enbow's journal corroborated
Drury's romance, we could not be sure that the editor of the romance
did not borrow the facts from the journal of Benbow, and we do not
know that this journal made mention of Captain Drummond, for the only
valid testimony as to the captain's appearance in Madagascar is the
affidavit of Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland, at Portsmouth, March
31, 1705, and these mariners may have perjured themselves to save the
lives of English seamen condemned by the Scots.

Yet, as a patriotic Scot, I have reason for believing in the English
affidavit at Portsmouth. The reason is simple, but sufficient. Captain
Drummond, if attacked by Captain Green, was the man to defeat that
officer, make prize of his ship, and hang at the yardarm the crew
which was so easily mastered by Mr. Roderick Mackenzie and eleven
pretty fellows. Hence I conclude that the 'Worcester' really had been
pirating off the coast of Malabar, but that the ship taken by Captain
Green in these waters was not the 'Speedy Return,' but another,
unknown. If so, there was no great miscarriage of justice, for the
indictment against Captain Green did not accuse him of seizing the
'Speedy Return,' but of piracy, robbery, and murder, though the affair
of the 'Speedy Return' was brought in to give local colour. This fact
and the national excitement in Scotland probably turned the scale with
the jury, who otherwise would have returned a verdict of 'Not Proven.'
That verdict, in fact, would have been fitted to the merits of the
case; but 'there was mair tint at Shirramuir' than when Captain Green
was hanged.[31] That Green was deeply guilty, I have inferred from the
evidence. To Mr. Stephen Ponder I owe corroboration. He cites a
passage from Hamilton's _New Account of the East Indies_ (1727), chap.
25, which is crucial.

[Footnote 31: The trial is in Howell's _State Trials_, vol. xiv. 1812.
Roderick Mackenzie's account of his seizure of the 'Worcester' was
discovered by the late Mr. Hill Burton, in an oak chest in the
Advocates' Library, and is published in his _Scottish Criminal
Trials_, vol. i., 1852.]

'The unfortunate Captain Green, who was afterwards hanged in Scotland,
came on board my ship at sunset, very much overtaken in drink and
several of his men in the like condition (at Calicut, February 1703).
He wanted to sell Hamilton some arms and ammunition, and told me that
they were what was left of a large quantity that he had brought from
Engla