from which distances were
measured as from the Standard in Cornhill. It was demolished in
1765.

[7] In practice, criminals were strangled before being burned.
The last case in which this penalty was inflicted was in 1789;
it was abolished the following year.

WALTER KENNEDY, a Pirate

Piracy was anciently in this kingdom considered as a petty treason at
Common Law; but the multitude of treasons, or to speak more properly of
offences construed into treason, becoming a very great grievance to the
subject, this with many others was left out in the famous Statute of the
25th Edward the Third, for limiting what thenceforth should be deemed
treason. From that time piracy was regarded in England only as a crime
against the Civil Law, by which it was always capital; but there being
some circumstances very troublesome, as to the proofs therein required
for conviction, by a statute in the latter end of the reign of Henry the
Eighth it was provided that this offence should be tried by
commissioners appointed by the king, consisting of the admiral and
certain of his officers, with such other persons as the reigning prince
should think fit, after the common course of the laws of this realm for
felonies and robberies committed on land, in which state it hath
continued with very small alterations to this day.

Offenders of this kind are now tried at the Sessions-house in the Old
Bailey, before the judge of the Court of Admiralty, assisted by certain
other judges of the Common Law by virtue of such a commission as ts
before mentioned, the silver oar (a peculiar ensign of authority
belonging to the Court of Admiralty) lying on the table. As pirates are
not very often apprehended in Britain, so particular notice is always
given when a Court like this, called an Admiralty Sessions, is to be
held, the prisoners until that time remaining in the Marshalsea, the
proper prison of this Court.

On the 26th of Jury, 1721, at such a sessions, Walter Kennedy and John
Bradshaw were tried for piracies committed on the high seas, and both of
them convicted. This Walter Kennedy was born at a place called Pelican
Stairs in Wapping. His father was an anchor-smith, a man of good
reputation, who gave his son Walter the best education he was able; and
while a lad he was very tractable, and had no other apparent ill quality
than that of a too aspiring temper. When he was grown up big enough to
have gone out