The Rebel Pirate

by Donna Thorland

  She laughed. “Perhaps he can teach Ned as well,” she said.

  “Does that mean you will have us?” he asked. “I will not be a baron. Or a naval officer.”

  “I had always planned to wed a sea captain,” she said. “That is, if you intend to marry me.”

  “I was waiting to do so in my father’s house the day Wild took you off Castle Island. I have been waiting ever since. I will marry you on the Sally, if you like. Or in Salem, if you would prefer.” Then he added with a smile, “The Reverend Edwards is with us. And I do hope you can endure the man’s Puritanical thunder, because my father has already paid him.”

  They were married on the Sally, in a mercifully short ceremony with less thunder than tenderness, because the reverend had known James Sparhawk from the day he was born, and had certainly not hoped to see an occasion as happy as this for the boy he had long thought dead.

  Ned and Abednego and Benji and Trent stood by, and afterward Red Abed patted Sparhawk on the shoulder and kissed his daughter. Trent retired to the rail with the old pirate to share a jug of rum.

  The Sally met no opposition entering Salem Harbor. Sarah had been unconscious when Micah had brought her in on the Conant, but now she saw that the wharves were alive with a bustle they had not known since her childhood, since the trouble had started with Parliament and the navy’s predation had cast a pall over the port’s trade. Now hammers and axes rang, and all up and down the waterfront vessels of every size and description, from tiny snows to substantial schooners like the Conant, were fitting out.

  There was a committee of Salem selectmen, mariners all, and headed by Eli Derby, waiting for them when they dropped anchor at the Long Wharf.

  Sparhawk and Abednego and Benji spent an hour closeted with these men, bargaining for water and cordage and spars for the Sally and repairs for the Conant’s hull. They paid for these in hard cash, Spanish gold to be exact, which was very warmly received.

  Sarah took Ned and Trent to the house Micah Wild had built for her, and, after explaining the change in circumstances to the anxious servants and showing them the deeds and leases, she took up the responsibilities, so long delayed, of a new bride. She arranged for her father and Trent to have the principal chambers on the second floor, and chose a smaller, more modest room for herself and Sparhawk. Ned and Benji, she knew, would sleep on the Sally.

  By the time her father and Benji and Sparhawk returned, there was a breakfast of sorts laid in the parlor, the best Mrs. Friary could do at the moment, with a ham and bread and a bowl of potent milk punch sprinkled with nutmeg; and because there was a tower of ginger cakes sparkling with castor sugar, Sarah thought it was a very good breakfast indeed.

  It was evening by the time she and Sparhawk were finally alone. Mrs. Friary had taken the ticking covers off the furniture for the occasion, and Sarah and her husband sat together on the sofa, looking out the windows at the river.

  “I am very glad to have the house,” she said, “but I do not intend to live in it. Not all the time. I want to sail with you, like my mother did with my father.”

  James Sparhawk turned to his new bride and drew her into his arms, then had a better idea and pulled her into his lap. “On runs to the sugar islands,” he said. “And when we carry safe cargo. But never with a hold full of powder, and never when we are looking for a fight.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “Provisionally.” She unlaced the ribbon that bound his hair and kissed him, then kissed him again. She had the life she had hoped for, dreamed of, since girlhood, and she could not remember a time when her heart had been as full.

  But for her joy to be complete, she had to know that it was the same for him. “Your father,” she said, “has his son. Mine will see his schooner taking prizes once again. Benji has the Sally. Ned no doubt will serve aboard her. And I have a home, my family, and the man that I love, but what is there for you, James Sparhawk?”

  “Everything, Sarah. Everything I need. The freedom of the sea. And you.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  While the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill have been kept alive in popular memory, the skirmishes fought at sea during the spring of 1775 have largely been forgotten. So too has the role they played in winning the war for public opinion, in the colonies and abroad.

  John Derby left Salem on the schooner Quero on April 29 and reached London with his printed broadside from the Salem Gazette on May 28. By the time the royal express packet Sukey, which had left Boston four days before the Quero, arrived in London on June 9 with General Gage’s account of the conflict at Lexington and Concord, popular opinion had already accepted the American version of the events.

  The battle of Chelsea Creek occurred on May 27 and 28, 1775, in the salt marshes and mudflats of what is now East Boston. It was the first naval battle of the American Revolution, and a significant American victory. The burning of the Diana demonstrated, to Patriots and friends of government alike, that the British Navy in Boston Harbor was not invulnerable, and it set the stage for further small-scale actions and intensive privateering that advanced American interests throughout the war.

  RECOMMENDED READING

  Albion, Robert G., Baker, William A., Labaree, Benjamin W., New England and the Sea, Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, CT, 1994.

  Archer, Richard, As If an Enemy’s Country, The British Occupation of Boston and the Revolution, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010.

  Bourne, Russell, Cradle of Violence, How Boston’s Waterfront Mobs Ignited the American Revolution, John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2006.

  Coggins, Jack, Ships and Seamen of the American Revolution, Dover Publications, Mineola, New York, 1969.

  Cordingly, David, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates, Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1995.

  DeBerniere, Henry, The Narrative of General Gage’s Spies March 1775, reprinted by the Bostonian Society, Boston, 1912.

  Druett, Joan, She Captains, Heroines and Hellions of the Sea, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001.

  Fischer, David Hackett, Paul Revere’s Ride, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994.

  Fowler, William A., Rebels Under Sail, The American Navy During the Revolution, Scribner, New York, 1976.

  Johnson, Charles, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, Conway Maritime Press, London, 2002.

  Jones, Marilyn and Tentindo, Vincent, The Battle of Chelsea Creek, Revere Historical Commission, Revere, MA, 1978.

  Kaynor, Fay Campbell, Province House and the Preservation Movement, Old Time New England, Boston, Fall 1996.

  Konstam, Angus, The History of Pirates, Lyons Press, n.p., 2002.

  Morrissey, Brendan, Boston 1775, Osprey Campaign Series 37, Osprey, London, 1995.

  Patton, Robert H., Patriot Pirates, The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution, Pantheon Books, New York, 2008.

  Phillips, James Duncan, Salem in the Eighteenth Century, Essex Institute, Salem, MA, 1969.

  Rantoul, Robert S., “The Cruise of the Quero,” The Century Magazine, n.p., September 1899, pp. 714–21.

  Rodger, N. A. M., The Wooden World, An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996.

  Taylor, James C., ed. Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 2007.

  Tilley, John A., The British Navy and the American Revolution, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC, 1987.

  Tuchman, Barbara, The First Salute, A View of the American Revolution, Ballantine, New York, 1988.

  Various, Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Volume 1, AMERICAN THEATRE: Dec. 1, 1774–Sept. 2, 1775, EUROPEAN THEATRE: Dec. 6, 1774–Aug. 9, 1775, Part 2 of 8, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1964.

  Wilbur, C.
Keith, Pirates and Patriots of the Revolution, Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, CT, 1973.

  Graduating from Yale with degrees in classics and art history, Donna Thorland managed architecture and interpretation at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem for several years. She then earned an MFA in film production from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. She has been a Disney/ABC Television Writing Fellow and a WGA Writer’s Access Project Honoree, and has written for the TV shows Cupid and Tron: Uprising. She is the director of several award-winning short films, her most recent project having aired on WNET Channel 13. Her fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Donna is married with one cat and splits her time between Los Angeles and Salem, Massachusetts.

  CONNECT ONLINE

  www.donnathorland.com

  facebook.com/donnathorland

  A CONVERSATION WITH DONNA THORLAND

  Q. This novel tells a side of the American Revolution that was completely unknown to me. Can you fill in some of the background? What new understanding do you hope that readers will take away?

  A. During the French and Indian War, America had three working powder mills. By the eve of the American Revolution, she had none. All the matériel of war—the powder for muskets and cannon, the lead for bullets—had to be stolen from British arsenals, a risky business, or imported, which was a riskier business still. For up to a year before the fighting broke out at Concord and Lexington in April 1775, the colonists had been smuggling powder and weapons into North America, running their fast little schooners past the British Navy’s blockade of Boston Harbor. Gunrunning was rife with international intrigue, and the French and Spanish were only too happy to help, to spit in the eye of their old enemy. But most of the risk was borne by the scrappy American mariners who made powder runs to Europe and to the tax-free Dutch ports of the Caribbean like Saint Eustatius.

  Q. When the book opens, Sarah Ward’s fiancé, Micah Wild, has called off their union because her family has suffered a change of fortune. Was it common for men (or women) to break engagements when their finances took a turn for the worse?

  A. Property was an important part of betrothal agreements for the middle and upper classes, and a material change in either family’s status was grounds for nullifying the contract. Both before and after the Revolution, vast New England fortunes were made—and lost—at sea. American ships were vulnerable to pirates, search and seizure by the British Navy, and bad weather. The mansions lining Salem’s common and Chestnut Street are testaments to the rewards of bold seamanship. But many of those houses were built and furnished, only to be occupied for a short time—a matter of months in some cases—before their owners were ruined by a single failed venture.

  Q. Micah Wild burns Sarah Ward’s house down under the cover of a night of mob violence. How common was such rioting during the period?

  A. The story of British Loyalists during the American Revolution hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Their plight reminds us that the War for Independence was as much a civil war as it was a revolution, with families, including those of some of the founding fathers such as Franklin, torn apart by conflicting loyalties. Riots, common throughout the 1770s, particularly in port cities like Boston and Salem, often focused the ire of the rebel mob on prominent Tories. Governor Hutchinson had his house torn down. In Salem, Judge Ropes, the inspiration for Judge Rideout, was dragged from his bed while he lay dying of smallpox. Several British officials and their families were forced to take refuge on naval vessels or in forts like Castle William. Many Loyalists were tarred and feathered. Those whose assets were primarily real property, farms, businesses, homes, lost everything. And the Continental Congress, on more than one occasion, seized property from Loyalists and awarded it to Patriots.

  Q. How typical for the time is Sarah’s sexual knowledge and experience?

  A. We tend to view eighteenth-century American sexuality through a Victorian lens, but cohabitation was common in the colonies. Between one-third and one-half of colonial American brides were pregnant at the time of their marriage. In port towns, sailors often cohabited with women who acted as temporary wives while their ship was in. Prostitution, particularly in the port towns, was common. Marriage was also less “permanent” than we often imagine: legal divorce was available to the wealthy, and many husbands and wives effectively divorced their partners simply by moving away or publishing the dissolution of their union in a newspaper.

  Q. Was it common for pirates who plied the Caribbean to hail from New England, and to retire there after their adventures?

  A. Many of the pirates who terrorized America were born in England. Only a few famous buccaneers are known to have hailed from the New World, most notably Ned Low and Thomas Tew. Most of the pirates who frequented New England ports met violent ends, like Blackbeard, William Kidd, and Thomas Veal, but legends of their buried treasure persist, especially on Cape Ann.

  Q. Margaret Gage, wife of General Thomas Gage—who I assume is based on a historical figure—seems to have strong Rebel sympathies, which I find shocking in the wife of a British commander. Can you explain?

  A. Margaret Kemble Gage was a noted beauty from a prominent New Jersey family. Her husband, Thomas Gage, like several of the British commanders who followed him (including General Howe, featured in my previous book The Turncoat), had strong American sympathies. Gage himself was seen as a timid commander, but he had been given an impossible task. Parliament refused to send him the men necessary to pacify America, and at the same time urged him to bring the brewing conflict to a head. The disastrous retreat from Concord and Lexington was the result. In Paul Revere’s Ride, historian David Hackett Fischer raised the possibility that Margaret Gage tipped the Rebels off on the eve of Concord and Lexington, allowing Hancock and Adams to escape arrest.

  Q. What role did Boston play during the later years of the war? Did it remain under British control?

  A. The siege of Boston ended, and the Americans regained control of the city in March 1776 when Washington placed cannons captured from Fort Ticonderoga on Dorchester Heights. Powder captured by American privateers in Boston Harbor enabled Washington to keep his army supplied through that tenuous winter. Boston was to remain in the hands of the Rebels for the rest of the war.

  Q. Much is made in the novel of the British Navy’s policy of “pressing” men into service to man its ships. Was life as a lowly sailor so bad that the navy had to resort to physical force in order to ensure it had enough men?

  A. Life at sea in the eighteenth century was hard, but civilian sailors were free to negotiate their terms, to change ships at the next port, to go home. Many American sailors were young men who signed on for a single voyage to get a start in life, to earn enough money to open a business or marry. When the British Navy pressed these sailors, sometimes off incoming ships or even from the docks of port towns like Salem and Marblehead, it abducted them into the service, and a New England man might find himself on the other side of the world with no way to communicate with or support his family. Understandably, many Americans were less than enthusiastic about being conscripted in this fashion!

  Q. While writing this novel you moved to Salem, Massachusetts, which plays a significant role in the book. What drew you to Salem, and how do you like living there?

  A. Salem played a crucial role in privateering during the Revolution. Of the 2,200 British ships captured by American cruisers, 458 were taken by Salem vessels. Naumkeag privateers accounted for more captured tonnage than privateers in any other American port.

  Salem launched 158 privateers over the course of the war, and 85 of those were outfitted by Elias Hasket Derby, America’s first millionaire, who loosely inspired the character of Micah Wild. It was Derby’s Quero, under the command of his younger brother, John, that reached London first with the news of Lexington and Concord and ensured that the American version of events would be heard and would shape both the
debate in Parliament and the public perception of that battle.

  My first career was in public history, and I started out as an intern in the departments of Early American Architecture and Asian Export Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. I rose over the years to manage the institution’s interpretation department, and fell in love with early America in the process. After many years splitting my time between Boston and Los Angeles, where I wrote for film and television, I’m excited to be back in Salem as a resident, where history really does come alive, from the Puritan settlement at Naumkeag to the adventure of the Revolution and the China Trade.

  Q. What have you most enjoyed about readers’ responses to The Turncoat?

  A. I’m excited that readers are rediscovering the drama and danger of the American Revolution, and that they identify with the remarkable women of the period. The response to Kate and Angela Ferrers (who also appears in this book) in particular has been very gratifying.

  Q. I, for one, can’t wait for the third book in the trilogy. Can you tell us a little about it?

  A. Playwright and historian Mercy Otis Warren penned seditious dramas under a pseudonym. Her work placed her on a British hanging list. The heroine of my next book is loosely based on Mercy, and follows her adventures as she flees the British. The story will take us to Saratoga and pit Mercy’s alter ego against British author, general, and man-about-town “Gentleman” Johnny Burgoyne.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. What is your overall response to the novel? What do you like best? Do you mind that the story takes place before events of The Turncoat, the first book in the Renegades of the Revolution trilogy?

  2. Were you surprised to learn of the naval skirmishes between the British and Rebels that took place in Boston Harbor and all up and down the New England coast, even as the more familiar events in Lexington and Concord were unfolding? How has your understanding of the American Revolution changed after reading this book?