These being a desperate and factious set, did not distress us much by their departure, but rather added to our future security: one in particular, James Mitchell by name, we had all the reason in the world to think had committed no less than two murders since the loss of our ship; one on the person found strangled on board, another on the body of a man whom we discovered among some bushes upon Mount Misery, stabbed in several places, and shockingly mangled. This diminution of our numbers was succeeded by an unfortunate accident much more affecting in its consequences, I mean the death of Mr. Cozens, midshipman; in relating which with the necessary impartiality and exactness, I think myself obliged to be more than ordinarily particular. Having one day, among other things, got a cask of peas out of the wreck, about which I was almost constantly employed, I brought it to shore in the yawl; when having landed it, the captain came down upon the beach, and bid me to go up to some of the tents and order hands to come down and roll it up; but finding none except Mr. Cozens, I delivered him the orders, who immediately came down to the captain, where I left them when I returned to the wreck. Upon my coming on shore again, I found that Mr. Cozens was put under confinement by the captain, for being drunk and giving him abusive language: however, he was soon after released. A day or two after, he had some dispute with the surgeon, and came to blows: all these things incensed the captain greatly against him. I believe this unfortunate man was kept warm with liquor, and set on by some ill-designing persons; for, when sober, I never knew a better natured man, or one more inoffensive. Some little time after, at the hour of serving out provisions, Mr. Cozens was at the store tent; and having, it seems, lately had a quarrel with the purser, and now some words arising between them, the latter told him he was come to mutiny; and without any further ceremony, fired a pistol at his head, which narrowly missed him. The captain, hearing the report of a pistol, and perhaps the purser's words, that Cozens was come to mutiny, ran out of his hut with a cocked pistol in his hand, and, without asking any questions, immediately shot him through the head. I was at this time in my hut, as the weather was extremely bad; but running out upon the alarm of this firing, the first thing I saw was Mr. Cozens on the ground, weltering in his blood: he was sensible, and took me by the hand, as he did several others, shaking his head, as if he meant to take leave of us. If Mr. Cozens' behaviour to his captain was indecent and provoking, the captain's, on the other hand, was rash and hasty: if the first was wanting in that respect and observance which is due from a petty officer to his commander, the latter was still more unadvised in the method he took for the enforcement of his authority; of which, indeed, he was jealous to the last degree, and which he saw daily declining, and ready to be trampled upon. His mistaken apprehension of a mutinous design in Mr. Cozens, the sole motive of this rash action, was so far from answering the end he proposed by it, that the men, who before were much dissatisfied and uneasy, were by this unfortunate step thrown almost into open sedition and revolt. It was evident that the people, who ran out of their tents, alarmed by the report of fire-arms, though they disguised their real sentiments for the present, were extremely affected at this catastrophe of Mr. Cozens (for he was greatly beloved by them): their minds were now exasperated, and it was to be apprehended, that their resentment, which was smothered for the present, would shortly shew itself in some desperate enterprise. The unhappy victim, who lay weltering in his blood on the ground before them, seemed to absorb their whole attention; the eyes of all were fixed upon him; and visible marks of the deepest concern appeared in the countenances of the spectators. The persuasion the captain was under, at the time he shot Mr. Cozens, that his intentions were mutinous, together with a jealousy of the diminution of his authority, occasioned also his behaving with less compassion and tenderness towards him afterwards than was consistent with the unhappy condition of the poor sufferer: for when it was begged as a favour by his mess-mates, that Mr. Cozens might be removed to their tent, though a necessary thing in his dangerous situation, yet it was not permitted; but the poor wretch was suffered to languish on the ground some days, with no other covering than a bit of canvass thrown over some bushes, where he died.