XWith so notable a felony on their souls, all felt that the time had come to leave those regions entirely. We set off for the Indian coast, from which it was designed to go to the West Indies. A large body of men, however, resolved to leave the ship at India; and twenty-five Frenchmen, fourteen Danes and a company of Englishmen were there set ashore at their desire. For they were afraid if they came to England and were caught, they should be hanged, and they thought themselves more secure among the pagans.Mr. Every set off for the West Indies with a light complement, and attempted no piracy during all that long and wearisome way. We watered at one or two places, including Ascension, but made no long stop until we anchored at New Providence.As we came to this port we were at a loss to know the kind of welcome that might wait us; so when we anchored we held a consult, and one who was a clerk drafted a letter to the governor of this Providence Island, setting out that we desired to come into the town, find anchorage and have the liberties of the place, for which the men would present the governor with twenty pieces-of-eightand two pieces of gold, all told, and Mr. Every, because he had a double share, offered for himself forty pieces-of-eight and four gold coins.One Adams was our ambassador, who with a few of our men to form a sort of honor guard went ashore, while we lay by waiting the result. Our messengers soon came back with a letter from the governor, saying that we were welcome and could come and go again when we pleased. Thus for sixty pieces of silver and six pieces of gold we bought the keys of the town.Here the adventure so wickedly begun at the Groyne ended. Most of our people scattered themselves about these West Indies, where they found great hospitality for pirates, particularly at this New Providence, which rivaled Madagascar for folk of this complexion.Mr. Every made a great friend of the island governor and gave all the promise in the world of becoming one of the leading malefactors of this region. Here he found the things he liked, for from these parts real navies of buccaneers set out to harry the Main itself, the American provinces,—everywhere, even, as I had seen, over to the far shores of Africa and India.As for me, with the money I had from theGunswayI bought passage on a ship going to the Virginia plantations.“Farewell, wicked ship and wicked men,” thought I as the Virginia vessel passed by theCharles the Secondat her moorings. “Farewell,” said I, gazing at the empty decks on which the sun lay white and hot; “good riddance, and may you be quickly entombed in the deep waters.”Had I been a moral philosopher and not a mere sailorman I would have profited by my reflections.Would that I had tarried in Virginia, where there is much to a man’s liking! But no, I longed to be at home and out of the sun; I longed for the cool vales of Somerset and the sweet evening air which from the Mendips blows the blue peat smoke about the thatched roofs of simple cottages; I longed for quietness and rest, and these honest longings drove me afoul of the cruel courts of justice.I was still miserably weak when I crawled at length from the docks at Bristol up into the town. I lay a week in bed at a tavern in the High Street, afflicted with a return of the dry bellyache.I felt danger to be about me; for all England over there was little talk but of the notorious Captain Every; no exaggeration of his crimes being too great or untrue to go down the gullets of the staring people. Behind it all was the East India Company, as well as the Mogul rulers, who dinned continually at the British Government for the punishment and extermination of pirates.All of this was to make bad weather for me, yet I was resolved to go to my lords of theAdmiralty and make a plain discovery of all the things which had taken place. Scarcely able to pull my breeches over my shrunken knees, I nevertheless paid my score and set out by coach for London.The coach had not gone three leagues from town before she was hove to, and, behold you, the king’s messengers were there, looking for old Bill May.“You are one of Every’s men,” they said, hauling me out the gangway. “We have a warrant to take you.”“You only anticipate me,” said I, “for I was on my way to London to discover all.”They bore me off to Bath in a carriage of their own, and there before his Grace the Duke of Devonshire I was examined touching my part in Mr. Every’s enterprise. I made a clear account of all that I have here set down; but despite that I was remitted to Newgate Gaol to be tried as a felon.In this close I found when I came in my old shipmates Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William Bishop, James Lewis and John Sparkes, with young Middleton and one Dan, who had crept home by one ship and another, only to be snatched up as I was. One person and another, recognizing us for Every’s men, had betrayed us.We went first to trial on an indictment of piracy of theGunsway. We were confronted bya bench of more than a dozen judges; we were harried by a shoal of prosecutors; we were lied about by one witness and another, yet in spite of all—in spite of all that Dan and Middleton, a saucy lad aboard our ship, who were King’s evidence; in spite of the thunderings and belching and blasts of the lawyers, the jury—true men and good—returned us not guilty.That put the king’s counsel to be the laughingstock of the country, so to save their faces they put us to another trial, this time for the stealing of theCharles the Secondat the Groyne. For witnesses they brought again young Middleton as well as Mr. Gravet, the old second mate, and the liar Creagh. Not only did these tell of the matter at the Groyne, but Middleton and one or two others went all over the Indies and up to New Providence again,—which was a sly way of trying us twice for one offense.How the judges and lawyers admonished the jury!“If you have the true English spirit, if you believe in the Christian religion—I had almost said, ‘If you love your mother’—you must convict these rascals at the bar.”How they belabored the jury which had acquitted us on the first trial; you would have thought they were nothing other than Frenchmen in disguise, and the veriest traitors, heretics and homicides. Aye, they did for us: guilty.Last night the clerk of St. Sepulcher’s[12], as the custom is, came under our windows with his bell and cried to those who might have to die on the morrow to repent their sins. The doleful sound threw me into a horror; I fear that my name will be in the morning’s death warrant.[12]The church that stood across from Newgate.
With so notable a felony on their souls, all felt that the time had come to leave those regions entirely. We set off for the Indian coast, from which it was designed to go to the West Indies. A large body of men, however, resolved to leave the ship at India; and twenty-five Frenchmen, fourteen Danes and a company of Englishmen were there set ashore at their desire. For they were afraid if they came to England and were caught, they should be hanged, and they thought themselves more secure among the pagans.
Mr. Every set off for the West Indies with a light complement, and attempted no piracy during all that long and wearisome way. We watered at one or two places, including Ascension, but made no long stop until we anchored at New Providence.
As we came to this port we were at a loss to know the kind of welcome that might wait us; so when we anchored we held a consult, and one who was a clerk drafted a letter to the governor of this Providence Island, setting out that we desired to come into the town, find anchorage and have the liberties of the place, for which the men would present the governor with twenty pieces-of-eightand two pieces of gold, all told, and Mr. Every, because he had a double share, offered for himself forty pieces-of-eight and four gold coins.
One Adams was our ambassador, who with a few of our men to form a sort of honor guard went ashore, while we lay by waiting the result. Our messengers soon came back with a letter from the governor, saying that we were welcome and could come and go again when we pleased. Thus for sixty pieces of silver and six pieces of gold we bought the keys of the town.
Here the adventure so wickedly begun at the Groyne ended. Most of our people scattered themselves about these West Indies, where they found great hospitality for pirates, particularly at this New Providence, which rivaled Madagascar for folk of this complexion.
Mr. Every made a great friend of the island governor and gave all the promise in the world of becoming one of the leading malefactors of this region. Here he found the things he liked, for from these parts real navies of buccaneers set out to harry the Main itself, the American provinces,—everywhere, even, as I had seen, over to the far shores of Africa and India.
As for me, with the money I had from theGunswayI bought passage on a ship going to the Virginia plantations.
“Farewell, wicked ship and wicked men,” thought I as the Virginia vessel passed by theCharles the Secondat her moorings. “Farewell,” said I, gazing at the empty decks on which the sun lay white and hot; “good riddance, and may you be quickly entombed in the deep waters.”
Had I been a moral philosopher and not a mere sailorman I would have profited by my reflections.
Would that I had tarried in Virginia, where there is much to a man’s liking! But no, I longed to be at home and out of the sun; I longed for the cool vales of Somerset and the sweet evening air which from the Mendips blows the blue peat smoke about the thatched roofs of simple cottages; I longed for quietness and rest, and these honest longings drove me afoul of the cruel courts of justice.
I was still miserably weak when I crawled at length from the docks at Bristol up into the town. I lay a week in bed at a tavern in the High Street, afflicted with a return of the dry bellyache.
I felt danger to be about me; for all England over there was little talk but of the notorious Captain Every; no exaggeration of his crimes being too great or untrue to go down the gullets of the staring people. Behind it all was the East India Company, as well as the Mogul rulers, who dinned continually at the British Government for the punishment and extermination of pirates.
All of this was to make bad weather for me, yet I was resolved to go to my lords of theAdmiralty and make a plain discovery of all the things which had taken place. Scarcely able to pull my breeches over my shrunken knees, I nevertheless paid my score and set out by coach for London.
The coach had not gone three leagues from town before she was hove to, and, behold you, the king’s messengers were there, looking for old Bill May.
“You are one of Every’s men,” they said, hauling me out the gangway. “We have a warrant to take you.”
“You only anticipate me,” said I, “for I was on my way to London to discover all.”
They bore me off to Bath in a carriage of their own, and there before his Grace the Duke of Devonshire I was examined touching my part in Mr. Every’s enterprise. I made a clear account of all that I have here set down; but despite that I was remitted to Newgate Gaol to be tried as a felon.
In this close I found when I came in my old shipmates Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William Bishop, James Lewis and John Sparkes, with young Middleton and one Dan, who had crept home by one ship and another, only to be snatched up as I was. One person and another, recognizing us for Every’s men, had betrayed us.
We went first to trial on an indictment of piracy of theGunsway. We were confronted bya bench of more than a dozen judges; we were harried by a shoal of prosecutors; we were lied about by one witness and another, yet in spite of all—in spite of all that Dan and Middleton, a saucy lad aboard our ship, who were King’s evidence; in spite of the thunderings and belching and blasts of the lawyers, the jury—true men and good—returned us not guilty.
That put the king’s counsel to be the laughingstock of the country, so to save their faces they put us to another trial, this time for the stealing of theCharles the Secondat the Groyne. For witnesses they brought again young Middleton as well as Mr. Gravet, the old second mate, and the liar Creagh. Not only did these tell of the matter at the Groyne, but Middleton and one or two others went all over the Indies and up to New Providence again,—which was a sly way of trying us twice for one offense.
How the judges and lawyers admonished the jury!
“If you have the true English spirit, if you believe in the Christian religion—I had almost said, ‘If you love your mother’—you must convict these rascals at the bar.”
How they belabored the jury which had acquitted us on the first trial; you would have thought they were nothing other than Frenchmen in disguise, and the veriest traitors, heretics and homicides. Aye, they did for us: guilty.
Last night the clerk of St. Sepulcher’s[12], as the custom is, came under our windows with his bell and cried to those who might have to die on the morrow to repent their sins. The doleful sound threw me into a horror; I fear that my name will be in the morning’s death warrant.
[12]The church that stood across from Newgate.
[12]The church that stood across from Newgate.