[89] The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy, Boston, 1717.
[90] Johnson, History of the Pirates, London, 1726.
[91] Johnson, History of the Pirates, London, 1726.
[92] The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy, Boston, 1717.
[93] About two and one-half miles south of the present life-saving station at Wellfleet.
[94] Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Vol. III, p. 120.
[95] Massachusetts Archives, Vol. II, leaf 165.
CHAPTER IX
George Lowther who Captured Thirty-Three Vessels in Seventeen Months
Most of the piracies perpetrated by this man took place away from the New England coast, but as he aided Capt. Ned Low to begin his piratical career and at various times was his consort, it seems proper to include here some relation of the villainies that he committed. Lowther was an Englishman and an honest man when he sailed from London in March, 1721, as second mate of the ship “Gambia Castle,” owned by the Royal African Company and commanded by Capt. Charles Russell. The ship was carrying stores and a company of soldiers to the river Gambia, on the African coast, to garrison a fort some time before captured and destroyed by Capt. Howel Davis, the pirate. She came to anchor at Gambia in May and before long disputes arose between Lowther and Captain Russell in which many of the crew sided with the second mate. These disputes eventually led to a conspiracy whereby the ship was seized during the absence of the captain on shore, and with Lowther in command the ship sailed down the river.
When safely at sea Lowther called the entire company together and made a speech in which he pointed out the folly of returning to England, for, by seizing the ship they had been guilty of an offence, the penalty of which was hanging, and for one he didn’t propose to chance such a fate. Continuing, he said if the company didn’t accept his proposal he only asked to be set ashore in some safe place. His proposal was that they should seek their fortunes on the seas as other brave men had done before them. The sailors and soldiers on board proved to be a crowd of good fellows not suited for the gallows or damp prison cells and so fell in with his suggestions. The cabins were knocked down, the ship made flush fore and aft and renamed the “Happy Delivery,” and the following “Articles” were drawn up, signed and, strangely enough, sworn to upon a Bible, viz:—