Dimmed, indeed, was the honor of Scottish lawyers when bench and bar could thus go hand in hand to cast to the wild beast of public passion the unprotected and the innocent. Even the defense--able, adroit, complete--was not purely disinterested, yet amid all those mad scenes one soul, at least, kept the noblest traditions of the law alive within him and splendidly redeems his profession. For a young, obscure lawyer sat attentively in court during the whole trial, and, on the day of doom, clad himself in a suit of complete mourning and attended at the sands of Leith, and, when Justice had completed its terrific miscarriage, he, at the risk of his life, saw to the decent interment of the poor victims. That young man was to be the future illustrious Duncan Forbes! None of the other _Worcester_ men were executed. Between March 16 and April 3, Thomas Linsteed, John Bruckley and George Haines made solemn confession of their fictitious crimes before James Graham, the judge admiral. But these confessions are dismissed by a contemporary writer as worthless and purely self-serving; they merely elaborated the tale already told and were obviously made to repair the weakness of the State’s case, and as the prosecution’s apology for an act already beginning to disturb many consciences. The public blood thirst was slaked. One reprieve followed another, and eventually the whole crew drifted out of prison, out of the country and out of the view of history. And a few days before the execution of the three ill-fated men, our old friends Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland landed in England, but too late to prevent the tragedy of Leith sands, and revealed the true fate of the good ships _Content_ and _Speedy Return_! A moralist must find this tale provocative. Mark the factors of evil in the case; the commercial greed which seized the _Annandale_, the violent crime of Bowen in pirating the _Speedy Return_, the blind national anger which perverted public opinion, and which in its turn warped a timid and compliant court and council to its will, the individual habits of a ship’s steward, and the fear for their personal safety which made perjurers of the State’s witnesses. One’s speculation is challenged. These tragic deaths were not entirely fruitless. Although not the foundation of the principle, nevertheless this celebrated cause went far to rivet unshakably into the foundations of English jurisprudence the vital doctrine of the _corpus delicti_,--proof of the actual fact of death before a charge of homicide will lie. CHAPTER SIX “WHO FIRES FIRST?” John Gow I “As we eat, so shall we work.”