Thomas Green (1679/1680 ��1705) was an English sailor and alleged

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

, who was captain of the ''Worcester''. He was hanged on

Leith Leith (; ) is a port area in the north of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith and is home to the Port of Leith. The earliest surviving historical references are in the royal charter authorising the construction of ...

sands in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

along with two of his crew on 11 April 1705. Green was celebrated in a contemporary ballad: The ''Worcester'' was seized, probably at the bequest of the Secretary of the

Company of Scotland The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, also called the Scottish Darien Company, was an overseas trading company created by an act of the Parliament of Scotland in 1695. The act granted the company a monopoly of Scottish trade ...

(Roderick Mackenzie), when she came into the

Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is a firth in Scotland, an inlet of the North Sea that separates Fife to its north and Lothian to its south. Further inland, it becomes the estuary of the River Forth and several other rivers. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate ...

simply to weather a storm; Green and his crew were alleged to have boarded a ship, the ironically named ''Speedy Return'', off the

Malabar coast The Malabar Coast () is the southwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. It generally refers to the West Coast of India, western coastline of India stretching from Konkan to Kanyakumari. Geographically, it comprises one of the wettest regio ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, killed the crew and its captain Robert Drummond, stolen the goods on board, then sold the ship. However, the evidence against Green has been considered flimsy; during the trial, the ship in question was never named, and neither the ship's owner nor any next of kin of the alleged deceased came forward. Furthermore, the exact time and place of the incident were never specified ("upon one or other Days of the Months of February, March, April or May, in the year 1703"). As the alleged incident was outside Scottish waters, the veracity of the trial was also called into question; however the prosecution argued that the subjects of the piracy had, according to different witnesses, either sailed under an English flag or had spoken English, and as such, Green and his crew were subject to the justice of

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong * Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Tra ...

. To further dispel any pretence of a

fair trial A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Fairs showcase a wide range of go ...

, many of the crew were forbidden to provide evidence, and one of those who was allowed—the captain's

n servant—had, for poor behavior, been "chained and nailed to the Floor of the Fore-Castle" at the time of the alleged incident;". despite this, his evidence was accepted. The English historian

G. M. Trevelyan George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was an English historian and academic. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1898 to 1903. He then spent more than twenty years as a full-time author. He returned to th ...

complained that while "the 'evidence' did not even pretend to be more than hearsay ..the court asdrunk with patriotic prejudice.". Green was sentenced to death, originally intended for the 3 April 1705, but this was postponed for a time at the request of the Queen's Privy Council. During this time it became known to those involved in the trial that survivors of the ''Speedy Return'' had arrived back in England, and were ready to testify that it had instead been captured by pirate John Bowen, confirming the innocence of Green and his colleagues. Nevertheless, the Crown's Scottish representatives failed to stand up to an angry

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

mob, and did not postpone the execution date further. Green and two of his crew members, Simpson, an Englishman, and John Madder, a Scot, were found guilty and hanged on Leith Sands on 11 April. The men met their deaths, amongst the baying mob, with calm and resolve. It is probable that the ''Worcester'' was seized in an act of revenge against the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

(for whom Green had earlier worked) that had seized one of the last ships of the Company of Scotland, the ''Annandale'', the previous year. After the executions of the three, the remaining crewmen were quietly released with no further charge. The incident caused great consternation and anger throughout much of England and provided fodder for the vitriolic patriots on both sides of the border. Trevelyan concluded that the deaths of the three men served as an outlet for a widely held Scottish resentment of their Anglo-centric government's mismanagement. Examples of the problems partially caused by this mis-governance included the Glencoe Massacre, the ill-fated

Darien Scheme The Darien scheme was an unsuccessful attempt, backed largely by investors of the Kingdom of Scotland, to gain wealth and influence by establishing New Caledonia, a colony in the Darién Gap on the Isthmus of Panama, in the late 1690s. The pl ...

(the failure of which was partially attributable to

King William King William may refer to: People Bimbia * William I of Bimbia * William II of Bimbia () Britain and Ireland * William of England (disambiguation), multiple kings * William I, King of Scots (–1214), also known as William the Lion German Empir ...

's concession to English mercantile interest) and the " seven ill years" (seven bad harvests experienced by Scottish farmers between 1692 and 1698, blame for which must also lie partially with archaic tools, expertise and practices in use at that time). Scottish historians such as Andrew Lang instead contend that while Green and crew may not have taken Drummond's ship, they had engaged in some piracy after all, and so the trial was not unjust:

Hence I conclude that the 'Worcester' really had been pirating off the coast of Malabar, but that the ship taken by Captain Green in these waters was not the 'Speedy Return,' but another, unknown. If so, there was no great miscarriage of justice, for the indictment against Captain Green did not accuse him of seizing the 'Speedy Return,' but of piracy, robbery, and murder, though the affair of the 'Speedy Return' was brought in to give local colour. This fact and the national excitement in Scotland probably turned the scale with the jury, who otherwise would have returned a verdict of 'Not Proven.'

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