The Persuasive Powers of John Adams (episode 272)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:05] Welcome to Hub History where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 72 the persuasive powers of John Adams.
Hi, I’m Jake. This week, I’m talking about a legal case that John Adams later described as being of extraordinary character in which I was engaged and which cost me no small portion of anxiety.
In 1769, 4 common sailors were brought into Boston to stand trial for murder.
The victim was an officer in the Royal Navy and the crime had taken place just off Cape Ann almost within sight of home.
As Boston suffered under military occupation, could a military victim receive justice in a radicalized Boston?
And what really happened on that ship near Marblehead?
Had the dead officer really just been searching for cargo that the captain hadn’t declared and paid customs on?
Or were they up to something darker like illegally kidnapping Massachusetts sailors and forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy?

[1:12] But before we talk about one of John Adams less famous murder trials, I just wanna pause and thank a couple of our sponsors.
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[2:32] Now it’s time for this week’s main topic. In April 1769, Boston was still adjusting to life under military occupation after the stamp back riots.
A few years before parliament seemed to relent, repealing the hated law that colonists saw as taxation without representation.
They had another trick up their legislative sleeves. However, starting in 17 67 parliament passed a series of repressive taxes and statutes known as the Townsend Act.
Shifting the focus of colonial resentment from stamped paper to customs duties on everything from glass to paint.
To most importantly, tea, Boston merchants and sea captains smuggled goods into town in defiance of the new customs duties including a wealthy and prominent merchant named John Hancock.

[3:25] As colonial resentments refocused on the new commissioners of customs unrest grew in Boston and then started to become violent.
Again, one of the most frightening incidents occurred after Hancock brought in the cargo of Madeira wine in May 1768 pinning the duties on just a fraction of the cargo.
When the commissioners of customs seized his ship liberty. The resulting Boston riot was so severe that the commissioners and other officials had to seek refuge in a British man of war in the harbor and a castle island.
Just a few months later, entire British regiments began landing in Boston in October 1768, These troops were intended to keep the peace but instead they fanned the flames of conflict that eventually led to the Boston Massacre in March 1770.

[4:14] We’ve heard about the 17 68 liberty riots in episode 2 24 about the occupation of Boston just recently in episodes 2 63 and 2 67.
And we heard a lot about the Boston massacre. In episode 1 74 the Boston massacre and the Liberty riot both led to important legal cases.
And in both cases, John Adams represented the defendants In 1768, he defended John Hancock before a court of admiralty on charges of smuggling.
And then again in 1770, he defended the British soldiers who’d opened fire on King Street against charges of murder.
In between those two cases, John Adams served as the defense attorney in yet another high profile case in admiralty court.
Six months into the military occupation of Boston merchant, John Rose’s diary entry for April 24, Records, Mr Hooper of Marblehead came to town and brings the melancholy account of Lieutenant Paxton meaning Panton being killed and endeavoring to press some hands of Mr Hooper’s break.

[5:21] The mere rumor that a British naval officer was impressing sailors in Massachusetts Bay was explosive in Boston impressment was basically legalized kidnapping.
The practice by which the navy could simply take sailors off civilian ships against their will and force them into the crown’s service.
Back in 1747 during the administration of Governor William Shirley, one of the worst riots in Boston history tore the town apart after Commodore Knowles began illegally impressing Boston sailors.
The Boston mob took navy officers prisoner, battered down the doors of the governor’s mansion held the entire colonial government hostage on the upper floors of our old statehouse and eventually forced the release of all the impressed Massachusetts sailors.
As we said in episode 54, about that 1747 riot, the practice of impressment predated the Magna Carta.
So by 1769, it had been in place for over 570 years.
In that earlier episode, we quoted historian Jack Tager about who could be impressed into the Royal Navy impressment was initially applied only to seamen.
But over time, anyone on shipboard or in seaports was right for the press gang.

[6:41] Englishmen anywhere on the globe were subject.
But there were exceptions, all landsmen except harvesters, which meant large numbers of those working the land, gentlemen apprentices, or those tied to masters, ships, officers and bosons and various skilled artisans, e.g.
Of merchant vessels over 50 tons and only when on their vessels.

[7:07] This meant that it was largely the urban lower orders, sailors, simple craft persons, and the wide variety of common laborers of the seaports who were the targets of the press gang.
Captain John Corner of the HMS. Romney had tried to illegally impress Massachusetts sailors in 17 68.
And the Liberty riots weren’t much less damaging than the Noles riots in 17 47.
In both cases, the governor eventually upheld a precedent stating that Massachusetts residents were not subject to impressment.
Now, a ship owner from Marblehead was in Boston barely a year later saying that the same thing had happened again.

[7:50] After so many past conflicts around impressment that reaffirmed the exemptions for Massachusetts sailors was a royal navy officer really making the same mistake.
It certainly looked that way with the May one, edition of the Boston Evening Post reporting under a Dateline of Salem April 25.
A very melancholy accident happened last Saturday morning on board the brig pit packet commanded by Captain Thomas Power belonging to Marblehead and bound in there from Cades, The brig when within about seven leagues of Cape Ann came across the Rose Man of War was boarded and two of her men impressed.
But these being for some reasons, released. The Lieutenant of the Rose with a number of men again boarded the break in order to take some of the other men who for in number had secured themselves in the fore peak, determining to defend themselves with some harpoons, et cetera that they had provided for the purpose.
As long as they had life, the lieutenant made use of moderate kind and persuasive arguments and offered first to take but two and afterwards, but one if they would surrender themselves.
But all his proposals and entreaties being ineffectual to induce them to come up.
The lieutenant informed them that he was determined to make use of force and the sailors as resolutely protested that they would kill any who should attempt to take them.

[9:20] The pit packet was a square rigged ship with two masts that was carrying a cargo of mostly salt from Spain to her home port on Cape Ann.
Salt was in high demand in fishing towns like Gloucester and Marblehead.
When she was stopped by HMS rose, she was about 21 miles out of marblehead and probably within sight of land.
The rose was a post ship bigger than a sloop and smaller than a frigate with about 28 guns on a single gun deck.

[9:51] She was commanded by a royal navy captain, but it was a subordinate officer, Lieutenant Henry Gibson, Panton who led the press gang that boarded the pit packet.
Panton asked Thomas Power the master of the brig for his paperwork and told him to call the crew together.
It was no secret to the crew of six, why the naval officer had come aboard and instead of assembling on the deck as ordered, they hid where they could below the decks.
Panton called first for a candle to see where the men were hiding and then he called for a crowbar to try to break into the fore peak, which was the tiny compartment between decks and the pointy part of the bow that was too small to use for anything practical.

[10:35] The exact details of the scuffle that followed were disputed, but the bottom line is that the four men in the peak made it clear that they’d been born free and that they’d rather die free than subject themselves to impressment with the Boston evening post reporting, A pistol charge of powder was first fired at them which burnt the face of one Michael Corbett.
And afterwards another one of them received a pistol shot in his arm which broke the bone.
This increased the resolution of dying rather than surrendering.
And their whole conduct seemed to manifest such abhorrence of being forced on board.
A man of war as to prefer death to such a life as they deemed slavery.
They repeatedly declared that they would kill the first man that offered to approach them.
And a man the lieutenant sent in to begin the attack upon them was considerably wounded on which he retreated.

[11:27] The lieutenant then told them that he would lead the way to them himself.
Corbett answered him with the most solemn protestations and called almighty God to witness that.
So sure as he advanced one inch further, he should instantly lose his life.

[11:43] In the version of this exchange that passed into legend, sailor Michael Corbett drew a line in the sand either by scraping a line into loose salt that was on the deck or by taking some salt from his pocket and sprinkling it on the ground.
He told Panton that if he took one step over the line, he’d kill the officer.
In response. The legend says the Panton took a pinch of snuff for courage and then slowly and deliberately stepped over the line.

[12:12] In the version reported by the Boston Evening Post, some of those details are already present.
The lieutenant told him that he’d seen many a brave fellow should take a pinch of snuff and then consider of it, which having deliberately done, he began to step towards them when Corbett agreeable to his promise immediately through a harpoon which did instant execution, and hit the lieutenant near his throat and cut the jugular vein on which he had only time to say that they’d taken his life and gasping three or four times fell down and expired.
The sailors still continued to defend themselves. Notwithstanding there was a large number of marines at this time on board the brig, but having provided themselves with the quantity of liquor all but Corbett became so intoxicated there with that, they were soon pulled out.
He continued to defend himself for three hours and a half after he killed the lieutenant and it was thought would have been killed upon the spot rather than have been taken if he had retained the use of his limbs.
But being also overcome with liquor was by that means taken.

[13:22] Realizing how much trouble they were in the four men in the four peak began hitting the bottle after getting too drunk to continue defending themselves.
They were taken prisoner.
I almost said that they were clapped in irons. But later testimony makes it clear that they were just taken onto the roads and watched by an armed guard while both ships were brought back to Boston along with ringleader Michael Corbett.
The other prisoners were Pierce Finning John Ryan and William Connor.

[13:52] The evening post article continues. The Lieutenant we hear was named Panton a young gentleman between 20 and 30 years of age and was much respected.
The Captain of the Rose. After this tragical affair, thought himself obliged to take charge of the brig as well as of the men and carried them to Boston.

[14:14] The corpse of the lieutenant was kept on board the brig where it was to remain until a jury of inquest should be summoned on the same.
Not one American belonged to the brig, the Rose Man of War.
And the break with Mr Patton’s body on board arrived at Boston last Tuesday and on Friday, his remains were decently interred there after Lieutenant Panton was buried, corporate and his fellow prisoners were left on board.
The Rose to await an uncertain fate.
Would they be brought into Boston to stand trial for murder?
Would they be taken to England to stand trial there?
Or would they face military justice on the Rose itself?
If Corbett was to stay in trial in Boston, would he be judged by a jury of sympathetic Bostonians At the turn of the 18th century, a parallel court system had been set up in Boston as a way to try pirates.
Since at the time, Juries in the colonies were sometimes seen as overly sympathetic to piracy.
And a more recent law had mandated that more offenses would fall under the jurisdiction of this parallel legal system.

[15:22] In July, 1768 Parliament had passed a 5th Townsend Act, the Vice Admiralty Court Act.
This law gave admiralty courts now a legal system operating under the auspices of the Royal Navy.
So jurisdiction over enforcing customs laws.
Admiralty courts were originally set up to deal with pirates who were taken into custody in Boston.

[15:46] After the notorious Captain Kidd was arrested in Boston on possibly trumped up charges.
He was shipped off to London to stand trial Because they missed out on the spectacle of trying and hanging a famous pirate and because they continued to capture pirates with some regularity, many Bostonians welcomed the act for the more effective suppression of piracy that was passed in 1698.

[16:12] This law established admiralty courts in Britain’s overseas colonies.
And the first admiralty trial outside Britain was held in Boston in 1704 where a pirate captain named John Quelch was convicted, hanged and buried below the high tide line.
In his biography of Quelch Clifford, Beal describes the appeal of an admiralty trial.
The intent was to circumvent trial by jury, thus bypassing sympathetic local courts and gaining more convictions as well as confiscated treasure, considered throughout the colonies as a violation of the freeborn right of all Englishmen to a fair trial.
The new Admiralty court powers created a stir similar to that of the recent us Guantanamo Bay military tribunals for suspected terrorists.
Then as now the tinkering with long established legal convention for reasons of judicial expediency was regarded with great suspicion and general hostility.

[17:14] The statute allowed for a trial without a jury trial without an attorney and trial under maritime law rather than the laws of the province of Massachusetts Bay.

[17:25] However, the first Massachusetts Admiralty Court set some precedents that were still in place in 1769.
First, while the court would be steered by maritime law and the verdict would be returned by the judges rather than a jury.
The composition of the panel of judges is revealing it was made up of the governor and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, the lieutenant governor of New Hampshire, our old friend Samuel Sewell, the Salem witch trial judge who hated Christmas so much and a newly appointed judge to the local Admiralty court.
This lent more of an air of legitimacy to the court than it would have gotten from unknown judges or desperate.
Plus, very importantly, though the statute did not provide for a defense attorney on the first day of the trial, the court appointed an attorney named James Menzies to defend Quelch.
All those precedents were still in place in 1769. So Corbett and the others would have a proper defense.
However, questions remained as to what crime the prisoners should be charged with. Since the Navy story was already starting to change.
The Captain of the Rose now denied that Lieutenant Panton had boarded the pit packet in order to impress local sailors.
Instead, the new claim was that the boarding party had only been searching for goods that had not been declared and that the customs duties had not been paid for.

[18:52] While customs enforcement was wildly unpopular in Boston at the time, claiming that this was the reason for boarding.
The break was convenient since it would clearly make the case subject to the recent Vice Admiralty Court Act To Bolster this assertion of jurisdiction.
The Boston Evening Post printed an updated account of what happened on the pit packet in their July three, edition.

[19:16] The inhabitants were not a little alarmed to learn that those who are the aggressors and acted in defense of an Act of Parliament are left at liberty while the men who only stood upon their defense against an illegal attempt upon their liberty are confined in irons on board the man of war in order to their being put upon trial for life and that proper application for their being brought up to the town and treated as the law prescribes has been hitherto ineffectual.
But they are quite astonished to hear that one of the commissioners and others of the cabal have given out that Lieutenant Panton was not on the business of pressing men but only executing the duty of a customs house officer on board the brig by endeavoring to search out and secure contraband goods and that he was therefore opposed and slain.
While in the due execution of that trust, we shall only remark upon the above account that if the captains of our men of war have it in their power to stop vessels at sea and impress the seamen as also to detain such vessels in order to break open hatches and make a search for un custom goods.
That then the floating property of the merchants lies at their mercy.

[20:23] Or if such officers can assume onboard a merchantman at sea, the shape of either marine or custom house officers best suits them in order to laying their hands on our seamen that then a kite is made of a most solemn act of parliament provided and enacted for the security of the persons of that class of his Majesty’s leche subjects in America, whether by sea or land.

[20:46] Two Boston lawyers would represent the defendants, James Otis and John Adams, at the time, Adams was an up and coming attorney, but he didn’t have much of a reputation for politics.
Yet, Otis on the other hand was seen as a raving patriot, In 1761, he delivered a five hour argument against the writs of assistance that John Adams later credited with igniting the flame of American independence.
And he acted as a political mentor to the radical Samuel Adams.
However, his mental health declined soon after this trial and he was largely forgotten or ignored by the time of the revolution.
Later in 1769, a crown official clubbed him over the head with a cane which many people blame for this decline.
However, a letter that John Adams wrote nearly 50 years after the fact suggests that Otis was already suffering from bouts of mental illness during the trial.
His unhappy distemper was then in one of its un lucid intervals and I could hardly persuade him to converse with me for a few minutes on the subject.

[21:53] Whatever his state of mind was like, it at first seemed that Otis had found a Trump Card for the Vice Admiralty Court Act that would allow the defense team to force a trial before a sympathetic Boston jury.
In his notes from the trial, John Adams wrote a question has been made by Mr Otis, whether the prisoners have not a right to a jury.
He says that Magna Carta in a case of life at least must be expressly repealed, not by implication or construction only.
And that in England, a jury is summoned every day for the trial of such offenses committed at sea.
But I think that the Statute of Henry the eighth before cited explains this difficulty and this case seems to be.
But one instance among many others of the partial distinctions made between British subjects at home and abroad.
The civil law, the course of the admiralty and the methods and rules of the admiralty will be construed to take away the benefit of a jury.
Mr Otis from his first retainer in the cause has been very sanguine to move for a jury.
He has mentioned his resolution in all companies and last week at Plymouth, he mentioned it to the lieutenant governor and the rest of the judges.
Mr Fitch. Happening to hear of our design to move for a jury, went to rummaging up acts of parliament to satisfy himself and found the act for the further preventing of robbery, et cetera and for declaring the law upon some points relating to pirates.

[23:22] The Wigg Journal of the Times was critical of both impressment and customs inspections.
So it’s no wonder that their note dated 31 May 1769 was sympathetic to the defendants, on Tuesday last, his Majesty’s Commission for the trial of piracies, robberies and felonies on the High Seas was read.
And a court formed for the trial of Michael Corbett and three others charged with being concerned in the murder of Lieutenant Panton of his Majesty’s ship Rose.
A motion having been made on behalf of the prisoners that they might have the privilege of a trial by jury.
The court was adjourned to the Thursday following when they again met and adjourned to the 29th instant when it was determined that said prisoners were not entitled to a trial by jury, The prisoners then by their counsel filed a plea against the jurisdiction of the court and it having been thought proper by the court to take the same into consideration, they adjourned to 14 June.
Next Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson was named as a judge for this Admiralty court.
So his history of the province of Massachusetts Bay contains firsthand knowledge of the debate over a jury trial.

[24:36] Back in 17 47 during that massive riot against impressment, he’d been a popular Boston selectman and the speaker of the Massachusetts House, when the mob threatened Governor Shirley’s house and the naval officers taking refuge there, he physically placed himself between the rioters and their potential victims, possibly saving their lives.
In the meantime, though his alignment with the Townsend Acts made him unpopular with Boston radicals and another later mob destroyed his North End home during the stamp back riots of 17 65, Hutchinson was also a longtime political opponent of James Otis.
So you can almost hear him rubbing his hands together in glee.
And this footnote from his history of Massachusetts that explains why a jury trial was not called for.
In this case, four of the crew belonging to the Brian team were apprehended and ordered to a trial before a special Court of Vice Admiralty consisting of crown officers which court had always proceeded without a jury, but exception was now taken and a jury was insisted upon by Mr Otis and Mr Adams, the counsel for the seamen.

[25:47] The authority for the Court of Admiralty for trial of piracy and felony upon the High Seas was derived from Acts of Parliament in the reign of William the third and George the first, and murder being felony was supposed to be cognizable by force of those acts.
All the commissions in pursuance of them directed that the proceedings should be without a jury.
It was now stated that the trial ought to be by jury, that the acts would admit of it.
And that in order to deprive a subject of his birthright, the privilege of being tried by a jury, the words ought to be expressed and such as would admit of no other construction upon opening the court.
The governor as president observed that the commissioners were disposed if it might be done consistently with law, that the prisoners should be tried by a jury that they would take under consideration the several statutes and their commission.
And for that purpose would adjourn a few days upon a hearing by counsel for the king and prisoners, the counsel for the king acceded to a trial by jury.
And the only point remaining was the manner of summoning the grand and petite jurors.

[26:59] While this was under consideration, the chief justice drew up a statement of the case in which it appeared that the prisoners might be sent to England and tried there.
In which case, the trial must be upon the statute of Henry the eighth, which directs a trial by jury or they might be tried in the plantations meaning the American Colonies.
But the trial there must be according to the directions of the Statute of William without a jury.
This statement being laid before the commissioners, they were unanimously of the opinion to proceed without a jury.
And the chief justice was desired in open court to declare the grounds of their decision.
It was however unpleasing.

[27:41] Not only were the four defendants now denied a jury of their peers.
The judges were not exactly drawn from the peers of a common seaman.
As reported by the Boston Gazette Country Journal on June 19.

[27:55] Tuesday last his excellency, Governor Wentworth arrived in town with a great retinue from New Hampshire.
Several other gentlemen also arrived here being officers included in the commission for the trial of piracies, felonies, et cetera and the High Seas.
The court was opened according to adjournment yesterday, for the trial of the persons charged with the murder of Lieutenant Panton of his Majesty’s ship rose.
The plea against the jurisdiction of the court was not admitted and the court proceeded to the examination of the evidences and will continue from day to day till the whole trial is finished.
The judges are as follows. The list of judges included not only prominent Tory, politicians like Thomas Hutchinson and Governor Bernard, but also the hated customs collectors from three different ports.

[28:46] It certainly seemed to Michael Corbett, his three code defendants and the Boston wigs who were lining up to support them that the scale was being deliberately tipped against them.
The Journal of the Times Report dated May 31 continues.
It was with difficulty that this court was formed a great part of the gentleman named in the commission living at a distance.
And the inhabitants had the mortification to perceive that the whole of his Majesty’s Council of this province who had been included in all former commissions was excluded from the present while not only the council of a neighboring colony, but even pro temp collectors helped to constitute this court, for such an indignity thrown upon this ancient and loyal province.
It is known we are obliged to the generosity and prudence of Governor Bernard.

[29:37] By this time, Governor Bernard was already quite unpopular in Boston.
So it was easy to blame him for the Constitution of the Admiralty Court.
After all, it was his request for reinforcements. After the Stamp Act protests that had brought 4000 occupying red coats to Boston in the first place.
But not until after he had dissolved the legislature for complaining about the Townsend acts.

[30:02] As the drama of Corbett’s trial was unfolding. In 1769, his letters to London were leaked to the press showing how he had exaggerated the violence in Boston in order to get the troops sent here.
By the time the trial was over, both Bernard and the legislature were independently petitioning parliament to get him recalled to London.
A wish that was granted that August.
But before that happened, the four sailors had to stand trial.
John Roe is a merchant of Boston and a reliable diarist.
As the outbreak of war drew closer. He would lean to the wig side of the Boston crisis, but in 1769, he still seemed fairly politically neutral.
That’s why his diary entry for June 14, really speaks to the persuasive powers of John. Adams.
He wrote this day power and others were on trial for their conduct on board the Rose man of war.
Their behavior was very courageous and I think very right power.
The ship’s master was called as a witness but was not himself on trial.
Nevertheless, Rose seems to have been more persuaded by Adams in his examination of the witnesses than by newspaper accounts of a supposed customs inspection or a lawful impressment.

[31:28] Giving the navy side of the story was Peter Bowen who was part of the boarding party from the Rose.
John Adams recorded his statement to the court in his notes on the trial.

[31:39] Mr Panton went on board and I with him, we inquired for the master who proved to be the person we spoke to master.
Mr Panton And I went down in the cabin when below Mr Panton inquired from where the brick came.
Master made answer from Cade Bound, a marble head, Mr Panton Then asked him for his bills of lading clearance and other papers.
The master answered that he had no papers except a bill of health which he produced.
Next. Mr Panton asked how many men he had on board? The master answered six before the mast besides himself and a maid.
A side note from Jake, I never realized that you could sail across the Atlantic with a crew that small, even on a relatively small ship.

[32:28] He then asked for his log book and the master produced it.
Mr Panton desired that the hatchways and scuttles might be opened and he would send his people down to search for un custom goods or to that purpose.
Mr Panton And I went upon the deck leaving the master in the cabin.
Mr Panton desired the mate to send all his hands aft. At the same time, ordered the roses people to go below and search.

[32:55] That’s when four sailors were discovered in the four peak and they refused to come out the scene that followed sounds utterly chaotic.
In Bowen’s testimony, Two different groups from the rose tried to get access to the four peak one by prying open a closed hatch and the other by digging through a amount of goods that the sailors had piled in front of an open hatch.

[33:18] According to testimony by the master of arms from the rose, the space between the decks was so small that Lieutenant Panton had to crawl forward when he wanted to speak with the men.
This is where the exchange between Panton and the sailors took place.
But in this telling, there was no dramatic line of salt for him to step over.
The sailors were packed into a dark cramped chamber under the deck where they were armed with a hatchet, a musket, a fish gig and a harpoon.
Corbett was pointing the harpoon at Lieutenant Panton according to some testimony, thrusting at him with it while the officer was sitting on a pile of salt and the boarding party was trying to pry enough planks off the hatch to get a look at who was inside.
One detail remained consistent between accounts. After one of the men in the four Peak said that they would kill the first person through the door.
Bowen reported that Lieutenant Panton responded.
I will you shoot me in a joking cheerful manner added, I will take a pinch of snuff.
First, things continued to unfold quickly and Bowen tried to make sense of the series of events that led up to the lieutenant’s death for the court.

[34:29] Almost immediately after I heard the report of a pistol which silly at that time said was fired by him without ball at the man who threatened the lieutenant so hard who the man was.
I can’t tell being on the other side, Mr Panton all this time, frequently begging of them to surrender or he must clear his way to them.
Some of them again said that they would shoot Mr Panton first and Forbes, the master of arms next before they would be taken upon hearing the report of a second pistol.
I turned about and saw Mr Panton had been wounded in the throat.
I did not see the harpoon. I saw the shape of the harpoon upon the throat and he had fired a pistol.
As I then thought at the receiving of that wound, two men testified about the nature of Lieutenant Panton wounds.
A Boston physician named William Pettigrew and Robert Bryce, the surgeon’s mate from the rose.
First Pettigrew stated, I saw the body before it was buried.
Soon after the vessel came up to the wharf.
He came by his death, I suppose by the wound he received in his neck about three inches long and of a triangular figure cut the crowded artery in jugular vein, I suppose, three inches in depth.
There are two jugular veins on each side of the neck.

[35:52] John Adams asked him, are the artery and vein three inches deep and Pettigrew responded, I suppose it must have penetrated three inches for the natural elasticity of the artery and vein would have given way.
The surgeon’s mate also testified about the cause of death.
I saw him about a half hour before he died. His death. I apprehend occasioned by a triangular wound in the left side of his neck.
It must have been the immediate occasion of his death. The two jugulars on the left side and the carotid artery were cut through, the wound went down in an oblique direction.
There is an external and internal jugular vein. One could have known the wound by the instrument that gave it.
There must have been force used in drawing it back as the surface of the wound was lacerated.

[36:46] All that testimony confirmed that Lieutenant Henry Panton had been killed with a harpoon to the throat and that the harpoon was wielded by Michael Corbett.
It also confirmed that Corbett and three other sailors have been barricaded into the four peak at the time of the incident.
And that Panton and his men have been trying to get to them.

[37:05] However, the defense wasn’t contesting any of those facts.
Instead, James Otis and John Adams had to prove that the boarding party was actually a press gang intent on impressing sailors rather than enforcing the customs duties.
They also had to prove that the impressment was illegal and that the sailors acted in defense of their life and liberty.
Testimony by the Briggs master Thomas Power helped put the defense on the right track, making it clear that the naval officer had boarded the pit packet in search of men not smuggled goods.
He asked me for my clearance and I told him I had none. He replied, you must certainly have some papers.
I told him that I had no other clearance but a bill of health and a bill of lading as it was a foreign port from once I came and we took no clearance there from, he asked me for the bill of health which I produced.
He then asked me for a list of my men I produced in my shipping book.
He asked me if I would walk down into the cabin. When he came down, he asked me where my people were. And I told him I did not know.
Then he called for pen and ink and for the log book and took down the people’s names.
And then he ordered some of his party to go and seek for my people and turn them up from below.

[38:27] If that didn’t make it clear enough that Lieutenant Panton was leading a press gang.
Power continued after he’d taken my people’s names.
He asked me if I had any particular person that I wanted a favor done him, let him know his name and he would put a mark against it.
And when he came upon deck, he would not take him.
I told him I had one man that was married and thought it was very hard to take him.
He said by no means he would not take any married man for he had orders to take none that was married.

[38:58] He asked me if I had any more hands aboard, but what was in the list? And I answered no.
Then he desired me again to tell him if I had any more for if he found more aboard it should be worse for me.
There would have been no reason for the naval officer to ask the master of the pit packet who was on board and whether there were any crew members who he shouldn’t take.
If he was there to search for smuggled tea or exotic paint pigments.
There was exactly one reason to ask those questions which John Adams made clear when he cross examined Peter Bowen did not.
The prisoners often say that they did not want to hurt him or his men.
They only wanted their own liberty.
Yes. I don’t know that I heard him more than once, whether they begged and pleaded that the lieutenant would let him alone.
Yes.
When the prisoner said that they would die before they would be pressed.
Did the lieutenant tell him he did not want to impress them but only wanted to look for un custom goods? No.

[40:09] Is the opening in the bulkhead such that the Lieutenant might see into the four peak, whether there was un custom goods there or not.
I don’t know when James Otis cross examined Master of Arms, Forbes of the Rose.
The officer denied that Panton had even been armed during the standoff at the four peak, implying that Corbett had no reason to use lethal force to defend himself.
However, Otis did get him to confirm that the boarding party found no smuggled goods.

[40:39] Do you know of any un custom goods that were found in this four peak by any of the party or any other part of the vessel?
Not that ever were found to my knowledge, Hugh Hill, who was the first maid of the pit packet gave testimony similar to that of the Briggs master.
Mr Power asked if Lieutenant Panton had been armed or had been acting as a press gang.
He testified, he took up his sword from our companion where he had laid it and drew the sword and left the scabbard and belt and went forward and went down into the forecastle where the prisoners were.
He said my lads, you’d better come up, I shall take but two of you, you shall have an equal chance.
They replied that they would not, they told him that they would not be impressed that they would defend themselves.
And they told him to keep off from them. They did not want to hurt him nor any of his people.
He then replied to the prisoners that he had often known as stoutest fellows as you. But by God, I will have you all.

[41:44] Cross examining Hill, John Adams asked, did the lieutenant with his party from the time of his coming on board the pit packet to the time he fell, conduct him and themselves in all respects merely as a press gang.
Hill responded. Yes, I understood it so and had very good reason when he told me that he would take me on board the man of war. If I would not turn the men up, the defense team had reason to be optimistic. After Judge Ahmadi asked William Peacock, one of the midshipmen in the boarding party.
Have you any doubt upon your mind? But he intended to impress the people or not to which peacock responded. No sir.
In his closing argument, Prosecutor Samuel Fitch made the case that Lieutenant Panton had been carrying out his lawful duty as a naval officer which gave the men in the fore peak no right to resist him.

[42:37] According to Fitch, it didn’t matter whether Panton had been impressing the men or simply searching for undeclared cargo. So he sidestepped the question.
He said that it may have been Corbett who struck the fatal blow, but since the four men had acted together, they were all guilty of killing the officer.
Corbett was one of the persons that threw the harpoon that killed the Lieutenant.
They were all active stimulating one another and all equally concerned though Corbett gave the mortal blow, the lieutenant was in the lawful discharge of his duty and had the explicit consent of the master for this purpose.
Any opposition to him therefore was illegal.
The opposition being illegal. He was not obliged to give back no threatening on the part of Mr Panton by which the prisoners could apprehend the danger to their lives.
Though they had apprehensions of being impressed on the other side of the aisle.
John Adams marshaled three arguments for his closing.
First that the Royal Navy had no legal grounds for impressing sailors in Massachusetts Bay.
Second that any subject had the right to defend himself from a lethal threat with lethal force.
And third that Lieutenant Panton had posed a deadly threat to the sailors by threatening them with a sword and a pistol in an illegal impressment attempt.

[43:55] The first question that is to be made according to my opinion is whether impresses in any cases are legal for if impresses are always illegal.
And Lieutenant Panton acted as an impress officer, Michael Corbett and his associates had a right to resist him.
And if they could not otherwise preserve their liberty to take away his life, his blood must lie at his own door and they be held guiltless.
Nay. I think that impresses may be allowed to be legal and yet Corbett might have a right to resist after quoting the statutes of Queen Anne which prohibited impressment in the American colonies.
Adams continued this statute is clear and decisive and it places the illegality of all impressions in America beyond controversy.
No mariner on board, any trading vessel in any part of America shall be liable to be impressed or shall be impressed by any officer.

[44:47] All that Lieutenant Panton did on board the vessel was tortious and illegal.
He was a trespasser from the beginning, a trespasser and coming on board and in every act that he did until he received the mortal fatal wound.
He was a trespasser in going down below, but especially in firing a pistol among the men in the four peak.
It is said that the lieutenant with his own hand, discharged this pistol directly at Michael Corbett, but the ball missed, but the ball missed him and wounded the man who was next to him in the arm.
This therefore was a direct commencement of hostilities. It was an open act of piracy and Corbett and his associates had a right and it was their duty to defend themselves.
What could Corbett expect should he stand still and be shot or should he have surrendered to a pirate? Should he have surrendered to the empress?
Mr Panton and his associates in attendance had no authority for what they did.
They were trespassers and rioters. The evidence must be carefully recapitulated their arms, swords, pistols and their threats and menaces citing both law and precedent.
Adams laid out the case for justifiable homicide.
Basically, if a British subject was being robbed and the robber was armed with a deadly weapon, the victim would be justified in using deadly force to defend himself.

[46:08] Similarly, if a subject was being threatened with deadly force, he could respond in kind.
Even before the aggressor struck a first blow or fired a first shot.

[46:18] Having established the grounds for acquittal on grounds of justifiable homicide.
Adams laid his case before the judges that Corbett and the rest of the sailors were in fear for their lives from an officer who was dead set on illegally impressing them.
What could Corbett think when a pistol had been presented at his mouth and discharged loaded.
He knew not with what it had wounded him.
He knew not how badly he saw a desperate gang of armed sailors before him.
Other pistols cocked and presented at him and his companions, their heads and breasts, drawn swords in the hands of some continual threats to blow their brains out.
Could he expect anything but death in these circumstances? What was his duty?
He had an undoubted, right? Not merely to make a push at Lieutenant Panton but to have darted a harpoon, a dagger through the heart of every man in the whole gang.
If Mr Panton came as a custom house officer and it may be true that he came in part to search the ship for un custom goods.
He had a fair opportunity to do it.
He ordered asked and was told that the hatchways were open.
He ordered the lazaretto open and it was done. And after this, instead of searching for un custom goods, he proceeds directly to search for seamen.
The killing of Lieutenant Panton was justifiable homicide.
Homicide. Say defino sorry, I’ve never been one for Latin pronunciations.

[47:48] To everyone’s surprise. The justifiable homicide defense was successful with the governors, naval officers, customs collectors and admiralty judges of this special court voting unanimously to acquit despite undeniable proof that Corbett had wielded the harpoon that took Patton’s life.

[48:06] The June 19 edition of the Journal of the Times noted on Tuesday, his excellency, Governor Wentworth with several of the council of that province included in the commission for the trial of piracies, felonies, et cetera.
On the High Seas arrived in town the next day, the court was opened according to adjournment for the trial of the persons charged with the murder of Lieutenant Panton of his Majesty’s ship rose.
The plea against the jurisdiction of the court was not admitted and the court proceeded to the examination of witnesses et cetera.
The trial did not end until the Saturday following when a decree was given in justifiable homicide and the prisoner set at liberty, the noble president of the court, Sir Francis Bernard.
During the course of this lengthy trial gave so many proofs of his impartiality, tenderness and ability as a judge as were truly admirable and could not but convinced the court and others that he been as fair to outstrip a jefferies as he has confessedly done in Andros in the character of the governor, against all odds, Michael Corbett Pierce spinning John Ryan and William Connor were free men.

[49:17] That description of the noble impartiality of Governor Bernard was not a compliment.
Keep in mind that back in 1689, Governor Andrews had been deposed in a coup in Boston arrested and eventually sent back to England. In Shame.
The journal probably drew this parallel to remind readers that there had been plenty of calls for Bernard also to resign and to also go back to England.

[49:42] Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson doesn’t mention John Adams by name in his notes on the trial in his history of Massachusetts Bay.
But he seems to have been convinced by Adams arguments.
It appeared that neither the Lieutenant nor any of his superior officers were authorized to impress by any warrant or by special authority from the lords of the Admiralty.
And the court, the commanding officer of the King’s ships being one of the commissioners was unanimously of the opinion that the prisoners had a good right to defend themselves.
And though the fact that the killing was fully proved that they ought to be acquitted of murder with which they were charged and that at common law, the killing would not have amounted to manslaughter.

[50:26] A few months after the trial, John Adams wrote in his diary on December 23, that he’d been thinking about the Corbett trial and considering whether he should write a pamphlet or even a book about the case.
I’ve been musing this evening upon a report of the case of the four sailors who were tried last June before the Special Court of Admiralty for killing Lieutenant Panton a publication only of the record.
I mean the articles plea to the jurisdiction, testimony of the witnesses, et cetera would be of a great utility.
The arguments which were used are scarcely worth publishing.
Those which might be used would be well worth the perusal of the public.
A great variety of useful learning might be brought into a history of that case and the great curiosity of the world after the case would make it sell.
I have half a mind to undertake it.

[51:19] Adams never published a book about the pit packet trial. But luckily for us, his notes about it are detailed enough to form the basis for this podcast.
Capturing not only his own research and theory of the case but also transcripts of most of the testimony.
Even without a book about the case, it went a long way toward bolstering the reputation of John Adams as both a lawyer and a patriot, About a year and a half after his defendants in this case were acquitted, Captain Thomas Preston and eight British soldiers under his command were charged with murder for their role in the Horrid Massacre in King Street on March five.

[51:58] In many ways, that case was the mirror image of the pitt packet case with the defendants worrying that they couldn’t get a fair trial.
In Boston and royal officials advocating to move the trial to England, the Red Coach would claim self defense and they hired the newly minted self defense specialist, John Adams.
Adams would be joined by Robert Amey, the admiralty judge who’d been won over by adams’ defense in the Corbett case.
He won that one too.

[52:28] To learn more about John Adams and the pit packet trial. Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 272.
I have links to coverage of the crime and trial from the Boston gazette, the Boston evening post and the Journal of the Times.
As well as the Tory version of Thomas Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay and John Rose mentions the trial in his diary.
I’ll also include a link to John Adams extensive notes on the case, including some incredibly helpful footnotes from the editors of the online edition.
I owe a tip of the microphone to a 2017 blog post by Walk Boston history for giving me the idea for this episode.
So I’ll include a link to their article as well.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hub history dot com.
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Music

Jake:
[53:48] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.