happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)

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happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)

12 Sep 05 - 08:50 AM (#1561696)
Subject: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Abby Sale

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

12 Sep 05 - 04:48 PM (#1562093)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Le Scaramouche

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

12 Sep 05 - 04:51 PM (#1562101)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: SINSULL

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

12 Sep 05 - 05:55 PM (#1562164)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

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."

12 Sep 05 - 06:00 PM (#1562173)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Sorcha

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

12 Sep 05 - 06:27 PM (#1562203)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Le Scaramouche

Note the "?".

12 Sep 05 - 09:39 PM (#1562408)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: SINSULL

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

13 Sep 05 - 09:00 AM (#1562679)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Wolfgang

Execution of Capt. Rogers (Street ballad)

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

Wolfgang

13 Sep 05 - 09:10 AM (#1562686)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Paul Burke

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?

13 Sep 05 - 09:28 AM (#1562698)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Paul Burke

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

21 Sep 05 - 12:57 AM (#1567410)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 12 (executed for torture)
From: Desert Dancer

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