_Anne Bonny, the Female Pirate._
Rackam the Pirate.--Anne Bonny his Wife.--Reasons for Assuming
a Boy’s Dress.--Infamous Character of Rackam.--Anne falls in
Love with Mary.--Curious Complications.--The Duel.--Chivalry of
Frank.--The Capture.--The Trial.--Testimony of the Artist.--Death
of Mary Read.--Rackam Dies on the Scaffold.
There was upon the island of New Providence, at that time, a very
consummate villain by the name of Rackam. He had been captain of a
pirate ship, and shared his cabin with his wife, a very depraved
woman, who was disguised in boy’s clothes. She apparently discharged
the duties of a cabin-boy. This Captain Rackam had taken advantage of
the king’s proclamation, had surrendered himself as a pirate, and had
received a pardon.
Eagerly he enlisted, with his wife in man’s garb, as a messmate, in
one of the governor’s privateers. No one on board the ship was aware
of the sex of his companion. She was truly his wife, and her real name
was Anne Bonny. She had been a rude, ungovernable girl, and her parents
were so displeased that she should have married such a worthless
wretch as Rackam was known to be, that they would no longer recognize
her. Having nothing to live upon, she assumed a sailor’s dress, and
they both shipped for New Providence. He doubtless intended there to
resume the career of a pirate.
Rackam and Anne Bonny enlisted on board the same ship. Here then there
were two women in male attire, neither of whom had any suspicion of
the real sex of the other. No one could associate with such companions
as those of Mary Read, or encounter the influences to which she was
constantly exposed, without becoming in some degree corrupted.
The privateersman had been out but a few days when Rackam, who had
many of his old confederates on board, formed a conspiracy, rose
upon the officers, set them adrift, seized the ship, and turned to
his old trade. Mary Read, in the character of Frank, was, as we have
mentioned, a very handsome young fellow. The captain’s cabin-boy,
Anne Bonney, fell desperately in love with Frank, and revealed to
_him_, as she supposed, her sex. She approached Frank with all the
seductions and allurements with which Potiphar’s wife solicited Joseph.
Thus importuned, Frank confided to her that she was also a woman in
disguise. This led to increased intimacy between the two young sailor
women.
Captain Rackam became intensely jealous of his wife, in consequence of
her familiarity with Frank. He threatened Anne that he would certainly
cut Frank’s throat. Anne, well aware of the desperate character of the
pirate, felt constrained, that she might save Mary’s life, to let the
captain into the secret also. He did not divulge it, knowing that she
might be exposed to very cruel treatment from the unprincipled wretches
who thronged his decks.
But again the all-devouring passion took possession of the bosom of
Frank. Many vessels were captured. After being plundered they were
generally turned adrift again, with their crews. If the pirates,
however, found on board these ships any one who could be of use to
them, he was detained on board their ship. It so chanced that one
day they took a ship where there was a young English artist. Rackam,
thinking that the artist might be of service to him, in sketching
scenes and drawing charts, detained him as a captive. He was a genteel
young fellow, handsome, of fascinating manners, very skilful with his
pencil, and possessed of very attractive conversational powers. Frank
and the young artist were instinctively drawn toward each other.
And when Frank told her companion that she loathed the life of a
pirate, that she was one of the crew by compulsion, and that she
should embrace the first possible opportunity to escape, a new bond
of union was formed between them. They became messmates, and were
always together. He never had a doubt that the masculine pronoun, _he_,
belonged to his bronzed but smooth-cheeked and soft-voiced companion.
Even on board a pirate ship there are many opportunities for seclusion.
In the dark and tempestuous night, when the wine-heated officers were
carousing in the cabin, and the crew were rioting in the forecastle,
Frank and the artist, wrapped in those thick sailor-jackets which defy
both wind and rain, would seek some retired position upon the deck,
beneath the stormy sky, and beguile the weary hours in relating to each
other the story of the past, and in planning measures for escape. Frank
was the younger of the two, and in these hours of midnight communings,
loved to recline with her head in the lap of her unsuspecting comrade.
The inevitable result ensued. The whole passionate nature of the
woman, still almost in her girlhood, became aglow with love of the
young artist. In one of these midnight communings she revealed to
her astonished friend her sex. His friendship was speedily converted
into impassioned love. He had ever, under her assumed character,
had occasion to respect her. He could not recall a single action of
immodesty or impropriety. Alone in the darkness of the night, upon the
solitary deck with the stars alone looking down upon them, they went
through the ceremony of what they both deemed a secret _marriage_.
Mary Read ever averred that she regarded those nuptials as sacred as if
the rite had been performed in the church, by the robed priest, and in
the presence of any number of witnesses. She was never accused of being
unfaithful to her marriage vows, or of ever having been even indiscreet
in her conduct.
Still the months passed away. The ship continued its piratic cruise.
Frank, though secretly the wife of the artist, had excited no suspicion
of her disguise. In her sailor’s garb she still performed every duty
imposed upon others of the crew. There were several bloody actions
fought. In these engagements both she and Anne Bonny were called upon,
like the rest, to work at the guns.
It was one of the laws of the ship, that if any quarrel arose between
any two of the crew, there should be no contention on board the ship,
but that when they next approached an island, they should, with their
friends, land in a boat, and settle the quarrel in a duel on the
shore. The artist was so grossly incited by one of the pirates, that
he either challenged him, or accepted a challenge from him to fight a
duel. Frank would not have had her husband, on any account, refuse the
hostile meeting. Public sentiment was such among the pirates, that had
he done this, there would have been no end to the insults and abuse he
would have received as a reward.
Frank was in a state of great agitation and anxiety for the fate of her
lover. She was an admirable swordsman, and no one of the piratic crew
was a truer shot with the pistol. Her love was so passionate that she
felt that she could not live without that husband, whose union with her
was so enhanced by the attractions which secrecy and romance give. She
was far more ready to peril her own life than to have his endangered.
She therefore deliberately provoked such a quarrel with the pirate who
was soon to have a hostile meeting with her husband, as to compel him
to an immediate and angry challenge. Adroitly she succeeded in having
the time appointed for their meeting two hours before the duel was to
be fought with her husband. In her intensely excited frame of mind she
resolved to make sure work of it.
They were to meet at but a few paces distance, discharge their pistols
at each other, and then, with drawn swords, advance and fight until
one or the other was effectually disabled or killed. The pistols were
discharged. Neither of them was seriously wounded. They then crossed
swords. There was a fierce clashing of the weapons for a few minutes
and then the agile Frank passed her sword through the body of her
adversary, and he fell before her a bloody corpse.
Such rencontres were too common with that ship’s crew, and Frank had
been too conversant all her days with such scenes of blood to have it
produce any serious impression upon her mind. With much composure she
wiped her crimsoned sword and returned to the ship, exulting in the
thought that she had saved her husband’s life. The attachment between
Frank and her lover before this seems to have been very strong. But
this event bound them more firmly together than ever before.
Almost invariably, even in this world, retribution follows crime.
After many successful captures, and much rioting and revelry with this
godless crew, the hour of vengeance came. One day a swift-sailing
English frigate, of powerful armament, caught sight of the pirate and
gave chase. The vessel was overtaken and captured, and all her crew,
in irons, were carried to England for trial. There was no disposition
to deal tenderly with these wretches, whose crimes could scarcely be
numbered. The trial was expeditious and the execution prompt. The
young artist easily proved that he was a prisoner on board the ship,
and had never taken any part in their piratic exploits. He was promptly
released. Frank was one of the pirates. Her assertion that she was
reluctantly so, was of no avail. She had been of their recognized
number; she had been identified with them in all the employments of a
sailor; she had taken an active part in their battles.
One of the witnesses, who had been taken a prisoner by Rackam, and
detained for some time on board the pirates’ craft, gave the following
testimony against Frank, or rather against Mary Read; for during the
trial her sex had been divulged, and the embarrassing fact had been
discovered that, ere long, she was to become a mother. The testimony
was as follows:
“I was taken prisoner by Rackam, and was detained for some time on
board the pirate ship. One day I accidentally fell into discourse with
the prisoner at the bar. She was dressed like the ordinary seamen, and
I did not suppose her to be anything different. Taking her for a young
man, I asked her what pleasure she could find in such enterprises,
where her life was continually in danger by fire or sword; and not only
so, but she must be sure of dying an ignominious death if she should
be taken alive?
“She replied, that as to hanging, she deemed it no great hardship; for
were it not for that, every cowardly fellow would turn pirate, and so
infest the seas that men of courage must starve. She said that were it
put to the choice of the pirates, they would not have the punishment
less than death; for it was only the fear of death which kept many
dastardly rogues honest. Many of those, she said, who are now cheating
the widows and orphans, and oppressing their poor neighbors who have no
money to obtain justice, would then rob at sea. Thus the ocean would
be crowded with rogues like the land. No merchant would venture out.
Trade in a little time would not be worth following. It is the fear of
hanging alone which restrains thousands from piracy.”
When we consider the impossibility of making an exact report of
conversation, and when we consider the situation of Frank among the
pirates, and that her life would instantly have been forfeited if they
had suspected her of unfaithfulness, we can imagine that essentially
these remarks might have been made, without indicating any special
moral delinquency. Frank did not deny having made them.
Several of the crew, however, brought forward much more damaging
testimony. When, to the astonishment of all, the sex both of Mary
Read and Anne Bonny was made known to the court, the pirates seemed
very desirous that their fate should be inseparably connected with
their own. The testimony against Anne Bonny was very strong. She had
accompanied her infamous husband in most of his adventures, and had
rendered herself very conspicuous by her courage and her energetic
action.
When the frigate took the pirate there was a short conflict. But the
great guns of the frigate swept the pirate’s deck with such a storm of
grape-shot, that every one rushed into the hold, excepting Mary Read
and Anne Bonny. Mary Read, it was said, called upon those under the
deck to come up and fight like men. As they refused, in her rage she
fired her pistol down among them, killing one and wounding others. This
latter charge, which went far to condemn her, she utterly denied. Such
bravado was not at all in accordance with her general character. But it
was just the conduct to be expected of Anne Bonny. She was a desperado,
as robust in person as she was masculine in character. Rumor said that
before she entered upon her piratic career she stabbed a servant-maid
with a carving-knife, and so severely beat a young fellow whom she
disliked that he narrowly escaped with his life.
They were both pronounced guilty of piracy, and condemned to be hung.
As it was not deemed right that Mary Read’s child should forfeit its
life in consequence of its mother’s sins, Mary was allowed a reprieve,
until after the birth of her child. Being remanded to her gloomy
and solitary cell in Newgate prison, she awaited, with anguish, her
approaching maternity, to be immediately followed by an ignominious
death upon the scaffold. The horror of her situation threw her into a
fever, of which she fortunately died. Thus she escaped the scaffold:
and she and her unborn babe slept in the grave together.
Rackam was hanged just before the time appointed for the execution of
his wife. The morning on which he was led to the scaffold, he was first
conducted to the cell of Anne Bonny. Her characteristic speech to him
was:
“I am sorry to see you here; but if you had fought like a man, you need
not have been hanged like a dog.”
In an hour from that time he was struggling in death’s agonies. Anne
was reprieved from time to time, and finally escaped execution. What at
last became of her no one knows.