“This sort of criminals are engaged in a perpetual war with every individual, with every state, christian or infidel; they have no country, but by the nature of their guilt, separate themselves, renouncing the benefit of all lawful society, to commit these heinous crimes. The Romans therefore justly styled them, Hostes humoni generis enemies of mankind, and indeed they are enemies and armed, against themselves, a kind of felons de se—importing something more than a natural death.
“These unhappy men satiated with the number and notoriety of their crimes, had filled up the measure of their guilt, when by the Providence of Almighty God, and through the valor and conduct of Captain Solgard, they were delivered up to the sword of justice.
“The Roman Emperors in their edicts made this piece of service so eminent for the public good, as meritorious as any act of piety, or religious worship whatsoever.
“And ’twill be said for the honor and reputation of this colony (though of late scandalously reproached, to have favored or combined with pirates), and be evinced by the process and event of this affair, that such flagitious persons find as little countenance, and as much justice at Rhode Island, as in any other part of his Majestie’s dominions.
“But your time is more precious than my words, I will not misspend it in attempting to set forth the aggravations of this complex crime, big with every enormity, nor in declaring the mischiefs and evil tendencies of it; for you better know these things before I mention them; and I consider to whom I speak, and that the judgment is your honors.
“I shall therefore call the King’s evidences to prove the several facts, as so many distinct acts of piracy charged on Prisoners, not by light circumstances and presumptions, not by strained and unfounded conjectures, but by clear and postive evidence: and then I doubt not, since for ’tis the interest of mankind, that these crimes should be punished; your honors will do justice to the prisoners, this colony, and the rest of the world in pronouncing them guilty, and in passing sentence upon them according to law.”
Capt. John Welland then testified as to the facts attending the capture of his ship. He also said that Henry Barnes, one of the prisoners at the bar, was forced out of his ship at the time it was taken and was “very low and weak” and when on board Captain Estwick’s vessel (in which they had at last reached Portsmouth) Barnes had tried to get away and hid himself. But the pirates threatened to burn the ship unless he was given up so Barnes was compelled to go on board the pirate sloop. Barnes had cried and “took on very much” and asked the mate of the “Amsterdam Merchant” to notify his three sisters living in Barbadoes that he was a forced man and also very sick and weak at the time. The mate and the ship’s carpenter confirmed the captain’s testimony that all the pirates were “harnessed, that is, armed with guns, etc.”
Capt. Peter Solgard, Lieut. Edward Smith, and Archibald Fisher, “Chirsurgeon” of the “Grey-Hound Man of War,” testified to the well-known facts of the engagement with the pirates and William Marsh, a mariner, made oath that he had been taken by Low’s company in the West Indies the previous January and that “he saw on board the schooner at that time Francis Laughton and William —————— and on board the sloop, Charles Harris, Edward Lawson, Daniel Hyde, and John Fitz Gerald, all prisoners at the Bar, and that Gerald asked him whether he would seek his fortune with him.”
This concluded the testimony and the prisoners were then severally asked if they had anything to say in their own defence. Without exception each man said that he had been forced on board of Low and did nothing voluntarily.
The Advocate General then summed up the case, as follows:—