The Every Trial Print (1696) · Sailing the Black Flag: The Archives

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 Printed for John Everingham, London, 1696. Records the October retrial, dated on the title page as begun 29 October and ended 6 November 1696. British Library copy, digitised (Internet Archive).

What this document is

The full title runs: 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. It was printed for John Everingham in London in 1696, a 28-page quarto, and it is the record of the Admiralty sessions that tried six of Every's crew after Every himself had vanished. Everything the courtroom did reaches us through this print. It carries the identifiers EEBO-TCP A63217, Wing T2252 and ESTC R38357, and it survives in fully digitised public-domain copies at the Library of Congress (LCCN 19011844), on HathiTrust (mdp.35112204867115), and as the EEBO-TCP full-text transcription.

One point of jurisdiction matters for anyone searching for this trial. It was an Admiralty sessions held in the Old Bailey building, not an ordinary Old Bailey criminal session, so it does not appear in the Old Bailey Proceedings series and cannot be found in Old Bailey Online. The manuscript records sit in the High Court of Admiralty series HCA 1 at The National Archives. This print is the readable spine of the case.

Reading the print: three moments

The document is most useful at three points. The acquittal the court did not want, the rebuke that followed it, and the sentence carried out. Each is given here in the print's own words.

The acquittal

"but the Jury, contrary to the expectation of the Court, brought in all the Prisoners Not Guilty, whereupon the Sessions was Adjourned to Saturday the 31th of October following, and the Prisoners were committed upon a new Warrant for several other Piracies."

This is the first sitting, Monday 19 October 1696, on the Ganj-i-Sawai indictment. The jury heard the Crown's witnesses and Lord Chief Justice Holt's summing up and refused to convict. The same sentence shows what the court did next: it did not free the men, it recommitted them for other piracies.

The rebuke

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 The page carrying the court's reaction to the first acquittal, the "dishonour" passage quoted below. British Library copy, digitised (Internet Archive).

"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."

Holt, as the second trial jury was being empanelled. The line is the reason the acquittal is remembered, and it is also the court openly signalling the result it wanted from the retrial. Jurors from the first panel were challenged off the second, and Judge Hedges' charge to the grand jury pressed the point home.

The executions

"According to this Sentence, Edward Foreseth and the rest were Executed, on Wednesday, November the 25th 1696, at Execution-Dock, that being the usual Place for the Execution of Pirates."

The closing lines of the pamphlet. Five of the six condemned men were hanged. The print's phrase "and the rest" does not name who was spared, which is why the record needs its companion sources: Joseph Dawson, the only man who pleaded guilty, was reprieved, a reading held at Probable rather than stated by the print itself.

What it establishes

The first trial was a single sitting on Monday 19 October 1696 at which the jury, against the court's expectation, acquitted the prisoners on the Ganj-i-Sawai indictment. Trial record: Printed 1696 trial record (A63217), body reading 'Monday the 19th Day of October' and 'the Jury, contrary to the expectation of the Court, brought in all the Prisoners Not Guilty'; the title-page date of 29 October is a printer's error
Days later the prisoners were recommitted and convicted at a second trial, on the Charles the Second mutiny (31 October 1696) and on the Danish and Moorish indictments (6 November 1696). Trial record: Printed 1696 trial record (A63217): 'Die Sabbati, tricesimo primo Octobris ... 1696' (Saturday 31 October) and 'Friday Novemb. the 6th 1696'
The court treated the first acquittal as a scandal: Lord Chief Justice Holt called the verdict a dishonour to the justice of the nation, jurors from the first panel were challenged off the second, and the charge to the second jury urged conviction. Trial record: Printed 1696 trial record (A63217): 'that Verdict was a dishonour to the Justice of the Nation'
The crew were tried at Admiralty sessions held in the Old Bailey building, a separate jurisdiction from the regular Old Bailey Proceedings, so the trial is not found in Old Bailey Online. Highly Probable Trial record and jurisdiction records: Printed 1696 trial record (A63217), title stating Admiralty Sessions; High Court of Admiralty series HCA 1 (SRC-EVR-122); the Proceedings cover only City of London and Middlesex sessions
The 1696 printed trial, The Tryals of Joseph Dawson and others, survives and is fully digitised in multiple public-domain copies. Printed trial record: Library of Congress (LCCN 19011844), HathiTrust (mdp.35112204867115) and the EEBO-TCP transcription A63217; printed for John Everingham, London, 1696

The title-page error

The print contradicts itself on one date, and the body wins. The title page says the sessions "begun at the Old-Baily on the 29th of October, 1696", but the body opens the first sitting on "Monday the 19th Day of October". Only a 19 October start fits the internal adjournments, to Saturday 31 October and then Friday 6 November, both of which the print dates by weekday. A 29 October start would fall on a Thursday. The 29 October on the title page is a printer's error, and the corrected date of 19 October is the one carried through the Every records.

What it does not establish

The print secures its case on stolen property and mentions only that several men were killed aboard the Indian ships. It says nothing of the sexual violence and torture that the Mughal historian Khafi Khan and the East India Company governor Sir John Gayer both describe. That silence is not evidence the violence did not happen. It is evidence of how the prosecution chose to build a case for an English jury, and the fuller account has to be read from the Mughal chronicle and the Company correspondence, treated on the Every record under a content note.

Limitations of this room

The text is complete and public-domain, so this room can quote it directly. What it cannot do is treat the pamphlet as neutral. It is a printed justification as much as a transcript, issued after a politically awkward acquittal, and its framing choices, above all its near-silence on the violence, are part of what the document is. The insider depositions that fed it, John Dann's examination and Philip Middleton's affidavit, are calendared in the printed Jameson collection and held in manuscript at The National Archives in HCA 1; their exact piece references are not yet established.