The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Captain Hunt stayed in harbor, but his chagrin was lightened when he saw a British frigate come in almost before the schooner had sailed beyond sight. Manning a boat he hurried aboard the frigate, and told her commander what he knew about the Mexican and what he more than guessed about the rakish schooner. The frigate put about and made sail in chase but the pirate eluded her in the night and laid a course for the African coast.

Shortly after this, the British war brig Curlew, Captain Henry D. Trotter, was cruising on the west coast of Africa, and through the officers of the frigate which had chased the pirate out off St. Thomas, she received the story of the Mexican and a description of the schooner. Captain Trotter cogitated and recalled the appearance of a schooner he had recently noticed at anchor in the River Nazareth on the African coast where slavers were wont to hover. The description seemed to fit so closely that the Curlew sailed at once to investigate. When she reached the mouth of the river, Captain Trotter with a force of forty men in boats went upstream, and pulled alongside the schooner at daybreak, ready to take her by storm. The pirates, however, scrambled into their own boats, after setting fire to their schooner and escaped to the shore where they took refuge in the swamps and could not be found. A few days after a prize crew had been put aboard the schooner she was accidentally blown up, killing two officers and two men of the Curlew. The mysterious rakish schooner therefore vanishes from the story with a melodramatic finale.

The stranded pirates meantime had sought the protection of a native king, who promised to surrender them when the demand came from Captain Trotter. After much difficulty, four of the pirates were taken in this region. Five more were captured after they had fled to Fernando Po, and the vigilance of the British navy swelled the list with seven more of the ruffians who were run down at St. Thomas. The pirates were first taken to England, and surrendered to the United States Government for trial in 1834. On August twenty-seventh of that year the British brig of war Savage entered Salem harbor with a consignment of sixteen full-fledged pirates to be delivered to the local authorities.

There was not a British flag in Salem, and the informal reception committee was compelled to ask the British commander for an ensign which might be raised on shore in honor of the visit. The pirates were landed at Crowninshield’s Wharf and taken in carriages to the Town Hall. Twelve of them, all handcuffed together, were arraigned at the bar for examination, and “their plea of not guilty was reiterated with great vociferation and much gesticulation and heat.” One of them, Perez, had confessed soon after capture, and his statement was read. The Pinda, for so the schooner was named, had sailed from Havana with the intention of making a slaving voyage to Africa. When twenty days out they fell in with an American brig (the Mexican), which they boarded with pistols and knives. After robbing her, they scuttled and burned an English brig, and then sailed for Africa.

“The hall was crowded to suffocation,” says the Salem Gazette of that date, “with persons eager to behold the visages of a gang of pirates, that terror and bugbear of the inhabitants of a navigating community. It is a case, so far as we recollect, altogether without precedent to have a band of sixteen pirates placed at the bar at one time and charged with the commission of the same crime.”

The sixteen pirates of the Pinda were taken to Boston to await trial in the United States Court. While in prison they seem to have inspired as much sympathy as hostility. In fact, from all accounts they were as mild-mannered a band of cut-throats as ever scuttled a ship. A writer in the Boston Post, September 2, 1834, has left these touches of personal description:

“Having heard a terrific description of the Spaniards now confined in Leverett Street jail on a charge of piracy, we availed ourselves of our right of entree and took a birdseye glance at the monsters of the deep but were somewhat surprised to find them small and ordinary looking men, extremely civil and good-natured, with a free dash of humor in their conversation and easy indifference to their situation. The first in importance as well as in appearance is the Captain, Pedro Gibert, a Castilian 38 years old, and the son of a merchant. In appearance he did not come quite up to our standard for the leader of a brave band of buccaneers, although a pleasant and rather a handsome mariner.”

Captain Pedro Gibert is further described as having “a round face, ample and straight nose, and a full but not fierce black eye.” Francisco Ruiz the carpenter, was “only five feet three inches high, and though not very ferocious of aspect will never be hung for his good looks.” Antonio Farrer, a native African had several seams on his face resembling sabre gashes. These were tattoo marks, on each cheek a chain of diamond-shaped links, and branded on the forehead to resemble an ornamental band or coronet. With a red handkerchief bound about his head Antonio must have been ferocious in action.

In October, November, 1835, the trial was begun before Justice Joseph Story and District Judge John Davis. The prisoners at the bar were Captain Gibert, Bernado de Soto, first mate; Francisco Ruiz, Nicola Costa, Antonio Farrer, Manuel Boyga, Domingo de Guzman, Juan Antonio Portana, Manuel Castillo, Angel Garcia, Jose Velasquez, and Juan Montenegro. Manuel Delgardo was not present. He had committed suicide in the Boston jail some time before.

The pirates conducted themselves with a dignity and courage that showed them to be no mongrel breed of outlaw, and their finish was worthy of better careers. The trial lasted two weeks and the evidence, both direct and circumstantial was of the strongest kind against seven of the pirates. Five were acquitted after proving to the satisfaction of the jury that they had not been on board the Pinda at the time of the Mexican affair. Thomas Fuller of Salem was a witness, and he upset the decorum of the court in a scandalous manner. When asked to identify the prisoners he stepped up to one of them and shouted: