SAMUEL BELLAMY, WHOSE SHIP WAS WRECKED AT WELLFLEET AND 144 DROWNED
Very little is known of the origin of this man save that he came from
the west of England where families of the same name are living today.
In company with one Paul Williams,[87] he first appears in the West
Indies where they tried to raise a Spanish wreck hoping to salve the
bags of silver supposed to be in the hold. Meeting with no success
and being at odds with honest merchants and shipmasters, they decided
to turn pirates or “go on the account,” a term adopted by men of
that profession, and not long after they fell in with Capt. Benjamin
Hornygold, in the sloop “Mary Anne,” and Capt. Louis Lebous, in the
sloop “Postillion,” and agreed to join forces. They set out in two
large sloops each having about seventy men aboard.
Before long several captures were made that increased their gains and
also enlarged their crews, but Hornygold and some of the Englishmen on
board his sloop refused to take and plunder English vessels, so his
company divided and he went away in a prize sloop with twenty-six men
leaving ninety men who elected Bellamy their new captain. Most of those
on board were English and at that time it was not their habit to force
men.
Bellamy and Lebous sailed together and off the Virgin Islands took
several small vessels and off St. Croix, a French ship from Quebec
laden with fish and flour. Afterwards making Saba they sighted two
ships which they chased and came up with, spreading a large black
flag “with a Deaths Head and Bones a-cross.” The larger of the two
was the ship “Sultana,” commanded by Captain Richards. The other was
commanded by Captain Tozor. The “Sultana” was taken over by Bellamy and
cut down and made into a galley and Paul Williams, his quartermaster,
was given command of the sloop.
[Illustration:
THE
TRIALS
Of Eight Persons
Indited for Piracy _&c._
Of whom Two were acquitted,
and the rest found Guilty.
At a Justiciary Court of Admiralty Assembled and Held in
Boston within His Majesty’s Province of the Massachusetts-Bay
in New-England, on the 18th of October 1717. and by several
Adjournments continued to the 30th. Pursuant to His Majesty’s
Commission and Instructions, founded on the Act of Parliament.
Made in the 11th. & 12th of KING William IIId. Intituled,
_An Act for the more effectual Suppression of Piracy_.
With an APPENDIX,
Containing the Substance of their Confessions
given before His Excellency the Governour,
when they were first brought to _Boston_,
and committed to Goal.
[Illustration]
_Boston_:
Printed by B. Green, for John Edwards, and Sold
at his Shop in King’s Street. 1718.
]
On Dec. 19, 1716, about nine leagues to the leeward of the island of
Blanco, they fell in with the ship “St. Michael,” James Williams,
master, a Bristol ship that had sailed from Cork in September, bound
for Jamaica with provisions. The ship was taken to the island of Blanco
where they helped themselves to such provisions as they wanted and
forced four men. Among the men who were forced was Thomas Davis, the
ship’s carpenter, born in Carmarthenshire, Wales, who was the only
white man to escape drowning when Bellamy was afterwards wrecked on
Cape Cod. Thomas South of Boston, England, also was forced.
When Davis was told he must join the pirate crew he cried out that
he was undone and “one of the pirates hearing him lament his sad
condition, said, ‘Damn him, He is a Presbyterian Dog, and should fight
for King James.’” Captain Williams tried to say a good word for Davis
and finally Bellamy promised that he might go free on the next vessel
that was taken. On Jan. 9, 1717, with fourteen other forced men, he
was put on board the “Sultana.” At that time there were on the three
pirate vessels eighty men of the “old Company” and one hundred and
thirty forced men. “When the Company was called together to consult,
each Man to give his Vote, they would not allow the forced Men to have
a vote.”[88]
From Blanco, they sailed to a maroon island called Testegos where they
refitted and then sailed for the Windward Passage, but the wind blowing
hard they parted company with Captain Lebous and went into St. Croix,
“where a French pirate was blown up.”
About the end of February, 1717, the “Whidaw,” a fine London-built
galley commanded by Capt. Lawrence Prince, was making her way under
easy sail through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Porto Rico. She
had lately cleared from Jamaica and was bound for London, with a rich
cargo of elephants’ teeth, gold dust, sugar, indigo and Jesuit’s bark,
having previously been on a slaving voyage to the Guinea coast. The
galley was about three hundred tons burthen, mounted eighteen guns and
carried a crew of fifty men. Early in the morning a ship and a sloop in
company were sighted. They shortly altered their course and followed
the “Whidaw” and after a three days’ chase took her with practically no
resistance. In fact, Captain Prince was so lacking in spirit that only
two chase guns were fired at the sloop and his flag was hauled down at
the first demand to surrender.
The pirate ship was commanded by Captain Bellamy who ordered a prize
crew on board the “Whidaw” and all three vessels then made a course for
Long Island, one of the Bahamas, where they came to anchor. This prize
not only enriched but strengthened them for Bellamy immediately took
her over and mounted additional guns, so that she carried twenty-eight.
Captain Prince was rewarded for making an easy surrender by being given
the ship “Sultana.” He also was permitted to load her with much of
the best and finest of the cargo of the “Whidaw,” not wanted by the
pirates, and after his crew had been picked over and the boatswain and
two other men forced and seven had volunteered, he was allowed to go.
Bellamy felt so well-disposed that he gave the captain £20 in silver
and gold, “to bear his charges.”[89]
When the “Whidaw” was taken over, Davis reminded Captain Bellamy of
his promise and asked if he might go with Captain Prince. Bellamy said
he might go if the company consented and called for a vote; but the
pirates expressed themselves violently and voted no. He was a carpenter
and needed on board. “Damn him,” said the company, “rather than let
him go he should be shot or whipped to Death at the Mast.” All the new
men were now sworn to be true and not cheat the company to the value of
a piece of eight and it was agreed to treat forced men and volunteers
alike. “When a prize was taken the Watch Bill was to be called over and
Men put on board as they stood named in the Bill.”
The money taken on the “Whidaw” was reported to amount to £20,000. It
was counted over in the cabin and put up in bags, fifty pounds as every
man’s share, there being one hundred and eighty men on board. “The
money was kept in chests between decks without any Guard.”
The next day Bellamy and Williams sailed and shaped a course for the
Capes of Virginia on the way taking an English ship, hired by the
French, laden with sugar and indigo, and after an inspection dismissing
her. Off the Virginia coast three ships and a snow were taken, two of
them hailing from Scotland, one from Bristol, and the last, a Scotch
ship from the Barbadoes with a little rum and sugar aboard, in so leaky
a condition that the crew refused to go farther in her and so the
pirates sunk her and put the crew on board the snow which was commanded
by a Captain Montgomery. This vessel was taken over and manned by men
from the “Whidaw.” The two other ships were plundered and discharged.
Just at this time a storm came up and Bellamy took in all his small
sails and Williams double-reefed his main sail. It was a thunder-storm
and the wind blew with such violence that the “Whidaw” was very nearly
over-set. Fortunately it blew from the northwest and so drove them away
from the coast with only the goose-wings of the foresails to scud with.
Towards night the storm increased mightily “and not only put them by
all Sail, but obliged the _Whidaw_ to bring her Yards aportland, and
all they could do with Tackles to the Goose Neck of the Tiler, four Men
in the Gun Room, and two at the Wheel, was to keep her Head to the Sea,
for had she once broach’d to, they must infallibly have founder’d. The
Heavens, in the mean while, were cover’d with Sheets of Lightning,
which the Sea by the Agitation of the saline Particles seem’d to
imitate; the Darkness of the Night was such, as the Scripture says,
as might be felt; the terrible hollow roaring of the Winds, cou’d be
only equalled by the repeated, I may say, incessant Claps of Thunder,
sufficient to strike a Dread of the supream Being, who commands the
Sea and the Winds, one would imagine in every Heart; but among these
Wretches, the Effect was different, for they endeavoured by their
Blasphemies, Oaths, and horrid Imprecations, to drown the Uproar of
jarring Elements. Bellamy swore he was sorry he could not run out his
Guns to return the Salute, meaning the Thunder, that he fancied the
Gods had got drunk over their Tipple, and were gone together by the
Ears:
“They continued scudding all that Night under their bare Poles.
The next Morning the Main-Mast being sprung in the Step, they were
forced to cut it away, and, at the same time, the Mizzen came by the
Board. These Misfortunes made the Ship ring with Blasphemy, which was
encreased, when, by trying the Pumps, they found the Ship made a great
Deal of Water; tho’ by continually plying them, it kept it from gaining
upon them: The Sloop as well as the Ship, was left to the Mercy of the
Winds, tho’ the former, not having a Tant-Mast, did not lose it. The
Wind shifting round the Compass, made so outrageous and short a Sea,
that they had little Hopes of Safety; it broke upon the Poop, drove in
the Taveril, and wash’d the two Men away from the Wheel, who were saved
in the Netting. The Wind after four Days and three Nights abated of its
Fury, and fixed in the North, North East Point, hourly decreasing, and
the Weather clearing up, so that they spoke to the Sloop, and resolv’d
for the Coast of Carolina; they continued this Course but a Day and a
Night, when the Wind coming about to the Southward, they changed their
Resolution to that of going to _Rhode Island_. All this while the
_Whidaw’s_ Leak continued, and it was as much as the Lee-Pump could
do to keep the Water from gaining, tho’ it was kept continually going.
Jury-Masts were set up, and the Carpenter finding the Leak to be in the
Bows, occasioned by the Oakam spewing out of a Seam, the Crew became
very jovial again; the Sloop received no other Damage than the Loss of
the Main-Sail, which the first Flurry tore away from the Boom.”[90]
While on the voyage to Rhode Island they came upon a Boston-owned sloop
commanded by Captain Beer, who was ordered on board the “Whidaw” while
the sloop was being plundered. Both Bellamy and Williams were for
giving Captain Beer his sloop again but for some reason the company
would not agree to it and so the sloop was sunk and later Captain Beer
was set ashore on Block Island. He reached his home in Newport, the
first of May.
After the vote to sink the sloop had been taken Bellamy announced the
fact to the captain in a speech that has been preserved in the “History
of the Pirates.”
“D---- my Bl----d,” says he, “I am sorry they won’t let you have your
Sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a Mischief, when it is not
for my Advantage; damn the Sloop, we must sink her, and she might be
of Use to you. Tho’, damn ye, you are a sneaking Puppy, and so are
all those who will submit to be governed by Laws which rich Men have
made for their own Security, for the cowardly Whelps have not the
Courage otherwise to defend what they get by their Knavery; but damn
ye altogether: Damn them for a Pack of crafty Rascals, and you, who
serve them, for a Parcel of hen-hearted Numskuls. They villify us, the
Scoundrels do, when there is only this Difference, they rob the Poor
under the Cover of Law, forsooth, and we plunder the Rich under the
Protection of our own Courage; had you not better make One of us, than
sneak after the A----s of these Villains for Employment? Capt. Beer
told him, that his Conscience would not allow him to break thro’ the
Laws of God and Man. You are a devilish Conscience Rascal, d----n ye,
replied Bellamy, I am a free Prince, and I have as much Authority to
make War on the whole World, as he who has a hundred Sail of Ships at
Sea, and an Army of 100,000 Men in the Field; and this my Conscience
tells me; but there is no arguing with such sniveling Puppies, who
allow Superiors to kick them about Deck at Pleasure; and pin their
Faith upon a Pimp of a Parson: a Squab, who neither practices nor
believes what he puts upon the chuckle-headed Fools he preaches to.”[91]
On board the “Whidaw” was a man named Lambert, and John Julian, a Cape
Cod Indian, both of whom knew the coast and who were to act as pilots.
It was Bellamy’s intention to clean his ship at Green Island.
On Friday, April 26, 1717, early in the morning, about a fortnight
after setting Captain Beer ashore, when halfway between Nantucket
shoals and St. George’s banks, the pirates came up with a pink, the
“Mary Anne,” of Dublin, Capt. Andrew Crumpstey, with a cargo of wine
from Madeira. She had touched at Boston and was bound for New York.
The pirate vessels came up “with King’s Ensign and Pendant flying” and
after the pink had struck her colors a boat was hoisted out from the
“Whidaw” and seven men were sent on board “armed with Musquets, Pistols
and Cutlasses.” Captain Crumpstey, with five of his hands, was ordered
to go aboard the “Whidaw” with his ship’s papers. The mate, Thomas
Fitzgerald, and two seamen, Alexander Mackconachy and James Dunavan,
were left on board the “Mary Anne.”
A little later, men from the “Whidaw” rowed over to get some wine
from the cargo but finding it difficult to get at returned with only
a small quantity, carrying back at the same time some clothing needed
by the men from the pink. Soon after the boat was hoisted aboard, the
ship hailed and ordered the pink to steer N. W. by N. and the little
fleet followed this course until about four o’clock in the afternoon
when it came up very thick, foggy weather and they lay to. Presently
the snow came up under the ship’s stern and hailed Captain Bellamy and
told him that they saw land. He then ordered the pink to steer north.
A sloop from Virginia had also been taken that afternoon and as night
came on all four vessels put out lights a-stern and made sail, keeping
together. Soon Captain Bellamy hailed the pink, which was a slow
sailer, and ordered them to make more haste, whereupon John Brown, one
of the pirates, swore “that she should carry sail till she carryed her
Masts away.”
The pirates on board the pink drank plentifully of the wine on board
and took turns at the helm. As she was leaky all hands were forced to
pump hard and in consequence damned the vessel and wished they had
never seen her. A pirate named Thomas Baker was in command of the
company on the pink and told Fitzgerald, the mate, that Captain Bellamy
held a commission from King George, and Simon van Vorst, one of his
men, said, “Yes, and we will stretch it to the World’s end.”
At this time there were about fifty forced men on board the pirate
vessels “over whom they kept a watchful eye, and no Man was suffered
to write a word, but what was nailed up to the Mast. The names of the
forced men were put in the Watch Bill and fared as others. They might
have had what money they wanted from the Quartermaster, who kept a Book
for that purpose.”[92] It was common report on board that they had with
them about £20,000, in gold and silver.
About ten o’clock in the evening it came on very thick weather. The
wind blew from the east, it lightened and rained hard and the vessels
soon lost sight of each other. Fitzgerald, the mate, was then at the
helm and suddenly found that the pink was among the breakers. All hands
tried to trim the head sail but before they could do it the vessel ran
ashore opposite to Slutts-bush, at the back of Stage Harbor, on the
south side of Cape Cod in what is now the town of Orleans. Baker, the
pirate in command, at once ordered the foremast and mizzen mast cut
down and the heavy sea soon drove the pink high on shore. Some of the
prize crew, fearful of apprehension, then said “For God’s sake let us
go down into the Hould and Die together” and later asked Fitzgerald to
read to them out of the common prayer book which he did for about an
hour. As the pink gave no signs of breaking up everybody remained on
board until daybreak when they found it possible on the shore side to
jump directly on land. It was a small island called Pochet Island, now
a part of the mainland of Orleans. Here they breakfasted on sweetmeats
found in a chest, washed down with wine from the cargo. At the time
they could see at anchor beyond the bar, the snow and the small sloop,
both having ridden out the storm safely. About the middle of the
morning they worked off shore.
At ten o’clock in the forenoon two men, John Cole and William Smith,
came out to the island in a canoe and carried them all to the mainland
where they went to Cole’s house and stayed for a short time, “looking
very dejected.” Cole afterwards testified that they asked the way to
Rhode Island and seemed in great haste to be off.
News of the wreck traveled swiftly and soon reached the ears of Joseph
Doane of Eastham, a justice of the peace and representative to the
Great and General Court. Fitzgerald testified at the trial of the
pirates that Mackconachy, the cook on the pink, had bravely denounced
the seven pirates as soon as they reached the house of John Cole. At
any rate, Justice Doane, with a deputy sheriff and posse of men, was
soon in pursuit of the fleeing pirates who were overtaken and seized at
Eastham tavern and taken to Barnstable gaol.
Meanwhile, the “Whidaw” drove ashore ten miles[93] to the north with a
great loss of life. Only two out of the ship’s company of one hundred
and forty-six men reached the shore alive,--Thomas Davis, a young Welsh
shipwright who had been forced the previous December, and John Julian,
an Indian, born on Cape Cod,--these two men, by great endurance and
good fortune, not only swam ashore from the bar on which the “Whidaw”
was breaking up, but after reaching the shore successfully scaled “the
Table Land” and escaped the smother of pounding rollers beneath.
Davis told the judges of the Admiralty Court in Boston that when the
thunder-storm broke, the “Whidaw” lost sight of her escorts and like
the pink soon found breakers ahead. An anchor was let go but the
violence of the sea was so great that the cable was cut and the attempt
made to work off shore but she soon drove on the bar. A quarter of
an hour after she struck, the mainmast went by the board and in the
morning the fine new ship was a tangled mass of wreckage. About sixteen
prisoners were drowned including Crumpstey, the master of the pink.
“The riches on board were laid together in one head,” testified Davis.
While the condemned pirates were awaiting execution they were taken to
the North Meeting House, as an edifying spectacle, and there the Rev.
Cotton Mather preached a sermon which was published under the title:
“Instructions to the Living from the Condition of the Dead.” In this
pamphlet he states that “when it appeared that the wrecked ship was
breaking up the pirates murdered their prisoners on board lest they
should escape and appear as witnesses. Wounds were afterwards found on
their dead bodies washed up by the sea.” Nowhere in the testimony given
at the trial is there an allusion to anything of the sort. Davis, the
white survivor, testified in great detail and makes no mention of such
horrible brutality. That dead bodies may have come ashore battered and
mutilated is highly probable. Every great loss of life in a wrecked
ship that has broken up and buffeted its victims has exhibited similar
horrors.
Another tale that has survived relates to the supposed heroism of
the captain of the Irish pink. The “_Boston News-Letter_” of April
29-May 6, 1717, prints news of the wreck and states that “The Pyrates
being free with the Liquor that the Captive had, got themselves Drunk
and asleep, and the Captive master in the Night, thought it a fit
opportunity to run her ashore on the back side of Eastham.” Nearly
eighty years later a citizen of Wellfleet wrote a short history of
the town with an account of the pirate wreck, in which he doubtless
perpetuated the local traditions. He relates that Bellamy’s entire
fleet was “cast on the shore of what is now Wellfleet, being led to
the shore by the captain of a snow, which was made a prize on the day
before: who had the promise of the snow as a present, if he would pilot
the fleet into Cape Cod harbor; the captain, suspecting that the pirate
would not keep his promise, and that instead of clearing his ship, as
was his pretence, his intentions were to plunder the inhabitants of
Provincetown. The night being dark, a lantern was hung in the shrouds
of the snow, the captain of which, instead of piloting where he was
ordered, approached so near the land, that the pirate’s large ship
which followed him struck on the outer bar; the snow being less, struck
much nearer the shore. The fleet was put in confusion; a violent storm
arose; and the whole fleet was shipwrecked on the shore. Many in the
smaller vessels got safe on shore. Those that were executed, were the
pirates put on board a prize schooner before the storm.... At times to
this day [1793], there are King William and Queen Mary coppers picked
up, and pieces of silver, called cob money. The violence of the seas
moves the sands upon the outer bar; so that at times the iron caboose
of the ship, at low ebb, has been seen.”[94]
[Illustration: SPANISH DOUBLOON
From the original coin found on the beach at Wellfleet, Mass., where
Bellamy’s pirate ship was wrecked in 1717 and now in the possession of
Charles A. Taylor.]
[Illustration: A SPANISH “PIECE OF EIGHT”
From a coin in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society]
No longer ago than the year 1900, Capt. Webster Eldridge of Chatham,
secured two guns that undoubtedly came from the wreck of the wine ship.
The guns of the “Whidaw” should be found where she first struck on the
outer bar, as she turned bottom up before she broke up and came ashore.
The “Whidaw” came ashore about twelve o’clock at night. As soon as it
was light, Thomas Davis, one of the two survivors, found his way to the
house of Samuel Harding, about two miles distant from the wreck, and
after telling his story Harding took him on his horse and they went to
the shore and began to salvage what had washed up from the ship. They
made several trips between the shore and the house. By ten o’clock a
dozen others were there busily at work. The next day was Sunday and
when Mr. Justice Doane reached the beach that morning he found that
everything of value had been carried away. Davis was apprehended by him
and a few days later the nine men in Barnstable gaol were placed on
horseback and started for Boston under a strong guard and on May 4th
they were placed in irons in the stone gaol that then was located where
the City Hall Annex now stands.
Meanwhile, Governor Shute saw visions of a great store of pirate gold
and so issued a proclamation charging all of His Majesty’s officers
and subjects within the Province to use all diligence to seize and
apprehend not only escaped pirates but “money, bullion, treasure,
goods and merchandizes” from the pirate ship. He also dispatched
Capt. Cyprian Southack to the scene of the wreck. Captain Southack
had been in command of the “Province Galley” for over nineteen years
and afterwards published a chart of the New England coast on which he
located the pirate wreck. He hired a small sloop, the “Nathaniel,”
John Sole, master, and sailed from Boston on May 1st, at ten o’clock
in the morning, only five days after the “Whidaw” had come ashore. The
wind was at the south, “a frisking gale,” and he didn’t reach Cape Cod
harbor until the afternoon of the next day. There he hired a whale boat
and sent two men to Truro where they got horses and at seven o’clock
in the evening reached the wreck where a watch was maintained all night.
At four o’clock on the morning of May 3, 1717, the diligent captain
started in a whale boat and crossed the Cape by means of the natural
canal that existed at that time between Orleans and Eastham, sometimes
called “Jeremy’s Drean.” At Truro, he was “much afronted by one Caleb
Hopkins, Senr. of Freetown,” and nowhere on the Cape did he find a
cordial spirit of coöperation, as may be surmised. He found the “Pepol
very Stife and will not [give up] one thing of what they Gott on the
Rack.” He wrote to the Governor that “Samuel Harding has a great many
Riches that he saved out of the Rack being the first man there and says
that the Englishman give him orders to Deliver nothing of the Riches
they had saved, so I find the said Harding is as Gilty as the Pirates
saved.”
The day after he arrived at Eastham, he posted a notice on the doors
of three nearby meeting-houses announcing that he had been authorized
by the Governor to discover and take care of the wreck, with power
to “go into any house, shop, cellar, warehouse, room or other place
and in case of resistance to break open any door, chests, trunks and
other packages” and seize any plunder belonging to the wreck. But His
Majesty’s “loving subjects” refused to disgorge. “They are very wise
and will not tell one nothing of what they got on the Rack,” wrote the
complaining captain. The coroner and his jury had ordered the victims
of the wreck to be buried and demanded £83, as their due for the cost
of burying the sixty-two bodies. Captain Southack claimed that public
money should not be wasted in burying outlawed pirates and so the
thrifty coroner “putt a stop” on some of the goods from the wreck and
secured payment, which “is very hard,” writes the captain.
The fragments of the wrecked ship he found scattered along the shore
for a distance of nearly four miles. The anchor of the “Whidaw”
could be seen on the bar at low tide but the sea was so rough that
it was impossible to go out in the whale boat that he had impressed
until nearly a week had gone by and then nothing could be seen for
the moving sand made the water thick and muddy. It also rained much
of the time. Altogether, a disagreeable experience for the faithful
captain! Eventually he was obliged to abandon his attempt to recover
“the riches” believed to be buried in the sand on the bar and return to
Boston. Fate also played him a scurvy trick by sending along a pirate
vessel to capture the sloop “Swan,” Samuel Doggett, master, that had
been ordered from Boston to bring back the goods saved from the wreck.
After being plundered of stores to the value of £80 she was allowed to
go. This happened on the voyage down to the Cape.
Does the sandy bar off Wellfleet still conceal the pirate gold? Who can
say? Certainly no large salvage has ever been made. Moreover, there is
a possibility that a part of it was carried off by some of the crew
who may have escaped from the stranded ship. Captain Williams, the
escort of Bellamy, also put in a belated appearance two days after the
“Whidaw” was wrecked and came to anchor off shore and sent in a boat.
Some salvage may have been effected then.
Williams had reached Block Island on April 28th, too late to join
Bellamy, and while there had beguiled on board and forced three men,
Dr. James Sweet, George Mitchell and Willaim Tosh.[95] From Block
Island, he steered easterly and the next day, April 29th, reached the
scene of the wreck. From there he chased several fishing vessels and
then stood out to sea. He was back again a month later and took a ship
and a schooner and even came into Cape Cod harbor on May 24th and then
sailed through Vineyard Sound the following Sunday. He was then in
great want of provisions. On May 25th, a man-of-war and an armed sloop,
with ninety men, had sailed from Boston in pursuit. The news was sent
to Rhode Island and Governor Cranston replied, “I hope it will please
god to Bless Your Excellency’s Indevours by the Sirprize and Caption of
those Inhumaine Monsters of pray so as our Navigation may be made more
Safe and Secure.”
As for the possible escape of men from the wrecked “Whidaw,” the only
evidence that now appears is found in the deposition of Daniel Collins,
the master of a Cape Ann fishing sloop, who was captured by a small
pirate sloop on May 10th. He was forty leagues eastward of Cape Ann at
the time. There were nineteen men on board the pirate and they told
him that “they were the only men that escaped that belonged to the
ship that run on shoar att Cape Cod and that they made their escape
in the long boat.” Since then they had taken three shallops and three
schooners that belonged to Marblehead.
Pirates usually were brought to a speedy trial in Boston; but for some
reason the men who escaped the perils of the sea on Cape Cod remained
in gaol until Friday, Oct. 18th before they were taken into Admiralty
Court and made to taste the perils of the land. John Julian, the Cape
Cod Indian, was brought to Boston with the others but never was tried.
He disappears from the records and may have died. Thomas Davis, the
twenty-two year old Welshman, was able to convince the Court that he
was a forced man and when he was cleared “put himself on his knees and
thanked the Court and was dismissed with a suitable admonition.”
The remaining seven:--Simon Van Vorst, 24 years, born in New York;
John Brown, 25 years, born in Jamaica; Thomas Baker, 29 years, born in
Flushing, Holland; Hendrick Quintor, 25 years, born in Amsterdam; Peter
Cornelius Hoof, 34 years, born in Sweden; John Sheean, 24 years, born
in Nantes; and Thomas South, 30 years, born in Boston, England; were
brought to trial in the Court House standing at the head of what is
now State Street. Governor Shute, the Captain-General of the Province,
sat as President of the Court and beside him was Lieutenant-Governor
Dummer. The prisoners were charged with piracy in taking the “free
trading Vessel or Pink called the Mary Anne” and were tried under the
statute made in the 11th and 12th year of the reign of William III. The
evidence was conclusive. Thomas South, it appeared by the testimony,
was a ship carpenter who had been forced by Bellamy the previous
December, from a Bristol ship commanded by Capt. James Williams. He was
cleared. The others were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged on
Friday, Nov. 15, 1717, “at Charlestown Ferry within the flux and reflux
of the Sea.”
After the condemned pirates were removed from the courtroom the
ministers of the town took them in hand and “bestowed all possible
_Instructions_ upon the Condemned Criminals; often _Pray’d_ with them;
often _Preached_ to them; often _Examined_ them; and _Exhorted_ them;
and presented them with Books of Piety.” At the place of execution
Baker and Hoof appeared penitent and the latter joined with Van Vorst
in singing a Dutch psalm. John Brown, on the contrary, broke out into
furious expressions with many oaths and then fell to reading prayers,
“not very pertinently chosen,” remarks the Rev. Cotton Mather. He then
made a short speech, at which many in the assembled crowd trembled, in
which he advised sailors to beware of wicked living and if they fell
into the hands of pirates to have a care what countries they came into.
Then the scaffold fell and six twitching bodies, outlined against the
sky, ended the spectacle.
[Illustration:
Instructions to the LIVING,
from the Condition of the
DEAD.
A Brief Relation of REMARKABLES
in the Shipwreck of above
One Hundred
Pirates,
Who were Cast away in the Ship _Whida_,
on the Coast of _New-England_,
_April 26. 1717_.
And in the Death of Six, who after
a Fair Trial at _Boston_, were
Convicted & Condemned, _Octob.
22._ And Executed, _Novemb. 15.
1717_. With some Account of
the Discourse had with them on
the way to their Execution.
And a SERMON Preached on their
Occasion.
_Boston_, Printed by _John Allen_, for
_Nicholas Boone_, at the Sign of
the Bible in _Cornhill_. 1717.
]
FOOTNOTES
[87] Paul Williams, sometimes styled Paulsgrave Williams, is said to
have been born on Nantucket. Later he lived at Newport, Rhode Island.
[88] _The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy_, Boston, 1717.
[89] _The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy_, Boston, 1717.
[90] Johnson, _History of the Pirates_, London, 1726.
[91] Johnson, _History of the Pirates_, London, 1726.
[92] _The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy_, Boston, 1717.
[93] About two and one-half miles south of the present life-saving
station at Wellfleet.
[94] _Massachusetts Historical Society Collections_, Vol. III, p. 120.
[95] _Massachusetts Archives_, Vol. II, leaf 165.