Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

Mr. Murphey, the consul, and the vice consul, Mr. Pizarr, went to the jail to look things over. They heard both sides of the story, observed that the officers were growing more and more worried, the crew more and more confident, stronger, as their wounds healed.

The consul and vice consul did not believe the stories of the officers, but put great credence in the stories of the crew.

“Instead of being mutinous the men were cowed, spiritless,” declared Murphey in a letter to the Secretary of State. “They looked ready to do anything to escape further tortures of the tyrants. I believe that the master is practically guilty of the death by murder of the two seamen who jumped overboard.”

The Jury’s Verdict

“We went to the jail, Mr. Pizarr and I,” related Mr. Murphey later. “How pathetically glad the men were to be there! Jones stripped and showed us his body, kicked and beaten black and blue in stripes, his eyes blackened, his head wounded by clubs. We saw the outrages committed on the other men. We heard their stories, and we believed the crew — not the officers. We are earnestly advising you to do the same.”

When the crew was fit to travel the entire lot was shipped back to England in custody, the officers also in custody, but having the run of the deck, shipped to England and thence to America, six thousand miles to their native land, for a fair trial.

The crew, freed from torture, was jubilant and browsed about — these cutthroats who had been accused of piracy, mutiny and fighting among themselves — like a lot of playful lambs.

But the captain and the mates did not wax calmer as the days passed, and the Rochester, on which they traveled to New York, neared the harbor.

The officers on the Rochester sent a wireless message to the district attorney’s office asking for a deputy marshal to meet the boat in the harbor and take off prisoners charged with piracy and mutiny and others with murder on the high seas.

The files which had come over from Capetown were sent to the district attorney from the State Department at Washington. The charge against the crew was dismissed. You have read that the Pedersens were acquitted of murder, but the other charge, inhuman treatment of the crew, was not so easily disposed of, though the defense did their best.

It brought a policeman out of San Prado, California, who said that Hansen was the worst type of I. W. W., had been often arrested for starting riots, and had served two terms in jail.

He had even heard Hansen advocating the destruction of certain ships and cargoes going out of western ports.

There were even good words to be said of Pedersen by picturesque old salts, from “Sailors Snug Harbor.” They had shipped with Pedersen, they said, and never heard tell of such tales as had been unfolded in court.

The judge averred that it would, after all, be impossible to prove premeditation in this case, and the jury, after ten minutes, brought back the verdict of not guilty of murder. Pedersen, absolved from direct guilt, wept for joy.

Then later there came another trial of all three, master and the two young mates, who, ashore, looked hardly capable of the crimes with which the government charged them.

The indictment accused the Pedersens on ten counts, “Against the peace of the United States and their own dignity, and contrary to the form of the United States that, without justifiable cause, they did beat and wound” six members of the crew, one of whom died at Capetown. The other four counts were for imprisonment.

“The master of a ship,” the court stated, “is vested with almost military authority over his crew by law. With this authority he may punish his crew for insubordination, refusal to obey orders, mutiny and other offenses, but he may do so only in the manner authorized by that law.

“He may use whatever force is necessary to quell a riot or put down a mutiny. He may oppose violence with arms or weapons when necessary, but he may not, as means of punishment, beat a member of the crew who, at the time of beating, is not himself attempting assault on the master.”

At this trial the character witnesses and the soft shy ways of Pedersen availed nothing. The stories told by the seamen, the scars exhibited and the surly looks of the boys had their weight.

Pedersen’s attorney tried to make much of the confessions exhibited, but failed to do so.

“Yes, these men signed confessions,” said the district attorney. “And they have signed these repudiations, too. I venture to state that even without two or three men to help me, I could take the master of the ship into a room, handcuff him and force him to admit that he was the devil himself. I venture to believe that he would be glad of the chance to sign any document.

“These seamen are ignorant men,” he said further. “You have heard their consistent stories. You have seen the light of truth in their eyes; you have seen their wounds. They have not been tripped up in cross-examination. They looked the court in the eye and did not hesitate.”