bring any further proof than
what has been already brought & sworn to in Court to prove the right &
power we had to seize this sloop & cargo on the high seas, & bring her
here for condemnation. There is a late act of parliament, made in the
12th year of his present Majesty's reign, wherein it says, that all
vessels belonging to His Majesty's subjects of Great Britain or Ireland,
which shall have been taken by the enemy, and have been in their
possession the space of 96 hours, if retaken by any private man of
war, shall belong one half to the capturers, as salvage, free from all
charges. As this has been fully proved in court, that the time the enemy
has had her in possession is above 96 hours, I don't doubt but the one
half, free of all charges, will be allotted us for salvage. The thing
about which there is any dispute is the three mulattoes & one negro, all
slaves, taken by the prize, & said to belong to some vassals or subjects
of the King of Spain; and it is put upon us by this court to prove
that they are so, which I hope to do by several circumstances, and the
insufficiency of the evidence in their favour, which amounts to nothing
more than hearsay.

The first evidence in their favour is that of John Evergin, a native
of N'o Carolina, who professes himself to be a child of the Spirit. In
April last, having been taken prisoner by the said Don Pedro Estrado, &
brought to S't Augustine, he consented, for the value of a share in the
profits, to pilot them in the bowels of his native country, and betrayed
his countrymen to that cruel and barbarous nation. Can your Honour
confide in a man who has betrayed his countrymen, robbed them of their
lives, and what was dearer to them, their liberty? One who has exposed
his brethren to imminent danger & reduced them and their families to
extreme want by fire & sword, can the evidence, I say, of such a vile
wretch, who has forfeited his liege to his King by entering the enemy's
service, and unnaturally sold his countrymen, be of any weight in a
court of justice? No, I am certain, and I hope it will meet with none to
prove that these slaves are freemen; for all that he has said, by his
own confession, was only but hearsay. The other evidence is of a villain
of another stamp, a French runnagado, Jean Baptiste Domas. His evidence
is so contradictory that I hope it will meet the same fate as I think
will befall the first. I will own that he has sworn to it. But how? On a
piece of sti