Admiral Cornwallis then intervened and asked Major Smith, 'To the best of your knowledge then have the marines serving on board the Bellerophon been treated in a harsh and improper manner?'
'I certainly do not think they have,' answered Major Smith.
Robert Daniel, the first lieutenant of the Bellerophon, was questioned along similar lines. He thought that the regime of the marines on the ship was as easy as any in the navy. When asked whether Lord Cranstoun had ever spoken harshly to the men he replied, 'I have very seldom heard Lord Cranstoun swear and never saw him strike a man or behave in a manner to prevent the people coming forward with their complaints.' Some of the other officers of the Bellerophon were questioned by Lord Cranstoun and came up with similar answers.
All this put Lord Cranstoun in a favourable light and left the marines in a difficult position because there seemed to be no justification for their complaints. However, they were saved by Major Smith who put in a passionate plea on their behalf. He told the court, 'I have been nearly two years embarked with them on board the Bellerophon, and I never felt myself so pleased with any party I had the honour of commanding, as I have done with them till this unhappy letter. Their attention and civility to every officer in whatever station on board is not to be exceeded by any one set of men afloat.'
He went on to praise their recent performance in the face of the French fleet: 'I have also had the opportunity in being with them in action and their courage and loyalty was never disputed. Lately in a particular situation the prisoners in particular on the seventeenth of June last, when not obliged to go to their quarters as being prisoners, were amongst the first under arms as volunteers.' He concluded by declaring that the prisoners 'exerted themselves to the utmost in everything relative to themselves and the duty of the ship'.
The court adjourned to consider the evidence and then returned a verdict which honourably cleared both parties. The court could find no evidence of ill-treatment of the marines. It was felt that the writing of the letter to Major-General Wemyss was highly improper but, in consideration of the good character of the prisoners, and their having behaved in a most exemplary manner in the recent action with the enemy, they should receive no punishment and should return to their duties on board the Bellerophon.
Lord Cranstoun had been in command of the ship for less than ten months. He remained her captain for another year. As far as one can tell from the ship's log and his own correspondence he encountered no further problems with the crew, and the ship resumed her usual routine - which meant returning to blockade duty off the west coast of France. But first she needed a complete overhaul. Nine years had passed since her launch in October 1786 and, although she had been out of commission on the Medway for two of those years, much of the remaining time had been spent at sea in all weathers. Cranstoun had written to the Admiralty on 16 September with a list of defects needing urgent attention. The most serious of these was the copper on the ship's bottom which was in a very bad state, and no doubt explains why she was sailing so slowly during the cruise which culminated in Cornwallis's Retreat.
Repairing and, where necessary, replacing the copper plates on the bottom of a warship was a major operation because it usually meant taking the ship into dry dock. With a relatively large ship, such as a two-decker, this meant lifting out the masts, guns and most of the ballast in order to lighten her and reduce her draught. On Sunday 11 October the Bellerophon was moved from the anchorage at Spithead into Portsmouth harbour and was lashed alongside the Essex hulk. For the next six weeks her sailors, assisted by workmen from the dockyard, were engaged in a great deal of heavy lifting and hard manual labour. While autumn gales raged outside in the Solent and driving rain swept across the waters of the harbour they systematically cleared the ship of almost everything that could be moved. The guns were hoisted out and lowered into a barge alongside. The massive anchors and anchor cables were stored in the Essex hulk, together with several hundred barrels of stores; 150 tons of shingle ballast were removed, and most of the running rigging was taken to the rigging store in the dockyard. On 26 October the ship was moved alongside the sheer hulk and her three great masts were lifted out. The next day she was towed across to the dockhead at the northern end of the dockyard and at high tide she was floated into one of the dry docks and made secure. When the water had drained out at low tide the gates were closed, and the workmen from the dockyard got to work. The barnacles and the thick weed trailing from the bottom of the ship were scraped and burnt off. The copper plates were carefully inspected, and repairs were carried out where necessary. Meanwhile a team of caulkers started work on the lower deck. The smell of hot tar replaced the dank odours from the bilges as the men worked their way through the ship, hammering oakum into the seams and sealing them with tar. Carpenters and plumbers brought their tools on board to make good the defects on Cranstoun's list. They fitted new steps to the ship's sides, repaired ladders and gratings, and the lanterns on the poop, mended the fire hearth in the galley and replaced leaking lead pipes.
While the ship was in the dry dock most of her crew were given work in the dockyard or on other ships in the harbour. One party of men was despatched to the rigging loft to work on the standing rigging. Another work party was sent to Southsea beach and spent an exhausting three days loading shingle for ballast into a lighter. On one day alone they shifted 76 tons of shingle. The carpenters, joiners, caulkers and shipwrights finished most of their work on the hull in a little over two weeks; on 13 November the gates of the dry dock were opened and the Bellerophon was floated out. She was hauled back to the sheer hulk to have her masts lifted back in, and then moved alongside the Essex hulk for her guns, anchors, cables and stores to be hoisted aboard and manhandled back into their respective places. As soon as the rigging had been set up she was towed out of the harbour entrance to join the other warships swinging with the tide in the anchorage at Spithead.
January 1796 found her once again heading down the Channel to face the winter storms off Ushant and the grey Atlantic waves rolling across the Bay of Biscay. Two or three months at sea scanning the horizon for French ships, a few weeks respite in the Solent or at Cawsand Bay to take on water and provisions, and then back to sea for another two or three months: it was a pattern her crew, and the crews of the other British warships on blockade duty, had been living with for two years and would have to endure for years to come. The only change in the routine as far as the Bellerophon was concerned was that in September 1796 she got a new captain. Lord Cranstoun was evidently not happy with his command. He managed to pull some strings and was appointed Governor of Grenada, the West Indian island which lies between Trinidad and Barbados. A more welcome contrast to the Bay of Biscay in winter would be hard to imagine. Unfortunately he did not live to take up his new post. Soon after his appointment was announced he died at his home in Bishops Waltham, Hampshire, his death apparently caused by drinking cider which had been kept in a vessel lined with lead. His wife Elizabeth, who was only twenty-seven, died within months 'of a decline occasioned by her bereavement'.
The Bellerophon's fourth captain was Henry D'Esterre Darby, a 47-year-old Irishman. An engraved portrait of him shows a handsome man with a sardonic expression. He was not an aristocrat but came from the landed gentry. His father was a barrister whose family owned Leap Castle in King's County, some 50 miles west of Dublin. His uncle George was a vice-admiral. Henry joined the navy as a midshipman at the age of thirteen and spent several years serving in frigates. His progress through the ranks was slow compared to the meteoric careers of many of his contemporaries. He was twenty-seven when he became a lieutenant and, although he spent two years on the Britannia, the flagship of his uncle who was then in command of the Channel fleet, it was not until 1783 that he was appointed captain at the comparatively advanced age of thirty-four.