The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down

by Colin Woodard

  A few days later, the pirates noticed the skies were growing dark. It was early April, and a bank of air that had warmed itself over the sultry creeks and marshes of Chesapeake country migrated out over the colder sea, creating a fogbank as thick as pea soup. It appeared so quickly that Williams and Bellamy didn't have time to close ranks and quickly lost sight of each other. Bellamy's men rang the Whydah's bronze bell but could hear no response from the Marianne. Night fell and, when the fog lifted to reveal the Capes of Virginia the following morning, the Marianne was nowhere to be found. Bellamy assured his crew that they would catch up with Williams at Block Island as planned or, failing that, at Damariscove Island, a few miles off the Maine coast. Meanwhile, it was time to hunt.

  Out of the lifting haze, sails could be seen out to sea: at least three vessels, each with too many masts to belong to Paulsgrave Williams. Merchant ships, Bellamy suspected, and ordered the Whydah to swing around, her back to the wind, to bear down on them. Around eight A.M. they approached the first one, a worn-out-looking ship, the Agnes of Glasgow. Her captain, Andrew Turbett, wisely offered no resistance. Turbett was headed to Virginia from Barbados, with a load of that colony's signature products: sugar, molasses, and, most importantly for the pirates, rum. They made another discovery in the Agnes's hold: The tired ship was leaking badly and could only be kept afloat by keeping men working the pumps for hours on end. Agnes, they knew, would be of no use to them. The Whydah bore down on her next target.

  This was a 100-ton snow, the Ann Galley, a small but serviceable vessel Bellamy suggested they keep as an extra storage ship and to help careen the Whydah in Maine. The company agreed, put twenty-eight of their number aboard, and appointed quartermaster Richard Noland to command the new auxiliary. Meanwhile, the Whydah detained the third vessel, a modest ship called the Endeavor, which was sailing from Brighton, England, to Virginia. The captures completed, the pirate fleet stood offshore, where they finished their looting. The Agnes they would sink, her crew sent on their way to Virginia aboard with the Endeavor, which was too small for their purposes. Only the Ann Galley would be kept when the fleet continued their way northward toward Block Island, Cape Cod, and their Maine hideaway.

  ***

  At this time, the morning of April 9, 1717, the Marianne was just a few miles over the horizon, against the Capes of Virginia, searching for prey of their own. Williams no longer looked like the middle-aged son of a wealthy merchant. His white wig contrasted sharply with his skin, so deeply tanned after a year in the tropics that witnesses were struck by his "dark brown complexion." His motley crew—five Frenchmen, five Africans, an Indian, and nearly thirty Brits—looked as rough as the Marianne herself. Williams must have realized he would make quite an impression on his friends and family when he got to Block Island, but he was eager to see them. There was plenty of money to pass on to his mother, wife, and children, or to exchange with his smuggler friends for critical supplies.

  Since becoming separated from Bellamy, Williams hadn't made a single capture. Without the Whydah's firepower, he had to choose his targets carefully, staying clear of any vessel that might be well defended. While Marianne hid against the hilly shores of what is now Virginia Beach, Williams's lookout spotted a likely victim tacking toward the capes from the open sea. With the wind at their backs the pirates charged, and in less than an hour were alongside the hapless ship, the Tryal, also of Brighton, en route to Annapolis, Maryland. They yelled orders to the unarmed ship's captain, John Lucas, that if he did not row himself over to the Marianne, they would sink his ship. The pirates knew Lucas had no choice but to comply; he had only seven men and two boys against their forty men and ten cannon. The Tryal turned into the wind and drifted to a stop. Lucas made his way to the Marianne.

  Still on the lookout for the Whydah, Williams took his time looting. With Captain Lucas incarcerated on the Marianne, Williams sent a number of his men back over to the Tryal. For eleven hours the pirates rummaged through her hold and cabins, breaking open chests and boxes, tearing into bales of goods, keeping some things and throwing others overboard. The Tryal had two more boats, and once the pirates had filled them with things they wished to keep, they rowed them back to the Marianne, put Lucas back aboard his ship, and ordered him to follow them on pain of death. Another ship had been sighted on the horizon and, in the hopes that it was the Whydah, the Marianne set a course to intercept. Shortly thereafter the wind began to stiffen, and the Tryal began moving faster than the smaller Marianne. Lucas, realizing his advantage, swung the Tryal around and made a successful dash to safety.

  Williams's men had taken everything of value from the Tryal, but the last thing they needed was for Lucas to alert the whole Chesapeake region to their presence. From interrogating captured mariners, Williams knew that HMS Shoreham, a 360-ton, thirty-two-gun Royal Navy frigate, was stationed near Williamsburg, Virginia's capital. From then on, they would have to move with caution, to be sure they didn't put themselves in a position where the Shoreham might bring her guns to bear on their battered sloop.* To further their disappointment, the sails on the horizon turned out not to be Bellamy's. Williams's crew may have grown anxious about what was becoming a prolonged separation from the great treasure heap in the Whydah's hold.

  Williams tarried off the mouth of the Chesapeake for several more days, but his fear of encountering the Shoreham made him timid. Around April 13 the pirates captured an English ship out of Whitehaven, only to begin fighting among themselves as to whether to destroy it. During this argument, which seems to have pitched Williams against some of his officers, another sloop and ship came into the entrance of the bay. The pirates broke off their fight, left their prize at anchor, and took off into the bay in pursuit of these new prizes. Unfortunately, as they worked their way up the Virginia shore, they spotted a large frigate-rigged ship in Lynnhaven Bay and, fearing it was the Shoreham, beat a hasty retreat, abandoning even their anchored prize.

  With tensions growing aboard his sloop, Williams decided to head for home. At Block Island his company could buy supplies; drink and fresh food would do a great deal to improve his crew's morale. With any luck, they would find the Whydah there.

  Block Island, eleven square miles of windswept sand, lay twelve miles off the coast of Rhode Island. The colony of Rhode Island was noticeably poorer and more loosely governed than Massachusetts, with few roads and a great many smugglers. Even its capital, Newport, was still little more than an oversized village, its 3,000 residents having only started giving names to its streets five years earlier. Block Island was even rougher, an island kingdom of its own, far from the eyes, ears, and arms of the authorities in Newport and Boston. The islanders' first allegiance was to one another, and Williams was one of them, son of a leading landowner, stepson of one of the earliest settlers, related by law, blood, or marriage. It was as safe a haven as Williams could ask for, short of a war-wasted colony like the Bahamas or Maine.

  The Marianne anchored off Block Island's main village on April 17 or 18. From Captain Beer, Richard Caverley, and other captives aboard the Marianne we know Williams went ashore to visit his mother, Anna Guthrie, and sisters Mary Westcott,* Catherine Sands, and Elizabeth Paine. He likely gave them part of his newfound wealth, perhaps asking them to forward some to his wife and children in Newport. He stayed ashore for a number of hours, and possibly a day or two, his activities masked to history by the complicity of his kith and kin.

  Williams returned to the Marianne, anchored some distance from shore, and was accompanied by seven local men, including his brother-in-laws, John Sands (the local warden and justice of the peace) and Thomas Paine (probable nephew of the great pirate of the same name), and one of his late stepfather's fellow Scots rebels John Rathbon. The men, according to an affidavit they drew up a month later, went aboard the Marianne for "about an hour or two," then boarded a boat "without any molestation" and began rowing back to the village. The men claimed that they were suddenly ordered to return to the Marianne, at which point three
of the men in the boat—William Tosh, George Mitchell, and Dr. James Sweet, were "forcibly taken from us and commanded to come on board." Given that Sands, as justice of the peace, failed to report the incident for more than a month, it seems likely that the men actually volunteered to join the pirates, and that Williams's in-laws' business aboard the Marianne would not have born official scrutiny.

  Before leaving Block Island, Williams released Captain Beer and his crewmen, who would eventually travel to Newport to report their capture. By the time Beer made it to the mainland, events had made his news of Bellamy irrelevant.

  Williams cruised the mouth of Long Island Sound, calling at Gardiner's Island, a 3,500-acre island off the coast of Long Island, New York, and the feudal preserve of the family of the same name.* Captain Kidd, Williams knew, had visited the island in 1699 and had not only been entertained by John Gardiner and his Indian servants, he had managed to leave two chests and a number of bundles of treasure with him for safekeeping. Williams may have done the same, placing his wealth in the capable hands of "the 3rd Lord of the Manor" for later collection at the end of the summer season.

  On the afternoon of April 26, the skies darkened and a powerful wind began blowing from the southeast. Long Island Sound roiled with angry whitecaps, and powerful gusts threatened to tear the Marianne's patched sails and splinted mast. A fearsome storm was striking New England. Williams was able to find shelter, probably nestled behind Gardiner's Island and between the two flukes of eastern Long Island. As the wind howled through the rigging, Williams was in a safe harbor. Out on the open ocean, he knew, it was going to be a dangerous night.

  ***

  Not 150 miles to the east, Bellamy was sailing over gentle seas, pushed along toward Cape Cod by a fair wind. The day had gotten off to a fine start. At nine that morning, while still out of sight of land, they had intercepted a two-masted vessel between Nantucket Shoals and Georges Bank, the most productive fishing grounds of southern New England. Bellamy ordered the craft to surrender, emphasizing the point by firing a cannon shot ahead of her bow. Seven of his men rowed over to the prize, the Mary Anne of Dublin, and ordered the captain and most of his crew to row themselves over to the Whydah. Bellamy questioned the captain, one Andrew Crumpsley, and was pleased to discover that he had been on his way from Boston to New York with a load of wine. He sent four more crewmen to rustle up some bottles to pass around the Whydah and Ann Galley. Unfortunately, they had some trouble getting into the Mary Anne's hold: the heavy anchor cables were piled over the entrance. For now, the men of the Whydah would have to settle for the five bottles of fresh wine the pirates had found in Crumpsley's cabin. No matter, they would take the Mary Anne with them and find time to plunder her later. Between the decks, the pirates' morale was presumably lifted by the prospect of a wine-fueled party on the shores of an out-of-the-way Maine island.

  First, there would be a short stop on Cape Cod, for after the Mary Annes capture, Bellamy ordered all three vessels to follow a course of north by northwest. This took them not to the islands of Midcoast Maine, but straight for Provincetown and, by extension, Eastham. According to surviving accounts by those present, Bellamy told his crew they would be stopping on the Cape to stock up on fresh food and provisions. But according to Eastham folklore, his real aim was to reunite with young Miss Hallett and show her and her family just how much he had made of himself.

  At about three in the afternoon, a fog settled around the Whydah and her two prizes, so dense and impenetrable that the pirates had trouble keeping the vessels together. Without a pilot for each, Bellamy knew it would be too dangerous to approach the treacherous shores of Cape Cod; if his great ship ran aground on one of the many unmarked shoals, they would be sitting ducks for the Royal Navy or any other armed authority. Despite his desire to get to Provincetown's anchorage, Bellamy ordered the vessels to come to a stop. Their sails flapping idly in the wind, the three vessels bobbed amid the eerie mist, waiting for visibility to improve.

  Not half an hour later, the pirates had a stroke of luck. Drifting through the fog, straight into their midst, came a small trading sloop, the Fisher, on her way from Virginia to Boston. Clearly the sloop's captain knew these waters well enough to be willing to traverse them in these conditions; just the man the pirates needed. Bellamy hailed her, asking, "whether the master was acquainted here" with the coast. The Fisher's captain, Robert Ingols, replied, "he knew it very well." Bellamy insisted Ingols row over to lead the way. By five o'clock, Ingols and his first mate were standing on the Whydah's quarterdeck under heavy guard, advising Bellamy on how best to proceed up the long, harborless shore of the outer Cape.

  Bellamy happily ordered his three prizes to follow the Whydah as Ingols guided her through the fog toward the unseen coast. It would soon be dark, as well as foggy, so they placed a large lamp on the stern of each vessel to make it easier for them to keep track of one another. They proceeded to the north: Bellamy in the Whydah with over 130 of the pirates and most of the captives, Noland and seventeen pirates in the Ann Galley, the wine-loaded Mary Anne under the control of eight of Bellamy's men, and a prize crew of four pirates guarding captives in the Fisher.

  Aboard the Mary Anne, seven of the eight pirates promptly went for the casks of wine in the hold. Thomas South, one of the carpenters forced from the St. Michael five months earlier, remained sullen, quiet, and unarmed, keeping his distance from the rest of the pirates. While the others shoved aside the piled-up anchor cables on top of the hatches, South whispered to one of the Mary Anne's captive crewmen that he was plotting to escape from the pirates as soon as possible. Meanwhile the rest of the pirates continued taking turns at the helm while the others broke open the first barrels of Madeira wine and started what they intended to be a very long night of drinking. It wasn't long before the Mary Anne began falling behind the rest of the vessels. Bellamy, aboard the Whydah, noticed this and slacked off long enough to let the wine-laden pink catch up. He yelled at the leaders of the Mary Anne pirates, Simon Van Vorst and John Brown, to "make more haste." Brown, already tipsy, swore he would make the vessel "carry sail till she carried her masts away." He and the other men ordered their captives to help them handle the sails and, when they realized that the Mary Anne had a leaky hull, to do the backbreaking work of manning the pumps. They damned the vessel herself, saying they "wished they had never seen her." By the time darkness fell, they turned the helm over to one of their captives, freeing up another pirate for the critical task of drinking wine. Brown declared himself captain, while another pirate, Thomas Baker, began bragging to the captives, telling them that their company had a privateering commission from King George himself. "We will stretch it to the world's end," Van Vorst chimed in.

  At about ten at night, the weather began turning ugly. Heavy squalls of rain began to fall, the pitch black sky was shattered by bolts of lightning. Worst of all, the wind had shifted so that it was coming from the southeast and east, driving the vessels toward the unseen shore of Cape Cod. The drunken pirates aboard the Mary Anne soon lost sight of the other vessels. Baker, perhaps distressed, began cursing the Mary Anne's cook, Alexander Mackconachy, who was manning the helm and had apparently steered her closer to land. He "would make no more to shoot him, then he would a dog," Baker howled, musket in hand. "You will never go on shore to tell your story!"

  Not long thereafter, the shore presented itself, as if rebuking Baker. The Mary Anne was now being battered by twenty to thirty foot seas, which broke in cascades of foam all around her. Everyone realized they might run aground at any moment and be dashed to pieces by the angry sea. Mackconachy begged the pirates to swing her around, bow to the beach, to give her the best chance of surviving the inevitable collision with the bottom. Just after they had swung around the Mary Anne struck, shaking the hull violently and sending wine casks tumbling about the decks. Baker grabbed an axe and began hacking away at her masts, as bringing them down would reduce the stress on the creaking hull. With two of the three masts down, another of the
pirates cried out in terror, "For God's sake, let us go down into the hold and die together!"The men, captives and pirates alike, huddled on deck and in the hold, expecting to be drowned at any moment. The illiterate pirates begged Mackconachy to read from the Book of Common Prayer. As they listened to the prayers in the cook's Gaelic accent, lightning flashed in the sky, wind screamed through the rigging, and the wooden hull shuddered in the surf.

  The crews of the other prize vessels were more sober and, possibly as a result, more fortunate. As the storm built, Richard Noland in the Ann Galley lost sight of the Whydah's lantern, but he kept close to the little Fisher. The mountainous waves were pushing them toward the breakers, which they could hear crashing on the Cape's deserted shore. Noland realized their only chance was to drop their anchors and hope that the great iron hooks held firm enough to keep them off the beach until the storm subsided. He swung the Ann around and the men flung the anchors overboard. He screamed and gesticulated to the Fisher to do the same. On both vessels, pirates and captives alike watched anxiously as the anchor cables played out, stiffened and, miraculously, pulled the wooden ships to a stop a few hundred yards off the beach. If prayers were said during the night, they were undoubtedly directed at the anchors, clinging to the sandy bottom as the Atlantic vented its fury.

  A few miles to the north, the Whydah was also being driven inexorably toward shore. As the huge seas tossed the ship closer and closer to the crashing surf, Sam Bellamy may well have remembered the wrecks of the Spanish treasure fleet, great hulls battered into kindling by violent, storm-driven surf. Bellamy knew where he was. In flashes of lightning, he could see the great cliffs of Eastham looming a hundred feet above the exploding waves. If they crashed here, there would be few survivors. The surf washed nearly to the feet of the cliffs, which rose precipitously to the tablelands, that windswept, sparsely inhabited plain separating the villagers of Eastham and Billingsgate from the sea. By midnight, he knew the Whydah's half-ton anchors were the only hope of saving her.