After the Evidences had been severally sworn and Examined, the Prisoners at the Bar were asked, what they had to Say, who severally answered, they were forced men, that they never acted Voluntarily, and that they were principally Concerned in the rising.
Then the Advocate General summ'd up the nature of the Evidences. And the Prisoners were taken away from the Bar, and the Court was Cleared and in private.
Then the Court, having duly weighed and maturely Considered the Evidences against the Prisoners and their own Defence, Unanimously Agreed and voted, That the sd. John Filmore and Edward Cheesman were not Guilty of the Pyracies, Robberies and Felonies Exhibited agt. them. Then the aforesd Prisoners were brought to the Bar and the President pronounced the sd John Filmore and Edward Cheesman not Guilty.[21]
Then the Court Adjourned to three a Clock in the afternoon.
[1] This and the ensuing documents, nos. [119-122], are taken from the Massachusetts Archives, vol. 63, pp. 341-360, with some omissions of repetitious matter. Judge Sewall notes in his diary, May 1, 1724, "After Lecture I heard the good News of Andrew Harradine and others rising up and subjugating Phillips the Pirat". Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., XLVII. 335, where extracts telling the story are transcribed from the Boston News-Letter of Apr. 16, May 7, and May 21. Cheesman threw John Nutt, the master of the pirate ship, overboard; "Harradine struck down [John] Phillips the Captain with an Adds, and another man struck Burrell the Boatswain with a Broad Ax; and the rest fell upon James [or Joseph] Sparks the Gunner, and having in a few Minutes dispatched the said Four Officers, the rest of the Pirates immediately surrendered themselves Prisoners". The result of the trials here recorded was that William White and John Rose Archer the quartermaster were condemned to die, William Phillips (not the pirate captain), and William Taylor were reprieved and later pardoned, the others were acquitted. Acts and Resolves of Mass. Bay, X. 627, see also X. 437. A vivid account of the whole affair is given in the second edition of Johnson, General History of the Pyrates, pp. 396-410; another, in A Narration of the Captivity of John Fillmore, and his Escape from the Pirates (Johnstown, N.Y., 1806).
[2] 11 and 12 Will. III. ch. 7.
[3] 6 Geo. I. ch. 19.
[4] Acting governor 1722-1728.
[5] Admiralty judge. Capt. Thomas Durell, R.N., was the commander of H.M.S. Seahorse. Thomas Lechmere, younger brother of Lord Lechmere, was surveyor general of the customs for the northern district of America; he had married the only daughter of Major-Gen. Wait Winthrop, and was a defendant in the celebrated case of Winthrop vs. Lechmere. John Jekyll was collector of the port of Boston.
[6] John Fillmore, born in Ipswich, Mass., in 1702, d. 1777, was great-grandfather of President Millard Fillmore. The Narration mentioned above, in [note 1], was drawn up from his oral statements, as remembered by a friend. He was taken out of the sloop Dolphin, Haskell, fishing on the Newfoundland banks.