The Life of JOHN UPTON, a Pirate; including also the history of that sort of people, particularly the crew under Captain Cooper, in the Night Rambler
No laws in any civilized nations are more severe than those against piracy, nor are they less severely executed, and the criminals who suffer by them are usually the least pitied, or rather the most detested of all who come to die an ignominious death by the sentence of the Law. Of old they were styled hostes humani generis, and the oldest systems we have of particular institutions have treated them with a rigor suitable to their offence. With respect to those who fall into the hands of British justice, it must be remarked that they usually plead as an excuse for what they have done their being forced into pirates' service, and as it is well known that numbers are really forced into crimes they detest, so the lenience of our judicators generally admit whatever proofs are probable in such a case. But where the contrary appears, and the acts of piracy plainly arise from the wicked dispositions of the offenders, the Royal Mercy is less frequently extended to them than to any other sort of criminal whatever.
As to the prisoner of whom we are to speak, John Upton was born at Deptford, of very honest parents who gave him such an education as fitted their station, and that in which they intended to breed him. When grown up to be a sturdy youth, they put him out apprentice to a waterman, with whom he served out his time faithfully, and with a good character. Afterwards he went to sea and served for twenty-eight years together on board a man-of-war, in the posts of either boatswain or quartermaster. Near the place of his birth he married a woman, took a house and lived very respectably with her during the whole course of her life, but she dying while he was at sea, and finding at his return that his deceased wife had run him greatly in debt, clamours coming from every quarter, and several writs being issued out against him, he quitted the service in the man-of-war, and went immediately in a merchantman to Newfoundland. There by agreement he was discharged from the ship and entered himself for eighteen pounds per annum into the service of a planter in that country in order to serve him in fishing and furring, the chief trade of that place; for Newfoundland abounding with excellent harbours, there is no country in the world which affords so large and so plentiful a fishery as this does. However its climate renders it less desirable, it being extremely hot in the summer and as intensely cold in the winter, when the wild beasts roam about in great numbers, and furnish thereby an opportunity to the inhabitants of gaining considerably by falling them, and selling their furs.
Upton having served his year out was discharged from his master, and going to New England, he there, in the month of July, 1725, shipped himself on board the Perry merchantman bound for Barbadoes. The ship was livred and loaded again, the captain designing them to sail for England, whereupon Upton desired leave to go on board his Majesty's ship Lynn, Captain Cooper. But Captain King absolutely refusing to discharge him in order thereto, on the ninth of November, 1725, he sailed in the aforesaid vessel for England.
On the twelfth of the same month, off Dominica, they were attacked by a pirate sloop called the Night Rambler, under the command of one Cooper. The pirate immediately ordered the captain of the Perry galley to come on board his ship, which he and four of his men did, and the pirate immediately sent some of his crew on board the Perry galley, who effectually made themselves masters thereof, and as Upton said, used him and the rest of the persons they found on board with great inhumanity and baseness, a thing very common amongst those wretches. Upton also insisted that as to himself, one of the pirate's crew ran up to him as soon as they came on board and with a cutlass in his hand, said with an oath, You old son of a bitch, I know you and you shall go along with us or I'll cut out your liver, and thereupon fell to beating him fore and aft the deck with his cutlass.
The same evening he was carried on board the pirate sloop, where, according to his journal, three of the pirates attacked him; one with a pistol levelled at his forehead demanded whether he would sign their articles, another with a pistol at his right ear, swore that if he did not they would blow out his brains, while a third held a couple of forks at his breast, and terrified him with the continual apprehensions of having them stabbed into him. Whereupon he told them that he had four young infants in England, to whom he thought it his duty to return, and therefore begged to be excused as having reason to decline their service, as well as a natural dislike to their proceedings. Upon which, he said, he called his captain to take notice that he did not enter voluntarily amongst them. Upon this the pirate said they found out a way to satisfy themselves by signing for him, and this, he constantly averred, was the method of his being taken into the crew of the Night Rambler, where he insisted he did nothing but as he was commanded, received no share in the plunder, but lived wholly on the ship's allowance, being treated in all respect as one whom force and not choice had brought amongst them.
But to return to the Perry galley, which the pirates carried to the Island of Aruba, a maroon or uninhabited island, or rather sand bank, where they sat the crew ashore and left them for seventeen days without any provision, except that the surgeon of the pirate now and then brought them something in his pocket by stealth. On the tenth of December the pirates saw a sail which proved to be a Dutch sloop, which they took, and on board this Upton and two others who had been forced as well as himself were put, from whence as he said, they made their escape. After abundance of misfortunes and many extraordinary adventures, he got on board his Majesty's ship Nottingham, commanded by Captain Charles Cotterel, where he served for two years in the quality of quartermaster. He was then taken up and charged with piracy, upon which he was indicted at an Admiralty sessions held in the month of May, 1729, when the evidence at his trial appeared so strong that after a short stay the jury found him guilty.
But his case having been very differently represented, I fancy my readers will not be displeased if I give them an exact account of the proofs produced against him.
The first witness who was called on the part of the Crown was Mr. Dimmock, who had been chief mate on board the Perry galley, and he deposed in the following terms: