Williams had reached Block Island on April 28th, too late to join Bellamy, and while there had beguiled on board and forced three men, Dr. James Sweet, George Mitchell and Willaim Tosh.[95] From Block Island, he steered easterly and the next day, April 29th, reached the scene of the wreck. From there he chased several fishing vessels and then stood out to sea. He was back again a month later and took a ship and a schooner and even came into Cape Cod harbor on May 24th and then sailed through Vineyard Sound the following Sunday. He was then in great want of provisions. On May 25th, a man-of-war and an armed sloop, with ninety men, had sailed from Boston in pursuit. The news was sent to Rhode Island and Governor Cranston replied, “I hope it will please god to Bless Your Excellency’s Indevours by the Sirprize and Caption of those Inhumaine Monsters of pray so as our Navigation may be made more Safe and Secure.”

As for the possible escape of men from the wrecked “Whidaw,” the only evidence that now appears is found in the deposition of Daniel Collins, the master of a Cape Ann fishing sloop, who was captured by a small pirate sloop on May 10th. He was forty leagues eastward of Cape Ann at the time. There were nineteen men on board the pirate and they told him that “they were the only men that escaped that belonged to the ship that run on shoar att Cape Cod and that they made their escape in the long boat.” Since then they had taken three shallops and three schooners that belonged to Marblehead.

Pirates usually were brought to a speedy trial in Boston; but for some reason the men who escaped the perils of the sea on Cape Cod remained in gaol until Friday, Oct. 18th before they were taken into Admiralty Court and made to taste the perils of the land. John Julian, the Cape Cod Indian, was brought to Boston with the others but never was tried. He disappears from the records and may have died. Thomas Davis, the twenty-two year old Welshman, was able to convince the Court that he was a forced man and when he was cleared “put himself on his knees and thanked the Court and was dismissed with a suitable admonition.”

The remaining seven:—Simon Van Vorst, 24 years, born in New York; John Brown, 25 years, born in Jamaica; Thomas Baker, 29 years, born in Flushing, Holland; Hendrick Quintor, 25 years, born in Amsterdam; Peter Cornelius Hoof, 34 years, born in Sweden; John Sheean, 24 years, born in Nantes; and Thomas South, 30 years, born in Boston, England; were brought to trial in the Court House standing at the head of what is now State Street. Governor Shute, the Captain-General of the Province, sat as President of the Court and beside him was Lieutenant-Governor Dummer. The prisoners were charged with piracy in taking the “free trading Vessel or Pink called the Mary Anne” and were tried under the statute made in the 11th and 12th year of the reign of William III. The evidence was conclusive. Thomas South, it appeared by the testimony, was a ship carpenter who had been forced by Bellamy the previous December, from a Bristol ship commanded by Capt. James Williams. He was cleared. The others were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged on Friday, Nov. 15, 1717, “at Charlestown Ferry within the flux and reflux of the Sea.”

After the condemned pirates were removed from the courtroom the ministers of the town took them in hand and “bestowed all possible Instructions upon the Condemned Criminals; often Pray’d with them; often Preached to them; often Examined them; and Exhorted them; and presented them with Books of Piety.” At the place of execution Baker and Hoof appeared penitent and the latter joined with Van Vorst in singing a Dutch psalm. John Brown, on the contrary, broke out into furious expressions with many oaths and then fell to reading prayers, “not very pertinently chosen,” remarks the Rev. Cotton Mather. He then made a short speech, at which many in the assembled crowd trembled, in which he advised sailors to beware of wicked living and if they fell into the hands of pirates to have a care what countries they came into. Then the scaffold fell and six twitching bodies, outlined against the sky, ended the spectacle.

Instructions to the LIVING,
from the Condition of the
DEAD.
A Brief Relation of REMARKABLES
in the Shipwreck of above
One Hundred
Pirates,
Who were Cast away in the Ship Whida, on the Coast of New-England, April 26. 1717.
And in the Death of Six, who after a Fair Trial at Boston, were Convicted & Condemned, Octob. 22. And Executed, Novemb. 15. 1717. With some Account of the Discourse had with them on the way to their Execution.
And a SERMON Preached on their Occasion.
Boston, Printed by John Allen, for Nicholas Boone, at the Sign of the Bible in Cornhill. 1717.

FOOTNOTES

[87] Paul Williams, sometimes styled Paulsgrave Williams, is said to have been born on Nantucket. Later he lived at Newport, Rhode Island.

[88] The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy, Boston, 1717.