'mendation of the jury,' were laid before the King, 1686 who having maturely considered the case of the 'convict, does not see sufficient grounds for extending his royal mercy to him.' And Mr. Chalmers, the solicitor at London who corresponded with Mr. Bruce, the agent for the convict, writes to him thus: The under secretary showed me all the papers that had been transmitted from Scotland, and laid before the King. Lord Kennet's report states very ac 'curately the circumstances of the case, and men'tions the recommendation of the jury, and the grounds they went upon; but adds, that he and his • brethren did not think Andrew a proper object of the royal mercy; giving the reasons, and showing, 'that the arguments of the jury were not solid; in very distinct clear terms.'-As the jury had a right to give a recommendation, so the judges were entitled to make a report; and no ground of complaint can arise from this case, unless it shall please jurymen to alledge that his Majesty is not at liberty to act according to his own judgement, in the exercise of the most sublime part of his prerogative, But even supposing that improper means had been used to with-hold the royal mercy from Andrew, I cannot admit that this is any apology for the jury. which sat upon Spence the matross, having pronounced a verdict finding him not guilty; for I consider him to have been a most unfit object of mercy; because from the recent and repeated outrages of the rabble, and instances of timidity in the civil magistrate, none of the crimes which arise from the avarice or malignity of an individual, are so hurtful to society as this contagious spirit of fire-raising and tumult, 1686 And this prisoner, Spence, was not only reckoned by the spectators of his trial, to have been proved guilty as a ringleader in the tumult, but also as having set fire to the distillery with his own hands.-Lord Kennet made the above report, relative to Andrew, as President of the Court of Justiciary, in absence of the Lord Justice Clerk. His acuteness of apprehension, his solidity of judgement, and his accuracy in business, were acknowldged when he was alive; and are now sealed by the united regret of the Bench, the Bar, and the Public. OF PIRACY: Trial of Captain Thomas Green, Commander of the THE opposite lights in which the Parliaments of 1705 England and Scotland viewed the institution of the Indian and African Company, in the latter of these kingdoms, and the ferment which arose in Scotland upon the ruin of this Company, and the loss of its settlements, have already been mentioned.* The contests between the English and Scottish Companies trading to the East Indies, excited further animosities between these nations. The Annandale, a ship belonging to the African Company, had been seized in the Downs by the English East India Company, and the pressing instances with which the former solicited its restitution being disregarded, they procured an order from Government in Scotland, for seizing, by way of reprisal, this vessel the Worcester, which had arrived in the Forth. The vessel was conducted to the harbour of Burntisland. She was detained there in virtue of a precept from the Scot * See the Trial of Thomson and Auchmouty, p. 104. 1705 tish Court of Admiralty; and an action was brought before that Court, at the instance of the African Company, for having the ship declared a lawful prize, on account of the East India Company's unjustly seizing and confiscating the Annandale. While the Worcester lay thus under an embargo, the unguarded speeches of the crew, in their cups or their quarrels, led them to be suspected of the crimes of piracy aud murder committed upon a vessel and its crew in the East Indies, belonging, as was supposed, to one Drummond, a Scotchman.* The suspicions thus entertained were the cause of a precognition being taken of the affair, and the presumptions of guilt arising from this precognition, were so strong as to give occasion to the following trial. On the 13th of February, 1705, an act of the Scottish Privy Council was passed, authorising a prosecution against Captain Green and his crew, before the Court of Admiralty, and ordaining the Lord Chancellor to make application to her Majesty for a pardon to Charles May, surgeon, Antonia Ferdinando, cook's mate, Antonia Francisco, the captain's man, George Haines, steward, George Glen, quarter-master, and Alexander Taylor, foremast man.The Privy Council, at the same time, appointed the Earl of Loudon, Lord Belhaven, Sir Robert Dundas Lord Arniston, Sir John Home of Blackadder, and John Cockburn, younger of Ormeston, assessors to Mr. Graham, the Judge Admiral. * Records of Admiralty, 5th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 21st March, 1705. De Foe's Hist. of the Union, p. 46. Trial of Captain Thomas Green, Edinburgh, printed by Thomas Anderson, A. D. 1705. The prisoners were brought to the bar on the 5th 1705 of March, 1705. It was charged against them in the indictment, that, in the months of February, March, April, or May, 1703, they did meet with another ship bearing a red flag, and manned with Englishmen, or Scotsmen, on the coast of Malabar, nigh Callicut:- that they did, without any lawful warrant, or just cause, attack the said ship in a hostile manner, with guns and otherwise, boarded her, killed the men, and threw them overboard, took the goods from on board of her, and lodged them in the Worcester; and then disposed of the vessel thus piratically captured to one Coge Commodo. The indictment also contains a minute narrative of the circumstances from which the prisoners' guilt was inferred. But it were superfluous to insert them here, as they will appear with greater propriety in the evidence led in support of this prosecution. A formidable band of counsel appeared both for the prosecutor and the prisoners; and the following objections to the relevancy of the indictment were stated, partly in written informations, and partly in pleadings at the bar. It was pleaded for the prisoners, that the crimes libelled being alledged to have been committed by Englishmen on the coast of Malabar, this Court had no jurisdiction; and the prisoners ought to be remitted for trial to the proper courts of law in England. 2do, That Henry Keigle, the ship's carpenter, and certain others of the crew who were indicted along with him, being part of Captain Green's crew, and under his command, could not be put upon their trial, till the Captain himself was previously tried. Stio, That N n |
