happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)

Subject: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Abby Sale
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 08:50 AM

Much to everyone's surprise, Capt. Henry Rodgers of the Martha Jane was convicted and
executed on 9/12/1857 for nothing more than torturing to death a single crewman.

          Wasn't that a most cruel usage,
          Without a friend to interpose?
          How they whipped and mangle, gagged and strangled
          The British sailor, Andrew Rose.
  
                  "Andrew Rose," c.1857 in A Ballad History of England, Roy Palmer

Copyright © 2005, Abby Sale - all rights reserved
What are Happy's all about? See Clicky

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 04:48 PM

I think he was the basis (or one of them) for the captain of the HMS Pinafore.

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: SINSULL
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 04:51 PM

I thought Andrew Rose survived to tell his story leading to the Captain's court marshall, conviction, and hanging?

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 05:55 PM

From thread 42495, Malcolm Douglas posts.
Andrew Rose (Ross)- 1832-1857, died 5 June
Captain Henry Rogers, hanged Sept. 12 1857
Mates William Miles and Charles E.Seymour, sentenced to hang but transported.
Ship Martha and Jane
Song not noted before 1900.
Andrew Rose

Two versions in the DT.

Information on the trial in Lillian Goldman Law Library, Morris Law School, Yale Univ. Record of the trial published in 1857, Lewis and Son, London. Trial for "the willful murder on the high seas of Andrew Rose, a seaman..." Mr. Baron Watson presided. Evidence from a report prepared "for Her Majesty's government by Bond Hughes, esq."

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Sorcha
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 06:00 PM

Erm...this is 'happy'?????

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 06:27 PM

Note the "?".

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: SINSULL
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 09:39 PM

Barry Finn does an amazingly touching version of this one. Brutally raw.

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:00 AM

Execution of Capt. Rogers (Street ballad)

(you can zoom in if you want to read the lyrics)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:10 AM

I suppose he could have survived to tell the tale, but died later of his injuries. I understand that the old law was that death within a year and a day could be treated as murder. But why would they have a court martial for a merchant captain?

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:28 AM

Also, according to this list it was on the 11th, so clashes with other things. Oh, and Rose was black.

Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 12:57 AM

I thought I had another reference, but it's a bit earlier --

"Captain James, who was hung and gibbeted in England, for starving to death his cabin-boy." "Nathaniel Coverly, Jun., Printer, Milk-Street, Boston." [1799?] (Early American Imprints, 1st series, no. 48896)

Come all you bold commanders,
that the raging ocean use
by my sad fate now take a warning,
your poor sailors don't abuse.

(A fairly gory and graphic tail ensues...)

Sorry, Abby, no date mentioned.

~ Becky in Tucson