Here was the form of justice kept up, which is as much as can be said of several other courts, that have more lawful commissions for what they do.—Here was no feeing of council, and bribing of witnesses was a custom not known among them; no packing of juries, no torturing and wresting the sense of the law, for by-ends and purposes, no puzzling or perplexing the cause with unintelligible canting terms, and useless distinctions; nor was their sessions burdened with numberless officers, the ministers of rapine and extortion, with ill-boding aspects, enough to fright Astraea from the court. The place appointed for their trials, was the steerage of the ship; in order to which, a large bowl of rum punch was made, and placed upon the table, the pipes and tobacco being ready, the judicial proceedings began; the prisoners were brought forth, and articles of indictment against them read; they were arraigned upon a statute of their own making, and the letter of the law being strong against them, and the fact plainly proved, they were about to pronounce sentence, when one of the judges mov’d, that they should first smoke t’other pipe; which was accordingly done.
All the prisoners pleaded for arrest of judgment very movingly, but the court had such an abhorrence of their crime, that they could not be prevailed upon to show mercy, till one of the judges, whose name was Valentine Ashplant, stood up, and taking his pipe out of his mouth, said, he had something to offer to the court in behalf of one of the prisoners; and spoke to this effect.—By G⸺, Glasby shall not die; d⸺n me if he shall. After this learned speech, he sat down in his place, and resumed his pipe. This motion was loudly opposed by all the rest of the judges, in equivalent terms; but Ashplant, who was resolute in his opinion, made another pathetical speech in the following manner. G‑d⸺n ye gentlemen, I am as good a man as the best of you; d⸺m my s⸺l if ever I turned my back to any man in my life, or ever will, by G⸺; Glasby is an honest fellow, notwithstanding this misfortune, and I love him, D⸺l d⸺n me if I don’t: I hope he’ll live and repent of what he has done; but d⸺n me if he must die, I will die along with him. And thereupon, he pulled out a pair of pistols, and presented them to some of the learned judges upon the bench; who, perceiving his argument so well supported, thought it reasonable that Glasby should be acquitted; and so they all came over to his opinion, and allowed it to be law.
But all the mitigation that could be obtained for the other prisoners, was, that they should have the liberty of choosing any four of the whole company to be their executioners. The poor wretches were ty’d immediately to the mast, and there shot dead, pursuant to their villainous sentence.
When they put to sea again, the prizes which had been detained only for fear of spreading any rumour concerning them, which had like to have been so fatal at Corcovado, were thus disposed of: they burnt their own sloop, and mann’d Norton’s brigantine, sending the master away in the Dutch interloper, not dissatisfied.
With the Royal Fortune, and the brigantine, which they christened the Good Fortune, they pushed towards the latitude of Deseada, to look out for provisions, being very short again, and just to their wish, Captain Hingstone’s ill fortune brought him in their way, richly laden for Jamaica; him they carried to Berbudas and plundered; and stretching back again to the West Indies, they continually met with some consignment or other, (chiefly French,) which stored them with plenty of provisions, and recruited their starving condition; so that stocked with this sort of ammunition, they began to think of something worthier their aim, for these robberies that only supplied what was in constant expenditure, by no means answered their intentions; and accordingly they proceeded again for the coast of Guinea, where they thought to buy gold dust very cheap. In their passage thither, they took numbers of ships of all nations, some of which they burnt or sunk, as the carriage or characters of the masters displeased them.
Notwithstanding the successful adventures of this crew, yet it was with great difficulty they could be kept together, under any kind of regulation; for being almost always mad or drunk, their behaviour produced infinite disorders, every man being in his own imagination a captain, a prince, or a king. When Roberts saw there was no managing of such a company of wild ungovernable brutes, by gentle means, nor to keep them from drinking to excess, the cause of all their disturbances, he put on a rougher deportment, and a more magisterial carriage towards them, correcting whom he thought fit; and if any seemed to resent his usage, he told them, they might go ashore and take satisfaction of him, if they thought fit, at sword and pistol, for he neither valu’d or fear’d any of them.
About 400 leagues from the coast of Africa, the brigantine who had hitherto lived with them, in all amicable correspondence, thought fit to take the opportunity of a dark night, and leave the commodore, which leads me back to the relation of an accident that happened at one of the islands of the West Indies, where they water’d before they undertook this voyage, which had like to have thrown their government (such as it was) off the hinges, and was partly the occasion of the separation: the story is as follows.
Captain Roberts having been insulted by one of the drunken crew, (whose name I have forgot,) he, in the heat of his passion killed the fellow on the spot,
