and Master’s Mate, under his Lordship’s own eye, and the respective commands of Sir Hugh C. Christian and Sir Andrew Snape Douglas, who together with Sir Roger Curtis, the Captain of the Fleet, were members of his court-martial, and who all gave him the most flattering proofs of their esteem and approbation, not only whilst he served with them, but as long as they severally continued in existence.
In the actions with the French fleet, May 28 and 29, and June 1, 1794, Mr. Heywood did his duty on the quarter-deck as an aid-du-camp to Sir Andrew S. Douglas[1]; and after the return of the victorious fleet to Spithead, he had the honor to be selected as one of the two Midshipmen appointed to attend the side whenever his late Majesty visited the Queen Charlotte, or went to and fro in her barge.
Some doubts having arisen about this period as to the propriety of giving naval rank to a person who had been placed in Mr. Heywood’s late critical situation, his friend Sir Roger Curtis was kind enough to consult an eminent lawyer, whose opinion on that subject we now lay before our readers.
“The warrant for the execution of some of the offenders, and the pardon of Mr. Heywood, states the charge to have been ‘for mutinously running away with the armed vessel the Bounty, and deserting from his Majesty’s service.’ This you will find to be the 15th in the catalogue of offences enumerated in the act of 22 Geo. II. c. 33; and it is thereby enacted that the offender shall suffer death. Nothing is said of any incapacities whatever, and indeed it would have been strange to have superadded incapacities to a capital punishment.
“The judgments which a court-martial is empowered by that act to pronounce are of three distinct kinds: the one discretionary; another capital; and a third, incapacity ever to serve in the navy. The last (except so far as it is included in discretionary sentences) is enacted in one instance only, namely the 18th, which respects the taking on board any other goods than gold, silver, jewels, &c. Upon this state of things it should seem clear, that Mr. Heywood having received judgment of death, the only judgment which the act empowers the court-martial to pronounce, and his Majesty having been pleased to dispense with the execution of that sentence, the plain principle of the Common Law ought to take place, by which Mr. Heywood is in point of capacity to hold any station, civil or military, no way now distinguished from any other subject.
