by John Marshall

“ Captain Pell did not retire to private life without undergoing the ordeal of a court-martial, a circumstance which, in justice to his character, we must here record.
A midshipman of the Menai, named Butcher, who had always been treated with extreme kindness and consideration, requited his commander’s friendly regard with a degree of perfidy and ingratitude of which, to the honor of human nature, instances are very rare. ”

“ To repeat the whole would be both tedious and useless:– one was, that he had made an improper conversion of ship’s stores; another, that he had cut the standing stays, and lashed them with eyes abaft the masts; a third, that he had ordered a red ensign to be entered as blown away, although not hoisted on the day that it was expended; and a fourth, that he had threatened to flog a midshipman. It is sufficient to state, that the charges exhibited against Captain Pell were declared to be “scandalous, vexatious, and frivolous, tending to the subversion of all discipline in his Majesty’s service;” ”

“ It gives me most sincere pleasure to add, that this service has been performed without a man being hurt on our side; and as, besides her own means of defence, she was moored with eight cables inside, and almost touching a mule lined with musketry, and within musket-shot of a castle mounting 8 guns, and of two armed feluccas, from under which fire she was towed without rudder or sails, I must principally attribute this good fortune to the judicious and prompt manner in which the attack was made> which strongly marks the judgment and gallantry of the first Lieutenant, Pell, who directed it. ”