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Polishing the King's Iron with Your Eyebrows
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:34 pm    Post subject: Polishing the King's Iron with Your Eyebrows Reply with quote

by Cindy Vallar



No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into gaol; for being in a ship is being in a gaol, with the chance of being drowned.

A ship is worse than a gaol. There is, in a gaol, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the added disadvantage of being in danger.



Anyone who reads books about the Age of Sail (1650-1850) sooner or later comes across these passages from Dr. Samuel Johnson. They express his feelings about life at sea, and there was a degree of truth in them. A seaman was more likely to die young and live a life fraught with danger than had he stayed ashore. “One late-eighteenth-century observer computed that for every sixteen sailors who died of all diseases, eleven perished by drowning or in wrecks, and one of every twenty-five British ships was lost each year.” (Shomette, 124) But were Johnson’s words an accurate portrayal of life behind bars, or did they paint a rosier picture than the reality?

Today, we use “gaol” (jail) and “prison” interchangeably; in the past they meant different things.1 People from the seventeenth or eighteenth century never conceived of punishing someone by locking them in a cell. If you entered a prison, you were most likely a debtor or a prisoner of war, or your political beliefs or actions marked you as an enemy to the state.2 The premise was that once creditors were paid, peace was declared, or you were no longer deemed a threat to the current government or ruler, you walked out a free person.

A gaol, on the other hand, was for common criminals. It served as your “home” until your case was heard, a verdict was declared, and any punishment deemed fitting for the offense was inflicted. If judged innocent, you would be released. If guilty, you went free once your punishment had been meted out – assuming you weren’t found guilty of a felony where death was deemed the appropriate penalty.

As today, there were misdemeanors and felonies, but morality also played a role in punishments earned. The former were lesser crimes that garnered a fine or a public shaming. For example, Andrew Searle was fined five shillings in 1682 for “wandering from place to place” on Sundays rather than going to church. (Cox) Captain Kimble, who had been at sea for three years, kissed his wife in public on his return to Boston one Sunday – a crime which landed him in the stocks.

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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Most felonies, including stealing a sheep or a handkerchief, carried a death sentence in the eighteenth century. Mitigating circumstances and a growing reluctance for killing led to lesser physical punishments. Examples of these might involve branding (B=blasphemer, D=drunkard, or T=thief, for instance), flogging, losing body parts (such as an ear), transporting and servitude, or sitting in the stocks or standing in the pillory.

Death remained the penalty decreed for the most serious and violent crimes. The Old Testament (c. 900 BC) listed the earliest extant record of such punishments: stoning, burning, decapitation, and strangulation. The Twelve Tablets, Rome’s earliest laws, permitted “death by burning, falling, clubbing, hanging, drowning, being buried alive, and decapitation.” (Newbold, 8Cool

King Henry VIII of England enacted a law making death the penalty for traitors, pirates, thieves, robbers, murderers, and conspirators. William III’s “An Act for the more effectual Suppression of Piracy” made death the punishment not only for pirates but also their abettors. This statute also allowed their trials to take place in Vice-Admiralty Courts, rather than requiring pirates to be transported to London to stand trial. Until their convictions and executions, accused pirates were imprisoned.3


Kings Henry VIII and William III of England
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Prior to 1700, before the establishment of the Vice-Admiralty Courts, captured pirates were taken to England. The principal place to incarcerate these sea rogues was the Marshalsea in Southwark, an area south of the River Thames, where the Admiralty housed prisoners who committed crimes (such as piracy, mutiny, and smuggling) on the high seas.4 Other pirates – particularly those slated for imminent trial at the Old Bailey or those of great infamy, like Captain William Kidd, found themselves within the walls of Newgate Gaol in London.5


Equated to being “the worst Prison in the Nation” in 1722, the Marshalsea Prison was erected when “the good men of the town of Suthwerk” were granted permission in 1373 “to build in the high street leading from the church of St. Margaret towards the south, a house, 40 feet long and 30 feet wide, in which to . . . keep the prisoners of the Marshalsea . . . .” (“Southwark,” 9-10) It was bordered on three sides by the Borough High Street, Mermaid Alley, and Angel Alley.6 To gain access you entered through a gate on the Borough and walked down a narrow passageway.



As you quit the main street, a dirty court presents itself to your view, which is terminated by large gates, closed with a massy bar of iron, fastened with an enormous padlock. The top of the high wall over it is guarded by a chevaux de frize, to prevent the unhappy prisoners making their escape. By a narrow door, which you go up three steps to, on your right hand, and which is secured with a weighty chain and a large lock, you enter through a dirty room, which is the station of the turnkey. The horrid clanking of the chain, or the dreadful sound of the lock, is sufficient to terrify you; but when you descend into the prison, it is wretched almost beyond description. Houses, in which are apartments for the prisoners, with scarce a window, except in those whose inhabitants can afford to pay for them. Walls tottering to their fall . . . (White, Mansions, 47-Cool
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

John Strype, a record keeper, described the Marshalsea as “a long and strong building” in 1720. (White, 47) Three decades later the “houses” (above), originally erected sometime between the 1400s and 1500s, still housed prisoners.

The author of Memoirs of the Mint (1713) provided this description of living within the Marshalsea, which he referred to as “an Inchanted Castle.”

The various Spectacles in this Place were amazing, in one Place you hear a Fiddle, in another a Groan; here a Piper, there a Penitent; in another place a fat Baud, and after her a Skelleton, at the Head of fifty walking Diseases, tho I rarely met a fighting Face, yet there’s scarce a Man, that is not a thousand strong, and what is strange, he feeds all these, while he starves himself. Within you hear the Chinking of Irons, and Vollies of Oaths, while they are fetter’d from throwing ought else, at one another’s Heads. The most wretched here, Fare the best, and eat out of the Basket, while those on the other side, are ready to eat them up. (White, 53)


Marshalsea Prison on Borough High Street, south front of north side in 1773
Door to strong room is farthest right of building on right
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Marshalsea had a Common side, a Master’s side (five buildings known as the Horsepond, the “Oake” (for female inmates), the Nursery, the Park, and the Long Gallery). Eighty prisoners, six of whom were women, occupied twenty-four out of thirty-three rooms in the Master’s side. To share a bed with another prisoner here cost 2 shillings 6 pence each week in 1729. Total rents that year amounted to £155.

In contrast between 280 and 361 prisoners lived on the Common side; 68 of these were female. Instead of separate cells, this populace inhabited sixteen wards in three buildings. The prison also had a chandler’s shop, coffee room, and chop-house, which the inmates ran and for which rents were collected.

[T]he Marshalsea was part of a small town of prisons stretching north from St George’s Church, Southwark. As you walked, in 1729, from the church towards London Bridge along the Borough and looked to your right, you came immediately upon the White Lyon . . . an inn some time in the sixteenth century and had been recently rebuilt as the New Gaol for Southwark felons. Next door was the Southwark House of Correction or Bridewell for vagrants, night-walkers and turbulent apprentices. Then, a few doors on, the King’s Bench, for political prisoners and better-off debtors. Then, almost without pause, the Marshalsea, its buildings a mix of fifteenth and sixteenth-century gabled houses and a rather grand Jacobean court-house. A few hundred yards to the north of that was the Borough Clink, ruinous and little used except for a few miserable debtors; it was the prison of the Clink Liberty, nominally in the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. (White, “Pain,” 71)

Those initially confined within the Marshalsea were those who committed an offense within the borders of the King’s Court. The Admiralty lodged its first prisoners there in 1430. These men were housed in a separate enclosure within the prison. Around this same time debtors also came to be incarcerated here. Among the prisoners in 1561 were the Bishop of London and three others “for religion, 1 for debt, 1 ‘for Ronnynge away from the Gallys,’ and several mariners ‘for Suspecyons of peracye.” (“Southwark”) After 1601, the principal inmates were debtors, but the Admiralty continued to send pirates and other offenders to the Marshalsea until its closure in 1842.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The person in charge of a gaol or prison was the keeper, who employed turnkeys or warders, a steward, and a deputy to assist him in running the facility. Little or no salary came with the job; he imposed fees for the usage of everything, from the irons shackling a prisoner to the rental of the cell, and each inmate had to pay these assessments. “Inmates were charged excessively while they had money to pay, and callously neglected once their funds and influence were exhausted.” (Lincoln, 23) The Marshalsea’s Deputy Keeper William Acton imposed outrageous fees in the 1720s.

[Inmates] were barely fed unless they could pay for their own food and drink or received help from friends and relatives. Those who exhausted these options simply starved until they collapsed. If, at this point, they could raise the 3d. needed to pay the fee of the common nurse of the prison, they would be carried to the sick ward, where meager rations might extend their life a month or two. Otherwise, the sick were left in their cells, and unfortunate roommates had no choice but to sleep alongside them. (It was common to sleep three to a bed.) (Lincoln, 24)

Abuse in the Marshalsea was common, sometimes terrifying. According to a 1699 pamphlet one “Woman [was] almost naked and perish’d,” having been imprisoned there for seventeen months. A Jacobite named Alexander Dallzell, incarcerated during the winter of 1711, was placed in “Irons these eight Months past, in which in the Summer occasioned two severe fits of sickness that had almost taken me off . . . I am perswaded if these irons are not Removed they and ye pinching Cold weather, together wth Lying upon ye bare boards will Inevitably cut me off in a short time.” (White, Mansions, 51)

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A 1714 petition sent to Parliament claimed that more than “600 poor insolvent Debtors” faced the keen prospect of dying because they lacked necessaries for survival. Captain Derew “was found roasting a Rat for his Subsistence.” (White, 51) A prisoner could “chew upon the very Iron Bars that confine him; for no one helps him under the pinching Streights of Hunger.” (White, Mansions, 52) The wards in 1729 were “excessively Crowded, Thirty, Forty, nay Fifty Persons having been locked up in some of them not Sixteen Foot Square.” (White, Mansions, 95) One ward measured 16 x 14 x 8 feet and each night thirty-two men were locked inside. “‘The Surface of the Room is not sufficient to contain that Number, when laid down, so that one half are hung up in Hammocks.’” (White, “Pain,” 69) These inmates also had to relieve themselves inside this room, “‘the stench of which is noisome beyond Expression’,” and in the summer they “‘perished for want of Air’.” (White, “Pain,” 69)

The 1729 committee report to Parliament also mentioned the punishments belligerent prisoners received. Carpenter Thomas Bliss attempted an escape.

He’d been captured, beaten with a long club made from a bull’s dried pizzle, stamped on, loaded with heavy irons including “the sheers” that forced his legs wide apart, kept in a filthy airless cell, tortured with thumbscrews and with an “Iron Scull-Cap” “which was screwed so close that it forced the Blood out of his Ears and Nose.” (White, “Pain,” 69)

He never recovered from this ill treatment and, although released in spite of never having paid his debts, he had died in hospital two years before the committee came to the prison.

Bliss wasn’t the only prisoner in the Marshalsea to suffer ill usage. Nearly all prisoners wore manacles when they entered prison, and this one was no exception. In a 1483 inventory the Marshalsea had a variety of such restraints:

Item xvij pair’ of Sherys
Item lj pair’ Fedirs called Shakyllis
Item ij Devyllis in the neke
Item xj manacles for menys handis
Item ij Doble Colers of Iron . . .
Item xxvij pair’ of lynkis withoute Shakillis (Carlin, 270)
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



Sherys were iron rings for the ankles with a long rod between them; these made certain the inmate’s legs could not be closed. Colers (collars) were either double or single. Some had chains and others had none; the length of these chains could be long or short.

Pugnacious prisoners, rule breakers, and those who required persuasion to divulge information were the ones most likely to endure torture. Thumbscrews were employed to gain knowledge that the prisoner was reticent to reveal. These devices “took many forms, the object being to crush the bones of the fingers and thumb.” (Swain, 126) Bliss’s “Iron Scull-Cap” resembled the frame of an iron beanie with screws attached to the temple region and an iron brace that kept the head and neck rigid. When the screws were slowly tightened, they caused the eyes “to start out of his Head, the Blood gushed out of his Ears and Nose, he foamed at the Mouth, the Slaber run down, and he made several Motions to speak, but could not.”7 (White, Mansions, 105) A “bull’s pizzle” measured three or four feet in length and had a knob on one end. (White, Mansions, 105) When dried, it became as hard as teak and was often used by butchers to slaughter animals. In the Marshalsea, it was used to beat prisoners.

If psychological torture wished to be inflicted, being locked in the “Strong Room” might accomplish the deed. This was a place without any windows and beneath which ran a sewer. The usual occupants were the deceased. One man, who endured six days of incarceration, said, “the Vermin devoured the Flesh from the Faces, eat the Eyes out of the Heads of the Carcasses, which were bloated, putrifyed, and turned green.” (White, Mansions, 105)

Little wonder that some prisoners sought to escape the confines of the Marshalsea. One Admiralty prisoner suspected of smuggling walked away in the late 1570s. Peter Lambert used a file given to him by his wife, Margery, and a neighbor, Alice Bevershawe, who concealed it in their clothes. Two decades later, pirate Adam Warner donned female apparel. A report sent to Queen Elizabeth’s chief advisor alleged that Warner’s abettor was a “lewd” female” who gave the prison porter “a pair of new stockings, to loosen the iron shackles around the legs of the prisoner.” (Appleby, 7Cool This permitted him to “putt them over his heade & soe did & left them in the hall & escaped.” (Appleby, 7Cool The High Court of the Admiralty questioned a twenty-eight-year-old spinster named Edey Haggarde in October 1599, but she denied any knowledge of the escape. She only agreed that she had visited Warner several times. Before his escape, pirate Peter Philip had the audacity to place his fetters in the porter’s lodge.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Part II

One man who provided insight into the life and inner workings of the Marshalsea was William Herle. He and three others were arrested for acts of piracy off the Isle of Wight and placed in solitary confinement in 1571. His imprisonment in the Marshalsea was not an accident. In addition to debtors and Admiralty prisoners, the Marshalsea also hosted political and religious ones, including many Catholics who wished to see Elizabeth dead and Mary Queen of Scots seated on her throne. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s chief advisor, needed an “agent provocateur” so Herle was arrested on trumped-up charges. To convince the collaborators that he was a supporter of their efforts, he availed himself of prison greed. “I tooke a payer of shackells yesterday of purpose, whiles I went into the garden & that hath astonied the Scott and all those of the house mervaylously.” (Adams, 266) He also explained how he smuggled items in and out and offered to do so to further their cause.

My chamber where I am prisoner doth open vpon the streete and vnder the wyndowe ther ys a lyttel house of som poore man. Almost in the topp of the house inward, ther is a hole that comith to my chamber, wherin I may easely thrust my hand. I think that with a small mater, George Robinson or borche might gett acqayntance with the poore man, and by that meane through the hole might be conveyed to me any letters, or else I might easely speake to any body, yf they would com into the striate or place. I shew my selfe at the windowe at viij of the clock in the morning, and At no one, at after dynner at iiij of the clock, and in the evening betwene seven and eight. There is allso a lyttle Tauerne wher all men resort vnto. (Adams, 228)

By putting missives into the hole in the neighbor’s attic, or retrieving a letter placed there, correspondence between the prisoners and those outside the Marshalsea was possible. By offering the use of the opening in his cell, Herle made certain he would have the opportunity to read what the messages contained and pass along the plot’s details to Burghley.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While some things might escape the keeper’s and turnkeys’ notice, they did search cells.

I am this morning comitted to Close prison . . . and am charged with heavy Irons being searched for writings. But as god would whiles I was put a parte & they sekeing an other Chamber I brake up Charles letter as ye se and put it in a darke Chinck. (Adams, 233)

Nor was Herle the only one who took advantage of these hidey-holes. “[T]he secretion of letters in ‘dark chinks’ in the porous walls or their concealment in items of clothing also suggests that the ministers, keepers, and lower-level prison guards tolerated the exchange of information, supposing (often correctly) that if intercepted, the letters or documents might yield incriminating evidence.” (Adams, 236-237)



Adam Warner, Peter Lambert, and Peter Philip weren’t the only pirates to find themselves locked up in the Marshalsea. Seventeen men tried at Cape Coast Castle (right) in April 1723, were transported from Africa to Southwark. These men had served under Bartholomew Roberts prior to his death from grapeshot during the sea battle between HMS Swallow, Little Ranger, Royal Fortune, and a third vessel the pirates had seized in February. The following pirates all pled not guilty, but the witnesses offered conflicting testimony.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tried 4 April 1722

James Barrow

His original berth was the Martha, a snow, and he claimed he was forced to join the pirates. Witness Jean Gowelt swore “this Prisoner . . . came armed with Cutlass and Pistols on board of them, drinking hard that Night, and the next Day following to robbing and plundering of them . . . cut off all the Heads of their Fowls, and sung at Supper Spanish and French Songs out of a Dutch Prayer-Book; and the Prisoner beat one of the Ship’s Company for coming to see what they were doing.” (British, 3:141-142) John Wingfield testified that Barrow “behaved himself extreamly civil . . . and made offer to hide himself there, if he would carry him off.” (British, 3:142)




Tried 5 April 1722

James Harris

He had only been a Gunner’s Mate for six weeks before the Fortune was captured. More than once he told Harry Glasby, who was acquitted, that “he would be glad to get away,” but did go aboard prizes. (British, 3:111) Fortune’s Surgeon’s Mate, who was also acquitted, testified that Harris had stayed in the Hold during the battle with Swallow. Two others claimed that he “was lame, and unfit for Duty.” (British, 3:112) Harris produced an affidavit from the captain of the Richard, the pink he had originally sailed on, and sworn before the mayor of Bidyford that said Harris had been forced to go with the pirates.

William Mead

Although several saw him board prizes, they also saw “him whispering sometimes . . . in order to contrive getting away.” (British, 3:112) Elizabeth Trengrove, a passenger aboard the Onslow, testified that he “was very rude to her, swearing and cursing, as also forcing her hoop’d Petticoat off.” (British, 3:112) Mead swore he had been forced and produced an affidavit from his merchant captain to that effect.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tried 7 April 1722

Christopher Lang (sometimes written as Long)

After the pirates attacked the brigantine on which Lang sailed, they sank her and forced him to work as under the pirate’s current sailmaker to mend their sails. Witness Adam Comrie “saw [Lang] meddle with nothing in the Elizabeth but Liquor, and that they kept the poor Fool always at Work on the Sails as a Slave.” (British, 3:123) Witness James Munjoy added that Lang “was buffoon’d and ridiculed by most of his Comrades.” (British, 3:123) When he did come in contact with victims, he tended to help them in small ways. One witness from the King Solomon swore that while the other pirates busied themselves with plundering the ship, Land “was so generous as to give him a Can that” the pirates had taken from him. (British, 3:123) Lang claimed to have “run away when the Shot came thick” during Swallow’s attack; the court took pity on him because “he appeared a poor inconsiderable Wretch,” which was why they referred him to the Marshalsea. (British, 3:123)




Tried 10 April 1722

John Du Frock (also spelled du Frock or Dufrock)

Harry Glasby swore that this man was taken from the Loyd “against his Will, and believes he might then have got clear of the Pyrates; but for the Old Carpenter . . . who used with Oaths, and other ill Language to send him on Board of Prizes for what Carpenter’s Stores they wanted.” (British, 3:139-140) Another man added that the pirates, wishing to oust the Old Carpenter, chose Du Frock as his replacement, a job which he “unwillingly accepted . . . lamenting his Condition often.” (British, 3:140) Three other witnesses never saw him do anything other than take items used in his carpentry work. Du Frock said he was a “Slave to ’em.” (British, 3:140)

Andrew Ranee (also spelled Rance)

Harry Glasby testified that Ranee “was forced out of a Dutch ship . . . six Months ago . . . and attempted to go back to his Ship,” but Royal Fortune’s boatswain claimed he “should stay for [Scotland’s] sake.” (British, 3:132) Robert Lilburn, also acquitted of piracy, added that “he seemed a very civil Fellow . . . he would be merry, and drinking as others.” (British, 3:132)

John Willden

The previous August he’d been serving aboard the Lady, but Harry Glasby couldn’t say whether Willden had volunteered or was forced. He “was brisk at going in Boats, and dancing continually.” (British, 3:132) John Richards, who was acquitted at his trial, considered Willden “a half-witted Fellow, and ever in some Monkey-like foolish Action.” (British, 3:132)




Tried 14 April 1722

James Crane

After ferrying his captain over to the pirate ship, Crane was detained and expressed a desire “to make an Escape” when an opportunity presented itself. (British, 3:150) George Smithson also heard Crane make known this wish several times, and Robert Harley supported Crane’s contention of being forced. Both of these witnesses had been acquitted of the charges against them.

Thomas Withstandyenot

The quartermaster took him from the Norman “against his Will,” according to Harry Glasby, who also said that the pirates felt he would run. “When he was absent longer than they expected . . . imagin’d their Suggestion came to pass, and that he was gone.” (British, 3:147) George Smithson had seen him with twelve others and assumed they were planning “to run away with the Little Ranger.” (British, 3:147) What kept them from doing so was the possibility of discovery and the infliction of “some heavy Punishment, if not Death” by the pirates. (British, 3:147) Withstandyenot admitted he had been with Roberts’ men for eight months. During the battle that resulted in his capture, he “was wounded by the Powder that blew up in the Steerage, which . . . was set on fire by a Pistol by one Morrice, since dead.” (British, 3:147)
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tried 16 April 1722

Robert Fletcher

Witness John Tarlton “was sure [Fletcher] was forced, and had often talked to the Deponent about means to accomplish an Escape.” (British, 3:153)

Isaac Russel

Taken from the Lloyd a year before his capture, he became “Boatswain’s Mate . . . but feigned a Sickness to get off from it, often telling [Harry Glasby] it was a wicked Life they all led, yet went on board of the Prizes in his turn.” (British, 3:152) Russel testified to being “quarter’d at small Arms, but never fired any, only bracing at the Yards to make Sail.” (British, 3:152) The reasons he gave the court for not escaping when he had a chance was that he was a “Stranger” and had never been to Africa “before, which made him afraid of the Negroes.” (British, 3:152-153) Another reason given was that “it was so dangerous to trust any body.” (British, 3:153) He presented to the judges an affidavit from the merchant captain with whom he had sailed at the time the pirates forced him to go with them. He also shared that he had participated in Lieutenant Maynard’s attack and helped to take “Blackbeard the Pyrate.” (British, 3:153)

Hercules Hunkins

He and his brother-in-law were forced from Success. The carpenters he worked with “reckoned [him] a soft, silly Fellow.” (British, 3:153) One of those carpenters testified that Hunkins was a sober man, who “often talked to him of means to escape.” (British, 3:153)




Tried 17 April 1722

James Couzins (also spelled Cosins)

He was taken with two others, but neither man could say whether he went willingly or was forced.8

Henry Graves

When the pirate quartermaster took him from his ship, Graves “went crying.” (British, 3:153) Several testified that he willingly participated in seizures of other vessels. During HMS Swallow’s attack, “he was never on Deck, but kept out of the way.” (British, 3:154)

George Ogle

He was “a quiet Fellow, not swearing or cursing like most of them, and rather melancholy,” said Harry Glasby. (British, 3:155) Benjamin Parr, also acquitted, testified that the quartermaster beat Ogle more than once.

John Rimer (also spelled Rymer)

Absolved of the charges of piracy, three men testified that he willingly joined the pirates. Two others said he was “for running away at Calabar . . . but . . . the good Look-out the Pyrates kept” prevented such an escape. (British, 3:154)
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



Rather than judge these seventeen men innocent or guilty, the court decided further testimony was necessary and ordered they be sent to the Marshalsea in London. Their transport was HMS Weymouth and they were forced to work for their passage, but were fed on half rations. Sickness swept through the ship because “a new malignant distemper” came aboard with the pirates, who became infected in the dungeons at Cape Coast Castle. (Sanders, 240) Weymouth’s first destination was Port Royal, Jamaica, where she arrived in August after four months. Of the nineteen pirates – including two to whom the court granted permission to seek pardons – only nine remained alive. A hurricane struck five days later, which delayed the ship’s departure. Almost a year after departing Africa, the pirates finally arrived at the Marshalsea. One more had died. In time, the surviving eight men were pardoned and released.

Two other pirates, who ended up at this prison and had former ties to Bartholomew Roberts, were Walter Kennedy and Thomas Lawrence Jones.

After the pirates captured Captain William Snelgrave’s ship off Sierra Leone, Kennedy was “more sober than the rest” and took Snelgrave’s “good hat and wig . . . whereupon I told him . . . I hoped he would not deprive me of them.” (Sanders, 44) Kennedy hit him on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, and then grabbed the captain, saying:

I give you this caution, never to dispute the will of a pirate, for supposing I had cleft your skull asunder for your impudence, what would you have got by it but destruction? (Sanders, 44)

Walter Kennedy was with Howell Davis when he was slain, but managed to escape the ambush. He was in the running to be elected captain of the pirates, but Bartholomew Roberts won that contest. Later on, while Roberts was off pursuing another ship, Kennedy was left in charge of the Royal Fortune. He and the rest of the pirates sailed away with the treasure. He eventually returned to England where he ran a brothel. One of the women betrayed him to the authorities, who arrested him and sent him to the Marshalsea. He was eventually transferred to Newgate Gaol to stand trial at the Old Bailey. In 1721 he was hanged at Execution Dock in Wapping.
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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote


Howell Davis (top) and Bartholomew Roberts (bottom)

Thomas Lawrence Jones also served under Davis and Roberts. After the latter killed a friend, Jones threatened to return the favor. Roberts stabbed Jones, but not fatally; Jones thrashed Roberts. The pirates held a trial and the majority felt the captain’s dignity needed to be preserved; they sentenced Jones to two lashes from every pirate. Since Jones served aboard Thomas Anstis’ Good Fortune, this decision caused a rift between the two crews. One night, after a soft farewell, Good Fortune headed to the Caribbean. Jones eventually left the pirates and sailed to Bristol, England where he was captured. Sent to the Marshalsea, he died in May 1724.

Robert Culliford, a pirate with ties to Captain William Kidd, also found himself a guest of the Marshalsea in August 1700. When he arrived, he discovered 99 French pirates already crowding the Admiralty’s cells. At night they fought for space on the floor to sleep. When King William informed the King of France “that he had several of his subjects in prison upon account of piracy,” Louis XIV told him to “try them . . . by the laws of England, there being no room for favour to be shewn to such vermin.” (Zacks, 333)

Culliford purchased his freedom from shackles, bought drinks in the taproom, and requested a lawyer to defend him. After eighteen days in prison, he was released after paying £200 bail, but was later re-arrested when a new witness came forth. This time Culliford was taken to Newgate Gaol where the French pirates awaited their trial and where William Kidd was locked in solitary confinement.9 Culliford pled guilty so he could seek a pardon. Rather than granting him one that was free and clear, Queen Anne stipulated that there would be no pardon unless he first gave evidence as a prosecution witness at another pirate’s trial. Once he finished testifying in 1702, he walked out of the Old Bailey and disappeared.


To be continued . .
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