Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I have, may it please the court and jury, a few words to say. In the first place, I do not deny anything that the court has against me. Of course, I am here to make an appeal to the court to acknowledge that I did not have any intention to kill Peter Pan. I didn’t mean to severely injure him by any means, but you must understand that he tried to attack me and take someone I dearly cared for. I therefore urge you to listen to my version of the events which happened between me and Peter Pan. I am sure that few of you have been in an imaginary world before, and even less have been pirates.
I therefore plead to you to understand what I am going to say. If, by any chance, you don’t believe me, I have no choice. The maximum I can ask for you to do is to ask my fellow crewmates who have accompanied me on my voyage, assuming that you did not hunt all of them down by now and execute them by now, to tell you if every word I say is true. I daresay just about every word I say is true, although I might use some pirate slangs, so please don’t mind me! Firstly, I had done as most other pirates, or people, actually, would have done. I mean, if somebody attacks your ship, though I doubt that any of you here have a ship, so I will say house.
If somebody attacks your home, who wouldn’t strike back at their opponent, or the person who struck down their house and started the battle first? I would also argue that I had followed the Code of Honor for all sailors and captains. If another ship attacks our ship, the ship which is being attacked has total allowance to launch attack on that ship! Peter Pan has been my arch nemesis for many years now, it is absolutely normal for him to hate me. I have no grudge against him now, although I would admit that I did have a grudge against him many years ago, but not now! Peter Pan is also a rather insulting person.
He taunted me, because I had a hook instead of an hand, I was old, and my crew were rather inexperienced. How does being old affect the ability to navigate the treacherous seas? It would be even better if you were old and was experienced in the sea! You would be able to navigate the seas even better! As for my crew being rather inexperienced, how would be it matter if it were, and if it were not? It would not totally affect the sailing! True, it might affect the sailing when others had to teach them the ropes! However, as time went on, we would become more and more experienced.
In a way, finding people without talent can be useful also as you could make them more and more talented, isn’t that right? Lastly, I have a hook instead of a hand. Yes, that might affect me when I am fighting, but I lost this hand as of when I was fighting my opponents. That was service to my captain, and I’m proud of it. Most pirates believe that to lose a limb, you might even receive repayment, which is awesome. Of course, it sucks to lose a hand, but it is good enough to get repayment, especially for lost limbs! My hook shows that I fought bravely during battles, which means that I am loyal to my captain!
Therefore, my hook is a symbol of my loyalty. It wasn’t really my fault that I had to become a pirate, after all. The ruler of Melaka had made a sudden and odd request; that all ships passing through the Straits of Melaka pay 1000000 doubloons as tax to the ruler. Naturally, most ships didn’t have enough money to pay tax and escaped. The ruler of Melaka sent ships by ships to hunt down those ships which escaped. Some of them escaped, but the others got crushed by the ships from Melaka. I refused to pay the tax, as I did not have enough money to pay, therefore I escaped.
Naturally, they sent that hothead Peter Pan, their most experienced fighter, after me. I was caught in another battle, which was indeed unfortunate as I did not want to battle anymore as I didn’t want to risk losing any more limbs. The battlefield was chaos, after Peter Pan fired cannons into our ship. We fired cannons, accurately and precisely into the hull, board and starboard of the ship. His ship sank and he would have drowned if he did not have any flying powers. He jumped into our ship and fought me hand-to-hand. I didn’t lose any body parts, luckily for me, but I lost part of the goods on my ship.
I pushed him off my ship, and left him in a trail of smoke. Ladies and gentlemen, you must remember that he had attacked me first, which automatically transferred the fault to him. Also, you must remember that the tax was too high and I couldn’t afford to pay it! Ladies and gentlemen, please make this choice wisely. If you make the wrong choice, you will be beheading an not quite innocent but at the same time, not totally responsible for this incident person. Make this choice wisely, as if you do behead me, you will have to do the same do all pirates who commit fault. Would you take up that responsibility? I don’t think so.
