Bellamy Trial Essay

Although British officials consistently widened the definition of piracy, they failed to clearly differentiate the significance between a volunteer and a forced sailor on board a pirate ship. Therefore, nothing contributed to the unpredictability of the later trial proceedings as much as the inconsistency of pirate designations. If seventeenth century piracy trials hinged on the question of violating commissions, those after 1715 rested on determining the accused’s voluntary participation. The court’s determination of a sailor’s status was frequently random and wildly erratic. Worse yet, some justices made no effort to determine the active participation of individuals aboard pirate vessels, leading to instances of brutal rulings even by seventeenth

The court unsurprisingly upheld their jurisdiction to try the prisoners. Several connections existed between the two trials, calling into question the commissioner’s ignorance of the validity of this particular legal argument. Paul Dudley, the Attorney General for the colony and lead prosecutor in 1704 maintained A.G. position during the Bellamy crew trial, but played a less active role during the trial itself. John Valentine was the court recorder for Quelch, and a defense advocate for Bellamy’s crew. Meinzies himself had no direct role in the Bellamy trial, but he was the regular register of the colony’s vice-Admiralty court at the same time as the hearings, where his brother John presided as Judge of the Admiralty. It is not a far leap to assume James Meinzies sat in the courtroom listening to the proceedings and giving counsel to his brother when asked. All of these direct connections, in addition to the dissemination of Quelch’s trial report and the issuing of new commissions so soon after Meinzies challenge, implies that the commissioners must have known of their dubious legal footing when they denied Auchmuty’s motion for dismissal. Without valid commissions, the court had no authority to try pirates. The crown responded to this blatant disregard of English law with their usual indifference, they issued new commissions on April 3rd, 1718, less than six months after the execution of six Englishmen in Boston