by Walter Scott
ADVERTISEMENT.
The purpose of the following Narrative is to give a detailed andaccurate account of certain remarkable incidents which took place in theOrkney Islands, concerning which the more imperfect traditions andmutilated records of the country only tell us the following erroneousparticulars:--
In the month of January, 1724-5, a vessel, called the Revenge, bearingtwenty large guns, and six smaller, commanded by JOHN GOW, or GOFFE, orSMITH, came to the Orkney Islands, and was discovered to be a pirate, byvarious acts of insolence and villainy committed by the crew. These werefor some time submitted to, the inhabitants of these remote islands notpossessing arms nor means of resistance; and so bold was the Captain ofthese banditti, that he not only came ashore, and gave dancing partiesin the village of Stromness, but before his real character wasdiscovered, engaged the affections, and received the troth-plight, of ayoung lady possessed of some property. A patriotic individual, JAMESFEA, younger of Clestron, formed the plan of securing the buccanier,which he effected by a mixture of courage and address, in consequencechiefly of Gow's vessel having gone on shore near the harbour ofCalfsound, on the Island of Eda, not far distant from a house theninhabited by Mr. FEA. In the various stratagems by which Mr. FEAcontrived finally, at the peril of his life, (they being well armed anddesperate,) to make the whole pirates his prisoners, he was much aidedby Mr. JAMES LAING, the grandfather of the late MALCOLM LAING, Esq., theacute and ingenious historian of Scotland during the 17th century.
Gow, and others of his crew, suffered, by sentence of the High Court ofAdmiralty, the punishment their crimes had long deserved. He conductedhimself with great audacity when before the Court; and, from an accountof the matter by an eye-witness, seems to have been subjected to someunusual severities, in order to compel him to plead. The words arethese: "JOHN GOW would not plead, for which he was brought to the bar,and the Judge ordered that his thumbs should be squeezed by two men,with a whip-cord, till it did break; and then it should be doubled, tillit did again break, and then laid threefold, and that the executionersshould pull with their whole strength; which sentence Gow endured with agreat deal of boldness." The next morning, (27th May, 1725,) when he hadseen the terrible preparations for pressing him to death, his couragegave way, and he told the Marshal of Court, that he would not have givenso much trouble, had he been assured of not being hanged in chains. Hewas then tried, condemned, and executed, with others of his crew.
It is said, that the lady whose affections GOW had engaged, went up toLondon to see him before his death, and that, arriving too late, she hadthe courage to request a sight of his dead body; and then, touching thehand of the corpse, she formally resumed the troth-plight which she hadbestowed. Without going through this ceremony, she could not, accordingto the superstition of the country, have escaped a visit from the ghostof her departed lover, in the event of her bestowing upon any livingsuitor the faith which she had plighted to the dead. This part of thelegend may serve as a curious commentary on the fine Scottish ballad,which begins,
"There came a ghost to Margaret's door," &c.(_a_)[6]
The common account of this incident farther bears, that Mr. FEA, thespirited individual by whose exertions GOW'S career of iniquity was cutshort, was so far from receiving any reward from Government, that hecould not obtain even countenance enough to protect him against avariety of sham suits, raised against him by Newgate solicitors, whoacted in the name of GOW, and others of the pirate crew; and the variousexpenses, vexatious prosecutions, and other legal consequences, in whichhis gallant exploit involved him, utterly ruined his fortune, and hisfamily; making his memory a notable example to all who shall in futuretake pirates on their own authority.
It is to be supposed, for the honour of GEORGE the First's Government,that the last circumstance, as well as the dates, and other particularsof the commonly received story, are inaccurate, since they will be foundtotally irreconcilable with the following veracious narrative, compiledfrom materials to which he himself alone has had access, by
THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] See Editor's Notes at the end of the Volume. Wherever a similarreference occurs, the reader will understand that the same directionapplies.
THE PIRATE.
