In the summer of 1674, while the Dutch were yet in control of New York, the privateer frigate “Flying Horse,” came sailing into the harbor. Her commander, Capt. Jurriaen Aernouts, had been commissioned by the governor of Curacao, “to take, plunder, spoil and possess any of the ships, persons or estates” of the enemies of the great States of Holland, which meant the English and the French at the time the commission was issued. But when the Dutch captain reached New York he was much surprised to learn of the treaty of peace, signed nearly six months before, which made it illegal for him to prey on English shipping. The war was still on with France, however, so he decided to sail northward for the fishing banks and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. While the “Flying Horse” was recruiting and preparing for sea, Captain Aernouts accidentally made the acquaintance of a coasting pilot from Boston, Capt. John Rhoade, an adventurous character who told the captain that he was well acquainted with the coast along the French colonies at the north; that their forts and defences were weak and if taken by surprise it would be easy conquest for him of a rich fur country. Rhoade said that he had recently been at Pentagoet (now Castine, Maine) and had exact information as to the strength of the French garrison there. The Dutch captain submitted the project to his officers and crew and it was unanimously favored. Captain Rhoade then enlisted, took the oath of allegiance to the Prince of Orange, and was made the chief pilot of the “Flying Horse.”
The Dutchmen landed at Pentagoet on Aug. 1, 1674, and as the fort was garrisoned by only thirty men it soon surrendered. The commander of the fort, M. de Chambly, was also the Governor of Acadie and for him a ransom of one thousand beavers was demanded, an amount he was unable to furnish. With the Governor on board, the “Flying Horse” sailed eastward and every French fort and trading post as far as the St. John river was captured. Captain Aernouts proclaimed all this territory a Dutch conquest, naming it New Holland, and at every point where he landed he buried a bottle containing a copy of his commission and a statement of his conquest. Laden with the plunder of Acadie, the “Flying Horse” reached Boston the last of September and the Dutch captain applied to Governor Leverett for leave to remain in the harbor in order to repair his ship and dispose of his plunder. This was granted and soon the frigate lay at anchor before the town. The Colony gladly purchased the cannon that had been taken from the French forts and the Boston traders bought the rest of the spoil.
The Massachusetts fur traders now applied to Captain Aernouts for leave to trade in the newly conquered territory, a privilege they had always paid well for in the past. But they were disappointed, for the Dutch officers claimed that this conquest had been made by the sword and that the fur trade was of great value to the States of Holland, so all requests for leave or license were refused. The owners of two Boston vessels, however, disregarded the warnings of the Dutch officers and set sail, and probably others followed.
When Captain Aernouts was ready to depart, which was about the first of November, he left in Boston two of his officers, Capt. Peter Roderigo, a “Flanderkin,” and Capt. Cornelius Andreson, a Dutchman, and also Captain Rhoade and a Cornishman, John Williams, and gave these men and their associates, authority to return to New Holland and there to trade and keep possession until further instructions were received. They induced four or five others to join them and before the month had gone they had purchased a small vessel, the “Edward and Thomas,” Thomas Mitchell of Malden, part-owner, who shipped with the company, which was commanded by Roderigo, and hired another, the “Penobscot Shallop,” commanded by Andreson, and after arming them as well as they could, they sailed down the harbor with the flag of the Prince of Orange at each topmast. At Pentagoet, they found that Englishmen from Pemaquid had recently been there and carried away iron and other materials found in the ruins of the fort. Farther eastward, Edward Hilliard of Salem was found in a small vessel, and when ordered to come on board he immediately submitted and said he was ignorant that he was trespassing on their authority and further complained of the bad voyage he had made thus far. He was dismissed with a warning and his vessel and peltry returned to him. Not long after they came upon a Boston vessel, commanded by William Waldron, who had been refused a permit to trade. He was recognized at once and his vessel made a prize but after a time returned to him. His peltry, however, was seized.
Among the men who had applied for a permit to trade and been refused was George Manning, who commanded a shallop called the “Philip,” owned by John Feake, a Boston merchant. Nevertheless he had sailed and on December 4th Captain Roderigo came upon him at anchor in “Adowoke Bay to ye Estward of Mount deZart.” The shallop was boarded, the hatches opened and all the peltry taken away. Captain Manning had in his cabin a loaded pistol and planned to shoot Captain Roderigo but a boy on board warned him to look out for himself and drawing a cutlass the “Flanderkin” laid about him. There was some firing of guns but no one was killed. Manning was confined on board the Dutch boat and the next day it was proposed to burn his shallop and set him adrift in his boat. Rhoade told him he deserved to be turned ashore on an island and there be compelled to eat the roots of trees. Manning had received a flesh wound in one hand and was cut about the head. There is much confusion in the testimony bearing on the encounter and doubtless some lying, but it is plain that Manning continued in command of his shallop and accompanied the Dutchmen in their later operations.[35]
A small barque owned by Major Shapleigh of Piscataqua in New Hampshire was taken shortly and found to have traded for peltry and also to have brought provisions from Port Royal to the French at Gamshake on the St. John river. The peltry and provisions were seized and the barque dismissed. The Dutchmen, when on trial in Boston, claimed that this barque had transported French from Port Royal to the St. John river and supplied them with ammunition so that when Captain Roderigo arrived that winter they were able to defend themselves and he was obliged to return to Machias in Maine, where he had established a trading post.
The Dutch carried on a prosperous trade with the Indians that winter at Machias and there was always the hope that the tri-colored flag of the United Provinces might appear over a fleet coming to their assistance. On March 10th, 1675, a vessel flying an English flag appeared off shore. It was commanded by Thomas Cole of Nantasket. A boatload of men, well armed, came ashore and finding only four men at the trading post these were soon overpowered. The Dutch flag was pulled down, the men taken prisoners and the winter’s store of peltry and trading goods carried off. The Dutch afterwards testified in court that Cole ordered Randall Judson’s[36] arms bound behind him and then put him ashore where he remained for four days and nights without shelter or food, and this was early in March on the eastern Maine coast.
It was to be expected that sooner or later the news of the capture of the trading vessels would reach Boston. The shallop commanded by George Manning was owned by John Feake, a Boston merchant, and Feb. 15, 1675, he appeared before Governor Leverett and the Magistrates and made his complaint, that property had been piratically seized and his vessel detained. He named Captain Rhoade as the principal offender. William Waldron and others had already presented a protest. Mr. Feake proposed that Capt. Samuel Mosely, afterwards the famous Indian fighter, be instructed to organize an expedition to proceed to the eastern parts and seize Rhoade and his company, and the Council at once assented and ordered that no shipping in the harbor bound eastward should be permitted to sail until after Captain Mosely and his company had departed. Captain Mosely had recently been in command of an armed vessel that had cruised about the island of Nantucket to protect Boston interests against suspected attacks by the Dutch, and he was ready for any new adventure. He received his instructions on Feb. 15, 1675 and soon after sailed for the eastward. Before reaching the Dutchmen he fell in with a French vessel which he induced to join his enterprise. He provided her with men and ammunition and when these vessels bore down on Captain Roderigo’s little fleet, Manning, who had gone into the Dutch service at a wage of £7 per month, at once joined the new-comers and without taking the trouble to haul down the tri-colored flag flying from his topmast, opened fire on the Dutch vessels. Taken by surprise and attacked by three vessels carrying English, French and Dutch colors, resistance was soon over. The prisoners were closely confined, their vessels were plundered of the peltry obtained during the winter’s barter and their remaining trading stock was turned over to Boston men who had accompanied the expedition and these traders were left to continue the barter with the Indians while the victorious Captain Mosely sailed back to Boston where he arrived on April 2d. Again, had commercial greed brought about military attack. The Dutch, at war with France, had seized French territory which previously had been exploited by colonial traders, who, deprived of their rich opportunity for gain, now seized the Dutch outpost.
The Court of Assistants met at Cambridge on April 7th and ordered the pirates, as the prisoners were styled, confined in the prison at Cambridge. The Dutch vessels and their fittings were appraised and left in the hands of John Feake who had made the complaint of the alleged piracy. At the examination of the prisoners, the day they reached Boston, they frankly declared what had been done by them and justified in writing their supposed authority. A special Court of Admiralty was then summoned to meet on May 17th, but before the day arrived John Feake, the complainant, was dead and buried. On May 4th, he had gone on board a ship in the harbor, just arrived from Virginia, and while in the great cabin with Captain Scarlett, one of the appraisers of the Dutch vessels, in conference with the supercargo of the ship and others, there was a great explosion resulting in the death of Feake, Scarlett and the supercargo, and the wounding of nine others. The great Increase Mather preached a sermon “Occasioned by this awful Providence.”
The Court of Admiralty sat on the day appointed and shortly declared the Dutch vessels and their cargoes lawful prizes to be delivered to the heirs of Feake as satisfaction for the injury done to the shallop commanded by Manning. The Court then adjourned. A week later it reassembled and Peter Roderigo and Cornelius Andreson were placed on trial, charged with piratically seizing several small English vessels and making prize of their goods, etc.[37] A verdict of guilty was declared against Roderigo and he was sentenced to be hanged. Not long after he petitioned the Great and General Court for his life and on May 12th “the Court judged it meete to grant the petitioner a full & free pardon, according to his desire in his petition.” Roderigo found his way again to the eastward and in June of the next year served in the company of Capt. Joshua Scottow in Indian fighting about Black Point, near Scarborough, Maine. On the other hand Andreson, who owned during his examination that he had taken two English vessels, Waldron’s and Hilliard’s, was not found guilty of piracy and the Court sent the jury out again with instruction to “find what they could against him.” The jury obediently brought in a verdict of guilty of “theft and robbery,” based on the seizure of the peltry. He, too, was sentenced but later pardoned.