The Pirates' Who's Who Part 3

"Pris.: 'Not guilty, an't please your Wors.h.i.+p.'

"Judge: 'Not guilty! say so again, Sirrah, and I'll have you hang'd without any Tryal.'

"Pris.: 'An't please your Wors.h.i.+p's Honour, my Lord, I am as honest a poor Fellow as ever went between Stem and Stern of a s.h.i.+p, and can hand, reef, steer, and clap two Ends of a Rope together, as well as e'er a He that ever cross'd salt Water; but I was taken by one George Bradley' (the Name of him that sat as Judge,) 'a notorious Pyrate, a sad Rogue as ever was unhang'd, and he forc'd me, an't please your Honour.'

"Judge: 'Answer me, Sirrah.... How will you be try'd?'

"Pris.: 'By G---- and my Country.'

"Judge: 'The Devil you will.... Why then, Gentlemen of the Jury, I think we have nothing to do but to proceed to Judgement.'

"Attor. Gen.: 'Right, my Lord; for if the Fellow should be suffered to speak, he may clear himself, and that's an Affront to the Court.'

"Pris.: 'Pray, my Lord, I hope your Lords.h.i.+p will consider ...'

"Judge: 'Consider!... How dare you talk of considering?... Sirrah, Sirrah, I never consider'd in all my Life.... I'll make it Treason to consider.'

"Pris.: 'But, I hope, your Lords.h.i.+p will hear some reason.'

"Judge: 'D'ye hear how the Scoundrel prates?... What have we to do with the Reason?... I'd have you to know, Raskal, we don't sit here to hear Reason ... we go according to Law.... Is our Dinner ready?'

"Attor. Gen.: 'Yes, my Lord.'

"Judge: 'Then heark'ee you Raskal at the Bar; hear me, Sirrah, hear me....

You must suffer, for three reasons; first, because it is not fit I should sit here as Judge, and no Body be hanged.... Secondly, you must be hanged, because you have a d.a.m.n'd hanging Look.... And thirdly, you must be hanged, because I am hungry; for, know, Sirrah, that 'tis a Custom, that whenever the Judge's Dinner is ready before the Tryal is over, the Prisoner is to be hanged of Course.... There's Law for you, ye Dog.... So take him away Gaoler.'"

In August, 1722, the pirates sailed out from their hiding-place and waylaid the s.h.i.+p which was returning to Jamaica with the answer to the pet.i.tion, but to their disappointment heard that no notice had been taken of their round-robin by the Government at home.

No time was lost in returning to their old ways, for the very next day both pirate s.h.i.+ps left their hiding-place and sailed out on the "grand account."

But now their luck deserted them, for the _Morning Star_ was run aground on a reef by gross neglect on the part of the officers and wrecked. Most of the crew escaped on to an island, where Captain Anstis found them next day, and no sooner had he taken aboard Captain Fenn, Phillips, the carpenter, and a few others, than all of a sudden down upon them came two men-of-war, the _Hector_ and the _Adventure_, so that Anstis had barely time to cut his cables and get away to sea, hotly pursued by the _Adventure_. The latter, in a stiff breeze, was slowly gaining on the brigantine when all of a sudden the wind dropped, the pirates got out the sweeps, and thus managed, for the time being, to escape. In the meantime the _Hector_ took prisoner the forty pirates remaining on the island.

Anstis soon got to work again, and captured several prizes. He then sailed to the Island of Tobago to clean and refit his s.h.i.+p. Just when all the guns and stores had been landed and the s.h.i.+p heeled, as ill-luck would have it, the _Winchester_, man-of-war, put into the bay; and the pirates had barely time to set their s.h.i.+p on fire and to escape into the woods.

Anstis had by now lost all authority over his discontented crew, and one night was shot while asleep in his hammock.

ANTONIO.

Captain of the Darien Indians and friend to the English buccaneers.

ARCHER, JOHN ROSE.

He learnt his art as a pirate in the excellent school of the notorious Blackbeard.

In 1723 he was, for the time being, in honest employment in a Newfoundland fis.h.i.+ng-boat, which was captured by Phillips and his crew. As Phillips was only a beginner at piracy, he was very glad to get the aid of such an old hand at the game as John Archer, whom he promptly appointed to the office of quartermaster in the pirate s.h.i.+p. This quick promotion caused some murmuring amongst Phillips's original crew, the carpenter, Fern, being particularly outspoken against it.

Archer ended his days on the gallows at Boston on June 2nd, 1724, and we read that he "dy'd very penitent, with the a.s.sistance of two grave Divines to attend him."

ARGALL.

Licensed and t.i.tled buccaneer.

Believed to have buried a rich treasure in the Isles of Shoals, off Portsmouth, New Hamps.h.i.+re, in the seventeenth century.

ARMSTRONG.

Born in London. A deserter from the Royal Navy. One of Captain Roberts's crew taken by H.M.S. _Swallow_, from which s.h.i.+p he had previously deserted.

In an account of his execution on board H.M.S. _Weymouth_ we read: "Being on board a Man of War there was no Body to press him to an Acknowledgement of the Crime he died for, nor of sorrowing in particular for it, which would have been exemplary, and made suitable Impressions on seamen; so that his last Hour was spent in lamenting and bewailing his Sins in general, exhorting the Spectators to an honest and good life, in which alone they could find Satisfaction."

This painful scene ended by the condemned singing with the spectators a few verses of the 140th Psalm: at the conclusion of which, at the firing of a gun, "he was tric'd up at the Fore Yard."

Died at the age of 34.

ARNOLD, SION.

A Madagascar pirate, who was brought to New England by Captain Sh.e.l.ley in 1699.

ASHPLANT, VALENTINE.

Born in the Minories, London. He served with Captain Howell Davis, and later with Bartholomew Roberts. He was one of the leading lights of Roberts's crew, a member of the "House of Lords."

He took part in the capture and plundering of the _King Solomon_ at Cape Apollonia, North-West Coast of Africa, in January, 1719, when the pirates, in an open boat, attacked the s.h.i.+p while at anchor. Ashplant was taken prisoner two years later by H.M.S. _Swallow_. Tried for piracy at Cape Coast Castle and found guilty in March, 1722, and hanged in chains there at the age of 32.

ATWELL.

A hand aboard the brig _Vineyard_ in 1830, he took part with Charles Gibbs and others in a mutiny in which both the captain and mate was murdered.

AUGUR, CAPTAIN JOHN.

A pirate of New Providence, Bahama Islands. He accepted the royal pardon in 1718, and impressed the Governor, Woodes Rogers, so favourably that he was placed in command of a sloop to go and trade amongst the islands. A few days out Augur met with two sloops, "the sight of which dispelled all memory of their late good intention," and turning pirates once more, they seized the two sloops and took out of them money and goods to the value of 500.

The pirates now sailed for Hispaniola, but with bad luck, or owing to retribution, a sudden hurricane arose which drove them back to the one spot in the West Indies they must have been most anxious to avoid--that is, the Bahama Islands. Here the sloop became a total wreck, but the crew got ash.o.r.e and for a while lay hidden in a wood. Rogers, hearing where they were, sent an armed sloop to the island, and the captain by fair promises induced the eleven marooned pirates to come aboard. Taking these back to Providence, Rogers had them all tried before a court of lately converted pirates, and they were condemned to be hanged. While standing on the gallows platform the wretched culprits reproached the crowd of spectators, so lately their fellow-brethren in piracy, for allowing their old comrades to be hanged, and urging them to come to the rescue. But virtue was still strong in these recent converts, and all the comfort the criminals got was to be told "it was their Business to turn their Minds to another World, and sincerely to repent of what Wickedness they had done in this." "Yes," answered the now irritated and in no-wise abashed Augur, "I _do_ heartily repent: I repent I have not done more Mischief, and that we did not cut the Throats of them that took us, and I am extremely sorry that you an't all hang'd as well as we."

AUSTIN, JAMES.

Captured with the rest of Captain John Quelch's crew in the brigantine _Charles_. Escaped for a time, but was caught and secured in the gaol at Piscataqua, and later on tried for piracy at the Star Tavern at Boston in June, 1704.

AVERY, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ HENRY EVERY, _alias_ CAPTAIN BRIDGEMAN.

Nicknamed "Long Ben," or the "Arch-Pirate."