Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

The whole East India trade and a large portion of the Boston merchants came as witnesses for the defence. I said to Mr. Choate that that defence would cost his client, I was certain, a good deal more than we. had claimed for damages, and that perhaps his client would like to make some settlement, for I confess that I was a little alarmed and scurvy hadn't been much in my line. I knew that Captain Cook had buried the members of his crew who had the scurvy in the earth at the Sandwich Islands to cure them, and that is all I knew, and I saw very extended and onerous study would be necessary in many parts of the case. Mr. Choate told me it was no use to speak of compromise. The East India trade was determined to make an example of this case so that its trade should never be interfered with again. “Very well, then,” I said, “, let her go; we will have an example for somebody.”

The trial of the case was commenced, and it lasted nineteen working days. It was tried from nine o'clock in the morning to four o'clock in the evening in the court, and the rest of the time I was occupied in preparing it. The whole of sanitary science and the whole of sanitary law, the narratives of navigators and the usages of navies, reports of parliamentary commissions and diaries of philanthropical investigators, ancient log-books and new treatises of maritime law, the testimony of mariners and the opinions of physicians, all were made tributary to the case. I exhibited to the jury a large map of the world, and taking the log of the ship in my hand, read its daily entries, and as I did so, I marked on the map the ship's course, showing plainly to the eyes of the jury that on four different occasions, while the crew were rotting with the scurvy, the ship passed within a few hours' sail of islands, renowned in all those seas for the abundance, the excellence, and the cheapness of their vegetables.

Mr. Choate contested every point with all his skill and eloquence. As I have said, the end of the daily session was only the beginning of my day's work; for there were new points to be investigated, other facts to be discovered, more witnesses to be hunted up. I rummaged libraries, pored over encyclopaedias and gazetteers, ferreted out old sailors, and went into court every morning with a mass of new material, and followed by a train of old doctors or old sailors to support a position shaken the day before. In the course