Prisoners: Roberts commanded us into the boat, and the quartermaster to rob the ship, neither of whose commands we dared to have refused.
President: And granting it so, those are still your own acts, since done by orders from officers of your own election. Why would men, honestly disposed, give their votes for such a captain and such a quartermaster as were every day commanding them on distasteful services?
Here succeeded a silence among the prisoners, but at length Fernon very honestly owned that he did not give his vote to Magnes, but to David Sympson (the old quartermaster), “for in truth,” says he, “I took Magnes for too honest a man, and unfit for the business.”
The evidence was plain and home, and the court, without any hesitation, brought them in “Guilty.”
William Church, Phil. Haak, James White, Nich. Brattle, Hugh Riddle, William Thomas, Tho. Roberts, Jo. Richards, Jo. Cane, R. Wood, R. Scot, Wm. Davison, Sam. Morwell, Edward Evans, Wm. Guineys, and eighteen Frenchmen.
The four first of these prisoners, it was evident to the court, served as music on board the pirate, were forced lately from the several merchant ships they belonged to; and that they had, during this confinement, an uneasy life of it, having sometimes their fiddles, and often their heads broke, only for excusing themselves, or saying they were tired when any fellow took it in his head to demand a tune.
The other English had been a very few days on board the pirate, only from Whydah to Cape Lopez, and no capture or robbery done by them in that time. And the Frenchmen were brought with a design to reconduct their own ship (or the Little Ranger in exchange) to Whydah road again, and were used like prisoners; neither quartered nor suffered to carry arms. So that the court immediately acquiesced in acquitting them.
Tho. Sutton, David Simpson, Christopher Moody, Phil. Bill, R. Hardy, Hen. Dennis, David Rice, Wm. Williams, R. Harris, George Smith, Ed. Watts, Jo. Mitchell, and James Barrow.
The evidence against these prisoners were Grata de Haen, master of the Flushingham, taken nigh Axim, the beginning of January last.
Benj. Kreft, master, and James Groet, mate of the Gertruycht, taken nigh Gabone in December last, and Mr. Castel, Wingfield, and others that had been prisoners with the pirates.