trial – Now in our times every man is supposed to receive a fair and speedy trial.  This law wasn’t practiced back in the days when Wilson lived.  Often times many people went into trial already knowing based on their gender, status, and race what the verdict and sentence would be.  This proves to be the case of Wilson.

repentance – Repentance exists in Wilson’s narrative but its not direct.  It comes from a sorrow from a mother who has lost her children and can’t get them back.  Her pain is taken as regret by those who view it from outside of the cell bars while she serves out her prison sentence, and thus to them it seems as if she is guilty and only telling a different story to get out of her punishment.

2. conversion– after repenting, a person’s changing their life of sin to a Godly life was much desired. A person’s conversion was, in a way, the minsters’ and christian townspeople’s payment and reward for the godly works that they had conducted in a sinner’s life: “she was frequently visited by Ministers and other christians of the town and neighbourhood, to whom she gave little encouragement for a considerable time…” then, “she felt the power of the word preached, inlightening, convincing, humbling and softening of her heart…the words spoken to her in private made deep and lasting impressions on her Soul.”…”i see the folly and filthiness of the ways of sin, and in some measure am made to discern the Excellency of Gods ways, and do find more delight and pleasure therein, then ever i did in my former courses.”

3. death– the ending of one’s life up until Rodger’s account has been thought and spoken of as the negative consequence to a bad act. so strong is the connotation that it is often preceded by “condemned.” Ministers, when speaking to those convicted, warn that their repentance must come before their death, as it is the ultimate end. it is the ultimate punishment. people fear it. However, Rodgers looks at it from the opposite perspective. she views it as her reward for her conversion. a positive outcome for what has become her godly life: “i find a willingness in me to accept the punishment of my sins, and a readiness to glorify the justice of God by suffering that Death i have deserved, in hope of receiving his mercy to eternal life.” “…I endeavor it by thinking of my condition and manner of death…but in the midst of those thoughts, Gods comforts delight my soul, and i think, that at such times i feel the greatest incomes of joy and sweetness.”

Bravery- The captain, William fly, in an attempt to go out heroically, refuses to appear in public on the Lord’s day, or to forgive his executioner or make any sort of repentance: “he seem’d all along ambitious to have it said that he died a brave fellow” (114).  Interestingly, here we see William Fly’s conception of the opposite of piety being not wickedness, but bravery.  Is there perhaps a well-known pressure put on prisoners to become good and repentant, or is the pattern of sudden piety simply a fear of death and damnation?  Either way, William Fly wants nothing to do with it, would rather be brave than religious, and having been condemned by the justice system, “we must leave him for the judgment to come” (215).

Repentance- Here, William Fly’s bravery is contrasted with Cole and Greenville’s repentance.  They prayed and warned the mob to take lessons from their own crimes, and Cole even writes papers confessing his sins and warning other seafaring men not to end up how he did.  Although the text seems obviously more favorable to the repentant Cole and Greenville, Fly’s refusal to do what they want him to do—pray, confess, and warn others against temptation—seems to have a certain virtue of its own

Spirit- The convicted pirates are “cast into a place…where in the destruction on their flesh their spirit might be saved” (114).  The manner of this saving seems to be the repentance displayed by Cole and Greenville, and we are to assume that Fly’s “judgment to come” means his damnation.  It seems here that there are two forms of judging going on: the guilty or not guilty determination made by the courts, and the heaven or hell determination, the spiritual sentence, not made by God, but by public opinion and documents like this one.  This text has essentially sent William Fly to hell in the eyes of the public for something worse than the crimes he committed—refusing to apologize for them.