Execution Dock

Anybody who had committed crimes on the seas, either in home waters or abroad, would eventually be brought back to London and tried by the High Court of the Admiralty.

Capital punishment was applied to acts of mutiny that resulted in death, for murders on the High Seas, and specific violations of the Articles of War governing the behaviour of naval sailors, including sodomy.

An execution at the dock usually meant that crowds lined the river's banks or chartered boats moored in the Thames to get a better view of the hanging.

This morning, a little after ten o'clock, Colley, Cole, and Blanche, the three sailors convicted of the murder of Captain Little, were brought out of Newgate, and conveyed in solemn procession to Execution Dock, there to receive the punishment awarded by law.

Colley seemed in a state resembling that of a man stupidly intoxicated, and scarcely awake, and the two discovered little sensibility on this occasion, nor to the last moment of their existence, did they, as we hear, make any confession.

Proof of this is the classic tale Peter Pan, in which the infamous Captain Hook's crew was said about them, "A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock.

"[5] Some sources state there is a large "E" on the Thames side of the building at Swan Wharf, indicating the site of Execution Dock.