It will be recollected that Captain Bligh's people received warmth and comfort by wringing out their clothes in salt-water. The same practice was adopted by the crews of the _Pandora's_ boats; but the doctor observes, that 'this wetting their bodies with salt water is not advisable, if protracted beyond three or four days, as, after that time, the great absorption from the skin that takes place, taints the fluids with the bitter part of salt water, so that the saliva becomes intolerable in the mouth.' Their mouths, indeed, he says, became so parched, that few attempted to eat the slender allowance of bread. He also remarks, that as the sufferings of the people continued, their temper became cross and savage. In the captain's boat, it is stated, one of the mutineers took to praying; but that 'the captain, suspecting the purity of his doctrines, and unwilling that he should have a monopoly of the business, gave prayers himself.'
On the 13th, they saw the island of Timor, and the next morning landed and got some water, and a few small fish from the natives; and on the night of the 15th, anchored opposite the fort of Coupang. Nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality of the governor and other Dutch officers of this settlement, in affording every possible assistance and relief in their distressed condition. Having remained here three weeks, they embarked on the 6th October, on board the _Rembang_ Dutch Indiaman, and on the 30th, anchored at Samarang, where they were agreeably surprised to find their little Tender, which they had so long given up for lost. On the 7th November they arrived at Batavia, where Captain Edwards agreed with the Dutch East India Company, to divide the whole of the ship's company and prisoners among four of their ships proceeding to Europe. The latter the captain took with him in the _Vreedenburgh_; but finding his Majesty's ship _Gorgon_ at the Cape, he transhipped himself and prisoners, and proceeded in her to Spithead, where he arrived on the 19th June, 1792.
Captain Edwards, in his meagre narrative, takes no more notice of his prisoners with regard to the mode in which they were disposed of at Coupang and Batavia, than he does when the _Pandora_ went down. In fact, he suppresses all information respecting them, from the day in which they were consigned to '_Pandora's_ Box.' From this total indifference towards these unfortunate men, and their almost unparalleled sufferings, Captain Edwards must be set down as a man, whose only feeling was to stick to the letter of his instructions, and rigidly to adhere to what he considered the strict line of his duty; that he was a man of a cold phlegmatic disposition, whom no distress could move, and whose feelings were not easily disturbed by the sufferings of his fellow-creatures. He appears to have been one of those mortals, who might say, with Manfred--