alf of the Imployers humbly craves that your
Hon'rs would be pleased to take such Coarse that the said escaped
prisoners may bee sent for to this place to Answare these facts
According to Law, the Evidence Against them Being partly heard All
Ready, and the Comander being also Bound to this place, soe that his
stay theare will bee very preduditiall to the voyge of said ship and
Imployers, the Ship Requiering A speedy Dispatch. And he shall Pray

[_Endorsed:_] Allwin Child petition to Gov'r and Mag'ts in Court of
Assists. 24 Oct. 1673.[2]

[Footnote 2: The Court of Assistants, March 7, 1674, fined Major
Nicholas Shapleigh 500 pounds for harboring and concealing in his
warehouse William Forrest, Alexander Wilson, and John Smith, "capitall
offenders," arranging their escape, and receiving and concealing their
goods. _Records of the Court of Assistants_, I. 12-14, where a
petition of Alvin Child in the matter is referred to. See also Maine
Historical Society, _Documentary History_, second ser., VI. 38-42.]

CASE OF RODRIGUEZ AND RHODES.

_41. Declaration of Thomas Mitchell. May 24, 1675._[1]

[Footnote 1: Suffolk Court Files, no. 1390, paper 1. This case appears
in the _Records of the Court of Assistants_, I. 34-39, 42. The chief
originator of this episode of piracy was a Dutch captain from Curacao,
Juriaen Arentsen. In 1674, when a state of war existed between France
and the Netherlands, he captured the French forts at Castine and St.
John, and took possession of the region as "New Holland." Then, "at
the _Bear_ in Boston," he gave some sort of commission to another
Dutchman or Fleming, Peter Rodrigo or Rodriguez, to John Rhodes of
Boston, and others, under which they proceeded in the piratical manner
described in documents 41 and 42. The Court of Assistants had now, by
a law passed in December, 1673, been fully authorized to act as a
court of admiralty (which hitherto it had done without formal
authorization); sitting as such, May 17-June 17, 1675, it condemned
Peter Rodrigo, Dutchman, John Roads, late of Boston, Peter Grant,
Scotchman, Richard Fowler and Randolph Judson, Englishmen, for piracy,
and sentenced them to be hanged. All were however pardoned
subsequently. _Records of Massachusetts Bay_, V. 40, 54, 66. Mitchell
and Uring were whipped for complicity, of which there was evidence
contradicting their testimony here presented. For the background of
the whole story, see C.W. Tuttle, _Captain Francis Champ