Quelch, the Boston pirate, had his sturdy protestants; so too did Major Bonnet, colleague of the infamous Blackbeard, and so did many other sea rogues. In truth, almost every instance of the sort exhibits the moral hardihood of an incorruptible minority.
John Gow’s eight were delivered over to the rough abuse of Lieutenant Williams, who flogged them at will, and set men to keep them at work at the point of the cutlass. On them fell all the hard labor of the ship and they became the drudges of whatever roistering rascal chose to command them.
At the same time, there is a final leniency about Gow’s treatment of this minority which lifts him from the charge of entirely purposeless ferocity. Purposeless ferocity is a tradition of piracy, but a curious thing is that not one of the pirates, of the major type, whose crimes were afterwards subjected to judicial examination, is particularly marked with a simple lust of cruelty. Tales of brutality abound concerning ruffians like Lafitte, England, Low, Lewis, Rackam and the rest of the roguish gallery, which may or may not be true. The same stories circulated about Kidd, Quelch, Avery and Gow, but when compared with the judicial records, the source alone of this series of pirate tales, of the activities of these last-named men, merely wanton cruelty is notably missing. On the contrary, in not a few cases there is a surprising magnanimity manifested by men of undoubtedly criminal disposition.
Lives were taken in the actual capture of ships, but when the pirates gained possession there is no judicial record of plank-walking or other inhuman treatment. More often than not, the pirate chief recruited new hands from among the captives, though apparently without compulsion, and those that refused to join the black flag were commonly allowed to return to their ship and go their way. Plunder was the chief quest of the pirates, and that obtained their interest in ships or men ceased. If the pirate coveted the ship for his own use, he generally disposed of its crew by signing on those who would and putting ashore those who would not. Not that he was a tender chap—he could be very frightful where he conceived his profit required violence—but merely sportive torture was not a characteristic of those remembered in the only authentic sources of the subject,—the printed trials of the pirates. If this is true of those of whom we have definite information, it follows that the sanguinary accounts of those who never came to trial must be considerably thinned out by doubt.
Gow in his method followed the invariable practice of piracy: he stole his ship. They all began that way. In all the judicial reports of piracy we have examined only Major Stede Bonnet bought and outfitted a vessel for what was then called “the grand account.” In two cases that we know of, the disaffection of the crews made possible their corruption; Henry Avery, mate of the Charles the Second, capitalized the discontent of the men at not receiving their pay from the Spanish Government, and as Gow, in his quarter-deck speech declared, short rations and harsh treatment combined to drive the crew of the George into mutiny. Probably the captains of neither the Charles the Second nor the George were individually responsible for the condition; they were themselves creatures of circumstance, but as representatives of the owners or charterers they became the tangible objects of undiscriminating violence.
The men who managed mutinous plots such as these were much more shrewd in their selection of conspirators than were the men who attempted the great political plots of history, for the sea plotters seldom or never had a betrayal. They never approached the entire crew, but picked out a positive core, who would hold fast, seize ship and weapons and dominate the situation. Perhaps this resolute conduct rose from the personal sense of wrong under which the individual plotter suffered; self-interest only could have produced so tight an adhesion to the group. The first part of the game called for few rather than many men, and apparently Gow could have persuaded four more men to come in with him than he actually did.
Properly, the matter was a mutiny but its development into piracy was inevitable, foreseen and provided for. In their position, they might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb.
Another typically piratical trick followed; they painted out George and substituted for it the name Revenge, of all ship’s names the best beloved of pirates.
The sailmaker hemmed up a strip of black bunting and under the funereal ensign they turned their prow to the affronted sea.