His early youth, when a good and gentle boy he had listened to the kind admonitions of his excellent mother; then the loss of his sweet parent, throwing him amongst selfish and careless relations; his first steps in vice; then his desire to repent and reform; the cold looks and want of sympathy with which he had been met; and bitterly cursing the want of charity that had been so parsimonious of kindness, when a few soothing words would have established him in the road to rectitude, he looked at the darker deeds of the few last years, and the end to which they would soon bring him.
Harassed by such painful reflections, it was a relief when the jailor came to conduct him to trial, though he knew that with him the road would be short from the tribunal to the gallows.
He felt that his fate was sealed; he had mortified De Vere so much, by dismantling his vessel and killing so many of his men, besides wounding him in the duel, that he knew the Englishman’s influence would prevent his being treated with the least leniency, and that the utmost penalty of the law would be exacted. He lacked also that powerful friend, gold. Aware of the uncertain tenure one in his profession had of life, he squandered the immense sums he made as he got them, and he had not been allowed an opportunity of obtaining aid from his associates.
It was with a mind conscious of the worst, and prepared to bear it, that with a calm, determined countenance, and collected air, he was confronted with his judges.
The indictment was read, and the presiding judge asked him if he was “Guilty, or not guilty?”
“Guilty I am!” said Willis, “as who that hears me is not? but, that I am more worthy of condemnation than even you, my judges, or than the accuser, I deny! ’Tis true, I have been guilty of bringing negroes from Africa to this island. But wherein am I thereby more guilty than you? Do you not eagerly buy them as soon as landed; and so hold out the temptation to bring them? ’Tis also true, that on the high sea I did, with force and death, resist ‘her Britannic Majesty’s vessel.’ Were moral right to prevail for once, her captain would be in my situation; for by his intervention the slaves that I would have brought here, to live in comfort to a good old age, will now be condemned to hard and short lives, as apprentices, in Brazil. But what avails my talking! My life, I know, is forfeited! and I will not degrade myself by making useless efforts to save it.”
The counts in the indictment were all sustained. After a short consultation, he was adjudged to die. And standing up to hear his sentence, he found he was to be hung, the day after the morrow, to the fore-yard of his own vessel. He then was carried back to his dungeon.
After the captain had been sentenced, the rest of the crew were brought up for trial; but being all men of little notoriety, and pleading their necessity to obey the commands of Willis, and that when they had joined the Maraposa they did not know she was a slaver, they were all pardoned except Mateo, who was compelled to pay a fine.
De Vere, after the trial, returned home exultingly; the man that had caused him to be laughed at by the whole squadron, the one who had nearly killed him, and again came within an ace of capturing his brig, was about to be punished.
Clara was likewise glad to hear of Willis’s fate, for she hated him for wounding her betrothed.