old, blue-gray eye which condemned me before a
word had been spoken.

My ankles had been freed from the bilboes before I was brought up, but
when I was ordered to stand, I could not readily obey because of the
continued numbness of my limbs. At this two of my guards jerked me up
with brutal roughness, and the charge against me was read. To my
amazement and horror, I learned that I was upon trial, under the name
Jack Numskull, for the crime of striking my superior officer, the
penalty for which was death.

Ignorant of the procedure of the court, I sought to protest, but was
ordered to keep silent. In quick succession, the witnesses were called
and questioned,--first the midshipman I had struck, then the marine, and
after that four or five seamen. All testified without contradiction to
the damnable fact that I had struck Midshipman Hepburn.

"Enough," said Captain Powers. "Has the prisoner anything to say?"

The question was repeated to me. I bowed to the court as best I could
with my wrists locked together behind my back.

"Gentlemen," I said, "I wish first to explain--"

"Speak to the point," commanded the judge-advocate. "The law does not
require you to confess. Yet if you wish to meet death with a free
conscience, the court will receive your statement. Do you admit that you
struck your superior officer?"

"No. I deny it."

"You deny it--in the face of this positive testimony?"

"I admit that I struck Midshipman Hepburn,--if that is his name. I deny
that I struck my superior officer."

"Explain!" demanded Captain Powers, irascibly.

"I deny that Midshipman Hepburn is my superior officer,--that any man on
this ship or in the Navy of George the Third is my superior officer. I
deny the jurisdiction of this court. I am a native-born citizen of the
United States of America. I was aboard a neutral vessel sailing from one
free port to another when this same Midshipman Hepburn boarded the craft
and unlawfully impressed me. In resisting, I was struck senseless. Of
whatever has happened since I have barely a vague consciousness. Only I
know that immediately before the affray for which I am now being tried,
I saw a lady being brought alongside in a boat, and at once full memory
came back to me. I am John H. Robinson, a physician of the Louisiana
Territory, born in the State of Pennsylvania, reared at Cincinnati on
the Ohio River, and educated at Columbia College, in the city of New
York."

During my recital, all pr