been said) with orders to deliver him on board the first English
man-of-war they should meet with, comes, of course, to have the rest of
his history made up in this place. The captain of the Bristol ship,
though he received his orders from the crew of pirates and rogues, whose
instructions he was not obliged to follow, and whose accusation of
Williams they were not obliged to give credit to, yet punctually obeyed
the order, and put him on board the _Argyle_, Captain Bowler, then lying
in the port of Lisbon and bound for England; who, as they took him in
irons, kept him so, and brought him to England, in the same conditions.
But as the pirates did not send any of their company, nor indeed could
they do it, along with him to be evidence against him, and the men who
went out of the pirate ship on board the Bristol ship, being till then
kept as prisoners on board the pirate ship (and perhaps could not have
said enough, or given particular evidence, sufficient to convict him in
a course of justice), Providence supplied the want by bringing the whole
crew to the same place; for Williams was in the Marshalsea prison before
them, and by that means they furnished sufficient evidence against
Williams also, so that they were all tried together.

In Williams's case the evidence was as particular as in Gow's, and
Dobson and the other swore positively that Williams boasted that after
MacCauly had cut the super-cargo's throat imperfectly, he (Williams)
murdered him, and added that he would not give him time to say his
prayers, but shot him through the head. Phinnes and Timothy Murphy
testified the same, and to show the bloody disposition of this wretch,
William Booth testified that Williams proposed afterwards to the company
that if they took any more ships they should not encumber themselves
with the men, having already so many prisoners that in case of a fight
they should not be safe with them; but that they should take them and
tie them, back to back, and throw them all overboard into the sea.

It should not be omitted here also in the case of Gow himself (as I have
observed in the introduction) that Gow had long meditated the kind of
villainy which he now put in practice, and that it was his resolution to
turn pirate the first opportunity he should get, whatever voyage he
undertook, and that I observed he had intended it on board a ship in
which he came home from Lisbon, and failed only for want of a sufficient
party. So this res