Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-08-08
A Pirates Story.

A Pirates story.
On the nineteenth Of December, 1923,
trial for piracy, which excited great
attention in London and elsewhere,
took place before the high court of adj
miralty. The prisoner who stood ar
raigned. and who was liable, if convicted,
to the penalty of death, had passed
through series of mishaps aud adven
lures, stranger than fiction, and only
riyaled by the career of some of Dumas
heroes. Involuntarily the associates Of
crew of murderers and buccaneers,
whose deeds were such as struck terror
into every merchant shippers heart, the
prisoner, Aaron Smith, now stood at a
criminal bar, and had to prove to jury
that his companionship with the pirates
had been compulsory. On that proof
his life hung on that sharp December
day.
10 a nation like England, rich in
merchant shipping, and deriving from
it enormous wealth, the crime of piracy
was always heinous one. Far back
as the twenty eighth year of Henry the
EIghth's reign, statute had made rob-
berry on the high seas punishable with
death and loss of lands. When to his
robbery, murder in its most cruel forms
was added, it is evident that to English
men the crime and criminals became so
hateful as to be hunted down on every
chance. The reports of the atrocities
of the West Indian sea thieves had
come, ever and anon, across the ocean
to England, and had reused both hate
and fear and honest wrath.
The risk which Aaron Smith ran was
a very dangerous one. He was acquit-
ted, however; for his story, which, dur
ing the space of some hours, held court,
jury and public enthralled by its inter-
est, was marked by the signs of truth.
He called twenty witnesses to speak as
to his humanity and generosity.
The girl to whom he was betrothed,
whose beauty attracted general admira-
ton, proved that their marriage would
have long since taken place, had not
the prisoner been detained abroad.
The tears of the young lady, aud the
emotion Of the prisoner, touched those
present as sincere tokens Of grief, and
Aaron Smith was held a deeply injured
man, and set free.
He drew up little volume, called
1.-The Atrocities of the Pirates" cen
tanning very simple and unvarnished
record of his adventures, and which
was published in 1924.
In June, 1921, Aaron Smith left in
the war-ship Harrington for the West
Indies. There he staid (having left the
ship for some time, engaged i'll various
pursuits, when he became engaged as
first mate of the brig Zephyr, a Mr..
Lumsdea being master. On the Goth
of Jure. the voyage to England COM
menced. Some days brought the brig
off Cape Saint Antonio, whence she
stood eastward.
On the next day, at p. NJ, strange
schooner stood out from the coast of
Cuba toward the Zephyr. The master
was informed Of this by Smith and one
Captain Cowper, passenger, but OBJ
stinately refused to change his course,
supposing- presume, on the Girls Ro-
manus principle-that as he bore the
English flag, none would modest him.
Mr.. Lunsden was doomed to be
harshly undeceived. The grim schoon-
er came on swiftly, her decks full of
men, and lowered boats. Next came a
hoarse order to lay-to, enforced by a
volley of musketry, which increased
the rising terror of the Zephyr's master.
The brig was now boarded by the
pirates boats, which were filed with
armed men. The chief, IL ferocious fell
low, staid in his schooner, and had
Lumsden, Cowper, Smith and others
brought before him on his deck. His
questions in broken English, as to car
go, ETC., were enforced by threats of
burning the Zephyr and every soul
belonging to her if the truth was not
told.
Smith was told by the pirate captain
that he would be kept to navigate the
schooner. The mate entreated to be
released, and drew narrowing picture
of an imaginary wife and children long
ing for his return, but all in vain.
Ultimately he was forced to go on
board the brig, collect his property and
necessaries for navigation and return to
his new master. In the interim, Lums-
. den and Cowper were dashed to the
pumps, and combustibles placed round
them and fired to extort confession as
to hidden treasure. The pirates plum
dered the brig, and Smith was driven
at the point of the knife into the pirate
schooner, and saw the brig and his
companions sail off, leaving him in cap
tivity.
In due course, the schooner touched
at harbor-Rio Medias-where an evil
dent understanding existed between
the pirates and the Spanish magistrates,
and where dance took place between
the crew and the fair ladies of the
neighborhood at the chief magistrates
house.