John Gow, who took the piratical name of Captain Smith, was second mate of the George galley, which he conspired with half the crew to seize when on the voyage to Santa Cruz. On a given signal, the utterance of a password, "Who fires first?" an attack was made on the first mate, surgeon, and supercargo, whose throats were cut. The captain, hearing a noise, came on deck, when one mutineer cut his throat, and a second fired a couple of balls into his body. The ship's company consisted of twenty: four were now disposed of, eight were conspirators, and of the remaining eight, some of whom had concealed themselves below decks and some in the shrouds, four had joined the pirates. The other four were closely watched, and although allowed to range the ship at pleasure, were often cruelly beaten. The ship was rechristened The Revenge; she mounted several guns, and the pirates steered her for the coast of Spain, where several
prizes were taken—the first a ship laden with salted cod from Newfoundland, the second a Scotch ship bound to Italy with a cargo of pickled herrings, the third a French ship laden with oil, wine, and fruit. The pirates also made a descent upon the Portuguese coast and laid the people under contributions.
Dissensions now arose in the ship's company. Gow had a certain amount of sense and courage, but his lieutenant was a brutal ruffian, often blinded by passion, and continually fermenting discord. At last he attempted to shoot Gow, but his pistol missed fire, and he was wounded himself by two of the pirates. He sprang down to the powder-room and threatened to blow up the ship, but he was secured, and put on board a vessel which had been ransacked and set free, the commander of it being desired to hand the pirate over to the first king's ship he met, to be dealt with according to his crimes. After this the pirates steered north for the Orkneys, of which Gow was a native, and after a safe passage anchored in a bay of one of the islands. While lying there one of his crew, who had been forced into joining them, escaped to Kirkwall, where he gave information to a magistrate, and the sheriff issued a precept to the constables and others to seize The Revenge. Soon afterwards ten more of the crew, also unwilling members of it, laid hands on the long-boat, and reaching the mainland of Scotland, coasted along it as far as Leith,
whence they made their way to Edinburgh, and were imprisoned as pirates. Gow meanwhile, careless of danger, lingered in the Orkneys, plundering and ransacking the dwelling-houses to provide himself with provisions, and carrying off plate, linen, and all valuables on which they could lay hands.
Arriving at an island named Calf Sound, Gow planned the robbery of an old schoolmate, a Mr. Fea, whom he sought to entrap. But Mr. Fea turned the tables upon him. Inviting Gow and several of the crew to an entertainment on shore, while they were carousing Mr. Fea made his servants seize the pirates' boat, and then entering by different doors, fell upon the pirates themselves, and made all prisoners. The rest, twenty-eight in number, who were still afloat, were also captured by various artifices, and the whole, under orders of the Lord Chief Justice, were despatched to the Thames in H. M. S. Greyhound, for trial at the Admiralty Court. They were committed to the Marshalsea, thence to Newgate, and arraigned at the Old Bailey, where Gow refused to plead, and was sentenced to be pressed to death. He pretended that he wished to save an estate for a relation; but when all preparations for carrying out the sentence were completed, he begged to be allowed to plead, and "the judge being informed, humanely granted his request." Gow and six others were eventually hanged at Execution Dock.
Pirates who fell in with ships usually sought to gain recruits among the captured crews. The alternative was to walk the plank or to be set adrift in an open boat, or landed on an uninhabited island. For those who thus agreed under compulsion a still harder fate was often in store. Captain Massey was an unfortunate instance of this. While serving in the Royal African Company he was for some time engaged in the construction of a fort upon the coast with a detachment of men. They ran short of food, and suffered frightfully from flux. When at the point of death a passing ship noticed their signals of distress, and sent a boat on shore to bring them on board. The ship proved to be a pirate. Captain Massey did not actually join them, but he remained on board while several prizes were taken. However, he gave information at Jamaica, the pirate captain and others were arrested and hanged, and Captain Massey received the thanks of the governor, who offered him an appointment on the island. But Massey was anxious to return to England, whither he proceeded armed with strong letters of recommendation to the lords of the Admiralty. To his intense surprise, "instead of being caressed he was taken into custody," tried, and eventually executed. His case evoked great sympathy. "His joining the pirates was evidently an act of necessity, not choice," and he took the earliest opportunity of giving up his involuntary associates to justice—a conduct by
which he surely merited the thanks of his country, and not the vengeance of the law.
From the foregoing account it is easy to draw conclusions concerning the state of public morals and manners in the eighteenth century. Both the atrocity of the crimes and the barbarity of the punishments surpass everything the twentieth century can show, while to the populace generally the highwayman and the bully were heroes. Though our century is by no means free from crime, we may congratulate ourselves that we have advanced beyond the eighteenth, at least so far as crimes of violence are concerned.
END OF VOLUME I.