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Alexandra Clark
Professor Coronado
English 327
27 Mar 2016
Justice
without a Jury
In the summer of 1703, Boston governor Joseph Dudley,
commissioned a privateer captain, to plunder from any Spanish or French ships
they encountered on the high seas. This captain was about to accomplish this
mission, when suddenly, he fell ill, and died under unexplained circumstances.
The captain position was taken then by John Quelch, who deviated from Governor
Dudley’s original mission, and instead plundered nine Portuguese ships. This
was an issue, because England and Portugal had just become allies. John Quelch
arrived back in Massachusetts in 1704, where he was found guilty of piracy,
because Portuguese items were found on the ship, although he would make up a
different story to try and save himself. Quelch and his crew were then put on
trial in Massachusetts, with an English admiralty court presiding over the
trial, which was a first in America. The English admiralty court did not have a
jury, therefore Quelch and his crew had no option to save themselves; the
decision was made to execute all of them. Governor Joseph Dudley was present at
the trial, and is quoted as saying regarding the admiralty court: “a severe
thing, to put an Englishman to death without a jury” (H-net Reviews).
Considering how America’s government was formed using many of Britain’s methods,
the irony that Americans questioned a trial without a jury is truly
interesting, and I am
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going to argue that this
case be included in the canon of American Literature, because this case
influenced the American justice system and how it was formed.
The
Americans’ questioning of the British court system, and whether execution
should be permitted without a jury ruling, intrigued me to want to find out
more about this case. A Complete Collection
of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and
Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Year 1783, Volume 14, documents
the entire trial, including John Quelch’s final words as he was about to be
executed. There was overwhelming evidence against Quelch and his crew to start;
there were nine different instances of him and his crew attacking and stealing
various items from Portuguese ships, including currency, cloth, food, even
Negro boys. The trial was supposed to take place on Friday, June 16, 1704, but
despite the evidence being against him, Quelch pleaded not guilty, and begged
the court for more time to plead their side of the case. Surprisingly, the
court gave in to his pleas, and gave him two more days. However, when the court
resumed, on June 19, the attorney general for the Admiralty Court, Paul Dudley,
did not believe that pirates had a right to a trial: “For pirates are not
entitled to law… if piracy be committed upon the ocean, and the pirates in the
attempt happen to be overcome, the captors are not obliged to bring them to any
port, but may expose them immediately to punishment, by hanging them at the
main-yard;” (1073). Dudley was basically arguing that if the pirates themselves
followed no laws, why should it be any different in a serious court of law?
Dudley even addressed the citizens who felt that putting Quelch to death
without a jury was too harsh, arguing that piracy was “a crime which … scarce
deserves any law at all” (1074). After the nine counts, or articles as the
Admiralty Court called them, were read to Quelch, he attempted to use a lawyer,
James Meinzies, to argue to get a jury ruling, but the
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Admiralty Court did not
budge, saying they were going to uphold the statute set up by King Henry VIII. The
Admiralty Court found Quelch and his crew guilty on all counts, and they were
all executed, in Boston, eleven days later.
This court case truly set up the example for how British
Courts handled cases without a jury; was it right to put a man to death without
a jury? The fact that this trial took place on American soil was a huge
influence in itself, because this was the first trial without a jury present in
America. If British courts conducted trials without juries, should America have
followed in their footsteps? Another example to examine this point, involving
the Admiralty Court, was The Worcester Affair, also the name of an article
describing the proceedings of the case by James Kelly. This instance of piracy involved Scotland and Britain, and the
trial occurred two months after John Quelch and his crew were executed. James
Kelly describes the Worcester Affair as a conflict of interests between
Scotland and Britain; the two nations were supposed to be together as one, but
Scotland looked as though it was trying to break itself away from Britain,
economically. The important details of this case, was that a British captain
and his crew were put to death, on possibly false knowledge from one of the ship’s
cooks; it showed that the Admiralty Court had flaws. Although the Admiralty
Court appears to want to eradicate piracy as one of its priorities, it could be
used in other ways, to intimidate other countries, such as this case. Could
America have their own Admiralty Court, and use it for conquest in this way
possibly? The Admiralty Court appears to be strict and unpredictable, however,
it was not the worst of all the courts. The British military courts were more
barbaric, and are worth examining as well, considering how history has a
tendency to repeat itself, like America has repeated many of Britain’s
practices; should America’s justice system be exactly like Britain’s?
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In
Sylvia R. Frey’s article, “Courts and Cats: British Military Justice In the
Eighteenth Century”, she discusses how the military courts had even less rules
than the Admiralty courts, and how the men convicted in those courts hardly had
any rights at all. First of all, Frey says that all English commoners had a
right to bail under any circumstance; the opposite occurred in the military
courts: “Military law made no provision for bail for enlisted men, who were in
fact sometimes held without charge for extended periods.” Not only is this
cruel, but sadly, this is a practice that America follows now, in Guantanamo
Bay. Men have been held there for many years without being charged or going to
trials; America may not have adopted an Admiralty Court, but they came somewhat
close. Frey continues on by saying that British military courts were eager to
have their soldiers uneducated, so that they could not fight back in court, and
it was not encouraged for them to have lawyers or any kind of representation, because
criminal law was so simple that “even an ordinary person could prepare his own
defense without technical legal knowledge” (Frey 6). All that mattered, according to
Frey, was the security of the state, even it meant sacrificing the rights of
the citizens fighting for their state. The only justice at the time, was that
the articles were read back to the men before they were executed; the British
court felt then, that they had done the right thing in regards to the
defendant. Frey’s piece ties back to the John Quelch trial, in that the British
government did not care for juries; as long as the articles, were read to the defendants
before their punishment, the British felt that justice was served. They did not
believe that the defendants had the right to have a jury defend them; the crime
was already committed, and no jury decision was going to change that, whether
it was John Quelch and his crew committing piracy, or a British military man
held for no reason at all.
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The
John Quelch trial is essential to understanding American culture before the
1800s, because Americans need to know that we as a nation have not always had a
jury presiding over a court case, and the results of that case have impacted our
justice system and its formation. We may have broken away from broken away from
Britain’s rule, but that does not mean that their influence has been lost on
us. As mentioned before, we still use an aspect of their Admiralty Court system
in Guantanamo Bay today. Three centuries have passed, yet old methods seem to
die hard. History does tend to repeat itself, and Guantanamo Bay is a perfect
example and a testament to the British military courts of the 1700s.
The
Sylvia Frey and James Kelly articles, as well as the H-Net Review, also support
my argument for Quelch’s trial to be included in the American Literature canon,
because they show that British courts used the same methods time and time again
in their Admiralty or military courts, whether it be for conquest or just for
the good of the country. Britain was a huge threat during the 1700’s, and their
court systems helped maintain their dominance over other countries. It is no
wonder that Joseph Dudley questioned their practices; was that the proper way
to stay in power? By executing people without a jury to preside over their cases?
America was very young, and they had a lot to learn before they could make any
kind of legitimate decisions over how their justice system should operate. Yet
the John Quelch case gave them a lot to think about, not just from the power
aspect, but their values as well. How did Americans value life? Could life be
thrown away by court? If so, would they even allow it by a jury decision? America
was still a part of Britain, governed by their King, following the majority of
their rules; could they possibly disagree with one of them? Could America possibly
start making their own rules? Perhaps their own justice system? John Quelch
gave them a reason to think so.
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Works
Cited
Frey,
Sylvia R. “Courts and Cats: British Military Justice in the Eighteenth
Century”. Military Affairs43.1 (1979): 5–11. Web. 27 Mar. 2016
Howell,
Thomas Jones, William Cobbett, and David Jardine. A Complete Collection
of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and
Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Year 1783, Volume 14. Comp.
Thomas Bayly Howell. Vol. 14. N.p.: T.C. Hansard for Longman, Hurst, Rees,
Orme, and Brown, 1708. Google Scholar. Google, 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 7
Mar. 2016.
<https://books.google.com/books?id=tH4-AQAAMAAJ&dq=christopher+scudamore&source=gbs_navlinks_s>.
Kelly,
James. "The Worcester Affair." Review Of English Studies: A
Quarterly Journal Of English Literature And The English Language 51.201
(2000): 1-23. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.
Plank,
Geoffrey. "H-Net Reviews." H-Net Reviews. H-Net, Aug.
2007. Web. 07 Mar. 2016. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13502.
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