[156] New England Courant, July 22, 1723 (postscript).
[157] An account of the Pirates, with divers of their Speeches, etc., Boston, 1723.
[158] A great storm occurred on July 29, 1723, during which the pirate sloop, then at anchor at New York, was forced to cut down her mast and afterwards was driven out to sea and lost. New England Courant, Aug. 12, 1723 (postscript).
[159] Johnson, History of the Pirates, London, 1726.
CHAPTER XVII
John Phillips whose Head was Cut off and Pickled
The sloop “Squirrel,” commanded by Skipper Andrew Haraden, sailed out of Annisquam harbor, Cape Ann, on the morning of April 14th, 1724, bound eastward on a fishing voyage. She was newly built. In fact, the owner and skipper were both so anxious to see her on her way to the banks that they didn’t wait for all the deck-work to be completed before she sailed and so the necessary tools were taken along with the intention of finishing the work before Cape Sable was reached. As the sloop made outward into Ipswich Bay two or three sails were in sight, among them a sloop, off to the eastward, following a course similar to the “Squirrel” but a point or two more to the north, so that early in the afternoon when the vessels were both off the Isles of Shoals, the stranger was only a gunshot distant.
Skipper Haraden was looking her over when suddenly a puff of smoke broke out of a swivel on her rail and the ball struck the water less than a hundred feet in front of the “Squirrel’s” bow. Just after the gun was fired the sloop ran up a black flag and soon the Annisquam fisherman was headed into the wind and her skipper was getting into a boat in answer to a command that came across the water from the pirate. When he reached her deck, Haraden found that the pirate was commanded by Capt. John Phillips who was well-known from the captures he had made among the fishing fleets the year before. He was then on his way north after spending a pleasant winter in the warm waters of the West Indies and on the way up the coast had made numerous captures.
When Captain Phillips found that he had taken a newly built vessel, with lines that suggested speed, he decided to take her over and the next day the guns, ammunition and stores were transferred to the “Squirrel” and the fishermen were ordered aboard the other sloop and left to shift for themselves; but Skipper Haraden was forcibly detained.
Haraden soon found that about half of the men with Phillips had been forced like himself and were only waiting for a chance to escape and one of them, Edward Cheeseman, a ship carpenter, “broke his mind” to Haraden not long after the vessels separated. It developed that various plans had already been cautiously discussed by several of the captured men and now that another bold man was aboard and an extra broadax and adz used to complete the carpenter work on the “Squirrel” were about the deck, the time seemed ripe to rise and capture the vessel. John Filmore, a fisherman who had been captured by Phillips while off the Newfoundland coast the previous fall, was active in abetting Cheeseman in the proposal to rise. Filmore came from the town of Wenham which is not far from Annisquam, and in November, 1724, after having been acquitted of piracy by the Admiralty Court in Boston, he married Mary Spiller of Ipswich and his son Nathaniel, became grandfather of Millard Fillmore, President of the United States.
Several of the men on the “Squirrel” were for surprising the pirates at night but as the sailing master, John Nutt, was a man of great strength and courage, it was pointed out that it would be dangerous to attack him without firearms. Cheeseman, who had taken the lead in proposing the capture of the vessel, was resolutely in favor of making the attack by daylight as less likely to end in confusion or mistake. He also volunteered to make way with the long-armed Nutt. The plan agreed upon called for a united assault at noon on April 17th, while the carpenter’s tools lay about the deck, Cheeseman, the ship-carpenter, having his tools there also. When the time arrived, Cheeseman brought out his brandy bottle and took a dram with the rest, drinking to the boatswain and the sailing master and “To their next merry meeting.” He then took a turn about the deck with Nutt, asking him what he thought of the weather and the like. Meanwhile, Filmore took up a broadax and whirling it around on its point as though at play, winked at Cheeseman to let him know that all was ready. He at once seized Nutt by the collar and putting the other hand between his legs and holding hard he tossed him over the side of the vessel. Nutt, taken by surprise, had only time to grasp Cheeseman’s coat sleeve and say “Lord, have mercy upon me! What are you trying to do, carpenter?” Cheeseman replied that it was an unnecessary question “For, Master, you are a dead man,” and striking him on the arm, Nutt lost his hold and fell into the sea and never spoke again.