_Isaac Burnet_ heard the Prisoner ask _James Harris_, a Pyrate, (left with the wounded in the Prize,) whether he was willing to come into the Project of running away with the Ship, and endeavour the raising of a new Company, but turned the Discourse to Horse-Racing, as the Deponent crept nigher; he acquainted the Officer with what he had heard, who kept the People under Arms all Night, their Apprehensions of the Negroes not being groundless; for many of them having lived a long Time in this pyratical Way, were, by the thin Commons they were now reduced to, as ripe for Mischief as any.
The Prisoner in his Defence said, he was a forced Man from Captain _Rolls_, in _October_ last, and if he had not shewn such a Concern as became him, at the Alteration, he must remark the Occasion to be, the Disagreement and Enmity between them; but that both _Roberts_, and _Val. Ashplant_, threat'ned him into signing their Articles, and that he did it in Terror.
The _King Solomon_, and _Elizabeth_ Medicine-Chest, he owns he plundered, by Order of _Hunter_, the then chief Surgeon, who, by the Pyrates Laws, always directs in this Province, and Mr. _Child_, (tho' acquitted) had by the same Orders taken out a whole _French_ Medicine-Chest, which he must be sensible for me, as well as for himself, we neither of us dared to have denied; it was their being the proper Judges, made so ungrateful an Office imposed. If after this he was elected chief Surgeon himself, both _Comry_ and _Wilson_ were set up also, and it might have been their Chance to have carried it, and as much out of their Power to have refused.
As to the Attempt of rising and running away with the Prize, he denies it altogether as untrue; a few foolish Words, but only by Way of Supposition, that if the Negroes should take it in their Heads (considering the Weakness, and ill look-out that was kept;) it would have been an easy Matter, in his Opinion for them to have done it; but that he encouraged such a Thing, was false, his talking to them in the _Angolan_ Language, was only a Way of spending his Time, and trying his Skill to tell twenty, he being incapable of further Talk. As to his understanding Navigation, he had frequently acknowledg'd it to the Deponent _Child_, and wonders he should now so circumstantiate this Skill against him. _Guilty._