FOOTNOTES

[135] Nicholas Merritt, tertius, the son of Nicholas and Elizabeth Merritt, was born in Marblehead and baptized Mar. 29, 1702, in the First Church. He married Jane or Jean Gifford in December, 1724, which may account for the name of the shallop “Jane,” which he commanded when taken, although he had a sister Jane, and also a sister Rebecca who married Robert Gifford, who was taken but released at Port Roseway.

CHAPTER XV
Francis Farrington Spriggs, Companion of Capt. Ned Low

Francis Farrington Spriggs is supposed to have sailed from London with Lowther, in March, 1721, in the ship “Gambia Castle,” and to have willingly followed him in his piratical venture. When Lowther joined forces with Ned Low in January, 1722, Spriggs was with him and when Lowther parted company with Low the following May, Spriggs seems to have thought Low a man after his own heart for he left his old commander and followed Low in the recently captured brigantine “Rebecca,” where he was made quartermaster. With Low he sailed along the New England coast and north to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland; then across the Atlantic to the Western Islands and back to the West Indies where, late in the year 1722, a Rhode Island-built sloop was captured which Low took over for his own command and Spriggs was given command of the Marblehead schooner “Fancy,” that had been taken at Port Roseway, Nova Scotia, in June. When Low and Spriggs had their narrow escape from capture by the man-of-war “Mermaid,” in February, 1723, Spriggs determined never to be taken and swore with a boon companion and pledged the oath in a bumper of rum, that when he saw there was no possibility of escaping they would set foot to foot and shoot one another and so cheat the halter.[136]

Before long there was a falling out between Low and Spriggs or, possibly, Spriggs may have been taken sick or been wounded; at any rate, Charles Harris was in command of a sloop called the “Ranger,” when the pirate vessel appeared off the coast of South Carolina on May 27, 1723, and fortunate it was for Spriggs, for later on this disastrous foray Low deserted his consort under fire near the Rhode Island coast and the “Ranger” was captured and Harris and many of his crew were tried and hanged at Newport. Spriggs served with Low on this voyage, in his old station as quartermaster, until the ship “Delight” was taken, off the Guinea coast, in the late fall. She was well suited to their needs so four more guns were mounted on her and Spriggs was given command with a crew of about sixty men. Within two days Spriggs deserted Low—slipped away in the night—and for this reason. One of the crew had murdered a man in cold blood and Spriggs was for executing him as a punishment. Low, on the other hand, would not agree and so there was a heated quarrel that embittered Spriggs and led to his desertion.

The next day Spriggs was elected captain of the company by popular vote, and a black flag was made with the same device as the ensign carried by Low, namely, a white skeleton holding in one hand an arrow piercing a bleeding heart and in the other hand an hour-glass. This flag they called the “Jolly Roger,” and when it was finished and hoisted to the masthead they fired all their guns in salute and sailed away to the West Indies in search of prey. Before long they overhauled a Portuguese bark that supplied some valuable plunder, but not content with that alone, Spriggs determined to torture the men by “sweating” them, a game that greatly diverted his piratical crew. Lighted candles were placed in a circle around the mizzenmast, between decks, and one by one the poor Portuguese were ordered to go inside the circle and run round and round the mast, while in a circle outside the candles stood the crew (as many as could crowd into line), armed with penknives, tucks,[137] forks, compasses, etc., and with roaring songs and boisterous laughter they pricked the terrified Portuguese as long as he was able to foot it. This usually lasted for ten minutes or more for the pirates took good care not to strike too deep and so kill their victims.[138] When the “sweating” was over the Portuguese were set adrift in a boat with a small quantity of provisions and their vessel was fired.

“SWEATING” ON CAPT. SPRIGG’S PIRATE VESSEL
From an engraving in “History and Lives of the Most Notorious Pirates,” by an old Seaman, London, n.d., in possession of Capt. Ernest H. Pentecost, R.N.R.

Near the island of St. Lucia, Spriggs took a sloop owned in the Barbadoes, which was plundered and burned. Some of the crew were forced and others who absolutely refused to go with him were cut and badly beaten and set adrift in a boat. Captain De Haws was taken in sight of Barbadoes and two of his men were forced—James Rush and Joseph Cooper, both born in London, England. Some of Spriggs’ crew told Captain De Haws that they had come away from Captain Low “on account of the Barbarity he used those he took.”[139] A Martinico vessel was the next capture. The men were abused in the usual manner, but their vessel was not burned.

On March 22, 1724, a ship called the “Jolly Batchelor,” from Jamaica, commanded by Captain Hawkins, was taken near the island of Bonaco, as she was coming out of the Bay of Honduras. Her principal cargo was logwood, but her stores and ammunition were looted and what the pirates didn’t take they threw overboard or destroyed. In sheer mischief her cables were cut, the cabins knocked down and the cabin windows smashed. The first and second mates, Burrage and Stephens, and some of the men, were forced and on the 29th the ship was allowed to go. Two days before, however, a Newport, R. I. sloop, the “Endeavor,” commanded by Capt. Samuel Pike, Jr., came up and was ordered to lay by. The crew were forced and the mate Dixey Gross, “being a grave, sober man, and not inclinable to go, they told him he should have his Discharge, and that it should be immediately writ on his Back; whereupon he was sentenced to receive ten lashes from every Man in the Ship, which was vigorously put in Execution.”[140] Among those forced from the sloop were William Wood and Thomas Morris, a boy about twelve years old. Burrage, the first mate of Captain Hawkins’ ship, and a good navigator, is said to have signed their Articles.

On April 2d, a sail was sighted and Spriggs gave chase. After several hours they came close to her and fired a couple of broadsides when a cry for quarter came from the ship and soon she was found to be commanded by Captain Hawkins who had been looted and sent away only three days before. This was such a disappointment that when the captain came on board they laid for him with their cutlasses and soon he was flat on the deck. Before he received a fatal blow, Burrage pushed in among them and begged for the captain’s life and he having just shown himself the right sort by signing their Articles his request was heeded and Captain Hawkins was pulled to his feet. A bonfire was made of his ship, however, and a little later, desiring more diversion, the unfortunate Hawkins was sent down to the cabin for supper. This turned out to be a dish of candles which he was forced to swallow and then, in order to aid digestion, the poor man was thrown about the cabin until he was covered with bruises and afterward sent forward amongst the other prisoners.

Two days later Spriggs reached the small island of Roatan in the Bay of Honduras. It was uninhabited and here he put ashore Captain Hawkins, his boatswain, and an old man who had been a passenger on his ship and who afterwards died on the island of the hardships he had undergone. With them went Capt. Samuel Pike of the Rhode Island sloop and his mate Dixey Gross, Simon Fulmore, a sailor, and James Nelley, one of the pirate crew with whom Spriggs was at odds.[141] The marooned men were given an old musket and a small supply of powder and ball with which to make shift as best they could and Spriggs and his crew then sailed away. Captain Hawkins and his companions supplied themselves with fish and fowl and lived in comparative comfort for the next ten days, when two men in a dugout canoe came in sight and after a time answered their signals. These men conveyed them to another island which had better water and plenty of fish and twelve days later the sloop “Merriam,” Captain Jones, came in sight and answered their smoke signals. He stood in and took them off and by this timely rescue they all finally reached Jamaica safely. It is a curious coincidence that Captain Hawkins should have been marooned on the island of Roatan only four days after Philip Ashton, the Marblehead fisherman who had lived a solitary life on the same island for nine months, sailed from the nearby island of Bonaco, homeward bound, as is told in another chapter.

From Roatan, Spriggs sailed westward to another small island where he cleaned his ship and then steered a course for the island of St. Christopher, proposing to lay in wait for Captain Moore who had surprised Captain Lowther while his vessel was on careen at the island of Blanco. Spriggs had resolved to catch Captain Moore, if possible, and put him to death for being the cause of the death of Lowther, his brother pirate. Instead of Captain Moore, however, a French man-of-war was found by Spriggs to be on the coast and not fancying such company Spriggs crowded on all sail with the Frenchman after him. During the chase the man-of-war unfortunately lost her main-topmast and so Spriggs escaped the intended interview. Standing now to the northward, towards Bermuda, Spriggs overhauled on April 30th, a schooner owned in New York and commanded by Capt. William Richardson, who reported after reaching Boston, that Spriggs had told him that he intended to ravage the northern coasts and sink or burn all the vessels he took northward of Philadelphia.[142] Captain Durell, in His Majesty’s ship “Sea Horse,” was ordered to make sail at once in quest of Spriggs.

On May 2, 1724, the Boston owned brigantine “Daniel,” John Hopkins in Command, was homeward bound in latitude 33° and near Bermuda, when a strange sail fired a gun and soon hoisted a black flag. The pirate ship was crowded with men and resistance was out of reason so Captain Hopkins ordered his boat lowered and went aboard the ship. After rifling the brigantine it was burned. Joseph Cole of Beverly, Mass., and Benjamin Wheeler of Boston, seamen on board the “Daniel,” were forced “notwithstanding their importunate Prayers & Tears to him to dismiss them.”[143] Spriggs swore to the master that “he designed to encrease his Company on the Banks of Newfoundland, and then would sail for the coast of New England in quest of Captain Solgard, who attack’d and took their Consort Charles Harris; Spriggs being then in Low’s sloop, very fairly run for it.”[144] Two days later Captain Hopkins and his men, including John Bovewe and Elias Tozer, were put aboard a Philadelphia sloop bound for Jamaica which in time they reached safely and in April of the following year they were in Boston again.

Instead of going to Newfoundland, as he had threatened, Spriggs stood to the windward of St. Christopher’s and on June 4, 1724, took a sloop, Nicholas Trot, master, belonging to St. Eustatia. The plunder of the vessel didn’t amount to much so the pirates thought they would amuse themselves by fastening a rope around the men’s bodies, one by one, and after hoisting them as high as the main- and foretops by letting go of the ropes the unfortunate wretches would fall tumbling to the deck with force enough to break skins and smash bones. After the men were well crippled by this usage Captain Trot was given his sloop and told to clear out. A week later, a Rhode Island ship bound for St. Christopher’s was taken. She was loaded with provisions and some horses, which the pirate crew soon mounted and rode about the deck, backwards and forwards, at full gallop, cursing and howling like demons, which soon made the animals so wild that they threw their riders and spoiled the sport. They then turned to the ship’s crew and whipped and cut them in a wicked manner, saying, that it was because boots and spurs had not been brought with the horses that they were not able to ride like gentlemen.

Captain Spriggs was seldom lacking in boldness and next he cruised off Port Royal in the island of Jamaica and made one or two minor captures. Two men-of-war at anchor in port were ordered out and the commander of one of them, Capt. James Wyndham of the “Diamond,” ordered a course set for the Bay of Honduras, thinking that Spriggs might return to his old haunts. This proved to be correct for when the man-of-war sailed into the Bay, Spriggs and his crew were there busily engaged in plundering ten or twelve vessels that had been loading logwood. The pirates were completely surprised and but feebly returned the fire of the man-of-war and soon considered it wiser to get out their sweeps and row into shoal water and so they at last escaped, there being but little wind. This took place the latter part of September, 1724. Spriggs at that time was in command of his ship, the “Batchelor’s Delight,” and had with him as consort, a sloop commanded by Captain Shipton. During the encounter they had six men killed and five or six wounded. Capt. John Cass, when he reached Newport, R. I., from the Bay of Honduras, the first of December following, brought an account of this affair and reported to his owners the information that “a Spanish half Galley with about 50 Men on board, and a Perriagoe with 26 Men, now in the Bay of Honduras, lye in obscure Places & Key’s to take vessels in their way there.”[145] All these dangers to New England shipping must have added greatly to the market value of logwood chips.

After escaping from the “Diamond” man-of-war, Spriggs sailed for the Bahama Channel and on the voyage ran very short of provisions. He took a sloop in the service of the South Sea Company, bound from Jamaica to Havana, with negro slaves, and later a ship bound for Newport, R. I., Capt. Richard Durffie, master. Spriggs proposed to put all the negroes on board Captain Durffie’s vessel but the captain urgently represented his want of sufficient provisions and the danger that they all would perish by starvation and at last Spriggs transferred to his ship only ten of the slaves and then let him go. Durffie put in to South Carolina for fresh supplies and while there Capt. Jeremiah Clarke of Newport, met him and brought home the news of his capture. Spriggs and Shipton continued on their course towards the Bahamas and off the western end of Cuba were so unfortunate as to again meet the “Diamond” man-of-war, still in pursuit of them. As the wind lay their only means of escape was to make for the Florida shore where Shipton’s sloop was run aground near the Cape and lost. This sloop was owned in Newport, R. I., and was in command of Jonathan Barney at the time she was taken by Spriggs. When the sloop went ashore she carried 12 guns and seventy or more men all of whom reached land safely only to fall into the hands of the Indians, except Shipton and ten or a dozen others who escaped in the ship’s canoe and finally reached Cuba.[146] It was said at the time that the Indians killed and ate sixteen of the pirates and that forty-nine were taken and carried to Havana; but why the “Diamond,” an English man-of-war, should carry English pirates to a Spanish port is not explained in any of the newspaper accounts of the affair. About two thousand pounds value in gold fell a prize to the “Diamond.”

PIRATES KILLING A CAPTURED MAN
From an old mezzotint in the possession of Capt. E. H. Pentecost, R.N.R.

FIGHT ON A PIRATE SHIP
From an old mezzotint in the possession of Capt. Ernest H. Pentecost, R.N.R.

Spriggs, by good seamanship, was able to make his escape and in some way afterwards picked up Shipton and the few men who escaped with him and made his way back to the Bay of Honduras where on Dec. 23, 1724, in company with Shipton, who at that time was in command of a perriagua with ten white men and three or four negroes, he descended on the logwood ships in the Bay and took sixteen vessels, one of which, commanded by Capt. Kelsey, he burned. The captain was given a long-boat and it being fair weather, he reached the uninhabited island of Bonaco safely, from which he and his crew afterwards were rescued by a passing sloop. Shipton took the ship “Mary and John,” of Boston, Thomas Glen, master, and after plundering her, carried away the master and put him on board a Boston sloop, Ebenezer Kent, master, which he had taken the same day, intending to sail for the rendezvous at the island of Roatan. The mate of the “John and Mary,” Matthew Perry, he left on board with his hands tied behind him and later ordered three of his pirates, together with two forced men, Nicholas Simons and Jonathan Barlow, all double armed, to take possession of the “John and Mary” and follow him to the rendezvous. Simons was to be the navigator and commander. But after Shipton had gone, Simons and Barlow untied Perry’s hands and proposed that together they attempt to kill the three pirates who had come on board with them and if successful, to make a course for some English port. The mate at once consented and Barlow gave him a pistol and he started for the steerage where one of the pirates was rummaging. Coming up behind him he snapped his pistol but unfortunately it missed fire. The pirate had four pistols in his belt and immediately drawing one he aimed it at Perry before he could reach the ladder. Strangely enough this pistol, too, missed fire. Simons was in the cabin at the time and hearing the snapping of the flints came rushing in crying, “In the name of God and His Majesty King George, let us go on with our design.” He shot dead the pirate who had attempted to kill the mate and told another of the pirates who was present, if he made any resistance he would kill him too. Meanwhile, Barlow and some of the ship’s company had killed the third pirate. They then cut their cable and made the best of their way to deep water and with no further adventures reached Newport, R. I., the last of January, 1725.[147] After their arrival, the circumstantial accounts of Simons and Barlow were published at length in the Boston newspapers.

Simons claimed that he was the humble instrument that brought about the disaster to the sloop commanded by Shipton, that was chased ashore on the Florida coast, and that while in Spriggs’ company he and Barlow had been treated “very barbarously; made to eat candles with the wick, and often threatened to take away their lives.”[148] Barlow also related that he had been forced by Low and afterwards served in Spriggs’ and Shipton’s companies. He said Low had abused him, had knocked out one of his teeth with a pistol and threatened to shoot down his throat, “whereupon Barlow fell and was taken up sick which held him three months.” He also repeated the story of the discarding of Low by his men and his having been sent away with two other pirates in a French sloop and nothing had been heard from him since.[149]

After Spriggs and Shipton made their captures in the Bay of Honduras on Dec. 23, 1724, but little is known as to their later movements. In April, 1725, a captain arriving at New York brought the report that Spriggs was yet roving and had five vessels in his fleet. Early in May, 1725, Captain MacKarty reached Boston from Jamaica, and reported that not long before he had spoken a pink off the South Carolina coast that had been taken by Spriggs, who was in a ship mounting twelve guns with a crew of thirty-five men. Several vessels had been captured and burned or sunk and the crews had been put aboard the pink and sent away. The master of the pink told Captain MacKarty that Spriggs was using his prisoners barbarously and that he threatened to be on the New England coast very soon after.[150] The threatened raid did not materialize and Spriggs and Shipton both dropped out of sight and we now have no information as to what became of them save the rumor that reached Boston a year later that they both had been marooned by their men and “were got among the Musketoo Indians.”[151] And this may have been their fate, for Spriggs’ quartermaster, one Philip Lyne, was in command of a pirate sloop mounting ten carriage guns and sixteen swivels and carrying forty men which was making captures on the banks off the Newfoundland coast in the summer of 1725. This sloop had been one of Spriggs’ consorts on the South Carolina coast earlier in the year and appears to have deserted him. On June 30th, Lyne took the ship “Thomasine,” Capt. Samuel Thorogood, bound for London from Boston, on which were four passengers and after plundering and destroying most of the ship’s lading and forcing five of the crew to sign his Articles, he allowed the ship to go free with only a small store of stinking provisions and a little water.[152] Lyne also took a Rhode Island sloop, Captain Casey, which was burned and the master and men were forced to go aboard the pirate vessel which then headed for the Cape Verde islands. Lyne probably followed the example of Low and Lowther and from there set a course for the Guiana coast, for in October, 1725 he was captured by two sloops fitted out at Curacao. During the engagement a number of the pirates were killed but Lyne and four others were “hanged by the neck until dead,” by the Dutch authorities on the island, to the great satisfaction of all who had ever met them on the high seas.[153]