The Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of Albert W. Hicks / The Pirate and Murderer, Executed on Bedloe's Island, New York Bay, on the 13th of July, 1860, for the Murder of Capt. Burr, Smith and Oliver Watts, on Board the Oyster Sloop E. A. Johnson. Containing the History of His Life (Written by Himself) from Childhood Up to the Time of His Arrest. With a Full Account of His Piracies, Murders, Mutinies, High-way Robberies, etc., Comprising the Particulars of Nearly One Hundred Murders! to which is added the Account of His Arrest, Imprisonment, Trial and Execution. Also, His Phrenological Character, as described by L. N. Fowler.

by Albert W. Hicks

There lay the elder Watts in his berth, and close beside him the ghastly, bloody corpse of the captain.

I stood a moment looking at him, and dashed at him and struck out with the axe.

He leaped out of his berth, and sprang at me, all red with the blood of the captain, whose body had fallen past him, covering him with gore in its fall.

He tried to grapple with me, but stepping back, I gave the fatal axe a full swing, and struck him again, again, and again, once upon the head, once on the back, and once more upon the head, which felled him to the floor, and he lay dead at my feet, side by side with the captain.

My bloody work was done!

Dead men tell no tales.

I was alone. No eye had seen me, and now I was free to reap the reward of my work.

I did not feel the slightest regret for what I had done, and went about removing the bodies, as coolly as though they had been so much old lumber.

I took a rope and bent it on to the feet of the elder Watts, hauled him on deck, and threw him over the quarter. I then hauled the captain out in the same manner, and threw him over; and then going to midships, I lifted the body of the younger Watts from the deck, and plunged him into the sea by the starboard side.

I then threw the axe overboard, and soon as I had done this, I changed the course of the sloop, and ran in close to the Hook.