Captain Pound, meanwhile, had ordered a course for Falmouth, Maine, which was reached early Monday morning. The ketch came to anchor about four miles below the fort and sent ashore a long boat with three men in it, one of whom was John Darby, who was known to Silvanus Davis, the commander at Fort Loyal. While two of the men filled water casks, Darby reported to Commander Davis that the ketch had come from Cape Sable where it had been taken by a privateer brigantine that had robbed them of some lead and most of their bread and water. He also said that Captain Chard, the master of the ketch, had hurt his foot and needed a doctor. One was sent for and went out to the ketch immediately. It was all a part of a scheme to secure his services for the proposed expedition, but the doctor lost his courage and declined the post, but when he came back to Falmouth, he had a variety of tales about the ketch,—sometimes that there were few on board and that they were honest, and at other times that there were many on board.
It was noticed that the doctor, after he came back from the ketch, was much in conversation with the soldiers belonging to the fort which aroused the suspicions of the commander so that at night, after all the soldiers were in their quarters, he charged the guard to keep a close watch on the water side of the fort. He little thought at the time that he was placing his trust in men who already had planned to desert.[46] For so it turned out and as soon as the rest were asleep the guard and sentinels robbed the sleeping soldiers of everything “except what was on their backs,” took all the ammunition they could lay their hands on, including a brass gun and going down to a large boat, that was afloat just below the fort, went on board the ketch. Commander Davis was greatly upset over what had happened, and well he might be, for he lacked a sufficient number of men to properly garrison the fort from Indian attack and had no vessel to engage an enemy that might attack by sea. As it turned out, the fort was attacked by French and Indians the following May and forced to surrender when women and children and wounded men were mercilessly slaughtered.
The morning after the soldiers deserted, there being little wind, Commander Davis sent two men in a canoe to demand of Captain Pound that the soldiers be sent back to the fort. He laughed at the request and not only refused to return any of the arms and clothing that had been stolen from the sleeping soldiers but threatened to go into the harbor and cut out a sloop at anchor belonging to George Hesh.
After helping himself to a calf and three sheep feeding on an island in the bay, Pound set sail for Cape Cod, and early on the morning of the 16th came upon the sloop “Good Speed,” John Smart, master, owned by David Larkin of Piscataqua, lying at anchor under Race Point, at the tip of the Cape. A boatload of armed men took possession of the sloop and as she was a larger vessel than the ketch she was taken over by the pirates and Captain Smart and his men were given the ketch and set free. Pound told Captain Smart that when he reached Boston “to tell there that they knew ye Govt Sloop lay ready but if she came out after them & came up wth them they shd find hott work for they wd die every man before they would be taken.”
Smart reached Boston on the 19th with this audacious message. The Great and General Court was in session at the time and an order was immediately adopted to fit out the sloop “Resolution,” Joseph Thaxter, commander (which had been built during the Andros administration as a Province sloop, but in some way had got into private hands), with a crew of forty able seamen, to cruise along the coast and “strenuously to Endeavour the Suppressing and seizing of all Pirates, Especially one Thomas Hawkins, Pound and others confederated with them,” being “very careful to avoid the shedding of blood unless you be necessitated by resistance and opposition made against you.” And as for “those men who shall go forth in said Vessel ... It’s ordered that they be upon usual monthly wages, and upon any casualty befalling any of the said men by loss of Limb or otherwise be maimed that meet allowance and provision be made for such.”[47] Captain Thaxter in the “Resolution,” was no more successful in his search for pirates than the vessel that had been sent out from Salem for the reason that the pirate sloop was constantly moving about and after another capture at Homes’ Hole had sailed through the Sound before a north-easterly gale and finally brought up in York river, Virginia.
Soon after Pound took possession of the sloop “Good Speed,” he put in to Cape Cod and sent some of his crew ashore, in charge of Hawkins, to get fresh meat. They killed four shoats and after wooding and watering, the sloop sailed around the Cape to “Martyn’s Vineyard Sound,” and on August 27th, sighted a brigantine at anchor in Homes’ Hole. Pound ordered “a bloodie flagg” hoisted and running up to the brigantine ordered her master to come aboard the pirate sloop. The brigantine was the “Merrimack,” John Kent of Newbury, master, and he at once obeyed the command, and after reporting his destination and cargo, the vessel was plundered of twenty half-barrels of flour, and sugar, rum and tobacco. Captain Kent was then allowed to go.
Sailing out into the Sound the sloop ran into a stiff northeaster and was forced away to Virginia where Pound found his way into York river. Easterly winds kept him at anchor here for over a week. This happened at a very fortunate time for the man-of-war ketch at York river had sunk shortly before and the ship on the station was being careened. The sloop made into the mouth of James river and there lay aground for a day before they could get her afloat again. While the men were at work on the sloop, Pound and Hawkins went ashore. There they met two sailors, John Giddings and Edward Browne, who were looking for adventures and at night these men came off to the sloop on a float bringing with them a negro they had kidnapped belonging to a Captain Dunbar. They also brought out some other spoil in the shape of an old sail, a piece of dowlas, and some galls and copperas. The next day the weather moderated and the sloop made sail to go out into the bay. She hadn’t been out very long before Hawkins noticed that they were being followed by another sloop so all sail was crowded on and the strange sloop began to fall behind and at length gave up the pursuit and went back into James river.
From Virginia, Pound sailed directly for the Massachusetts coast and came to anchor in Tarpaulin Cove, on the southeast side of Nanshon Island in Vineyard Sound. Here they filled their water casks. A Salem bark,[48] William Lord, master, homeward bound from Jamaica, was also at anchor in the Cove and as she was evidently more than they cared to tackle, Hawkins went on board and offered to trade sugar for an anchor. Captain Lord was ready to trade and he also purchased for £12, the negro that had been brought from Virginia, and gave a draft on Mr. Blaney of the Elizabeth Islands in payment.
Not long after coming out of Tarpaulin Cove, Pound sighted a small ketch, commanded by one Alsop, who escaped into Martha’s Vineyard harbor when he found that he was being chased and even then the ketch might have been taken if the inhabitants hadn’t gathered and made a show of defending her.[49] This happened on a Sunday. Pound and his company then went over the shoals about the same time that Captain Lord sailed for home. Near Race Point, at the end of Cape Cod, Hawkins went ashore with a boat’s crew and making some excuse went inland over the dunes and didn’t come back. After waiting a while the men returned to the sloop and reported his desertion. Hawkins afterward claimed that while at Tarpaulin Cove he had been recognized and told if ever he came back to Boston he would be hanged. Probably he thought he would try to save his skin if possible or at least drop out of sight for a time.
After leaving the boat’s crew Hawkins walked south along the shore and finally fell in with some Nauset fishermen to whom he told his story of escaping from Pound and something of his adventures. He asked their protection in case Pound and his men should attempt to find him. The Nauset men, however, made short work with Hawkins and after fleecing him thoroughly turned him loose to shift for himself. Fortunately he met Capt. Jacobus Loper,[50] the master of a small sloop, whom he had known in Boston and who was about setting sail for Boston and so was shipped for the voyage. On the way Hawkins talked freely about his doings. He was particularly bitter over his treatment by the Nauset fishermen and said they “ware a pasel of Roughes & if he got Cleer at Boston from this troble that was now on him, as he did not question but he should, he would be Revenged on them for theire base dealing for they be wors pirats than Pounds & Johnson.”[51] He told Captain Loper that when he left Boston their company had intended to go privateering and expected to get a commission at St. Thomas. But when he was asked if he proposed to go all the way to the West Indies in the small Bermudas boat in which they left Boston, “he was upon this surprised & wholly silent.” Loper told him “that it apeered by his words that he would first take a biger vessell as he before said & did: & that he was a foole & would hang himself by his discorce then he answered, by God thay kant hang me for what has bin don for no blood has bin shed.”[52] As he neared Boston his courage began to fail and soon he proposed to Captain Loper that for old acquaintance’ sake he conceal him on board and send the sloop to Salem with oysters and so allow him to escape to the Dutch man-of-war lying there at anchor. This was a privateer, the “Abraham Fisher, a Scotch Rotterdammer.” Loper, however, thought best to turn him over to the Boston authorities and soon Hawkins was shackled and safely lodged in the new stone gaol.