But to return to the Perry galley, which the pirates carried to the Island of Aruba, a maroon or uninhabited island, or rather sand bank, where they sat the crew ashore and left them for seventeen days without any provision, except that the surgeon of the pirate now and then brought them something in his pocket by stealth.  On the tenth of December the pirates saw a sail which proved to be a Dutch sloop, which they took, and on board this Upton and two others who had been forced as well as himself were put, from whence as he said, they made their escape.  After abundance of misfortunes and many extraordinary adventures, he got on board his Majesty’s ship Nottingham, commanded by Captain Charles Cotterel, where he served for two years in the quality of quartermaster.  He was then taken up and charged with piracy, upon which he was indicted at an Admiralty sessions held in the month of May, 1729, when the evidence at his trial appeared so strong that after a short stay the jury found him guilty.

But his case having been very differently represented, I fancy my readers will not be displeased if I give them an exact account of the proofs produced against him.

The first witness who was called on the part of the Crown was Mr. Dimmock, who had been chief mate on board the Perry galley, and he deposed in the following terms: 

On the twelfth of November, 1725, we sailed from Barbadoes on the Perry galley bound for England.  On the 14th, about noon, we were taken by the Night Rambler, pirate sloop, one Cooper commander.  Our captain and four men were ordered on board the pirate sloop, part of the pirate’s crew coming also on board the Perry. Wherein they no sooner entered, but the prisoner at the bar said, Lads, are ye come?  I’m glad to see ye; I have been looking out for ye for a great while. Whereupon the pirates saluted him very particularly, calling him by his name, and the prisoner was as busy as any of the rest in plundering and stripping the ship on board of which he had served, and the rest who belonged to it, the very next day after being made boatswain of the pirate.  The same day I was carried on board the pirate sloop, tied to the gears and received two hundred lashes with a cat o’ nine tails which the prisoner Upton had made for that purpose; after which they pickled me, and the prisoner Upton stabbed me in the head near my ear with a knife, insomuch that I could not lay my head upon a pillow for fourteen days, but was forced to support it upon my hand against the table; and when some of the pirate’s crew asked me how I did, upon my answering that I was as bad as a man could be and live, the prisoner, Upton, said D——­n him, give him a second reward.

It was also further deposed by the same gentleman that at the island of Aruba, the prisoner was very busy in stripping the Perry galley of the most useful and valuable parts of her rigging, carrying