Mutiny and Murder aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion, Part 4

The trial of Hispanic carpenter Joseph Lortia, accused of confederating with pirates aboard the Cuban schooner Nuestra Señora, unfolded through a series of episodes within South Carolina’s executive Council Chamber in July 1734. Conflicting testimony from the survivors recounted Lortia’s odd behavior at sea and challenged Anglo-American judges to determine the measure of his guilt. After settling the carpenter’s fate in court, Governor Robert Johnson restored the vessel’s remaining treasure to the widowed Doña Petrona de Castro, who sailed from Charleston with her newborn child.

The shocking story of murder and piracy aboard the visiting schooner monopolized the attention of South Carolina’s royal governor and his executive council during an otherwise quiet summer in the sweltering colonial capital. Provost Marshall Robert Hall arrested Joseph Lortia on June 29th, three days after his arrival, and lodged him in the provincial jail, a rented domestic structure standing on the east side of King Street, a short distance north of Horlbeck Alley (see Episode No. 128). Following orders from Governor Johnson, Marshal Hall also searched the schooner and the effects of the several survivors, confiscating all the Spanish coins that had been jumbled and distributed at different times by the deceased pirates.

On Tuesday, July 2nd, the governor and members of His Majesty’s Council met within the upstairs Council Chamber at the east end of Broad Street to hear the results of the marshal’s search. Aboard the Nuestra Señora, reported Mr. Hall, he found a large bag of valuable tortoise shell, five tin canisters containing more than one hundred pounds of snuff tobacco, and one additional bag of silver coins; at the house of Jane Grassett (probably the lodgings of Señora de Castro), the marshal found a small cache of Spanish pieces-of-eight and a pillowcase containing hundreds more; at the house of William Williamson, a Charleston constable who likely hosted one or more of the schooner’s crewmen, Marshal Hall found a dozen pieces-of-eight and a few Spanish pistoles; all of which he now delivered to Governor Johnson and members of Council. In their presence, the marshal counted, weighed, and sealed the evidence in the same manner as before. As they had done with Señora de Castro’s private treasure days earlier, government agents carried the valuables to Johnson’s private residence and lodged it within his bed chamber.[1]

On the morning of Wednesday, July 3rd, the commodious Council Chamber became the venue for a relatively rare form of judicial proceeding. The provincial Court of Vice Admiralty, a colonial extension of Britain’s maritime jurisdiction, was ordinarily a juryless tribunal headed by an appointed judge and an assistant justice, convened whenever occasion required to adjudicate civil matters related to property and debts. For cases concerning piracy and all other felonies committed at sea, a British law ratified in 1698 mandated a special Court of Vice Admiralty featuring a judicial commission composed of at least seven public officials, including the king’s naval officers whenever present. The panel assembled on July 3rd included Governor Johnson, Councilors John Fenwick, Joseph Wragg, and John Hammerton, Vice-Admiralty Judge Benjamin Whitaker, and two captains of the Royal Navy—James Lloyd, master-and-commander of His Majesty’s sloop-of-war Happy, and Richard Symonds, master-and-commander of the sloop-of-war Shark. Both vessels were then anchored in the Cooper River, enjoying a summer respite while Captain George Anson, commanding officer of the Carolina Station, cruised along the coastline in His Majesty’s twenty-gun frigate, the Squirrel.

The judicial board seated at one end of the Council Chamber faced an audience that included members of the public, printer Lewis Timothy, and the survivors from Nuestra Señora. The court’s first order of business in the matter of “The King v. Joseph Lortia” was to arraign the prisoner and set a date for the commencement of his formal trial. The opening of court “was thrice proclaimed” by an unidentified actor, who then read aloud the lengthy British statute “for the Effectual Suppression of Piracy” and several tedious commissions extending that law’s jurisdiction to South Carolina and waters adjacent thereto. Because the designated marshal of the Court of Vice Admiralty was then absent from town, the governor appointed Provost Marshal Robert Hall to act in his stead. The court’s registrar, John Croft, then administered an oath to Governor Johnson for the faithful execution of the piracy act, after which Johnson administered the same oath to the rest of the judicial panel, Mr. Croft, and Marshal Hall.

Attorney General James Abercromby then moved “that Joseph Lortia[,] who now stands committed to the custody of the marshal of this court in suspition [sic] of piracy[,] might be brought into court.” With a nod from the governor, Marshal Hall and an unidentified jailor escorted the Hispanic prisoner from an anteroom into the chamber and presented him before the judges. Mr. Abercromby requested “that the prisoner might be detained in custody, till discharged according to the law,” which the governor, as president of the judicial panel, so ordered.

The court then received a brief petition from the prisoner, Joseph Lortia, written in English by an unknown friend and signed with the carpenter’s mark signifying his illiteracy. The defendant, “being a stranger, and to be tried for his life, as he is informed,” asked the court “that he may be allowed counsell and an interpreter.” The governor assented and ordered William Kellaway and Don Domingo de la Cruz, local merchants who had befriended the Cuban refugees, to interpret for the prisoner for the duration of his trial. After conversing briefly with Lortia, the bilingual men “informed the court that he wanted money to enable him to make his defence, and prayed that he might have an order for some of the money” taken from the Cuban schooner. In other words, he asked to borrow credit from someone in order to hire a lawyer. Jean Troistours, the quiet French pensioner from the Nuestra Señora, immediately scribbled a brief I.O.U. and passed it forward to the court. Governor Johnson received the promissory note and ordered “that ten pistoles be delivered to the prisoner for that purpose.” To allow the defendant sufficient time to secure an attorney, Johnson adjourned the court until five in the afternoon.[2]

All of the same actors and a few new faces returned to the Council Chamber later in the day to continue the arraignment of Joseph Lortia. After a clerk again read aloud the text of the British law and commissions empowering the special court, Attorney General Abercromby moved that Peter Francis Neri, another Spanish-speaking, part-time resident of Charleston and St. Augustine, might be retained as “interpreter on behalfe of his Majesty.” Governor Johnson approved his request and administered the required oaths to Messrs. Neri, Kellaway, and de la Cruz. Richard Allein, a veteran Charleston lawyer and former Chief Justice of South Carolina, then stepped forward and asked to be admitted as advocate for the prisoner. The board approved Lortia’s chosen counsel, and the legal proceedings officially commenced.

Attorney General Abercromby exhibited to the court a lengthy manuscript containing “articles” or charges against Joseph Lortia and moved that they be read aloud to the court. With a nod from the governor, he commenced a tedious explication of several British statutes concerning both the legal definition and the moral danger of piracy. His formal charge against the prisoner included two main articles. First, he alleged that Lortia, on 20 May 1734, “in a certain place upon the sea some leagues from the Havana in the Gulf of Florida, & within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England, did piratically and feloniously . . . receive and take into his custody” various goods to the value of £100 sterling that had been illegally procured “by pirates and robbers.” Second, Abercromby alleged that Lortia did, at the time and place aforesaid, “piratically and feloniously consult, combine, confederate and correspond with certain pirates, felons, and robbers, knowing the said pirates, felons, and robbers to be guilty of piracy, felony and robbery on the seas.” The king’s advocate pledged to present evidence sufficient to prove Lortia’s guilt, which, he asserted, “ought to be punished . . . with pains of death and loss of lands, goods, and chattells, according to the several laws and statutes in such cases made and provided, and for example and terror to others.”

At the conclusion of Abercromby’s lengthy recitation, a copy of which he handed to the court registrar, Governor Johnson asked the prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty to the felonies lodged against him. In lieu of a formal response, defense attorney Richard Allein asked the court for a copy of the articles and for a period of time to speak with his client before entering a plea. Johnson assented to both requests and ordered Allein to return to the Council Chamber on Monday morning next to plead for the prisoner.

Before adjourning for the day, the governor also ordered Provost Marshal Hall to take the schooner Nuestra Señora into his custody, “together with her tackle, furniture & apparel, and keep the same safe until further orders.” Furthermore, Johnson ordered the marshal to “cause the said vessel to be surveyed, by some ship carpenter,” and to provide the court with “a return of her condition together with an inventory of what she has on board.” To ensure the accuracy of that work, the governor ordered that it be done “in the presence of William Vaughan who piloted the said vessell into this harbour and such other person as Dona Petrona de Castro shall appoint for that purpose.”[3]

During the remainder of the first week of July, Joseph Lortia languished in the provincial jail and conversed with his attorney and translators. Meanwhile, the very pregnant Doña Petrona tried to stay cool in her rented accommodations while the other survivors from Nuestra Señora explored the environs of Charleston. It was probably during this time that Samuel Goff, carpenter of the sloop-of-war Happy, inspected the Cuban schooner and recommended repairs. Details illuminating the nature and extent of that work do not survive, but it probably included the installation of new wooden paneling in the stern cabin to replace that damaged by the axe-wielding handiwork of Joseph Lortia and the Canary pirates.[4]

The same cadre of participants returned to the Council Chamber on the morning of Monday, July 8th, to resume the formal arraignment of Joseph Lortia, but the conspicuous absence of the king’s prosecutor, James Abercromby, who was temporarily “indisposed,” obliged the governor to postpone their proceedings to the following afternoon. Marshal Hall called the court to order at three o’clock in the sultry afternoon of July 9th, at which time two new faces joined the aforementioned members of the judicial panel. Alexander Parris, the seventy-two-year-old treasurer of South Carolina, was admitted to the board as an ex-officio member the provincial Council, while the Royal Navy’s ranking officer in Charleston, thirty-seven-year-old George Anson, had just returned from a month-long cruise along the Carolina seaboard. After swearing to the required oaths before the governor, Mr. Parris and Captain Anson took their seats the among the elite judicial board.

Rather than entering a simple plea for his client, as expected, defense attorney Richard Allein presented to the board a lengthy written “protest” or rebuttal of the charges against Joseph Lortia, which was read aloud and admitted. The king’s prosecutor, James Abercromby, then moved for permission to have a copy of the protest and time to prepare his response thereto. Governor Johnson ordered the desired copy made and adjourned the court to the following Friday morning.[5]

The special Vice-Admiralty trial resumed at 8 a.m. on Friday, July 12th, with the addition of two further members of His Majesty’s Council—Scotsman James Kinloch and the elderly Landgrave Thomas Smith, whom Captain Anson had kidnapped and arrested seven years earlier to scuttle plans for a coup d’etat. After the new judges took the required oaths, attorneys for the defense and prosecution debated at length the merits and defects of the charges against the prisoner, which Richard Allein asserted were “too vague and indefinite” to merit trial. Members of the judicial panel listened to their learned arguments until Governor Johnson ordered all parties to vacate the Council Chamber while the board considered the matter. Their conversation soon led to a unanimous decision in favor of the defense, thereby quashing the prosecution’s charge against Joseph Lortia.

At three in the afternoon, following a midday adjournment, Attorney General Abercromby submitted to the court a new slate of charges against Lortia. The lengthy manuscript prepared over dinner was nearly identical to the first set of articles, but contained new verbiage articulating more specifically Lortia’s relationship with the deceased Canary pirates named Augustin, Salvador, and Andres, with whom the defendant allegedly confederated after the four Canarios had murdered and robbed Don Francisco de Heymes, lawful owner of the schooner Nuestra Señora. Governor Johnson ordered a clerk to make a copy of the revised charges for the benefit of the defense and adjourned the unfinished arraignment to the following Tuesday.[6]

On Monday, July 15th, before the continuation of the trial, Johnson summoned to the Council Chamber members of his advisory Council, James Abercromby, Señora de Castro, and the several translators. Provost Marshal Robert Hall had delivered to the governor this day “a wooden box or chest brought from on board the schooner Nuestra Señora,” which contained a variety of gold and silver objects, cutlery, tableware, jewelry fitted with diamonds, emeralds, pearls, and Bristol stones, and one additional bag containing Spanish pieces-of-eight. Agents of the provincial government drafted a detailed inventory of the contents before the assembled witnesses, then locked, sealed, and transported the chest to the governor’s bed chamber with the rest of the valuable evidence for safe keeping.[7]

The trial resumed at the Council Chamber at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, July 16th, without Landgrave Smith but with the addition of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Broughton. Members of the judicial panel expected to hear Richard Allein enter a plea to the revised charges against his client, Joseph Lortia. Instead, he submitted a lengthy list of “exceptions” challenging “the authority of the court” now in session. With the governor’s permission, Allein read aloud his long legal diatribe that sparked a robust debate between the opposing counsels about the technical language of the various statutes empowering the present court. Johnson then ordered all parties to vacate the chamber while the board considered the matter. After a protracted discussion, the majority of the nine-member judicial panel voted to overrule Mr. Allein’s challenge and proceed with the trial according to the revised charges, to which the defense made no new objections. The summer sun was already high above the horizon, however, and the pregnant Doña Petrona was likely suffering from the stifling heat. Governor Johnson adjourned for the day and ordered the court to reassemble the following morning at the early hour of seven a.m.[8]

The formal trial of Joseph Lortia commenced on the sultry morning of July 17th with Attorney General Abercromby reading aloud again the tedious summary of the British statutes and commissions concerning piracy and the revised charges against the Hispanic prisoner. In a subsequent edition of the weekly South Carolina Gazette, Lewis Timothy sarcastically described Abercromby’s opening statement as a “concise and elegant speech.” The king’s prosecutor sought to impress on the court the “enormity of the crime” allegedly committed by Joseph Lortia, and the necessity of rewarding it with capital punishment. The defendant heard a translation of the charges against him and entered a plea of not guilty. With the arraignment finally completed, the court heard sworn testimony from six witnesses, each of whom was questioned and cross-examined in turn without a midday break for dinner.

Doña Petrona de Castro was the first to take the stand, accompanied by the court-appointed translators. Prompted by questions from the attorney general, the young, heavily pregnant woman stated that she first met the defendant, Lortia, when he came aboard the schooner Nuestra Señora in Havana. About nine days after sailing from that port, she was in the stern cabin from whence the mulatto crewmen took her husband, Don Francisco, and killed him, but the night was dark and she “was under so great a consternation that she can’t tell whether the prisoner was with them.” Defense counsel Richard Allein then asked if the señora had conversed with Lortia after that dreadful night at sea. She stated “that the prisoner came to her three or four days after her husband was murdered, and comforted her, telling her not to be cast down, for he hoped, God would deliver her from the hands of the murderers. That she saw the prisoner but seldom afterwards, & when she did see him, he used to comfort her. That she never see [sic] him use any act of violence against any of the passengers, nor do any of them injury, nor ever heard any complaint against him of that kind.”

Doña Petrona likely left the chamber after her testimony and retired to her lodgings to rest during the warmest hours of the day. Joseph Ratto, cook aboard the Nuestra Señora, then took the stand and told the court that he was below deck when the Canarios murdered Don Francisco and three others, and had tried to climb up to help but was held back by a passenger. Joseph Lortia was on deck with the pirates at that time, but Ratto could not remember whether it was the carpenter’s turn to be on watch during that fateful night. Neither of them, said Ratto, helped the murderers steal Don Francisco’s treasure, which the pirates forcibly distributed among the crewmen and later repossessed to themselves. Under cross examination, the cook stated that Lortia “appeared very much cast down & dejected” in the days after the initial murders, but then “appeared very joyful” when two of the brawny Canarios killed the other two. Because Lortia was “frequently talking to the murderers, very familiarly,” however, Ratto and the other crewmen suspected his allegiance, and chose not to include him in their secret counter-mutiny.

Then Joseph Diancona was sworn and narrated his memory of the traumatic events at sea. He was also below deck when the initial mutiny took place and did not witness the defendant’s movements during that “very dark night.” Yes, Lortia had entered Doña Petrona’s cabin afterwards to search for treasure with an axe, but the murderers had ordered him to do so. The Maltese sailor confirmed that the survivors did not include Lortia in plans for the counter-mutiny, “for they were afraid to trust him[,] he being very intimate with the murderers.” Under cross-examination, Diancona said Lortia had confided to him “that he was afraid that the murderers intended to kill him.” The carpenter was asleep when they launched the counter-mutiny, said the Maltese man, after which Lortia had begged for his life, “embraced us all, and then appeared very joyful.”

French sailor Pierre Blanchard, the next witness, was the most suspicious of Joseph Lortia. The carpenter, he observed, had been responsible for unsealing the walls of Doña Petrona’s cabin with an axe, and afterwards “was very familiar with the murderers and whispering frequently with them.” While the schooner drifted among the Bahama Islands, Blanchard recalled that one of the pirates threatened to kill him, but Lortia protested that they needed the Frenchman “to help out with the boat.” Pierre and the other crewmen excluded Lortia from the counter-mutiny, during which the unhelpful carpenter had “trip’t up Capt. Vaughan’s heels and threw him down.” Yes, Lortia had then “begged for his life and kist the ships crew all round,” but his intimacy with the Canarios made Blanchard doubt his sincerity.

Passenger Jean Troistours, an older Frenchman, testified that the met Lortia about two months before they sailed from Havana, and “never suspected the prisoner to be concerned in the murders” aboard Nuestra Señora. That said, however, Monsieur Troistours acknowledged that the carpenter had received a share of Don Francisco’s treasure when the pirates forced it into his hands, and afterwards Lortia “was generally with the murderers, whom they called comrade.”

Captain William Vaughan, the final witness, stated that he had met the defendant at Harbour Island in the Bahamas, where Lortia handed him 200 pieces-of-eight to pilot the schooner back to Havana. When the two Canarios ordered him to steer towards an inlet on the coast of Florida, the captain remained on board with Lortia. Despite their mutual limitations of language, the carpenter told Vaughan “that those mulattos were great villains, for they had murdered the captain and several others on board the vessel, and that he the prisoner believed they intended to run the vessel on shoar, as soon as they came in sight of the Havana, and kill all the rest of the people on board.” Pierre Blanchard later confirmed to the captain what the carpenter said, but Vaughan, like the others, remained suspicious of Lortia. They excluded him from plans for the counter-mutiny, during the commission of which Lortia had “laid hold” of Vaughan and “threw him down” while the captain attempted to kill the last pirate standing.

Around 4 p.m., Attorney General James Abercromby stood before the court and summarized the evidence against Joseph Lortia, then “left it to the consideration of the hon[orable] judges, how far the prisoner was guilty of the articles charged against him in receiving the money.” Governor Johnson then ordered “the auditory . . . to retire,” obliging the witnesses, prisoner, attorneys, and translators to withdraw while the judicial board deliberated. The testimony of six witnesses contained details both damning and redeeming the behavior of Lortia during the ordeal at sea, but, as Lewis Timothy observed in his Gazette, none of the testimony or evidence “could prove him positively to have been in confederacy with the murderers and pirates.” The carpenter had unquestionably received stolen money from them, temporarily, like the other crewmen, requiring the judges to determine whether he had actively sought a share of the stolen money or if he had received it and fraternized with the pirates merely to avoid their wrath.

One hour after clearing the courtroom, Governor Johnson summoned all parties back to the Council Chamber to hear the board’s unanimous decision. He first recapitulated the lengthy charges against Joseph Lortia “for piratically, and feloniously receiving and taking into your custody goods, and chattells . . . which you knew had been before piratically and feloniously taken on the high seas . . . by pirates, felons, and robbers, vizt. by Augustin[,] Salvadore [sic], and Andres from Don Francisco de Heymes, and other persons unknown,” to which charges the defendant had pleaded not guilty. Then Johnson delivered the climactic statement: “His Majesty’s Commissioners[,] on fully weighing and considering the evidence against you, and for you, have unanimously agreed and found, that you are not guilty of the said libel and articles so exhibited against you, or any other matter or thing therein contained.” Around five in the afternoon of July 17th, the nine-member judicial panel issued a brief proclamation discharging the prisoner from custody, pending the payment of his fees for incarceration, as customary, and adjourning the provincial Court of Vice Admiralty “till further summons.”[9]

Two days after the conclusion of the trial, identified as July 19th on the old Julian Calendar, Doña Petrona de Castro went into labor. Jane Grassett, her putative landlady, likely attended the Cuban visitor and perhaps summoned enslaved midwives to assist with the birth. Before the end of the day, the young, widowed mother held in her arms a baby girl. According to a brief notation in the parish register of St. Philip’s Anglican Church, the English version of the name given by Doña Petrona to her infant daughter was “Mary Setrudes of the Trinity de Castro.”[10]

The trial of Joseph Lortia settled the question of his culpability for the murders and robberies aboard the Nuestra Señora, but it did not resolve lingering questions related to property. During the second half of July, Governor Johnson and his advisors met repeatedly at the Council Chamber with the survivors of the Cuban schooner and their chosen attorneys to determine the proper custody of the money and other valuables removed from the vessel. That tedious work culminated on the afternoon of July 25th, when porters carried several wooden chests from the governor’s bedroom back to the Council Chamber. There Johnson received the keys from William Kellaway, newly-appointed representative of Doña Petrona, who was “not in a condition to attend” in person. To the Cuban widow and new mother the government restored custody of the schooner, her chest of jewelry, and a total of 1,820 Spanish pieces-of-eight. A portion of the remining silver coins, numbering less than a thousand, was reserved to pay various Charlestonians for services rendered during the trial, while the balance was divided among the survivors according to their respective claims.[11]

 The extant records of colonial South Carolina, now archived on both sides of the Atlantic, contain no information concerning how or when Doña Petrona de Castro and the other survivors of the Nuestra Señora departed from Charleston. Captain Vaughan and the other mariners likely hired themselves aboard some Anglo-American vessels bound for the Bahamas or Jamaica, from which the foreigners could more easily secure passage back to Havana.

The same archival shadow obscures the fate of the Cuban schooner as well, but a curious anomaly found in a contemporary manuscript suggests a plausible scenario. Among the incomplete collection of colonial-era shipping records from South Carolina, now housed in London, is a list of all commercial vessels that departed with cargo from the Port of Charleston during the autumn and winter of 1734–35. The name Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion does not appear among the dozens of Anglo-American ships, snows, and sloops described therein, during an era when ocean-going schooners were a relatively rare sight in Charleston.[12] In this historical context, the registration of a previously-undocumented schooner called the Oglethorpe in December 1734 caught my attention.[13] According to the shipping return in question, the Oglethorpe was built in 1733 at an unspecified “plantation” or colony somewhere in the Americas. When the 40-ton, square-sterned schooner obtained clearance to depart from Charleston on 4 February 1734/5, it carried a crew of six men and a variety of commercial cargo bound for Jamaica. Its owner, local merchant Samuel Eveleigh, had registered the schooner on December 18th and on January 6th filed a bond confirming its compliance with British trade laws. None of the extant shipping records or newspapers from Charleston mention of the arrival of the Oglethorpe, however, nor any other schooner matching its description.

Considering the disappearance of the Nuestra Señora in the autumn of 1734 and the appearance of the Oglethorpe shortly thereafter, we might conclude or at least conjecture that both names pertain to the same vessel. Doña Petrona, now deprived of her merchant husband, had little use for the schooner and likely sought to disown the vessel tainted with unpleasant memories. She might have sold it directly to Samuel Eveleigh after gaining restoration of her property, or conveyed it to William Vaughan as she had promised to do earlier that summer. Whether Mr. Eveleigh acquired the schooner from Señora de Castro or Captain Vaughan, he likely spent time repairing and refitting the vessel for service at sea. Aboard the Oglethorpe or another vessel sailing past Spanish Cuba to the British island of Jamaica, the young widow and her infant daughter departed from South Carolina and resumed her life abroad.

Here ends the paper trail for the dramatic narrative of mutiny and murder aboard the Nuestra Señora, despite our earnest desire to resolve the story’s numerous loose ends. Perhaps some future researchers fluent in the Spanish language will probe archives in Cuba and Spain for further documentation of Doña Petrona, Maria Setrude(s) de la Trinidad de Castro, and the rest of the survivors who sojourned briefly in Charleston nearly three centuries ago.

Perhaps they will also find clues relating to one lingering mystery stemming from this long-forgotten episode. Doña Petrona, both before and after the trial of Joseph Lortia, insisted that her husband had in his possession at the beginning of their voyage between five and six thousand pieces of eight, while she claimed the bulk of the Spanish coins recovered from the schooner as her own separate and personal property. During the several formal interviews conducted in Charleston, no one asked the survivors (at least not on record) why they had gone into a Florida inlet in mid-June with the pirates Andres and Augustin. Perhaps in private conversations within a local tavern, Charleston mariners asked the visitors to explain the purpose and the location of that curious diversion. Were they in need of fresh water and firewood so soon after departing from the Bahamas, or did they carry ashore the bulk of Don Francisco’s treasure and perhaps bury it within an obscure, deserted mangrove forest for later collection? The answer to that provocative question might form a future chapter in the tragic history of a forgotten schooner called Nuestra Señora.