Printed for and Sold by Nicholas Boone, at his Shop near the Old Meeting-House in Boston. 1704.
Advertisement.
There is now in the Press, and will speedily be Published: The Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his Company, etc. For sundry Piracies, Robberies and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesties Allie, on the Coast of Brasil, etc. Who upon full Evidence were found Guilty, at the Court-House in Boston, on the 13th of June 1704. With the Arguments of the Queen's Council, and Council for the Prisoners, upon the Act for the more effectual Suppression of Piracy. With an account of the Ages of the several Prisoners, and the Places where they were Born. Printed for and sold by Nicholas Boone, 1704.[6]
[1] What is here reproduced, to show somewhat of the harrowing circumstances under which the pirate's career might end, is a very rare "extra" of the Boston News-Letter, found in the Massachusetts Historical Society's file of that newspaper. The case of Quelch and his associates is related in much detail by Mr. A.C. Goodell in the Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, VIII. 386-398, and in the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, III. 71-77. The pursuit of the pirates is described in Sewall's diary, with extracts from the News-Letter, in Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, XLVI. 103-110. In August, 1703, the brigantine Charles, fitted out as a privateer to cruise against the French, was riding off Marblehead, with her captain lying too sick to take her to sea. The crew seized the ship, put it in command of Quelch, threw the captain overboard, and sailed for the coast of Brazil, where for some months they engaged in a profitable career of piracy at the expense of subjects of the King of Portugal, with whom England had just concluded a particularly close alliance. In May, 1704, they reappeared on the Massachusetts coast, landed, and dispersed, but were presently suspected, accused, proclaimed, and "rounded up", the main capture being made at the Isles of Shoals, by an armed force under Maj. Stephen Sewall, the diarist's brother. The trial, June 13, 16, 19-21, was the first held in New England under the act of Parliament 11 and 12 Will. III., ch. 7, which gave the crown authority to issue commissions for the trial of pirates by specially constituted courts, outside the realm of England. The governor, Joseph Dudley, presided. Mr. Goodell maintains that the trial was conducted illegally in important particulars. Of the six pirates named above, as executed on June 30, Lambert was a Salem man, Peterson apparently a Swede, Roach Irish, Quelch and the other two English. Judge Sewall records that "When the Scaffold was let to sink, there was such a Screech of the Women that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the Orchard, and was much surprised at it; yet the wind was sou-west. Our house is a full mile from the place." In 1835 the editor's grandfather saw the six pirates of the Mexican, almost the last of their profession, hanged at about the same spot. I find that Mr. Paine has printed this piece, in Buried Treasure, but I know no other that so well illustrates its particular aspect of our theme.
[2] One of the sermons preached by Cotton Mather to the unfortunate men was printed by him this year under the title Faithful Warnings to prevent Fearful Judgments.
[3] Rev. Thomas Bridge of the First Church, and Cotton Mather of the Second.
[4] At the foot of Fleet Street, near the present South Ferry. Thus the grim procession went around most of the water front of the town. Sewall says his cousin counted 150 boats full of spectators of the execution, besides the multitude on land. The silver oar was the emblem of the admiralty.
[5] This prayer is unmistakable Cotton Mather; to whom we may be sure this whole occasion was one of extraordinary enjoyment.
[6] The publication of the pamphlet here advertised was by authority of Governor Dudley, who gives the Board of Trade the following excuse for printing the minutes of the trial before sending them to that body (letter of July 25, 1705), "My Lords, I should not have directed the printing of them here, but to satisfy and save the clamour of a rude people, who were greatly surprised that any body should be put to death that brought in gold into the Province, and did at the time speak rudely of the proceeding against them and assisted to hide and cover those ill persons". Cal. St. P. Col., 1704-1705, p. 585.