From The Annual Register, Or, A View of the History and Politics of the Year 1857, Volume 99 (London: F. & J. Rivington, 1858), page 158:


20. MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS.—Liverpool Assizes.—Another instance of the brutal excesses into which the possession of unlimited power will lead men of ill-regulated minds, and of the need which British seamen may sometimes have of the protection of the law against the violence and tyranny of their own officers, has been exhibited by the circumstances which led to Henry Rogers, William Miles, and Charles Edward Seymour being indicted for the murder of Andrew Rose, between the 11th of May and the 5th of June in this year. Henry Rogers was master, William Miles chief mate, and Charles Edward Seymour second mate of the ship on board which the offence was committed. The deceased was an able seaman on board the same vessel—the Martha Jane. She was a British ship, owned at Sunderland, and had sailed from Hartlepool last year to Calcutta, where there was a change of masters. From Calcutta, she came on the homeward voyage to Demerara, and after leaving Demerara she put into Barbadoes to repair, where another change taking place, Henry Rogers became the master of the ship. While the vessel was lying at Barbadoes, Andrew Rose, the deceased, also entered as an able seaman, and signed the ship's articles. Soon after Rose came on board the ship, he was put to do duty by the second mate, who found fault with him and beat him so severely that he was advised by some of the crew to leave the ship, and he accordingly ran away. He was away from the ship for several days; but on the 9th or 10th of May he was brought back by the police, and put in irons. The vessel sailed on the 11th of May. At that time he appears to have been released from irons; but the day after the vessel sailed he was again beaten by Seymour and the chief mate with a rope's-end whip, and the captain also beat him on that day. From that day until the last act which terminated in death, he was flogged by one or other of the prisoners almost every day. The deceased, when he went on board ship, was apparently an able seaman and in good health; but he had his hair close cropped, and there was reason, from that and from his conduct, to surmise that his intellect had been in some measure deranged. He was fond of singing, and one Sunday morning, soon after the ship had sailed, although in irons, he was heard singing, "Oh, let us be joyful." The captain bade him be silent, and saying "I will make you sorrowful," thrust an iron bolt into his mouth. The chief and second mate then tied it round with rope behind his head, and he was kept with that gag in his mouth for about an hour and a half. The captain had a dog on board, and he taught the dog to bite the deceased, so that, when he came forward to whip the deceased, the dog would fly at him and bite his legs and feet. Upon one occasion the dog bit out a piece of flesh. Upon another occasion, the deceased was sent aloft to furl a sail, and when he came down he was sent up again. He was naked at the time, and as he went up the chief mate followed him, and whipped him so severely that the blood run from several wounds. The deceased laboured under an infirmity which disabled him from containing his excretions, and upon one occasion, when he was in irons, he asked leave to go forward for that purpose. He was refused by one of the mates, upon which he relieved himself on the deck. After a beating from both the mate and the captain, the captain ordered two men to hold the deceased down on his back, and with an iron pin forced the excrement of the deceased into his mouth. He forced open his mouth with the iron pin, and thrust it up his nose, saying, "Is it nice?" and "You shall have more of it," until those who were called on to assist shrank away, unable to witness the revolting scene. A day or two after the same thing occurred. Upon another occasion the captain called the carpenter to knock the head out of a small water cask, and as the carpenter was not quick enough the captain and mates did it themselves. They then brought the deceased Rose to the cask, put him into it, and bade him crouch down. They fastened the head on the cask, and turned it, and they then rolled it backwards and forwards, the deceased being inside. They then lashed the water cask to the side of the ship, and there he remained from 12 at noon till 12 at night. While there he begged for water, and expressed great distress; and on one of the men going to him and giving him a little pea-soup, the captain was very angry, and turned the man away. The last occasion on which he suffered, the deceased was told by the captain, "Rose, I wish you would either drown or hang yourself." Rose answered, "I wish you would do it for me," upon which the captain and the two mates took him to the mainmast. They got a rope and put it over his neck, with a "timber hitch," and hoisted him up, so that his feet were three feet from the deck. When he had been suspended for about two minutes, his face became black, his eyes protruded from their sockets, froth came from his mouth. He was then lowered, and the moment his feet touched the deck he fell flat as if he were dead, and the captain was heard to say by one of the crew, that if they had kept him there half a minute longer he would have been dead. After this his health sank rapidly. The crew got him down to the forecastle, but he was so crazy that they were obliged to tie his hands. He remained in the forecastle a day or two, and on the morning of the 5th of June they carried him from the forecastle on to the deck to wash him. The deceased could scarcely crawl. He lay down on the deck with his head towards the hatchway, and his feet to the scuppers. In that position, with the sea-water over his legs, he died. The state he was in at that time was this:—He had wounds all over his body from the beatings and ill-usage he had received. His wounds had festered to such a degree that, when the captain ordered his body to be brought aft, the crew were loth to touch him. They dragged him aft with a rope, and in about an hour afterwards, by order of the captain, he was thrown overboard. The ship made land next morning, and arrived at Liverpool on the 9th of June. Information was given and the captain and mates were arrested.

The facts above narrated were fully proved in all their sickening details by the other seamen, and medical testimony having been produced to prove that such barbarities were in themselves sufficient to cause death, or, if the deceased was labouring under any disease at the time they were inflicted, they would necessarily have hastened its fatal termination, the jury found all the three prisoners guilty, and they were sentenced to be hanged. Great exertions were made by certain humane persons to obtain a commutation of the sentence, which were successful with respect to the two mates, but Captain Rogers was executed at Liverpool on the 11th of September, in the presence of a crowd which was computed at 50,000 persons. He displayed great firmness and penitence in his last moments. The sentence passed on the two mates was commuted to penal servitude for life.