THE PIRATE SHIPS “ROYAL FORTUNE” AND “RANGER” IN WHYDAH ROAD, JANUARY 11, 1722
From an engraving in Johnson’s “General History of the Pirates,” London, 1725
Bartholomew Roberts, one of the most successful and level-headed of the pirate captains who plagued shipping during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, sailed into the harbor of Trepassi in Newfoundland, the last of June, 1720, with black colors flying, drums beating and trumpets sounding. There were twenty-two vessels at anchor in the harbor and every man on board fled ashore at sight of the pirate ship. Roberts burned or sank every vessel except one, which he manned, and then ruthlessly destroyed all the fishing stages of the poor planters, depriving inoffensive men of their means of livelihood with absolutely no attendant advantage to himself. It was this same crew that captured the ship “Samuel,” Captain Cary, a few days later. She was from London bound for Boston with a rich cargo. These furies opened the hatches and swarmed into the hold armed with axes and cutlasses and cut and smashed all the bales, cases and boxes they could reach and when any goods came on deck that they didn’t want to carry aboard their ship, instead of tossing them back into the hold they threw them overboard. Captain Cary was told “that they should accept no Act of Grace; that the King and Parliament might be damned with their Acts of Grace; neither would they go to Hope’s Point, to be hang’d up a sun drying, as Kidd’s and Braddish’s Company were; but if ever they should be overpowered, they would set Fire to the Powder, with a Pistol, and go all merrily to Hell together.”[179]
“Walking the plank” was a diversion practised at a later day among the West India pirates whereby their victims were blindfolded and forced to find a watery grave at the end of a plank thrust out from the vessel’s side. But this was not original with them for in the days of the Roman empire when the Mediterranean pirates took a ship they frequently would enquire if any on board were Romans and when found the pirates would fall down on their knees before the citizens of that illustrious nation, as though asking pardon for what they had done. Other deferences would be shown until their captives actually grew to believe in their sincerity. When that point was attained the outlaws would hang the ship’s ladder over the side and with great show of courtesy tell their victims they were free to leave the vessel in that way. The shock to the unfortunate Romans always greatly amused the pirates who then would throw them overboard with much laughter.
Since those early times when men first effected crude forms of government to guard and control their relations with each other, the pirate has been looked upon as a common enemy. In the days of the Roman empire neither faith nor oath need be kept with him. However, “might made right” in those days, as in later times, and when large bodies of successful sea rovers set up an organized state or government that assumed a somewhat permanent form, after a time they would be recognized by existing nations and granted the right of legalized warfare with diplomatic and commercial intercourse. The Mediterranean and the Baltic were nurseries for growths of this character and as late as 1818, European nations were paying tribute to the corsair governments on the Barbary coast.
Piracy was considered among Englishmen a kind of petty treason until about the year 1350, when it was made a felony by law and it has remained so ever since. In 1536, during the reign of Henry VIII, the laws relating to piracy were defined by Act of Parliament and the forms of trial, executions of sentence, etc., were established and with slight modifications were in force in New England during the period covered by the preceding chapters. By the practical working of this statute curious applications sometimes developed. An Englishman captured from a foreign vessel flying the flag of a country with which England was then at war, was declared to be a pirate and so dealt with; but a subject of a country at war with England, if taken on board an English pirate vessel, was not deemed to be engaged in piracy but in actual warfare.
Here are some of the laws at that time, relating to piracy, abstracted from the “Statutes of the Realm.”
“If Letters of Marque be granted to a Merchant, and he furnishes out a Ship, with a Captain and Mariners, and they, instead of taking the Goods, or Ships of that Nation against whom their Commission is awarded, take the Ship and Goods of a Friend, this is Pyracy; and if the Ship arrive in any Part of his Majesty’s Dominions, it will be seized, and for ever left to the Owners; but they are no Way liable to make Satisfaction.
“If a Ship is assaulted and taken by the Pyrates, for Redemption of which, the Master becomes a Slave to the Captors, by the Law Marine; the Ship and Lading are tacitly obliged for his Redemption, by a general Contribution; but if it happen through his own Folly, then no Contribution is to be made.
“If Subjects in Enmity with the Crown of England, are aboard an English Pyrate, in Company with English, and a Robbery is committed, and they are taken; it is Felony in the English, but not in the Stranger; for it was no Pyracy in them, but the Depredation of an Enemy, and they will be tried by a Martial Law.