A general history of the pyrates : $b from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present timeJohnson, Charles, active 1724-1731
History
A general history of the pyrates : $b from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time
Johnson, Charles, active 1724-1731
Pirates -- Early works to 1800
The Prisoner in his Defence said, he was a forced Man from Captain _Rolls_,
in _October_ last, and if he had not shewn such a Concern as became him, at
the Alteration, he must remark the Occasion to be, the Disagreement and
Enmity between them; but that both _Roberts_, and _Val. Ashplant_,
threat'ned him into signing their Articles, and that he did it in Terror.
The _King Solomon_, and _Elizabeth_ Medicine-Chest, he owns he plundered,
by Order of _Hunter_, the then chief Surgeon, who, by the Pyrates Laws,
always directs in this Province, and Mr. _Child_, (tho' acquitted) had by
the same Orders taken out a whole _French_ Medicine-Chest, which he must be
sensible for me, as well as for himself, we neither of us dared to have
denied; it was their being the proper Judges, made so ungrateful an Office
imposed. If after this he was elected chief Surgeon himself, both _Comry_
and _Wilson_ were set up also, and it might have been their Chance to have
carried it, and as much out of their Power to have refused.
As to the Attempt of rising and running away with the Prize, he denies it
altogether as untrue; a few foolish Words, but only by Way of Supposition,
that if the Negroes should take it in their Heads (considering the
Weakness, and ill look-out that was kept;) it would have been an easy
Matter, in his Opinion for them to have done it; but that he encouraged
such a Thing, was false, his talking to them in the _Angolan_ Language, was
only a Way of spending his Time, and trying his Skill to tell twenty, he
being incapable of further Talk. As to his understanding Navigation, he had
frequently acknowledg'd it to the Deponent _Child_, and wonders he should
now so circumstantiate this Skill against him. _Guilty._
_Robert Johnson._
IT appeared to the Court, that the Prisoner was one of the twenty
Men, in that Boat of the Pyrates, which afterwards robb'd the _King
Solomon_, at an Anchor near Cape _Appollonia_: That all Pyrates on this,
and the like Service, were Voluntiers, and he, in particular, had contested
his going on Board a second Time, tho' out of his Turn.
The Prisoner in his Defence, called for _Harry Glasby_, who witnessed to
his being so very drunk, when he first came among their Crew, that they
were forced to hoist him out of one Ship into the other, with a Tackle, and
therefore without his Consent; but had since been a trusty Man, and was
placed to the Helm, in that running Battle they made with the _Swallow._
He insisted for himself likewise, on Captain _Turner_'s Affidavit of his
being forced, on which others (his Ship-mates) had been cleared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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