The trial began on the eighth of October.  Among the officers who gave evidence (much against his will) against Captain Kirkby was Dick Cludde, who was carried wounded before the court.  Kirkby and Captain Wade of the Greenwich were found guilty on all the charges and sentenced to be shot.  Captain Constable was cleared of cowardice, but convicted on the other counts, and he was cashiered from her Majesty’s service, with imprisonment during her pleasure.  Captain Hudson of the Pendennis was lucky, as I thought, in dying before the trial which must have branded him with indelible disgrace.

As for my old friend Captain Vincent, and my new commander, Captain Fogg, they alleged in their defense that they had signed the paper only because they feared if we engaged the enemy, that the other captains would wholly desert and leave the Breda and the Falmouth to their fate; and Mr. Benbow himself testifying to their great courage and gallant behavior in the battle, the court was satisfied with suspending them from their employment in the queen’s service.  The sentences were not executed at once, it being decided that the officers (except Vincent and Fogg) should be carried to England to await the pleasure of the queen’s consort, Prince George of Denmark, who as Lord High Admiral had the power to ratify or quash the decrees of the court martial.

I was not myself present at the trial of these officers.  On arriving in the harbor, the admiral was informed that, taking advantage of his absence, a buccaneer vessel had appeared off the north coast, and was doing much damage among the merchant shipping.  Many planters who had suffered in their property had sent requests to the governor to take immediate action against the buccaneers, which he was unable to do until Mr. Benbow’s return, Rear Admiral Whetstone not thinking himself justified in diminishing his own squadron with risk to the general safety of the island.

But on the day before the court martial was to meet Mr. Benbow sent for me, and ordered me to cruise along the north shore in search of the pirate vessel.  He did not give me a ship of war for this purpose, thinking that this would only serve to warn the buccaneers, who no doubt had spies in the principal ports.  But the brig in which we had brought Mistress Lucy being still in the harbor, the admiral instructed me to fit her out as a trader, and send her to sea with a dummy captain and a skeleton crew, and then to join her secretly with some thirty picked men from the queen’s ships.

This mark of his confidence gave me very great pleasure, and I set about my preparations with zeal, being busy with them during the days of the trial.  Knowing how strongly attached I was to Joe Punchard, Mr. Benbow insisted that he should accompany me, declaring with only too much truth that he himself had little need of Punchard’s services while he was fixed to his bed.