He was tried and hanged for the trivial offense of breaking the head of a mutinous gunner of his own crew with a wooden bucket.

It was even a matter of grave legal doubt whether he had committed one single piratical act.

His trial in London was a farce.

In the case of the captured ships he alleged that they were sailing under French passes, and he protested that his privateering commission justified him, and this contention was not disproven.

The suspicion is not wanting that he was condemned as a scapegoat because certain noblemen of England had subscribed the capital to outfit his cruise, expecting to win rich dividends in gold captured from the pirates he was sent to attack.