2
at length with
my
for extending the
Royal Clemency to the Convicts; but as the
subject of Piracy in
this
quarter has of late engaged much public attention in England, it appeared to me to be proper that I should fully explain the motive by which I have been actuated, especially as the Chief Justice was of opinion that the sentence of death should be carried into execution.
3.
the transaction can be understood only by reference to the circumstances under which it is placed. I enclose the Notes of the Chief Justice taken at the trial, from which, however, but few particulars attending the case can be gathered, and nothing from which it is possible to measure the degrees of culpability of the several Convicts. The facts of the case, however, I find on reference to the depositions taken before the committing Magistrate, are simply these: The plundered Junke belonged to a port in China, and was the property of a Chinese Subject; she had been on a trading voyage to the Straits of Malacca, and on her return was attacked on the high seas by another Chinese Junk in which were these Prisoners, off the Coast of Hainan, some 300 miles distant from this Island: none of the parties, either accused or otherwise connected with the transaction, were in any way connected with the British Government, and none of the property plundered on the occasion belonged to British Subjects, or to others residing under its protection.
4.
To inflict punishment for taking away the lives of others under such circumstances is not the most justifiable. Causing the lives of these men to be taken would have been done under the persuasion that doing so would deter others from committing similar crimes, and, had the offenders been British Subjects, or had the outrage occurred in the vicinity of this Island, or British property been in any way molested, I should, I confess, have been disposed to permit the sentence of the Law to take its course on some of the Prisoners