“May 1, 1718, several of the ship Hopewell’s crew can testify that near Hispaniola they met with pirates who robbed and abused their crew and compelled their mate, James Logun of Charlestown to go with them, as they had no artist; having lost several of their company in an engagement. As to what sort of an artist these gentlemen rovers were deficient in, whether dancing, swimming or writing master, or a master of the mechanical arts, we have no authority for stating.”
The official account of the foregoing misfortune is to be found among the notarial records of Essex county and reads as follows:
“Depositions of Richard Manning, John Crowell, and Aaron Crowell, all of Salem, and belonging to the crew of Captain Thomas Ellis, commander of the ship Hopewell, bound from Island of Barbadoes to Saltatuda. Missing of that Island and falling to Leeward we shaped our course for some of the Bahama Islands in hopes to get salt there, but nigh ye Island of Hispaniola we unhappily met with a pirate, being a sloop of between thirty and forty men, one Capt. Charles, commander, his sirname we could not learn. They took us, boarded us and abused several of us shamefully, and took what small matters we had, even our very cloathes and particularly beat and abused our Mate, whose name was James Logun of Charlestown, and him they forcibly carried away with them and threatened his life if he would not go, which they were ye more in earnest for insomuch as they had no artist on board, as we understood, having a little before that time had an Engagem’t. with a ship of force which had killed several of them as we were Informed by some of them. Ye said James Logun was very unwilling to go with them and informed some of us that he knew not whether he had best to dye or go with them, these Deponents knowing of him to be an Ingenious sober man. To ye truth of all we have hereunto sett our hand having fresh Remembrance thereof, being but ye fifth day of March last past, when we were taken.
Salem, May 1, 1718.”
In the following year Captain John Shattuck entered his protest at Salem against capture by pirates. He sailed from Jamaica for New England and in sight of Long Island (West Indies) was captured by a “Pyrat” of 12 guns and 120 men, under the command of Captain Charles Vain, who took him to Crooked Island (Bahamas), plundered him of various articles, stripped the brig, abused some of his men and finally let him go. “Coming, however, on a winter coast, his vessel stripped of needed sails, he was blown off to the West Indies and did not arrive in Salem until the next spring.”
In 1724 two notorious sea rogues, Nutt and Phillip, were cruising off Cape Ann, their topsails in sight of Salem harbor mouth. They took a sloop commanded by one Andrew Harradine of Salem and thereby caught a Tartar. Harradine and his crew rose upon their captors, killed both Nutt and Phillip and their officers, put the pirate crew under hatches, and sailed the vessel to Boston where the pirates were turned over to the authorities to be fitted with hempen kerchiefs.
On the first of May, 1725, a Salem brigantine commanded by Captain Dove sailed into her home harbor having on board one Philip Ashton, a lad from Marblehead who had been given up as dead for almost three years. He had been captured by pirates, and after escaping from them lived alone for a year and more on a desert island off the coast of Honduras. Philip Ashton wrote a journal of his adventures which was first published many years ago. His story is perhaps the most entertaining narrative of eighteenth century piracy that has come down to present times. Little is known of the career of this lad of Marblehead before or after his adventures and misfortunes in the company of pirates. It is recorded that when he hurried to his home from the ship which had fetched him into Salem harbor there was great rejoicing. On the following Sunday Rev. John Barnard preached a sermon concerning the miraculous escape of Philip Ashton. His text was taken from the third chapter of Daniel, seventeenth verse: “If it be so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thy hands, O King.”
It is also known that at about the same time that Philip Ashton was captured by pirates his cousin, Nicholas Merritt, met with a like misfortune at sea. He made his escape after several months of captivity and returned to his home a year later when there was another thanksgiving for a wanderer returned.
A page from Falconer’s Marine Dictionary (18th Century)