The story which he related in court was that, having been for about two years in the West Indies, he shipped as first mate on board the Zephyr brig; which sailed from Kingston for England in the end of June 1822.
The warning was justified, and the brig was taken possession of by a schooner manned by Spaniards and half-breeds, who plundered her of whatever seemed valuable, forced the master by threats of torture to deliver up what money he had on board, and then let them go, detaining Smith to act as navigator and interpreter, in which capacity he was compelled, by threats and actual torture, to act at the plundering of the Victoria, the Industry, and other vessels.
After several months' detention he succeeded in escaping, but at Havana was recognised as one of the pirates, arrested, and thrown into prison; and as he refused or was unable to bribe the Spanish magistrates, who offered to release him on payment of one hundred doubloons, he was handed over to Sir Charles Rowley, the English commander-in-chief at Jamaica, and was brought to England in irons on board the Sybille.
His tale, in part substantiated by witnesses, carried conviction to the judge, who summed up strongly in his favour; and the jury, without hesitation, returned a verdict of ‘Not guilty.’ He was described as ‘a very genteel-looking young man, apparently about thirty years old.’ ‘The Atrocities of the Pirates: a Faithful Narrative of [Smith's] Unparalleled Sufferings during his Captivity in Cuba’ (1824), was apparently a much embellished record by a sympathising friend.
This Cobden refused, and an angry correspondence followed (Times, 1 June), which brought up a Captain Cook, who wrote to say that Smith was certainly a pirate; that he himself had been captured and ill-treated by him (ib.