Pirate tales from the law

by Arthur M. Harris

Sea-fighters were all right if you could keep them fighting the other ship. With a hostile craft in front of them there was no trouble about putting the medley of privateersmen at work, and a ship which could provide a good naval battle every morning before breakfast was more likely to be a contented ship than one which loafed a long while between engagements, thus allowing the free gentlemen time to hatch for themselves a little essential excitement. Mutiny was accepted as a passable substitute for battle.

Perhaps Plowman felt more comfortable when he glanced at the rocky features of Quelch and Holding; for if ever there were two men in the right jobs such were they. With iron hands and iron nerves to drive them they could meet any contingency the crowd of subordinates might present. Perhaps Plowman was of the same sort, but he was a sick and aging man. He was in the hands of his lieutenants.

Englishmen of the first or second generation made up the list of seamen; Cæsar-Pompey, Charlie and Mingo, first or second generation Africans, were in command of the galley. Cæsar-Pompey and Charlie were pressed into the service; they had not volunteered to handle the pots and pans of the brig.

They were the slaves of one Colonel Hobbey; and Quelch, finding them on the street, ran them aboard the brig. You see he did not hesitate about small matters. The ship would need cooks, of course, and here were two black fellows who ought to know how to cook even if they did not, so why not ship them? Why worry about the gallant colonel? Worry would be his job when the Charles was far at sea.

Thus casually Cæsar-Pompey and Charlie found themselves dedicated to a life on the ocean wave. They were to travel far and see much ere they beheld the good Colonel Hobbey again. Quelch was by way of being something of a crimp.

Cooks and seamen being now on hand, in August, 1703, the brig spread her square sails and drew away from the steaming wharves of Boston toward the cool acres of the ocean. No doubt the worthy merchants and a concourse of citizens cheered her departure; probably there were speeches, and mayhap a town band was on the dock. Anthony Holding especially must have enjoyed these marks of civic appreciation.

According to orders they headed off for Newfoundland; but Plowman, who was still sick, must have left the managing of the ship largely to Quelch, his immediate subordinate. Everything went snappily as with leather throats and fisted hands Quelch and Holding hustled the men into quick, effective action.

When they had been a week out from Boston it was easy to see that the captain was in a bad way. Probably at his command they put in at a way port to obtain medical help. The brig was anchored in the stream, and Quelch went ashore in the boat.

Now among the riffraff aboard there was a handful—a small handful—of the more decent sort of seamen, of whom Pimer and Clifford were representatives. These two began to get anxious about the captain as the afternoon dragged on and no boat, Quelch or doctor returned from the shore. The sick man was groaning all the time and in apparent extremes. Nobody seemed to pay any heed to him; but all afternoon the crew roared and shouted and quarreled over their cards and dice, while aft by the cabin only Holding turned about and about on the deck, his hands behind his back, preoccupied with his thoughts.

It began to strike Pimer and Clifford as odd, to say the least; so toward evening, as the August sun was turning red behind the hills, Pimer and Clifford went to the cabin to give a little human help. As they passed Holding, walking up and down the deck, he looked at them queerly but said nothing.