But alas for the commissioner’s hopes!  On entering the shop he found that, instead of being diligently employed, the men were listening to a heated discourse from a malcontent from another part of the dockyard. This last straw raised Sir Thomas’s ire.  Seizing a stout cudgel from one of the men, he struck out right and left at the astonished party till bruised and cut pates became the order of the day.  Then, having thoroughly cowed the malcontents by taking more pains in the use of the stick than in any business for the last twelve months (as he afterwards expressed it), he sent for the guard and clapped three of the ringleaders in the stocks.