of Stangkang in the exercise of discretion.
2.
The man was sentenced to penal servitude in one of the prisons at Stangking, on April 1905, for continuing to disobey lawful orders, to neglect duty and to impede the navigation of the vessel.
The ground for the refusal to obey orders on the vessel was that she was carrying contraband of war "good for Japan." In the absence of a Court in England to decide on the question of the right of a man in such cases to refuse duty, the Haiphong magistrates used their discretion.
In other cases of a similar nature, the men were treated leniently. The magistrates considered that there was no reasonable probability of exceptional personal danger involved, and they held that the men were obliged to proceed to places within the area of their agreement, if they had entered into such agreements with knowledge of the existence of a state of war.