Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period / Illustrative Documents

PIRACY OF BARTHOLOMEW ROBERTS.

117. Extract from the Boston News-Letter. August 22, 1720.[1]

Boston, On Monday last, the 15th Currant, arrived here the Ship Samuel, about eleven Weeks from London, and ten from Lands end, Capt. Samuel Carry Commander,[2] who in his Voyage hither, on the 13th of July past, in the Latitude of 44, about 30 or 40 Leagues to the Eastward of the Banks of New-foundland, was accosted and taken by two Pirates, viz., A Ship of 26 Guns, and a Sloop of ten, both Commanded by Capt. Thomas Roberts,[3] having on board about a hundred Men, all English: The dismal Account whereof follows:

The first thing the Pirates did, was to strip both Passengers and Seamen of all their Money and Cloths which they had on board, with a loaded Pistol held to every ones breast ready to shoot him down, who did not immediately give an account of both, and resign them up. The next thing they did was, with madness and rage to tare up the Hatches, enter the Hould like a parcel of Furies, where with Axes, Cutlashes, etc., they cut, tore and broke open Trunks, Boxes, Cases and Bales, and when any of the Goods came upon Deck which they did not like to carry with them aboard their Ship, instead of tossing them into the Hould again they threw them over-board into the Sea. The usual method they had to open Chests was by shooting a brace of Bullets with a Pistol into the Key-hole to force them open. The Pirates carryed away from Capt. Carry's Ship aboard their own 40 barrels of Powder, two great Guns, his Cables, etc. and to the value of about nine or ten Thousand Pounds Sterling worth of the Choicest Goods he had on board. There was nothing heard among the Pirates all the while, but Cursing, Swearing, Dam'ing and Blaspheming to the greatest degree imaginable, and often saying they would not go to Hope point[4] in the River of Thames to be hung up in Gibbets a Sundrying as Kidd and Bradish's Company did, for if it should chance that they should be Attacked by any Superiour power or force, which they could not master, they would immediately put fire with one of their Pistols to their Powder, and go all merrily to Hell together! They often ridicul'd and made a mock at King George's Acts of Grace[5] with an Oath, that they had not got Money enough, but when they had, if he then did grant them one, after they sent him word, they would thank him for it. They forced and took away with them Capt. Carry's Mate, and his Seamen, viz. Henry Gilespy, Mate,[6] Hugh Minnens,[7] both North Britains, Michael Le Couter, a Jersey Man, and Abraham, a Kentish Man, could not learn his Sir-name, the Captains Book being carryed away, (except one Row born in Dublin which they would not take because born in Ireland),[8] holding a Pistol with a brace of Bullets to each of their breasts to go with them, or be presently shot down, telling them that at present they wanted none of their Service; but when they came to any Action, they should have liberty to Fight and Defend the Ship as they did, or else immediately be shot, that they should not tell tales. They had on board the Pirate near 20 Tuns of Brandy. However the Pirates made themselves very merry aboard of Capt. Carry's Ship with some Hampers of fine Wines that were either presents, or sent to some Gentlemen in Boston; it seems they would not wait to unty them and pull out the Corks with Skrews, but each man took his bottle and with his Cutlash cut off the Neck and put it to their Mouths and drank it out.[9] Whilst the Pirates were disputing whither to sink or burn Capt. Carry's Ship they spy'd a Sail that same evening, and so let him go free.

And at Midnight they came up with the same, which was a Snow from Bristol, Capt. Bowls Master, bound for Boston, of whom they made a Prize, and serv'd him as they did Capt. Carry, unloaded his Vessel and forced all his Men, designing to carry the Snow with them to make her a Hulk to carreen their Ship with.

The abovesaid Capt. Roberts in Novemb. 1718,[10] was third Mate of a Guinea Man out of London for Guinea, Capt. Plummer Commander, who was taken by a Pirate, and by that means Roberts himself became a Pirate, and being an active, brisk Man, they voted him their Captain, which he readily embraced.

The said Roberts in the abovesaid Sloop, Rhode Island built, with a Briganteen Consort Pirate, was some time in January last in the Latitude of Barbadoes, near the Island, where they took and endeavoured to take several Vessels; but the Governour,[11] hearing of it, fitted out one Capt. Rogers of Bristol, in a fine Gally, a Ship of about 20 Guns, and a Sloop, Capt. Graves Commander; Capt. Rogers killed and wounded several of Roberts's Men, and made a great hole in his Sloop, which his Carpenter with very great Difficulty (hundreds of Bullets flying round him) stopt, and finding Capt. Rogers too strong for him, tho' Graves did nothing, which if had, he must of necessity been taken, he therefore run for it, as also did his Consort Briganteen, which he never saw nor heard of since.

From Barbadoes Roberts went to an Island called Granada,[12] to the Leeward of Barbadoes, where he carreen'd his Sloop, and from thence this Spring with 45 Men he came to Newfoundland, into the Harbour of Trepassi,[13] towards the latter end of June last, with Drums beating, Trumpets sounding, and other Instruments of Musick, English Colours flying, their Pirate Flagg at the Topmast-Head, with Deaths Head and Cutlash, and there being 22 sail in that Harbour, upon the sight of the Pirate the Men all fled on Shore and left their Vessels, which they possess'd themselves off, burnt, sunk and destroyed all of them, excepting one Bristol Gally, which they designed to be their best Pirate Ship, if a better did not present. After they did all the mischief they could in that Harbour, they came on upon the Banks, where they met nine or ten sail of Frenchmen, one of whom is the Pirate Ship of 26 Guns abovesaid, taken from a French-man, unto whom Roberts the Pirate gave the Bristol Gally, but sunk and destroyed all the other French Vessels, taking first out what Guns were fit for his own Ship, and all other valuable Goods.

Roberts the Pirate designed from Newfoundland to range thro' the Western and Canary Islands, and so to the Southward, to the Island of New Providence,[14] possest by Negroe's, in South Latitude 17, which they say is the place of the Pirates General Rendezvous, where they have a Fortification and a great Magazine of Powder, etc. where they intend to spend their Money with the Portuguize Negro Women. Roberts the Pirate says, that there is a French Pirate on the North Coast of America, who gives no Quarter to any Nation, and if he met him, he would give him none. The Pirates seems much enraged at Bristol Men, for Capt. Rogers sake, whom they hate as they do the Spaniards.

[1] From the file possessed by the Massachusetts Historical Society.

[2] Sewall notes in his diary, under this same date of Aug. 15, "Cary arrives who had been pillaged by the Pirats." Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., XLVII. 259.

[3] For Thomas read Bartholomew. Bartholomew Roberts was one of the most famous pirates of his time, i.e., of the years 1718-1724, the heyday of piracy in the eighteenth century. Capt. Charles Johnson, in his account of that period, A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1724), devotes nearly a third of his book (pp. 161-260 of the first edition) to Roberts, as "having made more Noise in the World" than others, and declares (p. 3 of preface) that "Roberts and his Crew, alone, took 400 Sail, before he was destroy'd". Of his appearance we have this picture, from the same chronicler's account of his last fight: a tall dark Welshman of near forty, "Roberts himself made a gallant Figure, being dressed in a rich crimson Damask Wastcoat, and Breeches, a red Feather in his Hat, and a Gold Chain Ten Times round his Neck, a Sword in his Hand, and two pair of Pistols hanging at the End of a Silk Sling, which was flung over his Shoulders, according to the Fashion of the Pyrates" (p. 213). His meteoric career of piracy lasted but four years.

[4] Probably a derisive phrase of their own, for the ordinary place of execution near Wapping Old Stairs.

[5] Proclamations offering pardon to pirates who should surrender themselves within a given time. Two such proclamations of George I., Sept. 5, 1717, and Dec. 21, 1718, are printed in the American Antiquarian Society's volume of royal proclamations relating to America, Transactions, XII. 176-178.

[6] When the survivors of Roberts's crew were tried at Cape Corso Castle on the African coast in March and April, 1722, and fifty-two of them executed, this man ("Harry Glasby") was acquitted, for, though he had risen to be master of the principal pirate ship, there was abundant evidence (Johnson, first ed., pp. 186, 235-238) that he had always been unwilling to continue with the pirates, that he had tried to escape, and that he had often shown himself humane. Scott uses the name of Harry Glasby in The Pirate, vol. II., ch. 11, borrowing it from Johnson.

[7] Or Menzies. Ibid., p. 228.

[8] Roberts's hostility toward Irishmen arose from the trick played upon him by one of his lieutenants, an Irishman named Kennedy, who on the coast of Surinam ran away with both his ship and a good Portuguese prize. Ibid., pp. 166-169.

[9] They seem to have been painfully destitute of corkscrews. A year later, on the West African coast, when they had captured in a ship of the Royal African Company the chaplain of Cape Coast Castle, and had asked him to join them, "alledging merrily, that their Ship wanted a Chaplain", and he had declined, they gave him back all his possessions, and "kept nothing which belonged to the Church, except three Prayer-Books, and a Bottle-Screw, which, as I was inform'd by one of the Pyrates himself, they said they had Occasion for, for their own Use". Ibid., p. 198.

[10] Johnson says 1719 (second ed., p. 208), but 1718 is correct. The Princess, Capt. Plumb, was captured at Anamabo by Capt. Howel Davis. Id., first ed., p. 157; for the ensuing narrative, cf. pp. 175-178.

[11] Robert Lowther, governor 1710-1721.

[12] Grenada, not yet a British possession.

[13] At the southeast corner of Newfoundland, just west of Cape Race.

[14] This island seems to be imaginary. In the Atlantic, which seems to be meant, there is no island in 17° S. lat. except St. Helena. In the Indian Ocean there is a Providence Island in 9° S. lat., north of Madagascar. But newspaper accuracy was no greater then than now. Roberts went first to the West Indies, then to the west coast of Africa, where after many exploits he was killed in battle with H.M.S. Swallow, 50, in February, 1722. Johnson, first ed., pp. 179-188, 193-214. The captain of the Swallow was knighted for the exploit (capturing 187 pirates), and afterward became famous as Admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle.

Clyx.com