When Ambrose was about twenty-one years old he married the daughter of a "chirugeon," Mark Attkins. After their marriage Ambrose and Catherine moved to Lancaster County and settled on a plantation known as Broad Neck Quarter.
The house of Ambrose Fielding II, was built like a small fort in the wilderness, probably for defense against Indians. It was built of brick with loop-holes in the walls. A brick wall surrounded the house, and it too was pierced with loop-holes.
This house is said to have been located near the seat of the Carters at Corotoman. This statement seems to have been borne out by the will of King Carter, 1728, in which he mentions a "Fielding's Place." In 1749 the King's grandson, Robert Carter III, of Nomini Hall, owned about two thousand acres in a tract in Northumberland called Fielding's Quarter.
PIRATES
In the time of King Carter of Corotoman, the Chesapeake was alive with pirates. He wrote that they were "very bold and roguish ... miserable case, the Crown takes no more care of so vast a fleet of ships as uses this bay."
The pirates reaped a rich harvest from the unprotected ships that traveled to and from foreign ports. In one year four ships bound back to Virginia from England had been sunk.
There were three types of pirates—the "bloody pirate," who was simply a robber on the high seas; the privateers, who commanded armed private vessels commissioned to cruise against the commerce or war vessels of the enemy; and buccaneers, who were freeholders who preyed upon Spanish as well as American vessels and settlements.
With its many bays and rivers the coastline of Tidewater Virginia was hard to defend. Pirates could swoop down in their fast boats and rob vessels and plunder the plantations along the shore. It was easy to make a landing in the lower counties of the Neck where the land was low and there were wharves at the plantations.
In 1699, Captain Kidd, who tradition says wore a gold chain around his neck and picked his teeth with a toothpick of gold, entered the Chesapeake in his vessel Alexander. The militia of the maritime counties was called out but Captain Kidd, after plundering several ships, sailed away.
Louis Guittar entered the Bay in 1700 and plundered and destroyed five vessels while there. At some time during this period, a ship-load of pirates reached the waters of the upper Chesapeake, where they captured a large sloop. They anchored that evening not far from shore and, tradition says, "the pirates were heard beating their drums all night long."