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The following report is taken from The Naval Chronicles, Vol. II, July to December, Bunnery & Gold, London, 1799:
pp. 619-620.
“HIGH COURT OF ADMIRALTY.
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“BEFORE SIR WILLIAM SCOTT, JUDGE, LORD ELDON, AND
SIR ALLAN CHAMBRE.
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“OLD BAILEY, DEC. 20.
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“JEAN PREVOT.
“A French boy, apparently not much more than seventeen or eighteen years of age, was indicted, for that he, on the 1st day of August, 1797, on the high seas, within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England, feloniously, and of his malice aforethought, did kill and murder JAMES WILCOX, Captain of the Lady Jane Shore. - Upon the prisoner being put to the bar, he desired, through the medium of a French interpreter, that his jury might be composed of half Foreigners and half Englishmen.
“The request had been anticipated, and a sufficient number of foreigners summoned; but when their names were called over, few of them appeared; the Court was kept waiting near two hours, and messengers were sent to their respective houses; but some of them were in the country, and others returned for answer they were unwell.
“Lord Eldon was extremely angry, and indicated his determination to teach these foreigners who were summoned upon juries, and refused or neglected to attend, that the laws of the country were sufficiently competent to punish them. He wanted to have it understood, that persons conducting themselves were liable to further punishment than merely having a fine imposed upon them; and he observed, that if ever he witnessed in future a similar instance of contumacy to the courts of justice of the country, he would punish the persons so offending with imprisonment as well as fine.
“After a considerable time had elapsed, six foreigners were obtained, and, the jury, constituted agreeably to the prisoner’s wish, was impannelled [sic].
Dr. Nicholls, the King’s Advocate, after some introductory observations upon the heinousness of the crime of murder, briefly stated the circumstances which were afterwards detailed by the witnesses.
Mr. MINCHIN said, he was on board the Lady Jane Shore on the 1st of August 1797. It was a transport ship bound for New South Wales with convicts and troops; he commanded the troops; the deceased was captain of the ship,, and the prisoner was one of the mariners; he remembered the mutiny, which broke out on the 1st of August, when they were off Cape Trial, on the coast of America. It was about four o’clock in the morning, and he was in bed; he he [sic] heard a noise on the deck, upon which he got up and went toward the hatchway, where he found Captain Wilcox lying at the bottom of the ladder bleeding; he took him up and put him into his birth [sic], where he died the next night; the deceased was perfectly sensible the wounds he had received were mortal, and that his dissolution was approaching. The witness asked the deceased how he had got his wounds. He told him that hearing a noise he ran out of his cabin to the hatchway in a hurry, and felt himself pricked with a bayonet; he was then coming to the witnesses birth [sic] to alarm him, when Prevot met him and stabbed him; he had two wounds, one in the neck, which was an inch wide, and three inches deep; and another in the left breast, an inch wide, and four inches deep, the former seemed to have been done with a knife, and the latter with a bayonet. The prisoner was the first of the mutineers the witness saw; he stood sentinel over the hatchway with a brace of pistols slung at his breast, and a hanger in his hand, and he remarked that he had the Captain’s hat on. The officers were confined to their cabins. When the Captain died, he was buried out of the cabin window. The mutineers kept possession of the ship fifteen days, and he understood the prisoner had boasted this was not the first mutiny in which he had been engaged, or the first man he had killed. The witness and the rest of the officers were afterwards put into the ship’s long-boat, and landed at Port St. Pietre, on the coast of Brazil. The prisoner, throughout the mutiny, was one of the most active of those engaged in it.
“Mr. FRENCH said,, the Lady Shore was proceeding to Rio Janeiro, and at the time mentioned by the last witness, he heard a shot and went to the hatchway; he was stopped by three men armed, and ordered back again. It was at this time quite dark. As soon as it was light, he observed the prisoner standing sentry over a gun which was pointed down the hatchway, and, as he understood, loaded with broken bottles. The witness also conversed with the Captain, who told him he had been stabbed by French Jack, meaning the prisoner, who commonly went by that name.
“Lieutenant WILLIAM FRASER corroborated the above testimony in every respect.
FRANCES HUGHES, the wife of a sergeant on body [sic] the Lady Shore, deposed to prisoner’s boasting among his comrades, that he had finished the b_____, meaning the Captain.
Mr. MINCHIN was again called, and stated, that the prisoner voluntarily hired himself at Falmouth as a mariner to navigate the ship.
“The prisoner in his defence said, he had been compelled to take part in the mutiny, and that he was entirely innocent of the murder of the Captain.
“LORD ELDON summed up the evidence with the utmost precision and impartiality; and the jury, after a few minutes consideration, pronounced the prisoner - Guilty.
SIR WILLIAM SCOTT immediately ordered the prisoner to be executed on Monday, and his body to be afterwards anatomized.
“The prisoner seemed wholly to disregard the sentence, and laughed in the face of the Court as soon as it was pronounced.”
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