The Two Juries and the Gallows

Curator's note

The case was tried twice, on two different charges, before two different juries, within five weeks. The second charge was the one the Crown could be sure of.

Title page of the 1696 trial print, set within double rules. Large letterpress type reads: The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes, for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed, in the Company of Every the Grand Pirate, near the Coasts of the East-Indies, and several other Places on the Seas. Giving an Account of their Villainous Robberies and Barbarities. At the Admiralty Sessions, begun at the Old-Baily on the 29th of October, 1696, and ended on the 6th of November. The imprint at the foot reads: London, Printed for John Everingham, Bookseller, at the Star in Ludgate-street, 1696. A shelfmark is added in ink at the head of the page. — Title page, The Tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis and John Sparkes A twenty eight page quarto, printed at London for John Everingham in 1696. This is the richest document in the Collection, and the source for the indictments, the evidence of John Dann and Philip Middleton, the verdicts and the words of the bench. The title page's "29th of October" is a printer's error: the body of the print gives "Monday the 19th Day of October", and 19 October is the date used throughout this Archive. Wing T2252, ESTC R38357. Original in the British Library. Digitised open-access copy. Public domain.

The grand jury bill opened with a man who was not in the dock. It named "Henry Every not yet taken".

The first indictment was for the taking of the Ganj-i-Sawai (the Gunsway), tried at the Old Bailey on Monday 19 October 1696, and it failed: "but the Jury, contrary to the expectation of the Court, brought in all the Prisoners Not Guilty".

A page of the trial print numbered 11. Dense letterpress dialogue records the prisoners' pleas at the new arraignment, Joseph Dawson pleading guilty and the others not guilty, then the calling of the jury panel. Midway down the page Lord Chief Justice Holt is given the words: If you have return'd any of the former Jury, you have not done well; for that Verdict was a dishonour to the Justice of the Nation. The names of the twelve sworn jurors close the page in two columns. — The rebuke, page 11 of the print Lord Chief Justice Holt to the second panel: "If you have return'd any of the former Jury, you have not done well; for that Verdict was a dishonour to the Justice of the Nation." Jurors from the first trial were challenged off, and the twelve who were sworn close the page in two columns. Digitised open-access copy. Public domain.

Sir Charles Hedges had charged the grand jury that foreign nations "will reproach us as being a Harbour, Receptacle, and a Nest of Pirates". Three sittings were held, each with its own petty jury.

The second indictment abandoned the Ganj-i-Sawai and prosecuted the mutiny and theft of the Charles the Second at Coruna, a charge two years older, committed against Englishmen in a Spanish harbour. On that charge the second jury convicted every man, and the sentence passed was the ordinary judgment for felony.

The print closes the matter in one sentence: "Edward Foreseth and the rest were Executed, on Wednesday, November the 25th 1696, at Execution-Dock". It gives no number. The number comes from Narcissus Luttrell, under Thursday 26 November 1696: "five of Avery the pyrates crew were hanged there for pyracy".

Six men were sentenced and five were hanged, so one was spared. The man spared was most likely Joseph Dawson, who had pleaded guilty and given evidence. Likely

No surviving account of that day at Execution Dock gives a procession, a gibbet, a hanging in chains or a dying speech. They died for stealing an English ship. No jury convicted anyone of what was done aboard the Ganj-i-Sawai.

Men of this company were still being brought to the bar in 1697, 1699 and 1700, which is the measure of how hard the case was pursued.

The Act of 1700, which allowed piracy to be tried outside England, states its own grounds: the cost and delay of bringing offenders home from remote seas. Its preamble names no case, no jury and no verdict. Section VIII of that Act describes the Coruna mutiny with something close to precision, and had no existence in 1696.

The Old Bailey as an institution, and the wider question of what a pirate trial did with evidence, belong to the pardon and prosecution galleries. What the Every case adds is a bench that said out loud what it thought of a jury's verdict, and a second charge chosen because it could be proved.

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