Bulkeley knew that if he and the others were caught plotting a rebellion against Cheap, and the established military command structure, they might, like Cozens, be shot before ever leaving the island. Even if they succeeded and made it back to England, they could be court-martialed by a panel of Cheap’s fellow officers and condemned to take a walk up Ladder Lane and down Hemp Street. As a historian once put it, “A mutiny is like a horrible, malignant disease and the chances that the patient will die an agonizing death are so great, that the subject cannot even be mentioned aloud.”
