances must be redressed, and a promise given that the soldiers
should have regular issues of spirits from the stores s’ to which I
sent word by Major Wright, ‘ that 1 would grant no terms; 1 could
not treat with rebels, and that if they did not instantly surrender, 1
would put every man to the sword.’
“ Major Wright soon after returned, and told me the mutineers
hoped I would grant terms ; and it was suggested by some persons
around me that the life of Colonel Broughton would be in great
danger if the attack were made. To this suggestion I replied, that
the mutineers haying possession of the Lieutenant-Governor would
he no security to themselves; and I returned them a second
message, apprizing them of this resolution, and that I would
instantly order them to be fired upon, and the whole destroyed, if
they did not submit. TJpon receiving this reply, they began to
waver, and they finally proposed to Majors Wright and Hodson
that all they would now ask was my promise of pardon ; but this I
positively refused, and at the same time informed them, if they did
not yield unconditionally, that Major Kinnard had now received
my orders to put the whole of them to death. I t was now daylight,
and, seeing a superior force opposed to them, they at length
surrendered, saying they would trust to my mercy.
“ Of about two hundred men that sallied at night from James-
town, upon this mad and desperate enterprise, only seventy-five
remained together in the morning.”
The mutineers were then confined as prisoners at High Knoll,
where on the following day (Christmas-day) nine of them, being
ringleaders in the matter, were tried by court-martial and sentenced
to death. Within a very short time after their sentence six of these
were hung at High Knoll.
The General Court-martial re-assembled again on the following
day, when three more received similar sentences, but it was deemed
sufficient to carry out one only, and that was done in the presence
of the whole garrison assembled in Jamestown. Some of the
remainder were committed to prison, and, the spirit of insubordination
having been crushed out, they were finally permitted to return
to their duty.*
A successful result of General Beatson’s measures for checking
the amount of drunkenness will be gathered from the following %—
“ The houses for retailing spirits were abolished on the 15th of
May, 1809. The garrison at that time consisted of about one
thousand two hundred and fifty men, of whom one hundred and
thirty-two were sick in hospital. Tour months after that abolition
the patients were reduced to forty-eight.” t
Governor Beatson’s energy and ardour as displayed in his war
against the goats was, however, less successful; for, notwithstanding
his efforts to effect their total extermination, his measures were imperfectly
carried out, so that in a few years they increased again in
numbers, and threatened to destroy not only the indigenous plants,
but all other vegetation as well.
Of all the good that General Beatson proposed and did for the
Island, perhaps none has caused a more lasting tribute to his
memory than the measures he took for importing forest trees,
planting the Island, the preservation of the indigenous flora, and
his extensive and indefatigable experiments in agriculture, the
results of which he has left on record, in a periodical work called
“ The St. Helena Kegister,” as well as his “ Tracts on St. Helena.”
General Beatson retired from the Government at the expiration of
five years, but his successor, Colonel Mark Wilks, was a man of
larger mind than to fall into the common course of undoing what a
predecessor has done, and accordingly concurred in most of Governor
Beatson’s plans for the improvement of the place and its people.
He arr ived at the Island on the 22nd June, 1813, and it was during
his reign that the most remarkable event occurred which ever
befell St.^Helena,
* Governor Beatson, in thanking the loyal portion of the garrison, specially mentions the
Artillery as being free from this spirit of insubordination.
t Beatson’s Tracts on St. Helena.