None of the other Worcester men were executed. Between March 16 and April 3, Thomas Linsteed, John Bruckley and George Haines made solemn confession of their fictitious crimes before James Graham, the judge admiral. But these confessions are dismissed by a contemporary writer as worthless and purely self-serving; they merely elaborated the tale already told and were obviously made to repair the weakness of the State’s case, and as the prosecution’s apology for an act already beginning to disturb many consciences.
The public blood thirst was slaked. One reprieve followed another, and eventually the whole crew drifted out of prison, out of the country and out of the view of history.
And a few days before the execution of the three ill-fated men, our old friends Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland landed in England, but too late to prevent the tragedy of Leith sands, and revealed the true fate of the good ships Content and Speedy Return!
A moralist must find this tale provocative. Mark the factors of evil in the case; the commercial greed which seized the Annandale, the violent crime of Bowen in pirating the Speedy Return, the blind national anger which perverted public opinion, and which in its turn warped a timid and compliant court and council to its will, the individual habits of a ship’s steward, and the fear for their personal safety which made perjurers of the State’s witnesses. One’s speculation is challenged.
These tragic deaths were not entirely fruitless. Although not the foundation of the principle, nevertheless this celebrated cause went far to rivet unshakably into the foundations of English jurisprudence the vital doctrine of the corpus delicti,—proof of the actual fact of death before a charge of homicide will lie.
CHAPTER SIX
“WHO FIRES FIRST?”
John Gow
I
“As we eat, so shall we work.”