On the right, the jury,
composed of merchants of the place, and respectable planters of the
neighbourhood, were enclosed in a sort of box, with a common white pine
railing separating it from the rest of the court. There was a long
table in front of the bench, at which a lot of blackrobed devil's limbs
of lawyers, were ranged--but both amongst them, and on the bench, the
want of the cauliflower wigs was sorely felt by me, as well as by the
seamen, who considered it little less than murder, that men in crops--
black shock--pated fellows--should sit in judgment on their fellow
creatures, where life and death were in the scales.
On the left hand of the bench, the motley public, white, black, and of
every intermediate shade--were grouped; as also in front of the dock,
which was large. It might have been made with a view to the possibility
of fifteen unfortunates or so being arraigned at one time; but now there
were no fewer than forty--three jammed and pegged together into it, like
sheep in a Smithfield pen the evening before market--day. These were
the forty thieves--the pirates. They were all, without exception,
clean, well shaven, and decently rigged in white trowsers, linen or
check shirts, and held their broad Panama sombreros in their hands.
Most of them wore the red silk sash round the waist. They had generally
large bushy whiskers, and not a few had earrings of massive gold, (why
call wearing earrings puppyism? Shakspeare wore earrings, or the
Chandos portrait lies,) and chains of the same metal round their necks,
supporting, as I concluded, a crucifix, hid in the bosom of the shirt.
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