"Friday, 15th May, 1687. We had the observation of Mr. Booty this day.
Captain Barrisby, Captain Bristowe, Captain Brown, I, and Mr. Ball,
merchant, went on shore in Captain Barnaby's boat, to shoot rabbits
upon Stromboli; and when we had done we called all our men together by
us, and about half an hour and fourteen minutes after three in the
afternoon, to our great surprise, we all of us saw two men come running
towards us with such swiftness that no living man could run half so
fast as they did run, when all of us heard Captain Barnaby say, 'Lord
bless me, the foremost is old Booty, my next-door neighbour;' but he
said he did not know the other that run behind: he was in black
clothes, and the foremost was in grey. Then Captain Barnaby desired all
of us to take an account of the time, and put it down in our
pocket-books, and when we got on board we wrote it in our journals; for
we saw them into the flames of fire, and there was a great noise which
greatly affrighted us all; for we none of us ever saw or heard the like
before. Captain Barnaby said he was certain it was old Booty, which he
saw running over Stromboli and into the flames of Hell. It is stated
that Captain Barnaby told his wife, and she told somebody else, and
that it was afterward told to Mrs. Booty, who arrested Captain Barnaby
in a thousand pound action, for what he had said of her husband.
Captain Barnaby gave bail to it, and it came on to a trial in the Court
of King's Bench, and they had Mr. Booty's wearing apparel brought into
court, and the sexton of the parish, and the people that were with him
when he died; and we swore to our journals, and it came to the same
time within two minutes; ten of our men swore to the buttons on his
coat, and that they were covered with the same sort of cloth his coat
was made of, and so it proved. The jury asked Mr. Spinks if he knew Mr.
Booty. He answered, 'I never saw him till he ran by me on the burning
mountain.'"
The chief justice from April, 1687, to February, 1689, was Sir Robert
Wright. His name is not given in the report, but _the judge_ said--
"Lord have mercy upon me, and grant that I may never see what you have
seen: one, two, or three may be mistaken, but thirty never can be
mistaken. So the widow lost her suit."
An action for slander of a deceased husband, brought by the widow, and the
defendant held to bail, is a remarkable beginning. The plea of
justification, that Booty ran into Hell, is hardly supported by evidence
that he ran into the flames at Stromboli. The evidence was, that the
defendant _said_ that one of the two runners was Booty; it does not appear
that the other witnesses knew him. The witnesses must have kept a good look
to observe the buttons of Booty's coat when he ran more than twice as fast
as any living man could run. Finally, as the time of the death and the
observation "came to the same within two minutes," and Stromboli is about
15 deg. east of Gravesend, Booty must have run to Hell before he died.
I have no doubt that "the case is well known in the navy." The facts are of
the sort usually reported to the marines; but the law such as was unknown
before 9 & 10 Vict. c. 95.