[162] Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 63, leaf 381.
[163] Ibid., Vol. 63, leaf 386.
[164] Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 63, leaf 383.
[165] Phillips had captured between August 29, 1723 and April 14, 1724, a snow from New York, Low, master; three shallops; fifteen fishing vessels; three schooners, Haskel of Cape Ann, Furber and Chadwell; three brigantines, Moore, Read, and Francisco, masters; four sloops, Barrow, Salter and Harradine, masters; five ships, one from France, and a Frenchman, another from Martinico, Hussam from London to Virginia, two from Virginia for London, John Phillips and Robert Mortimer; in all thirty-four vessels.—Boston News-Letter, Apr. 30—May 7, 1724 issue.
[166] Boston News-Letter, May 28-June 4, 1724 issue.
CHAPTER XVIII
William Fly, who was Hanged in Chains on Nix’s Mate
The piratical career of this fellow was very short, a fortunate thing for shipping along the New England coast, as he was a bloody-minded man who would undoubtedly have become a scourge had he been able to increase his ship’s company and secure a vessel better suited to his purposes. The “Remarkable Relation of a Cockatrice crush’d in the Egg” is the characterization made by the Rev. Cotton Mather in his narrative of Fly’s career published in Boston soon after the execution of the pirates.
Fly was born in England and went to sea early. He was of obscure parentage and of limited education and until he led the mutiny and capture of the Bristol snow, in May, 1726, he had served only as a foremast-man or petty officer.
In the spring of 1726 he was at Jamaica, in the West Indies, when a snow owned by Bristol merchants and commanded by Capt. John Green, came to anchor in the harbor. The snow “Elizabeth” was bound for the coast of Guinea on a slaving voyage and being short of hands, Fly was shipped as boatswain. The captain of a slaving ship must be a man of strong character, a rough and ready type, and Captain Green soon incurred, in some way, the enmity of Fly who began plotting with several of the men whom he found ripe for any kind of villainy. They resolved before long to seize the snow, murder the captain and mate and turn pirates.
On May 27, 1726, Fly had the early morning watch. At one o’clock, accompanied by the other mutineers, he went to the helmsman, Morice Cundon, and told him with many curses that if he spoke a word or stirred from his post they would blow his brains out. Fly then rolled up his shirt sleeves and cutlass in hand went into the captain’s cabin accompanied by Alexander Mitchell. Captain Green awoke instantly and asked what was the matter. Mitchell replied that they had no time to answer impertinent questions; that he was to go on deck at once and if he refused they would be at the trouble of scraping the cabin to clean up his blood, for Captain Fly had been chosen commander and they would have no other captain on board nor waste provisions to feed useless men. Captain Green said he would make no resistance and proposed that they should put him ashore somewhere meanwhile keeping him in irons.