Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/430

 When Cavenagh was arrested a skean, or knife, was found on him.

L C. J. — "Sir, how durst you carry such an unlawful weapon."

Cav. — " My lord, I am a butcher; it was a butcher's knife."

L. C. J. —"Ay, I do not question but thou canst butcher upon occasion."

Cav. — "I was ordered to have a skean, my lord."

L. C. J. — "Pray, sir, who ordered you?"

Cav. — "The priest of the parish."

L C.J. — "A priest, sir." (Turning to his brother judge.) "Doyou hear that, brother?"

Baron Lynch. — "What priest, sir?"

L. C. J. — "Hold, brother. Come sir, I shall not ask you your priest's name. I believe you will have occasion to see your priest soon, to do you a better office than to advise you to carry skeans."

Nevertheless the jury did not include Cavenagh among those found guilty. "Gentlemen, you have acquitted the greater villain," said the Chief Justice; "at your door let it lie." The Ordinary being called to give those convicted the book for their clergy, the Chief Justice said to him: "Sir, I expect as true a return from you as if I were there myself. The times are so that men must forget bowels of mercy. Ordinary, do your duty. What place do you shew them?"

Ord. — "My lord, I shew them the fiftieth psalm."

L C. J. — " Let them read the fifth verse." According to Foster {Crown Law, c. 7, p 306) the scrap of Latin called the " neck verse," which was commonly made the test of reading, was "Miserere mei Deus," probably the beginning of the fifty-first psalm. The prisoners were unable to pass this critical examination, and were at once sentenced by the Chief Justice in a highly edifying speech. "On this side the Cape of Good Hope," said he, " where are the most brutish and barbarous people we read of, there is none like the people of this country. . ..." It has come to pass that a man that loses the better part of his substance chooses rather to let that, and what he has besides, go than come to give evidence, and why? Because he is certain to have his house burnt and his throat cut if he appears against them. Good God! What a pass we are come to! " My lord sententiously prays to God that his levity has not given encouragement to such thievery, and expresses the opinion that as the world grows, older it grows worse. When the sentence of death was pronounced some of the prisoners' female relatives set up a cry, whereupon the Chief Justice closed the proceedings with the remark, " They did not cry thus when the cows were brought home to them; they were busied then in the kill ing and the powdering them up."

The trial of Dawson and his companions, (13 St. Tr. 451, 1696) is the first of several cases of piracy reported in the State trials. The story of their crime reads like a page from Treasure Island. While the good ship "Charles the Second" was bound on a voyage to the West Indies, the crew, under the leadership of one Evard, and the ship's carpenter, mutinied and took possession of the ship. Near the Groyne they put ashore the captain and all who were unwilling to embark upon a piratical voyage, and hoisted the black flag. Their subsequent adventures were thus described at the trial by one of the crew:

"In the morning they called up all hands, and the captain said every man should share alike, only he would have two shares. From thence they went to Bonyois and took in some salt; from thence to the Isle of Man, where they took three English ships and plundered them, and they took the Governor aboard their own ship until they had done. From the Isle of Man they went to the coast