“Why, do you think the Firebrands are thieves, you old canary, you?”
“How much, eh?” said the boatswain’s mate.
“Twelve feepennies,” quoth the matron.
“Oh, ah!” said one of the men—“Twelve times five is half a crown; there’s a dollar for you, old mother Popandchokem—now give me back five shillings.”
“Eigh, oh!” whined out the spruce merchant; “you dem rascal, who tell you dat your dollar more wort den any one else money eh? How can give you back five shilling and keep back twelve feepenny—eh?” The culprit, who had stood the Cocker of the company, had by this time gained his end, which was to draw the fat damsel a step or two from the large tub half-full of water, where the bottles were packed, and to engage her attention by stirring up her bile, or corruption, as they call it in Scotland, while his messmates instantly seized the opportunity, and a bottle a-piece also, and, as I turned round to look for them, there they all were in a circle taking the meridian altitude of the sun, or as if they had been taking aim at the pigeons on the eaves of the houses above them with Indian mouth tubes.
They then replaced the bottles in the tub, paid the woman more than she asked; but, by way of taking out the change, they chucked her stern foremost into the water amongst her merchandise, and then shouldered the vessel, old woman and all, and away they staggered with her, the empty bottles clattering together in the water, and the old lady swearing and bouncing and squattering amongst them, while jack shouted to her to hold her tongue, or they would let her go by the run bodily. Thus they stumped in the wake of their captain, until he arrived at the door of the Courthouse, to the great entertainment of the bystanders, cutting the strings that confined the corks of the stone bottles as they bowled along, popping the spruce into each other’s faces, and the faces of the negroes, as they ran out of the stores to look at jack in his frolic, and now and then taking a shot at the old woman’s cockemony itself, as she was held kicking and spurring high above their heads.
At length the captain, who was no great way ahead, saw what was going on, which was the signal for doucinog the whole affair, spruce-woman, tub, and bottles; and the party gathering themselves up, mustered close aboard of us, as grave as members of the General Assembly.
The regular courthouse of the city being under repair, the Admiralty Sessions were held in a large room occupied temporarily for the purpose. At one end, raised two steps above the level of the floor, was the bench, on which were seated the Judge of the Admiralty Court, supported by two post captains in full uniform, who are ex-officio judges of this court in the colonies, one on each side. On the right, the jury, composed of merchants of the place, and respectable planters of the neighbourhood, were enclosed in a sort of box, with a common white pine railing separating it from the rest of the court. There was a long table in front of the bench, at which a lot of blackrobed devil’s limbs of lawyers, were ranged—but both amongst them, and on the bench, the want of the cauliflower wigs was sorely felt by me, as well as by the seamen, who considered it little less than murder, that men in crops-black shock-pated fellows—should sit in judgment on their fellow-creatures, where life and death were in the scales.
On the left hand of the bench, the motley public, white, black, and of every intermediate shade—were grouped; as also in front of the dock, which was large. It might have been made with a view to the possibility of fifteen unfortunates or so being arraigned at one time; but now there were no fewer than forty-three jammed and pegged together into it, like sheep in a Smithfield pen the evening before market-day. These were the forty thieves—the pirates. They were all, without exception, clean, well shaven, and decently rigged in white trowsers, linen or check shirts, and held their broad Panama sombreros in their hands.
Most of them wore the red silk sash round the waist. They had generally large bushy whiskers, and not a few had earrings of massive gold, (why call wearing earrings puppyism? Shakspeare wore earrings, or the Chandos portrait lies,) and chains of the same metal round their necks, supporting, as I concluded, a crucifix, hid in the bosom of the shirt. A Spaniard can’t murder a man comfortably, if he has not his crucifix about him.