After dinner with Commissioner Middleton and Kempthorne
to a Court-martiall, to which, by virtue of my late captainship,
I am called, the first I was ever at; where many commanders, and
Kempthorne president. Here was tried a difference between Sir L.
Van Hemskirke, the Dutch captain who commands "The Nonsuch,"
built by his direction, and his lieutenant; a drunken kind of
silly business. We ordered the lieutenant to ask him pardon, and
have resolved to lay before the Duke of York what concerns the
captain, which was striking of his lieutenant and challenging him
to fight, which comes not within any article of the laws
martiall. But upon discourse the other day with Sir W. Coventry
I did advise Middleton, and he and I did forbear to give
judgment, but after the debate did withdraw into another cabin,
(the Court being held in one of the yachts, which was on purpose
brought up over against St. Katherine's) it being to be feared
that this precedent of our being made captains in order to the
trying of the loss of "The Defyance," wherein we are the proper
persons to enquire into the want of instructions while ships do
lie in harbour, might be hereafter made of evil use, by putting
the Duke of Buckingham, or any of these rude fellows that now are
uppermost, to make packed Courts by captains made on purpose to
serve their turns.
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