The abovenamed John Smith and Charles Meston personally appearing, made Oath to the Truth of the aforewritten Declaration.
Coram me J. Willard, Secr. & J. Pac.
—New England Courant, June 18, 1722.
[179] Johnson, History of the Pirates, London, 1726.
[180] By the old English law the clergy were exempted from trial before a secular judge. This privilege was afterwards extended, for many offences, to all laymen who could read. The legal recognition of the “Benefit of the Clergy” was not wholly repealed until 1827.
[181] Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1699, p. 746.
[182] The origin of this emblem is not known but it dates back at least to the fourteenth century. The existing silver oar of the High Court of Admiralty in England is believed to be of Tudor date, and that of the Cinque Ports, now preserved at Dover Castle, England, is of an earlier period. The silver oar had inscribed on its blade, the Royal Arms, an anchor, or some similar device. Miniature silver oars were also in use as badges of authority when effecting arrests under the order of an Admiralty Court. See an article on “The Jurisdiction of the Silver Oar of the Admiralty,” in the Nautical Magazine, Vol. XLVI (1877).—W. G. Perrin, The Library, Admiralty, London. Admiralty Courts in America continue to use the oar as an emblem of authority. The oar preserved in the Federal Building, Boston, is made of wood.
[183] This was because the Admiralty Courts, in theory and practice, had authority over acts committed on the sea and that control ceased at high-water mark.
APPENDIX
I
Captain Ploughman’s Privateering Commission
Joseph Dudley, Esq; Captain General and Governour in Chief, in and over Her Majesties Provinces of the Massachusetts Bay, and New-Hampshire in New-England in America, and Vice-Admiral of the same. To Capt. Daniel Plowman, Commander of the Briganteen Charles of Boston, Greeting.