The ship's company were, not unnaturally, indignant, but their murmurs, if they reached the admiralty, carried no weight, and Crookshanks's explanation was considered sufficient.
In the course of 1743 he had again to write an explanatory letter, defending himself against a charge of carelessly performing his duty of protecting the trade in the Straits, so that several merchant ships were picked up by the enemy's privateers.
Crookshanks estimated them as of 40 guns each, and, considering the Sunderland to be no match for the three together, made sail away from them, and night closing in dark, succeeded in escaping.
‘Damn you,’ roared the ringleader of the mutineers, ‘you dare not show the pistols to the French.’ The man was put in irons, tried by court-martial, and hanged; others were ordered two hundred and fifty lashes; the first lieutenant was dismissed the service; and Crookshanks, being relieved from the command of the Sunderland, was, in the following March, appointed to command the Lark of 40 guns, although Anson, then one of the lords of the admiralty, as well as commander-in-chief of the Channel fleet, had written, on 13 Aug. 1746, a month before the court-martial: ‘The first lieutenant of the Sunderland is a sensible, clever fellow, which is more than I can say of the captain; nor can I discover that the first lieutenant has ever caballed with the common men since Crookshanks came into the ship.’ In June 1747 the Lark, in company with the Warwick of 60 guns, sailed from Spithead for the West Indies.
On their way, near the Azores, on 14 July, they met the Spanish ship Glorioso of 70 guns and 700 men, homeward bound with treasure, said to amount to nearly three millions sterling.
The damage the Warwick had sustained rendered it necessary to bear up for Newfoundland, where her captain officially charged Crookshanks with neglect of duty.
Again, in 1772, Crookshanks brought a similar but more scurrilous charge against Knowles's secretary, the judge advocate at his trial, who retaliated by publishing in extenso the minutes of the court-martial.