The pirates of the New England coast, 1630-1730

by George Francis Dow; John Henry Edmonds

FOOTNOTES

[1] True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith, London, 1630.

[2] Oppenheim, The Administration of the Royal Navy, p. 177.

[3] True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith, London, 1630.

[4] Purchas, His Pilgrimage, Vol. IV, p. 1882.

[5] Perforst, i.e., forced.

[6] Mainwaring, The Beginnings, Practices and Suppression of Pirates, ca. 1717. MS. in British Museum.

[7] To ply: to beat up against a wind.

[8] Floaty, i.e., draw little water.

[9] As early as 1613, English pirates were established at Mamora, at the mouth of the Sebu River on the Barbary Coast. That year about thirty sail were using the port.

[10] By 1618 there were one hundred and fifty Turkish vessels to only twenty English at Algiers.

[11] Doyle, English Colonies in America, Vol. I, p. 383.

[12] Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 35, folio 61.

[13] John Esquemeling, The Buccaneers of America, London, 1684.

[14] Viscount Bury, Exodus of the Western Nations, Vol. II, London, 1865.

[15] New York Colonial Documents, Vol. IV, p. 447.

[16] New York Colonial Documents, Vol. IV, p. 1116.

[17] Babson, History of Gloucester, p. 138.

[18] Andros Tracts, Vol. III, p. 5.

[19] New York Colonial Documents, Vol. IV, p. 521.

CHAPTER II
Dixey Bull, the First Pirate in New England Waters and Some Others who Followed Him

The doubtful honor of having been the first pirate to plunder the small shipping of the New England colonists belongs to one Dixey Bull who was living in London in 1631 and who came over late that fall and for a short time was living at Boston. He probably was sent over by Sir Ferdinando Gorges and certainly was associated with him in a large grant of land lying east of Agamenticus, at York, on the coast of Maine. He came of a respectable family but was of an adventurous disposition and soon after reaching New England became a “trader for bever,” spending much of his time on the Maine coast bartering with the Indians and the scattered white settlers.

In June, 1632, he was trading in Penobscot Bay when a roving company of Frenchmen in a pinnace came upon him and seized his shallop and stock of “coats, ruggs, blanketts, bisketts, etc.” These Frenchmen had previously rifled the trading post on the Penobscot maintained by the Pilgrim Colony at Plymouth, where “many French complements they used, and Congees they made.”[20]

Having lost his slender stock of trading goods Bull seems to have become desperate and getting together a small company of wanderers, located here and there along the coast, he proposed a venture against the French. Governor Winthrop relates that Bull added to his own crew “fifteen more of the English who kept about the East,” and with these men he sailed along the coast in the late summer hoping to fall in with some Frenchmen and so retrieve his losses. But the French kept out of sight and badly in need of supplies he took and plundered two or three small vessels owned by colonial traders and from them forced four or five men to join his company.

The next venture was to sail into the harbor at Pemaquid and loot that trading station of goods to the value of over £500. He met with practically no resistance while the plundering was going on and the goods were safely got on board the shallop. But just as they were weighing anchor, a well-aimed musket shot from shore killed the second in command. This was the first blood that had been shed and as the entire company, so far as known, had had no previous piratical experience, the fatal outcome and the sight of human blood seems to have been somewhat of a shock. Capt. Anthony Dicks, a Salem skipper, fell into their hands not long after and some of them told him of what had happened at Pemaquid and expressed great fear and horror so “that they were afraid of the very Rattling of the Ropes.”[21]

Bull tried to persuade Captain Dicks to pilot them to Virginia which may have been an excellent refuge at that time for a New England pirate, for a contemporaneous Puritan writer describes the Virginia colony as “a nest of rogues, whores, dissolute and rooking persons.” The Salem skipper, however, refused to serve Bull and his company and so the voyage to Virginia was abandoned for the time and it was decided to continue attacks on other trading posts. The company then adopted a body of articles to govern their acts and among them a law against excessive drinking. “At such times as other ships use to have prayer, they would assemble upon the deck, and one sing a song, or speak a few senseless sentences, etc. They also sent a writing, directed to all the governors, signifying their intent not to do harm to any more of their countrymen, but to go to the southward, and to advise them not to send against them; for they were resolved to sink themselves rather than be taken: signed underneath, Fortune le garde, and no name to it.”[22]

The threat of piratical attack on the trading posts was soon spread abroad by men returning from the Penobscot and then “perils did abound as thick as thought could make them.” Late in November the authorities in the Massachusetts Bay sent out a pinnace with twenty armed men to join with four small pinnaces and shallops and about forty men already sent out from Piscataqua and the united expedition in time reached Pemaquid where it lay windbound for nearly three weeks. This was the first hostile fleet fitted out in New England and the first naval demonstration made in the colonies. Samuel Maverick who lived on Noddle’s Island, now East Boston, was the “husband and merchant of the pinnace sent out to take Dixie Bull.”

The pirate shallop was nowhere to be found and after two months of winter weather the hostile expedition returned home. Early in February, 1633, three men who had served under Bull and deserted, reached their homes. They claimed that he had sailed eastward and gone over to the French. Governor Winthrop, two years later, repeated this version of his disappearance, but Capt. Roger Clap of Dorchester, relates in his “Memoirs,” that Bull at last safely reached England. Whatever his fortune or fate he disappears from New England leaving behind him the badly earned fame of having been the first pirate captain in these waters.

Dixey Bull’s captures do not seem to have been followed by any other piratical venture in New England for some years. Shipping sailing to and from England was obliged to run the gauntlet of the Dutch and French privateers and the so-called pirates sailing out of Flushing and Ostend made several captures that effected the fortunes of the Boston traders. Nov. 12, 1644, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts granted a commission to Capt. Thomas Hawkins of Boston “to take any ship that shall assault him, or any other that hee shall have certeine knowledge to have taken either ship or ships of ours, or to take any ship that hath commission to make prize of any of ours.” Fourteen days later he sailed for Spain in the “Seafort,” of four hundred tons, a ship that he had just built and which was loaded with bolts, tobacco, etc. As he neared the Spanish coast very early one morning he thought he saw some Turkish vessels and preparing for attack stood towards them. Unhappily the ship soon went aground about two miles from the shore and nineteen were drowned. Captain Hawkins was a London shipbuilder who came to New England in 1632 and engaged in shipbuilding and commerce. It was his grandson Thomas, who was tried in Boston in 1690 for piracy as is told elsewhere in this volume.

At the Nov. 12, 1644 session of the General Court, a commission was also granted to Capt. Thomas Bredcake for twelve months, to take Turkish pirates, thereby meaning the Algerines who were a constant danger to shipping trading with Spain. John Hull, the Boston mint-master, records in his diary in 1671 that William Foster, one of his neighbors, had been taken by the Turks as he was going to Bilboa with fish. He afterwards was redeemed and reached home safely in November, 1673.

Capt. Thomas Cromwell of Boston, master of the ship “Separation,” obtained a commission in 1645 from the Earl of Warwick, the Lord Admiral of the Long Parliament, and after capturing several rich prizes in the West Indies, came into Massachusetts Bay and was forced by a strong northwest wind to take refuge in Plymouth Harbor where he remained for two weeks. There were about eighty men in his crew and they “did so distemper themselves with drink as they became like madd-men; ... they spente and scattered a great deale of money among the people, and yet more sine than money.”[23]

From Plymouth, he sailed for Boston where he presented Governor Winthrop with a sedan that he had captured. It had been sent by the Viceroy of Mexico as a present to his sister and by capture reached Puritan hands. Captain Cromwell had formerly been known about Boston as a common sailor and on his appearance possessed of a great fortune, the Governor offered him for his use one of the best houses in the town. But the captain refused and took lodgings in “a poor thatched house” saying that in his former “mean estate that poor man entertained him, when others would not, and therefore he would not leave him now, when he might do him good.” Governor Winthrop says of Cromwell:—“He was ripped out of his mother’s belly, and never sucked, nor saw father nor mother, nor they him.”[24] He died in Boston in 1649, and by will gave to the town “my six bells.”

Another Boston man who sailed under a commission from the Long Parliament was Capt. Edward Hull, the brother of John Hull, the mint-master who made the “pine tree shillings.” His vessel, the barque “Swallow frigott,” was owned by his father and brother and he had sent them word that he was engaged in a design for the good of the English nation and for the glory of God. He sailed from Boston in the spring of 1653, and captured several vessels from the French and the Dutch and while in Rhode Island waters sent some of his men to Block Island with orders to seize the trading stock in the house of Capt. Kempo Sebada, which afterwards was valued at nearly one hundred pounds. He then sold the bark and dividing the plunder went for England. Sebada afterwards brought suit for damages against the Hulls, the owners of the bark; but they claimed that the vessel was engaged in privateering wholly without their knowledge and consent and the court gave the verdict to them. It is interesting to note that Edward Hull is styled a “pirate” in the court records and that his father deposed that when he learned of his son’s exploits he did not protest for fear that he would never see him or the vessel again.

Rev. Cotton Mather, the pastor of the North Church, Boston, in his “History of Some Criminals Executed in this Land,” relates the story of the seizure of the ship “Antonio,” in 1672, off the Spanish coast. She was owned in England and her crew quarrelled with the master and at last rose and turned him adrift in the ship’s longboat with a small quantity of provisions. With him went some of the officers of the ship. The mutineers, or pirates as they were characterized at the time, then set sail for New England and on their arrival in Boston they were sheltered and for a time concealed by Major Nicholas Shapleigh, a merchant in Charlestown. He also was accused of aiding them in their attempt to get away. Meanwhile, “by a surprizing providence of God, the Master, with his Afflicted Company, in the Long-boat, also arrived; all, Except one who Dyed of the Barbarous Usage.

“The Countenance of the Master, was now become Terrible to the Rebellious Men, who, though they had Escaped the Sea, yet Vengeance would not suffer them to Live a Shore. At his Instance and Complaint, they were Apprehended; and the Ringleaders of this Murderous Pyracy, had sentence of Death Executed on them, in Boston.”

The three men who were executed were William Forrest, Alexander Wilson and John Smith. As for Major Shapleigh; he was fined five hundred pounds which amount was afterwards abated to three hundred pounds because “his estate not being able to beare it.”

The extraordinary circumstances of this case probably induced the General Court to draw up the law that was enacted on Oct. 15, 1673. By it piracy became punishable by death according to the local laws. Before then a kind of common law was in force in the colony based upon Biblical law as construed by the leading ministers. Of course the laws of England were theoretically respected, but Massachusetts, in the wilderness, separated from England by three thousand miles of stormy water, in practice actually governed herself and made her own laws.

“The Court observing the wicked and unrighteous practices of evill men to encrease, some piratically seizing of shipps, ketches, &c. with their goods, and others by rising up against their commanders, officers, and imployers, seizing their vessells and goods at sea, exposing theire persons to hazard, &c. for the prevention whereof, and that due witnes may be borne against such bold and notorious transgressions,—

“This Court doeth order, & be it hereby ordered & enacted, that what person or persons soever shall piratically or ffelloniously seize any ship or other vessell, whither in the harbour or on the seas, or shall rise up in rebellion against the master, officers, merchant or owners of any such ship or other sea vessell and goods, and dispoyle or dispossess them thereof, and excluding the right owner or those betrusted therewith, every such offender, together with their complices, if found in this jurisdiction, shall be apprehended, and, being legally convicted thereof, shall be put to death; provided allwayes, that any such of the said company (who through feare or force have binn draune to comply in such wicked action), that shall, upon their first arrival in any of our ports or harbours, by the first opperturnity, repaire to some magistrate or others in authority, and make discovery of such a practise, shall not be liable to the aforesaid poenalty of death.”[25]

In July, 1684, this order was revised and it became unlawful for any person to “enterteyne, harbour, counsel, trade, or hold any correspondence by letter or otherwise with any person or persons that shall be deemed or adjudged to be privateers, pyrates, or other offenders within the construction of this Act.” The highest commissioned officer in any town or harbor was also impowered to issue warrants for the seizure of suspected privateers and pirates and he could raise and levy armed men to inforce the apprehension of such persons.

Pillars of Salt.
An HISTORY
OF SOME
CRIMINALS Executed in this Land
FOR
Capital Crimes.
With some of their Dying
Speeches;
Collected and Published,
For the WARNING of such as Live in
Destructive Courses of Ungodliness.
Whereto is added,
For the better Improvement of this History,
A Brief Discourse about the Dreadful
Justice of God, in Punishing of
SIN, with SIN.
Deut. 19, 20.
Those which remain shall hear & fear, and shall henceforth
commit no more any such Evil among you.
BOSTON in New-England.
Printed by B. Green and J. Allen, for Samuel Phillips
at the Brick Shop near the Old Meeting House, 1699.

On the evening of July 6, 1685, a small ketch hailing from New London, Conn., came to anchor before the town of Boston and the next morning the master, Capt. John Prentice, appeared before the General Court and gave information that he had been chased by a pirate until he had come in sight of the Brewster’s, at the mouth of the harbor. He deposed that while at New London, on July 1st, a sloop had put into that port commanded by one Captain Veale, and with him was one Harvey who was the merchant on board. Captain Veale asked Captain Prentice if he might “set his mast by the said Prentice’s Katches side,” which was done. A little later there came in a vessel from Pennsylvania commanded by Capt. Daniel Staunton who at once accused Veale and Harvey of piracy committed in Virginia. Staunton went before the local magistrate and repeated his charge and demanded that Veale and Harvey be arrested and tried as pirates. But the magistrate was a little uncertain of his authority and asked for security. While the matter was being discussed Harvey “went away from them in great hast, & got on bord & speedily sailed away in the said Sloop.”

Not long after Captain Prentice set sail in his ketch and on clearing the mouth of the harbor he saw a shallop at anchor with Veale’s and Harvey’s sloop hove to near by. A boat passed from the shallop to the sloop and soon the sloop stood to seaward firing guns several times and catching sight of Captain Prentice’s ketch made after her, the chase continuing until darkness came on when the course of the ketch was changed and in the morning nothing was seen of the sloop. Three days later, however, early in the morning, the sloop was sighted ahead under easy sail and after a time she bore up toward the ketch. Captain Prentice then ordered guns to be fired and also “spread his antient” and braced to for the sloop to come up. But Captain Veale brought to as well and kept to the windward for about an hour all the while firing guns. A severe thunder storm then coming up the sloop fell to the leeward but continued in chase of the ketch until the Brewster’s, off Boston harbor, came in sight, when the sloop bore away towards Cape Ann and Captain Prentice came to an anchorage before the town without further molestation.

Captain Prentice also reported that one Graham was in command of the shallop seen in company with Veale and that fourteen men were said to be on board. Captain Veale, while at New London, tried to buy of John Wheeler several small carriage guns offering three times their value. At the time he was well supplied with money. Nicholas Hallam, a sailor on board the ketch, testified before the magistrates that the men on board the suspected sloop had some silver plate with the letters and marks scratched out and also some fine clothing, including a plush cloak, a broadcloth petty-coat trimmed with broad gold lace and also “a pair of staies of cloth-of-Tishue.”[26]

The Court at once ordered drums to be forthwith beat up for a convenient number of volunteers not exceeding forty to man Mr. Richard Patteshall’s brigantine. Soon the Court was informed that the men did not readily offer themselves to the service of the country in the expedition against Veale and Graham, whereupon it was ordered “for their Incouragemt that free plunder be offered to such as shall Voluntarily list themselves or that a sufficient number of men be forthwith Impressed to that service.” Those willing to serve were directed to report “with sufficient & compleate Arms” to Mr. John Vyall at the ship Tavern “where Capt. Sampson Waters will enter their names & direct them presently to goe on board the Brigantine whereof Mr. Richard Patteshall is master.”

The directions given to Capt. Sampson Waters required him “in all difficulties to consult with Mr. Richard Pattishall endeavoring to maintain a good correspondence with him.” All goods seized were to be brought back for a legal condemnation; prisoners were to be brought to Boston for trial and care was to be taken to “beware of killing any of the enemy unnecessarily or exposing your own company to any hazard without necessity.”[27]

The expedition at last got away and after cruising about the Bay for several days returned empty-handed like many other similar expeditions that were sent out in following years.

Piracy now began to be more common on the New England coast. Buccaneering in the West Indies was disappearing and some of these bold adventurers raised a black flag against all nations. Desperate sailors out of a berth also became rovers. The number of sporadic appearances of these men in northern waters can only be touched upon in these pages. They came upon the coast and then sailed away leaving little behind save a mention of their coming.

In the summer of 1687 the ketch “Sparrow,” Richard Narramore, master, owned by Nicholas Paige of Boston, arrived in the harbor from the Barbadoes and the Isle of Eleuthera. She had sailed from Boston ten months before bound for Virginia with English goods. Captain Narramore loaded with provisions at Maryland and at Roanoke and then sailed for the Barbadoes where the lading was sold for plate and money. At the Isle of Eleuthera he loaded with dyeing wood and took on board eighteen passengers under an agreement that they should be landed at Newfoundland for forty pieces of eight, per man, passage money. One of these men, John Danson, shipped as mate and came to Boston in the ketch but the rest changed their minds as to their intended destination and asked to be landed at different points. Two men were put ashore at the easternmost end of Long Island; six landed at Gardiner’s Island; five at “Martin’s” Vineyard; one was taken to the “Sackadehock” on the Maine coast and two were left at “Damaras Cove” near there. Captain Narramore claimed that he had learned the names of none of these men; but he admitted that they had brought on board two heavy chests which were taken off at Gardiner’s Island.

Strange stories began to circulate about the wharves and Captain Narramore and his mate were soon sent for by the magistrates. A search of Danson’s chest discovered nine hundred pieces of eight—not a very large fortune for a successful pirate! Danson deposed that he had sailed from Boston four years before in a private man-of-war commanded by one Henley, “bound for the Rack,” and afterwards had gone into the Red Sea where they had plundered and taken what they could from the Malabars and the Arabs. He left Henley and took passage with one Wollery, a consort of Henley, for the Isle of Eleuthera where he shipped with Captain Narramore. He acknowledged that Henley was now considered a pirate. Thomas Scudder, one of the passengers who had come to Boston, had gone on board a ketch bound for Salem, where his family lived, and Christopher Goffe had gone ashore at Gardiner’s Island.[28]

A warrant was issued for the arrest of Scudder and the seizure of any plate, money or goods in his possession. The sheriff in Essex County also arrested several other supposed pirates who were sent to Boston for examination.

Christopher Goffe came into Newport, R. I., in a ship commanded by William Wollery who was supposed to have come from the Great South Sea. A shot was fired across their forefoot whereupon they came to anchor but the next day sailed for Andrews Island where the vessel was burnt and the men dispersed.[29] In November, 1687, Goffe appeared in Boston and surrendered himself in pursuance of His Majesty’s “Proclamation for Calling in and Suppressing Pyrates and Privateers.” He was then very sick and weak and gave a bond, also signed by two Boston citizens, that as soon as he recovered he would go to England and receive the King’s pardon.

Nothing seems to have come of the lengthy investigations made by the magistrates. The plate and money that had been seized was returned to Captain Narramore and John Danson and two of the suspected passengers who had been taken—Edward Calley and Thomas Dunston—were freed and their money, plate and “a parcel of stones” returned to them.

About the same time a man named William Douglass applied to Edward Randolph, the English Agent, for relief. He had been a passenger on board a small vessel sailing between the Barbadoes and the Carolinas and had been taken by Henry Holloway, the pirate, from whom he had escaped as the pirate ship rode at anchor in Casco Bay, Maine.

Christopher Goffe recovered from his sickness and in August, 1691, was commissioned by Governor Bradstreet, to cruise with his ship “Swan” between Cape Cod and Cape Ann and off the Isles of Shoals for the safeguard of the coast. This came about as the result of the capture at Piscataqua, now Portsmouth, N. H., of a vessel commanded by Capt. Thomas Wilkinson, inward bound from Cadiz. She was taken by two privateers commanded respectively by Capt. Thomas Griffin and Captain Dew. Captain Griffin landed at Portsmouth and sent a letter to the Governor in which he claimed that he carried a privateering commission and that he had mistaken Captain Wilkinson for a French vessel said to be on the coast. But as he had found prohibited goods on board he had seized her after firing three great shot and a volley of small arms. Captain Griffin wrote that he feared if he brought the prize to Boston he “should be unkindly dealt with.” He also quite gratuitously accused the Bostonians of furnishing the French at Fort Royal with arms, ammunition and cloth in truck for beaver and other goods. Griffin and Dew first carried their prize into the Isle of Shoals and afterwards into the river at Portsmouth where part of the cargo was disposed of without trial or adjudication.

Meanwhile, Captain Goffe was anchored near Portsmouth. On August 14th he wrote to the Governor:—“I shall obay your honors Comand in making Seasuer of Capt. Griffin and Capt. Dew If it lies in my power to meet with them ... one of them is now in site standing of and on between this place and the Isle of Sholes.... They sayle two foot to ower one.... Ower Bread and beare is all most Expended.” A few days later he asked to be recalled to Nantasket to provide necessary supplies, “the Docters chest Espeshely,”[30] and there the episode seems to have ended.

The ketch “Elinor,” William Shortrigs, master, came to anchor at Nantasket road, near the mouth of Boston harbor, early in the afternoon of Nov. 20, 1689. She was inward bound from the island of Nevis, loaded with sugar and indigo, and the wind failing and the flood tide being almost spent, the captain was obliged to anchor as most of his men were sick or disabled with the cold. Leaving the vessel in charge of James Thomas, he took his mate and one other man and started for Boston in the ship’s boat to get help to bring the vessel into harbor. Provisions also were running short. The next day his owner, Mr. Thomas Cooper, was unable to secure a permit to bring her up because there had been smallpox on board but on the 22d he told the captain that she might be brought up as far as the Castle, so four men were sent down the harbor. The next morning they returned and astonished the captain with the news that the ketch had disappeared from her anchorage. Mr. Cooper at once sent out a “hue and cry” according to law and hired a sloop to go in search of the missing ketch which was found two days later run ashore within Cape Cod hook.

About seven o’clock in the evening of the day on which Captain Shortrigs had started to row up to Boston, Thomas was between decks and had just called the boy to turn the glass and mind the pump, when he heard a noise on deck and going up to investigate found that four armed men and a boy had come aboard. One of the men at once gave Thomas a blow on the head with the butt of his musket and ordered him to keep quiet. Soon after he was forced under the half-deck and the scuttle was shut and a tarpaulin put over it. The leader of the party then came down into the cabin and asked how many were on board, finding four men, two boys and a woman, all sick save Thomas and one of the boys. The armed men then cut the cable, which was about half in, and two of them went aloft to cut the gaskets and loose the sails after which a course was taken for Cape Cod.

The next morning was Friday and early in the day they came to anchor at Cape Cod and shot a musket to call a shallop. The leader asked Thomas if he would go to England with them when they were revictualled and when he refused they threatened his life. When the shallop came out to them an agreement was made for a supply of provisions which were brought out the next morning, but only a small supply—a gallon of rum, some biscuits and some cheese. The shallop-men said the ketch must be brought in nearer shore. About midnight, at full sea, they loosed the cable and let it run out and not long after the ketch went ashore. At low water the armed party went off and soon disappeared.

Such was the homely tale of the appearance and disappearance of the ketch “Elinor.” The sequel was soon found in the new stone gaol in Boston where William Coward, Peleg Heath, Thomas Storey and Christopher Knight were to be seen confined and in irons. What became of the boy does not appear. Thomas Pound, Thomas Hawkins, Thomas Johnston and other more valorous pirates were also confined there at the same time. Justice moved swiftly that year and notwithstanding the claim made by Coward, the leader of the party that boarded the ketch, that his crime had been committed upon the high seas without the jurisdiction of the court, he was found guilty of piracy and sentenced to be hanged on January 27, 1690.[31] His companions also were found guilty and sentenced to death but afterwards reprieved and eventually allowed to go free.

The story of the capture of James Gillam, a notorious pirate in his time, is best told by the Earl of Bellomont, Governor of Massachusetts, in a letter written to the Council of Trade and Plantations on Nov. 29, 1699.

“I gave you an account, Oct. 24, of my taking Joseph Bradish and Tee Wetherley, and writ that I hoped in a little time to be able to send news of my taking James Gillam, the Pirate that killed Capt. Edgecomb, commander of the Mocha frigate for the East India Co., and that with his own hand while the Captain was asleep. Gillam is supposed to be the man that encouraged the ship’s company to turn pirates, and the ship has been ever since robbing in the Red Sea and Seas of India. If I may believe the reports of men lately come from Madagascar, she has taken above £2,000,000 sterling. I have been so lucky as to take James Gillam and he is now in irons in the gaol of this town, and at the same time we seized one Francis Dole, in whose house he was harboured, who proves to be one of Hore’s crew, one of Col. Fletcher’s pirates, commissioned by him from N. York. Dole is also committed to gaol. My taking of Gillam was so very accidental, one would believe there was a strange fatality in that man’s stars. On Saturday, 11th inst., late in the evening, I had a letter from Col. Sanford, Judge of the Admiralty Court in Rhode Island, giving me an account that Gillam had been there, but was come towards Boston a fortnight before, in order to ship himself for some of the Islands, Jamaica or Barbadoes; that he was troubled he knew it not sooner and was afraid his intelligence would come too late to me; that the messenger he sent knew the mare Gillam rode on to this town. I was in despair of finding the man because Col. Sandford writ to me that he was come to this town so long a time as a fortnight before that. However, I sent for an honest constable I had made use of in apprehending Kidd and his men, and sent him with Col. Sandford’s messenger to search all the inns in town for the mare, and at the first inn they went to they found her tied up in the yard. The people of the inn reported that the man that brought her thither had lighted off her about a quarter of an hour before, had then tied her, but went away without saying anything. I gave orders to the master of the inn that if anybody came to look after the mare, he should be sure to seize him, but nobody came for her. Next morning, which was Sunday, I summoned a Council, and we published a proclamation wherein I promised a reward of 200 [pieces of eight] for the seizing and securing Gillam, whereupon there was the strictest search made all that day and the next that was ever made in this part of the world, but we had missed of him, if I had not been informed of one Capt. Knot as an old pirate, and therefore likely to know where Gillam was concealed. I sent for Knot and examined him, promising him, if he would make an ingenious confession, I would not molest him. He seemed much disturbed, but would not confess anything to purpose. I then sent for his wife and examined her on oath apart from her husband, and she confessed that one who went by the name of James Kelly had lodged several nights in her house, but for some nights past he lodged, as she believed, in Charlestown, cross the river. I knew he went by the name of Kelly. Then I examined Capt. Knot again, telling him his wife had been more free and ingenious than him, which made him believe she had told all, and then he told me of Francis Dole in Charlestown, and that he believed Gillam would be found there. I sent half a dozen men immediately over the water, to Charlestown and Knot with ’em; they beset the house and searched it, but found not the man, Dole affirming he was not there, neither knew he any such man. Two of the men went through a field behind Dole’s house and passing through a second field they met a man in the dark (for it was 10 o’clock at night) whom they seized at all adventures, and it happened as oddly as luckily to be Gillam; he had been treating two young women some few miles off in the country and was returning at night to his landlord Dole’s house. I examined him, but he denied everything, even that he came with Kidd from Madagascar, or ever saw him in his life; but Capt. Davies who came thence with Kidd, and all Kidd’s men, are positive he is the man and that he went by his true name Gillam all the while he was on the voyage with ’em, and Mr. Campbell, Postmaster of this town, whom I sent to treat with Kidd, offers to swear this is the man he saw on board Kidd’s sloop under the name of James Gillam. He is the most inpudent, hardened villain I ever saw. That which led me to a search after this man was the information of William Cuthbert, which I sent your Lordships with my packet of July 26th, wherein he says that it was commonly reported that Gillam had killed Capt. Edgecomb with his own hands, that he had served the Mogul, turned Mohammedan and was circumcised. I had him searched by a surgeon and a Jew in this town: they have both declared on oath that he is circumcised. I recommend the perusal of the evidence I enclose as what will inform you of the strange countenance given to pirates by the Government and people of Rhode Island. In searching Capt. Knot’s house America belonging to the E. I. company. I should think an advertisement in the Gazette requiring some of those men to appear before one of the Secretaries of State to give their evidence would be proper.

“Your Lordships will meet with a pass among the other papers to Sion Arnold, one of the pirates brought from Madagascar by Shelley of N. York, signed by Governor Basse, which is a bold step in Basse after such positive orders as he received from Mr. Secretary Vernon, but I perceive plainly the meaning- of it, he took several pirates at Burlington in West Jerzey and a good store of money with them as ’tis said: and I dare say he would be glad they [?should] escape, for when they are gone who can witness what money he seized with ’em? I know the man so well that I verily believe that’s his plot. John Carr mentioned in some of the [?papers to] be in Rhode Island was one of Hore’s crew. There are abundance of other pirates in that island at this time, but they are out of my power. Mr. Brinley, Col. Sanford, and Capt. Coddington are honest men and of the best estates in the island, and because they are heartily weary of the maladministrations of that Government, and because I commissioned ’em, by virtue of H. M. Commission to me, to [make] enquiry into the irregularities of those people, they are become strangely odious to ’em and are often affronted by ’em; neither will they make ’em Justices of the Peace, so that when they would commit pirates to gaol, they are forced to go to the Governor, for his warrant, and very [comm]only the pirates get notice and avoid the warrant. Gardiner, the Dep. Collector, is accused to have been once a pirate, in one of the papers enclosed. I doubt he will forswear himself rather than part with Gillam’s gold which is in his hands. ’Tis impossible for me to transmit to the Lords of the Treasury these proofs against Gardiner, being so jaded with writing, but I could wish they were made acquainted with his character and would send over honest, in[tellige]nt men to be Collectors of Rhode Island, Connecticut and N. Hampshire, and that they [would] hasten Mr. Brenton hither to his post or send some other Collector in his room. I could wish Mr. Weaver were ordered to hasten to N. York. Captain Knot in one of his depositions accuses Gillam to have pirated four years together in the South Sea against the Spaniards. We have advice that Burk, an Irishman and pirate, that committed sea-robberies on the coast of Newfoundland, is drowned with all his ship’s company, except 7 or 8, somewhere to the southward, in the hurricane about the end of July or the beginning of Aug. last. ’Tis good news, he was very strong and said to have had a good ship with 140 men and 24 guns.”[32]

John Halsey was a Boston privateersman who heard of the good fortune of those who scoured the Red Sea and the Arabian coast and so abandoned cruising on the banks of Newfoundland and set a course for Madagascar. He was the son of James and Dinah Halsey and was born Mar. 1, 1670. As a boy he followed the sea and in time became master of small vessels trading with the Southern Colonies and the West Indies. In April, 1693, while master of the sloop “Adventure,” of Boston, he testified in court in relation to a seaman shipped by him the previous November on a voyage to Virginia. At that time he deposed that he was twenty-three years old.

While Joseph Dudley was governor, he was given the command of the brigantine “Charles,” and sent out with a privateering commission to cruise against French vessels on the fishing banks. From there he went to the Canaries where he took a Spanish “barcalonga” which he plundered and sunk. Having determined on a free life in the Indian Ocean he wooded and watered at one of the Cape Verdes and then stood away for the Cape of Good Hope and Madagascar.

For a time Captain Halsey was followed by ill-fortune. He was nearly taken by a Dutchman of sixty guns and later was chased by the “Albemarle,” East Indiaman, and only got clear because he could show a better share of heels. In the Strait of Babelmandeb, a Moorish fleet of twenty-five sail came upon him and the brigantine was only saved from being taken when they fell to with their oars. Three days later their luck changed and two English ships fell into their hands after brisk fighting. The loot amounted to over £50,000 in money and also many bale goods, so they steered for Madagascar where they shared their booty. Here, Captain Halsey fell sick of a fever and died in 1716 and was buried with great ceremony. His sword and pistols were laid on his coffin, which was covered with a ship’s jack, and minute guns were fired. He was a brave man and died regretted by his men and the friends he had made in Madagascar. “His Grave was made in a Garden of Water Melons and fenced in with Pallisades to prevent his being rooted up by wild Hogs, of which there are Plenty in those Parts.”[33]

Another Massachusetts pirate was Joseph Bradish of Cambridge, who was born there Nov. 28, 1672. In March, 1698 he was in London, England, out of a berth and so shipped as boatswain’s mate on board “the ship or hakeboat Adventure,” Thomas Gulleck, commander, bound for the island of Borneo on an interloping trade. The ship was about 350 tons burthen and carried twenty-two guns. The following September, while at the island of Polonais for water, most of the officers and passengers being on shore, the rest of the ship’s company cut the cable and ran away with the ship. There were about twenty-five men aboard and Joseph Bradish was chosen their commander because of his skill in navigation. Sail was made for Mauritius where they refitted the ship and took on fresh provisions and then a course was set for New England.

Not long after rounding the Cape of Good Hope a sharing was made of the money found on board which was contained in nine chests stowed in the breadroom. Each man received over fifteen hundred Spanish dollars and the captain was assigned two and a half shares. Later there was a sharing of the broadcloths, serges and other goods in the lading of the ship.

The “Adventure” arrived at the east end of Long Island on March 19, 1699 and Captain Bradish went on shore at Nassau Island taking with him most of his money and jewels. He sent a pilot on board to bring the ship around to Gardiner’s Island, but the wind not favoring, Block Island was made instead. Two men were then sent to Rhode Island to buy a sloop but the Governor, suspecting them to be pirates, ordered them seized. A day or two later several sloops sailing near the “Adventure” were hailed and after some bartering one of them was bought and another hired. The sloopmen were allowed to take what they pleased out of the ship and having transferred their money and some of the richer of the lading to the two sloops, the “Adventure” was sunk. Some of the crew were set ashore at different landings where they reached farmhouses and purchased horses and departed for parts unknown.

Captain Bradish and others of his company ventured into Massachusetts early in April, but the news of their arrival at Long Island had preceded them and soon the captain and ten of his men were lodged in the stone gaol in Boston where Caleb Ray, his kinsman, was the gaol-keeper. Bradish and his men were examined by the authorities and several of them confessed. Money and goods to the value of about £3000, were seized and Bradish’s jewels, which had been left with Col. Henry Peirson at Nassau Island, were sent for and taken to New York to be inventoried. Ten or more of his crew were also captured on Rhode Island.

Bradish lay in gaol for nearly two months and it does not appear that he was placed in irons which was the fate of Captain Kidd a few weeks later. Governor Bellomont ordered Kidd placed in irons weighing sixteen pounds and not content with that paid the gaoler forty shillings a week above his salary in the hope of keeping him honest. This all came about because Bradish was allowed to escape. Caleb Ray, the gaol-keeper, was a relative of Bradish, a fact unknown to the authorities, and doubtless not many days passed before family influences were exerted in his behalf.

On the morning of June 25th, Ray found the prison door open and Bradish and Tee Wetherly, one of his company, who had but one eye, were missing. The Governor was angry and finding the Council slow to take action he became still more enraged. Learning that prisoners had mysteriously escaped at other times, Ray finally was dismissed and a prosecution ordered.

Meantime, Bellomont had devoted much of his time to pirates and piracy. Kidd had been taken and his spoil sequestered. A ship had arrived at New York bringing sixty pirates from Madagascar and a vast deal of treasure. The New York owners were said to have cleared £30,000 by the voyage. He learned that about two hundred Madagascar pirates were intending to take passage for New York in Frederick Phillips’ ships at £50 each. A great ship had been seen off the Massachusetts coast supposed to be commanded by Maise, the pirate, and laded with much wealth taken in the Red Sea. There was a sloop in at Rhode Island, undoubtedly a pirate as the crew went ashore daily and spent their gold freely. He also was occupied in manning out a ship to go in quest of the “Quidah Merchant,” Kidd’s ship, left by him in the West Indies. Long reports were sent to the Lords of Trade and Plantations by the busy Governor in one of which he mentions “having writ myself almost dead.”

RICHARD COOTE, EARL OF BELLOMONT, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1699-1700
From a rare engraving in the Harvard College Library

When Bradish and Wetherly stole out of gaol they made their way to the eastward and Governor Bellomont offered a reward of two hundred pieces of eight for the recapture of Bradish and one hundred pieces for Wetherly. He also wrote to the Governors of Canada and St. Johns. There happened to be in Boston at the time, an Indian sachem, Essacambuit, who had come to make submission in behalf of the Kennebeck Indians and the reward sent him on the trail of the fleeing pirates with such success that they were taken and brought into the fort at Saco. On Oct. 24th, they were again in Boston gaol, this time well secured with irons. During the following months they made two unsuccessful attempts to escape. Once they broke through the floor, but that failing them a night or two later they filed off their fetters, whereupon they were manacled and chained to one another. “I believe this new gaoler I have got is honest; otherwise I should be very uneasy,” wrote the Governor.[34]

On Feb. 3, 1700, the man-of-war “Advice” arrived in Boston harbor for the express purpose of conveying Kidd, Bradish and other pirates to London, for trial before an Admiralty Court and on April 8th they arrived there, still in irons.

Justice was summarily meted out to Bradish and his men and their fate became well-known to sailormen and pirates in all seas. Twenty years later when Capt. Bart. Roberts captured a Boston-bound ship, the captain was told by some of the pirate crew that they never would “go to Hope-Point, to be hang’d up a Sun drying, as Kidd’s and Braddish’s Company were; but that if they should ever be overpower’d, they would set Fire to the Powder, with a Pistol, and go all merrily to Hell together.”