Look at the sad plight of me, old Bill May, for thirty-five years in
the service of my king and country! Here I lie in the hold of Newgate
Gaol, condemned for a pirate and a-tremble like a loose sail in a gale
of wind every time the sheriff comes in to read off the list of those
appointed for the day to die.
My right forefinger and the top of my thumb I lost just thirty year
ago when Admiral Tiddiman fought the Dutch in the harbor of Bergen. On
the _Hector_, Captain John Cuttle’s ship, I was. We ran afoul a Dutch
broadside, and down we went like a tub with a grindstone in it. Only
a score of us came up again, and me, with my maimed hand, had to swim
more than an hour for my life.
A man who has given his limbs for his country to be stretched at
Execution Dock with no more to do than if he were a common picklock!
Ah! what a port has old Bill May’s ship come to at last!
It does not become a man who has fought for England to whine at the
king’s court. But charity begins at home; and from a kindness to the
respectable name of May I am taking a quill in my fist to set out in
order the things that brought me here--and shouldn’t have--which
things the lawyers confabulated me out of properly telling at my trial.
The way the long-gowns[1] talked you would have thought they and not we
were the ones to be hanged. Begging everybody’s pardon, I ask who ought
to do the most talking--accuser or accused?
[1] Lawyers.
His Lordship, Judge Holt--who was master of the court--was pretty fair,
but those king’s counsel blasted the whole dozen or more judges with
words, words, words, till I looked to see them all blown through the
wall of Old Bailey--and the big bench with ’em. Half the time those
lawyers didn’t speak a man’s English, but yammered in a foreign tongue,
calling us names we knew not what. Some of it sounded to me like
Portugee.[2] Jack Sparkes[3] swore from keel to truck it was Irish. But
when we came to talk, how was it then?
[2] Law-latin: “_Hostes humanis generis_”, etc.
[3] A co-defendant.
“Speak to the point, my man.”
And, “What have you more to say?”
If we had had anything to saw, how could we have said it with no lawyer
to pilot us over the law language and to throw outlandish words back at
our prosecutors?
Nay, more. From jury to judges they were all land crabs. Asks Judge
Holt--
“What do you mean by ‘conning a ship?’”
Begging their honors’ pardon, I ask, Could that be a fair trial for
sailormen? A baby at the breast ought to know that conning a ship is
a-steering of her.
Did I have to ship on the _Charles the Second_? Was I pressed? Never
has the press-gang picked up old Bill May when he was sober. How often
have I led the gang myself! Who was it grabbed half a score knock-kneed
apprentices for the _Hector_ and other of the king’s ships under
Admiral Tiddiman? Only Bill May, the pirate.
No, indeed. Captain Brake of the _Wave_, East Indiaman, was begging
me to voyage with him to Calicut, but I said, “No, here is Sir James
Houblon outfitting _costa-gardas_ for the Spanish South Americas;
here,” said I, “is where they need men who can keep an edge to a
cutlass, and where I am wanted there I always try to be.”
I was wanted at Bergen against the Dutch thirty year ago, and there I
was--as witness my finger and thumb.
Very well, then; here is the start of the affair.
Mr. Don Spaniard could not keep a strong hand on the pirate people
himself over in South America, so he comes to England to hire ships
and men to go out and help clean his coasts of those pests. Sir
James Houblon and some other merchants strike a bargain with Mr. Don
Spaniard, and fit out the _Charles the Second_ and the _James_.
I was lying alongshore getting my mind ready to sign with Master Brake
on the _Wave_ when I heard this Spanish affair talked about in the
“Pig’s Head”, Bristol. As I say, Bill May is never too old to fight on
a good side, so I made for the docks straightway and offered myself
to Mr. Gibson, master of the _Charles the Second_. An old Navy man he
was, and knew me in the past, so he gave me his hand and the rating of
quartermaster.
Henry Every[4] was first mate under Captain Gibson, and Mr. Gravet was
second mate. A new man to me was Every, but a pleasant, merry one,
about forty years old. Not even, though, in his mind. Why he would
stand by me while I was at the whipstaff[5] and make me laugh like
to throttle myself at the quips that came from him as shot from a
well-greased ten-pounder. But a minute later he would be cursing the
sea, ships, sailormen and his own hard luck. Time and again he said to
me--
[4] Old spelling for Avery.
[5] Helm.
“I’m a man of fortune, and my fortune I’m going to make.”
Queerlike, he spoke, and queerlike I took it. But I never dreamed he
was meaning to do a mischief to make his fortune.
Born for the sea he was, and knew a ship like you know the palm of your
hand. Hard, too, he could be; I have seen him knock a man to the deck
and never leave off laughing.
Strange laugh he had; up in the back of the nose, as it were, and
panting like--sort of a snorting. Between us, though, there was no
trouble; Henry Every always said I was the properest quartermaster he
ever shipped with. He couldn’t bear Gravet; they did not hitch, though
nothing outwardly passed from one to the other.
Our orders were first for the Groyne[6] in Spain, there to get
instructions and supplies. The _Charles the Second_ and the _James_
left England in the autumn of 1693, and about the new year following
we dropped our anchors in the Spanish port. Bad weather had made a job
of slow sailing and hard pumping all across the Bay of Biscay, but we
cheered ourselves with promises of ease when we should come to the
Groyne.
[6] Old name for Corunna.
All hands had four months’ wages due them when we came to port, but not
a mother’s son of us could get a penny piece from the commander. The
Spaniard is as sluggish in money matters as a waterlogged ship with a
broken mast.
There grew to be a lot of hard feeling on both ships, and the two
captains, Gibson and Humphries, were much pestered to their faces and
much abused behind their backs. I could not see how they were to blame,
but they were the only ones the men could look to for their pay and so
they had to bear the siege. January came and went; February came and
went, March came and went, and April likewise; and not a smell did we
get of coin, either Spanish or English.
The sailors at length quit going ashore to be jeered for their poverty
and taunted for their misfortune, but moped about the decks and fought
with one another, and altogether got to a mischievous turn of mind.
Every and Gravet gave plenty of way to each other, while as for my old
commander, Captain Gibson, he broke with the worry of it all and took
sick to his cabin. Little winds blow ships into strange ports; if the
Don had met us with our pay old Bill May’s neck would never have been
hauled upon like a mainsail.