In Bristol, on Sunday, 18 January 1741, according to the English calendar, Sir John Dineley Goodere sat by the hearth at the house of Jarrit Smith. His brother Samuel took a seat on the opposite side. The attorney placed himself between them, as though to lend this reconciliation the formal character of an agreement. He had uncorked some wine and raised his glass to "love and friendship." Sir John, who drank only water, accepted the toast; Samuel pledged him in return.
The conversation, as Smith later related at the trial, remained entirely amicable. They spoke of the Herefordshire estates and their fertility. Sir John inquired at what hour they should next meet to conclude a pecuniary matter. He was to return the following morning. Descending the stairs, he took leave of his brother and stepped out. Samuel was about to follow when Smith pressed him to remain for another glass. The captain declined. He paused for an instant, then muttered: "By God, it will not do." He then hastened downstairs.
Smith walked to the door. He saw Samuel take the same direction as his brother. A party of mariners suddenly emerged from the White Hart tavern. "Is he ready?" the captain demanded. They answered that he was, and scattered at a run. Smith did not pursue them; he had to join his wife. A few hours later, an agitated soldier came to find him: several men had seized a gentleman dressed like Sir John and forced him aboard a barge.
The two brothers had ample cause to discuss money. Sir John was possessed of an estate, and his brother, a naval captain, had long expected to succeed him. Samuel had told Smith that he was the next heir. Yet Sir John had altered the succession of his lands in favour of his sister's children. At the bar, the prosecution presented this decision as the principal source of their enmity. Smith confirmed that Samuel had spoken to him of the inheritance; nevertheless, his testimony alone could not substantiate all that the prosecution alleged regarding the captain's designs.
The meeting itself had not been impromptu. Sir John had returned to Bristol to settle with Smith a matter concerning a mortgage upon his estate. He had written ahead to fix the hour. Smith had mentioned the matter to Samuel, who expressed a desire to see the family quarrel brought to an end. Upon receiving his brother, the attorney observed them embrace with warmth. Sir John was in poor health, intending to proceed to Bath for the waters. On a prior visit, on Tuesday, 13 January, Smith had seen him depart armed with pistols, attended by his servant, whom he believed to be armed as well. On this occasion, however, words of peace had been exchanged.
At the White Hart, the landlord Morris Hobbs had witnessed the day’s preparations. On Sunday morning, Mahony had asked him to keep the parlour clear, as the captain was expected that afternoon. At three o'clock, he reappeared with several men; others joined them and stood watching at the door. One small man slammed it with such violence that Hobbs shouted to him not to pull his house down. Coming up from the cellar with a tankard of ale, Hobbs caught sight of Samuel and his brother walking down the slope. The entire company rushed out after them. Hobbs turned straight back to look after his mug, which he feared losing far more than the price of the beer.
Thomas Williams served aboard the Ruby. The captain had directed him to bring eight men up to the White Hart, to leave two in the barge, and to keep the craft near the brickyard. "I have a gentleman coming on board," he had told him. Williams was waiting for a bowl of warm grog in the kitchen when Mahony and the seamen burst out at a run. They already held Sir John and were dragging him along. One man threatened to toss Williams into the river if he dared intervene. Samuel arrived and commanded them to take his brother to the boat.
Sir John cried out that murder was being done. Upon the quay, Mahony asserted that the prisoner was a murderer and a deserter being conveyed back to the ship for court-martial. The captain heard this tale without offering any contradiction. In the boat, he offered to cover his brother with a cloak "to keep him from the cold." Sir John refused it. Recognizing an acquaintance upon the waterside, he attempted to call out, asking whether he knew Jarrit Smith. Samuel flung the cloak over his face to stifle his cries, and ordered the barge to be pulled across to the opposite bank.
The captain subsequently represented the abduction as an act of protection. He told his brother he was taking him aboard to preserve him from ruin and a debtor's gaol. Sir John replied that he knew far better than that, and that Samuel might just as well murder him on the spot. "Make your peace with God," the captain told him, according to Williams. The witness did not see what took place thereafter in the purser's cabin, having been excused from his watch that night. Later, between two and three in the morning, he observed Samuel descend the ladder toward that cabin, though he could not say for what purpose.
The Crown’s case did not rest upon Williams’s testimony alone. Other witnesses called by the prosecution spoke of shrieks issuing from the cabin, and of Samuel standing sentry at the door, drawn sword in hand. The prosecution contended that his presence and his orders made him an accessory to the murder, even if Mahony had been the man to slip the cord around the victim's neck. This distinction occupied much of the proceedings: the court examined what each man had done, what each might have heard, and the legal boundary between an order given ashore and a felony perpetrated on the water.
Aboard the Ruby, the captain's authority did not endure. According to Borrow, the lieutenant and the cooper confined him to his cabin. Smith, apprised of the murder, waited upon the Mayor of Bristol; a warrant was issued, and the water-bailiff boarded the vessel. He found Goodere already secured by his own crew. The captain was brought ashore and committed to Newgate. Mahony and White, apprehended a few hours later, joined him there.
Samuel Goodere stood trial alongside Mahony. Prior to the proceedings, he had been dangerously ill of a malignant fever. The arraignment was postponed that he might recover; when examined, his physician still considered him unfit to sustain the fatigue of a trial. At the bar, the procedure of the day afforded him no counsel to cross-examine witnesses upon matters of fact. The captain was obliged to put his questions himself, or submit them through the bench. He used this privilege to challenge what Williams could have observed from his hammock, and to question Smith regarding his brother’s title of baronet. The court dismissed this latter point as wholly irrelevant to establishing the identity of the deceased.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty against Samuel Goodere and Matthew Mahony on 26 March. Charles White, tried separately the following day, was likewise convicted. On the eve of the execution, Borrow records, the captain's wife and daughter came to take their leave of him, attired in mourning. The next day, Goodere was conveyed to the place of execution in a mourning coach; Mahony and White were drawn thither upon a cart. They were hanged on 20 April near the Hot Wells, within view of the reach where the Ruby had lain when the deed was done. In Smith's parlour, the captain had drunk to his brother's health. Three months later, he returned to die beside the very waters from which he had caused him to be carried away.