This unexpected address in open court took me fairly aback, and I stopped short while in the act of passing the open space in front of the dock, which was kept clear by six marines in white jackets, whose muskets, fixed bayonets, and uniform caps, seemed out of place to my mind in a criminal court. The lawyer suddenly suspended his harangue, while the judges fixed their eyes on me, and so did the audience, confound them! To be the focus of so many eyes was trying to my modesty; for, although unacquainted with bettermost society, still, below any little manner that I had acquired, there was, and always will be, an under stratum of bashfulness, or sheepishness, or mauvaise honte, call it which you will; and the torture, the breaking on the wheel, with which a man of that temperament perceives the eyes of a whole courthouse, for instance, attracted to him, none but a bashful man can understand. At length I summoned courage to speak. “May it please your honours, this poor fellow, on his own behalf, and on the part of his fellow-prisoners, complains of the incapacity of the sworn interpreter, and requests that I may be made the channel of communication in his stead.” This was a tremendous effort, and once more the whole blood of my body rushed to my cheeks and forehead, and I “sweat extremely.” The judges, he of the black robe and those of the epaulet, communed together. “Have you any objection to be sworn, Mr Cringle?” “None in the least, provided the court considers me competent, and the accused are willing to trust to me.” “Si, si!” exclaimed the young Spaniard, as if comprehending what was going on--“Somos contentos--todos, todos!” and he looked round, like a prince, on his fellow--culprits. A low murmuring, “Si, si--contento, contento!” passed amongst the group. “The accused, please your honours, are willing to trust to my correctness.” “Pray, Mr Cringle, don’t make yourself the advocate of these men, mind that,” said the--, lawyer sans wig. “I don’t intend it, sir,” I said, slightly stung; “but if you had suffered what I have done at their hands, peradventure such a caution to you would have been unnecessary.” The sarcasm told, I was glad to see; but remembering where I was, I hauled but of action with the man of words, simply giving the last shot “I am sure no English gentleman would willingly throw any difficulty in the way of the poor fellows being made aware of what is given in evidence against them, bad as they may be.” He was about rejoining, for a lawyer would as soon let you have the last word as a sweep or a baker the wall, when the officer of court approached and swore me in, and the trial proceeded. The whole party were proved by fifty witnesses to have been taken in arms on board of the schooners in the Cove; and farther, it was proved that no commission or authority to cruise whatsoever was found on board any of them, a strong proof that they were pirates.