Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period Part 32

_Translation._

ST. THOMAS, September 1, 1699.

_To His Excellency Bellomont:_

_My Lord:_

I have had the honor to receive by way of Captain ---- Carry[2] Your Excellency's agreeable letter of July 26, and to understand fully from it what Your Excellency has been pleased to write as to the pirate Will Kidd, upon which I shall serve Your Excellency with the following reply. The aforesaid Will Kidd, with his freight-ship under the English flag, came to anchor off this harbor, out of range of the King's fortress, and then sent his shallop to land with a letter to me, in which he asked me for protection, further declaring that he was innocent as to robbing the subjects of the Mogul in the East Indies.

His course of conduct being at that time still unknown to me, I wrote him in reply that, in case he was an honorable man, I would protect him, but he wished to have a.s.surance that I would not give him up to any war-ship of His Majesty of Great Britain that should come to demand him. This I declined to give, whereupon he, understanding that I had forbidden all inhabitants to sell him any provisions, set sail again.[3] Since that time I have heard that he lay at anchor near the island of Mona, and that one Bolton of Antigua had been with him, to transact business. Afterward there came into this harbor a brigantine belonging to Barbados, on which one Will Burcke[4] was merchant, concerning whom I had no suspicion, still less the thought that he would dare to undertake bringing in here any pirate goods; yet I learned the other day that he by night had brought a quant.i.ty of goods to land, which, according to reports, he had sold to Mr. Pedro van Bellen, general director for the Electoral Brandenburg Privileged Company, and which are also stored in the Brandenburg warehouse.[5] I have not been able to get at the aforesaid goods, because the said Brandenburg patentees have here their own law and privileges, but I have caused the said Will Burcke to be arrested, and on his giving bail have let him return with the brigantine, yet on condition that he should discharge his responsibility to Barbadoes, he being a subject of His Majesty of England and resident there. Since that time he has come here again from Barbados, bringing with him a recommendation from Governor Grey[6] to me, and is living here still at the Brandenburg Lodge, but all the aforesaid goods have, it is said, been transported to other places. This is all the information that I can give Your Excellency respecting this matter, at the same time a.s.suring you that no subjects of his Royal Majesty of Denmark, my sovereign Lord, or inhabitants here, have traded with the aforesaid Kidd, for in that matter I have enforced good order. Meanwhile I have forthwith sent a member of the council to Denmark, to report most submissively to His Royal Majesty, my most gracious King and Lord, all these matters just as they have occurred. Herewith closing, and commending myself to Your Excellency, to maintain all good friendship and further good correspondence, I remain

Your Excellency's

Humble Servant

J. LORENTS.

[Footnote 2: Nathaniel Cary of Charlestown. His very interesting account of his wife's prosecution for witchcraft in 1692 is in Calef's _More Wonders of the Invisible World_, and is reprinted in G.L. Burr, _Narratives of the Witchcraft Trials_, pp. 349-352.]

[Footnote 3: The episode is related more fully in Westergaard, _The Danish West Indies_, pp. 113-118, Professor Westergaard having found Lorentz's carefully kept diary in the Danish archives at Copenhagen.

Lorentz "answered that if he could produce proof in writing that he was an honest man, he might enter". From his request for protection from English royal ships, the governor "saw that he was a pirate", and "his request was flatly refused him, and he was forbidden to send his men ash.o.r.e again unless they came into the harbor with the ship".]

[Footnote 4: See doc. no. 76, note 20.]

[Footnote 5: By a treaty between the Great Elector and the King of Denmark, in 1685, Brandenburg secured for thirty years the privilege of maintaining on St. Thomas an establishment, chiefly useful in connection with the work of the Brandenburg company for the African slave-trade. The story is related in Westergaard, ch. III., and in Schuck; see doc. no. 43, note 1, and no. 48, note 1. The episode of Burke and Van Belle is more fully related in Westergaard, pp. 115-118.

Burke escaped and most of the goods went across the Atlantic to Brandenburg, but Lorentz seems to have been honest.]

[Footnote 6: Hon. Ralph Grey, governor of Barbados 1697-1699.]

_84. Declaration of William Kidd. September 4, 1699._[1]

[Footnote 1: Public Record Office, C.O. 5:860, no. 65 XIX. Enclosed in a letter of Bellomont to the Board of Trade, Aug. 28. There is a photographic facsimile of the original in R.D. Paine, _The Book of Buried Treasure_, at p. 85. Though this chest is mentioned in several of the Kidd doc.u.ments, no account of its contents appears in the chief printed inventories, indeed I find no evidence that it was brought to Boston. The statement may have interest as showing kinds of goods then highly valued.]

BOSTON September 4, 1699

Captain William Kidd declareth and saith That in his chest which he left at Gardiners Island there was three small baggs or more of Jasper Antonio or stone of Goa,[2] severall pieces of Silk stript with silver and gold, Cloth of Silver, about a Bush.e.l.l of Cloves and Nutmegs mixed together and strawed up and down, severall books of fine white callicoes, severall pieces of fine Muzlins, severall pieces more of flowred silk, he does not well remmember what further was in it. he had an Invoyce thereof in his other chest. all that was contained in the said Chest was bought by him and some given him at Madagascar, nothing thereof was taken in the ship _Quedah Merchant_. he esteemed it to be of greater value than all else that he left at Gardiners Island except the gold and silver. there was neither gold or silver in the chest. It was fastned with a Padlock and nailed and corded about.

[Footnote 2: A fever medicine, consisting of various drugs made up into a hard ball, lately invented in India by Gaspar Antonio, a lay brother of the Society of Jesus.]

Further saith That he left at said Gardiners Island a bundle of nine or tenn fine India Quilts, some of them Silk with fringes and Ta.s.sells.

WM. KIDD.

_85. Lord Bellomont to the Board of Trade. November 29, 1699._[1]

[Footnote 1: Public Record Office, C.O. 5:861, no. 4. Endorsed as received Jan. 19, 1700, and read at the Board Feb. 9.]

BOSTON the 29 November 99.

_My Lords_

I gave your Lordships an account in my Letter of the 24th of last moneth[2] by the last ship that went hence for England, of my taking Joseph Bradish and Tee Wetherley, the two Pyrates that had escaped from the Goal of this town;[3] and I then also writ that I hoped in a little time to be able to send your Lordships the news of my taking James Gill[am] the Pyrat that killed Captain Edgecomb, Commander of the _Mocha_ frigat for the East India Company,[4] and that with his own hand while the Captain was asleep, and Gillam is supposed to be the man that Incouraged the Ship's Company to turn Pyrats, and that ship has ever since been robbing in the Red Sea and Seas of India, and taken an Incredible deal of wealth; if one may believe the reports of men that are lately come from Madagascar, and that saw the _Mocha_ frigat there, she has taken above two millions sterling. I have been so lucky as to take James Gillam, and he is now in Irons in the Goal of this town, and at the same time with him was sie[ze]d one Francis Dole,[5] in whose house he was harboured, who proves to be one of h.o.r.e's Crew, H[ore] one of Colonel Fletcher's Pyrates commissioned by him from New York; Dole is also committed to Goal. My taking of Gillam was so very accidentall that I cannot forbear giving your Lordships a narrative of it, and one would believe there was a strange fatality in that m[an's] Starrs. On Sat.u.r.day the 11th Instant late in the evening I had a letter from Colonel Sanford,[6] Judge [of] the Admiralty Court in Rhode-Island, giving me an account that Gillam had been there, but was come towards Boston a fortnight before, in order to ship himselfe for some of the Islands, Jamaica or Barbados, that he was troubled he knew it not sooner, and was affraid his Intelligence would come too late to me; that the Messenger he sent knew the Mare Gillam rode on [to] this town. I was in despair of finding the man, because Colonel Sanford writ to me that he was g[one] to this town so long a time as a fortnight before that; however I sent for an honest Constable I had made use of in the apprehending of Kidd and his men, and sent him with Colonel Sanford's Messenger to examine and search all the Inns in Town for the mare, and at the first Inn they went to, they found her tied up in the yard; the people of the Inn reported that the man that brought her thither, had lighted off her about a quarter of an hour before, had there tied her, but went away without saying anything to anybody. Upon notice of this I gave order to the Master of the Inn that if any body came to look after the mare, he should be sure to seize and secure him, but no body came for her. The next morning which was Sunday I summoned [a] Council, and we published a Proclamation, wherein I promised a reward of 200[l.] for the seizing and securing Gillam, whereupon there was the strictest search [all that] day, and the next, that was ever made in this part of the world, but we had missed him, if I had not been Informed of one Captain Knot, as an old Pyrate and therefore likely [to k]now where Gillam was concealed.[7] I sent for Knot and examined him, promising h[im if h]e would make an Ingenious Confession, I would not molest or prosecute him; he seemed [mu]ch disturbed, but would not confesse anything to purpose. I then sent for his wife and examined her on oath apart from her husband, and she confessed that one who went by the [name] of James Kelly had lodged severall nights in her house, but for some nights past [lo]dged as she believed in Charlestown Crosse the River. I knew he went by the name of Kelly, [the]n I examined Captain Knot again, telling him his wife had been more free and ingenious [tha]n him, which made him believe she had told all; and then he told me of Francis Dole in Charlestown, and that he believed Gillam would be found there. I sent half a dousin men immediately over the water to Charlestown and Knot with them, they beset the house, and searched it but found not the man, Dole affirming with many protestations he was not there, neither knew [of] any such man. Two of the men went through a field behind Dole's house, and pa.s.sing [thr]ough a second field they met a man in the dark (for it was ten a clock at night) whom they [seize]d at all adventures, and it happened as oddly as luckily to be Gillam, he had been treating [some] young women some few miles off in the Country, and was returning at night to his Landlord Dole's house, and so was met with. I examined him, but he denied everything, even that he came with Kidd from Madagascar, or ever saw him in his life; but Captain Davies,[8] who also came thence with Kidd, and all Kidd's men, are positive he is the man and that he went by his true name viz. Gillam, all the while he was on the voyage with them, and Mr. Campbel the Postmaster of this town (whom I sent to treat with Kidd) offers to swear this is the man he saw on [bo]ard Kidd's sloop under the name of James Gillam. He is the most impudent hardened V[illai]n I ever saw in my whole life. That which led me to an Inquiry and search after this man [was t]he Information of William Cuthbert on oath, which I sent your Lordships with my packet of the 26th of this last July,[9]

wherein Cuthbert Informs that being lately in the East India Company's service [it w]as commonly reported there that Gillam had killed Captain Edgecomb with his own hand, that he had [s]erved the Mogul, turned Mahometan and was Circ.u.mcised. I had him searched by a [su]rgeon and also by a Jew in this Town, to know if he were Circ.u.mcised, and they have both declared on oath that he is. Mr.

Cutler the surgeon's[10] deposition goes (No. 1) and Mr. Frazon the Jew's (No. 2).[11] The rest of the Evidences about Gillam and some other Pyrates go numbered from 3 to 23 inclusive, which I recommend to your Lordships perusall, as what will inform you of the strange Countenance given to Pyrats by the Government and people of [Rhode]-Island. I have numbered the papers in order of time and according to their dates: most have reference to Gillam, some to Kidd.

In searching the forementioned Captain Knot's house [a smal]l trunk was found with some remnants of East India goods, and a Letter from Kidd's wife to Captain Thomas Pain an old Pyrat living on Canonicot Island in Rhode Island Governm[ent.][12] The affidavit he made when I was at Rhode-Island goes numbered among the other evide[nce.] He then made oath that he had received nothing from Kidd's sloop when she lay at anchor by [_torn_] Island, yet by Knot's deposition your Lordships will find, he was sent with Mrs. Kidd's letter to Pa[in for] 24 ounces of gold, which Knot accordingly brought; and Mrs. Kidd's Injunction to Pain to keep a[ll the] rest that was left with him till further order, was a plain Indication that there was a good deal of [trea]sure still behind in Pain's Custody, therefore I posted away a messenger to Governor Crans[ton][13] and Colonel Sanford to make a strict search of Pain's house before he could have notice; it see[ms] nothing was then found, but Pain has since produced 18 ounces and odd weight of gold, as appears by Cranston's Letter of the 25th Instant and pretends it was bestowed on him by Kidd, hoping that may p[rove (?)] a salvo for the oath he made when I was in Rhode-Island, but I think it is plain he forswore himselfe then, and I am of opinion he has a great deal more of Kidd's gold still in his hands. [But] he is out of my power, and being in that Government I cannot compell him to deliver up th....

[Footnote 2: The letter in which no. 83 was enclosed; its substance is given in _Cal. St. P. Col._, 1699, pp. 486-490.]

[Footnote 3: See doc. no. 77, note 8.]

[Footnote 4: See doc. no. 65, note 18, and no. 74, note 2.]

[Footnote 5: Francis Dowell, of Wapping Street, Charlestown, mariner.

T.B. Wyman, _Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown_, I. 301.]

[Footnote 6: Peleg Sandford, governor of Rhode Island 1680-1683.]

[Footnote 7: Andrew Knott's examination shows that he and Gillam had known each other in Virginia years before, and had sailed together under a privateer captain, making many prizes in the South Sea, possibly in the expedition narrated in docs. no. 44 and no. 45. See also doc. no. 68, paragraph 16 and note 18.]

[Footnote 8: Edward Davis of London, originally boatswain of the _Fidelia_ (see doc. no. 90), whose deposition is in _Commons Journal_, XIII. 28.]

[Footnote 9: _Commons Journal_, XIII. 26; narrative of William Cuthbert, late gunner of the ship _Charles the Second_.]

[Footnote 10: John Cutler was a Dutch surgeon named De Messenmaker, who on settling in New England translated his name into Cutler. His marriage record in the town records of Hingham begins, "Johannes Demesmaker, a Dutchman (who say his name in English is John Cutler)", etc.]

[Footnote 11: Joseph Frazon, died 1704, buried in the Jewish cemetery at Newport. The anonymous author of the anti-Mather pamphlet, _A Modest Enquiry_ (London, 1707, reprinted in Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., _Coll._, fifth ser., VI.), p. 80*, accuses Cotton Mather of having "attempted a Pretended Vision, to have converted Mr. Frasier a Jew, who had before conceiv'd some good Notions of Christianity: The Consequence was, that the Forgery was so plainly detected that Mr. C.M. confest it; after which Mr. Frasier would never be perswaded to hear any more of Christianity".]

[Footnote 12: Doc. no. 80.]

[Footnote 13: Samuel Cranston, governor of Rhode Island 1698-1728.]

Your Lordships will find in Captain Coddington's narrative number 35[14] and sent with my Report dated the 27th Instant an Inventory of gold and Jew[els] in Governor Cranston's hands which he took from a Pyrat. I see no reason why he should keep them ... so far from that, that he (with submission) ought to be called to an account for Conniving at the Py[rats] making that Island their Sanctuary, and suffering some to escape from Justice. If there be an order sent to him to deliver what gold and jewels is contained in the said Inventory, and also the formentio[ned] parcel of gold which he received from Pain, with all other goods and treasure which he has at any time rec[eived] from Privateers or Pyrates, into my hands for the use of his Majesty, and that upon oath, I will [see] the order executed, and will give a faithfull account thereof according to the order I shall re[ceive].

[Footnote 14: Nathaniel Coddington of Newport, register of the court of admiralty in Rhode Island.]

Four pound weight of the gold brought from Gardiner's Island which I formerly acquainted your Lordships of, and all the Jewels, belonged to Gillam, as Mr. Gardiner's Letter to Mr. Dummer,[15] a Marchand in t[he] town and one of the Committee appointed by me and the Council to receive all the treasure and goods which [were] brought in Kidd's sloop, will prove; and there is some proof of it in Captain Coddington's b[efore men]tioned narrative, and in Captain Knot's deposition of the 14th Instant. I am told that as Vice A[dmiral] of these provinces I am ent.i.tled to 1/3 part of Gillam's said gold and Jewels; I know not whe[ther I] am or no, but if it be my right I hope your Lordships will please to represent to the King the ext[reme]

pains and vigilance I have used in taking these severall Pyrates, and that I may have my [por]tion of the said gold and Jewels, if there be any due to me. It is a great prejudice to the King's s[ervice] that here is no Revenue or other fund to answer any occasion or service of Majestys. I have [been] forced to disburse the 200 pieces of 8/8 for the taking of Gillam out of my own little stock and also to [de]fray my journey and other expences in going to Rhode-Island to execute the King's Commission [and] Instructions. Both accounts I now send, and beg your Lordships favour in promoting and Countenancing the payment of that mony to Sir John Stanley for my use. Captain Gullock[16] tells [me] that 15 or 16 of the ship's Company that would not be concerned with Gillam and his accomplices in murdering Captain Edgecomb, and afterwards turning Pyrates, went home to England in [the] Ship _America_ belonging to the East India Company, Captain Layc.o.c.k Commander. I should thi[nk an] advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Gazette requiring some of those men to appear before one of the Sec[retaries] of State to give their evidence of what they know of that matter, would be proper.

[Footnote 15: Jeremiah Dummer the elder, father of the publicist.]

[Footnote 16: Thomas Gullock was the captain of the ship which Bradish had run away with. Sir John Stanley was an official of the lord chamberlain's office.]

[Your] Lordships will meet with a pa.s.se among the other papers, number 5, to Sion Arnold, one of the [pirat]es brought from Madagascar by Sh.e.l.ley of New York, the said pa.s.se signed by Mr. Ba.s.se,[17]

[Go]vernor of East and West Jerzies, which is a bold step in Ba.s.se after such positive orders as he received from [Govern]or[18] Vernon, but I perceive plainly the meaning of it, he took severall Pirats at Burlington [in West] Jerzey, and a good store of mony with them as it is said, and I daresay he would be glad they [should] escape, for when they are gone, who can witnesse what money he seized with them? I know [the] man so well, that I verily believe that is his plot. John Carr mentioned in some of the [papers to (?)] be in Rhode Island, No. 6, was one of h.o.r.e's Crew. There are abundance of other Pyrats in that [Is]land at this time, but they are out of my power. Mr. Brinley,[19]

Colonel Sanford, and Captain Coddington are honest men, and of the best estates in the Island, and because they are heartily [wea]ry of the male administrations of that Government, and because too I commissioned them (by [virt]ue of the authority and power given me by his Majesty's Commission and Instructions so to do) to [make] Inquiry into the Irregularities of those people, they are become strangely odious to them and [are o]ften affronted by them, neither will they make them Justices of the peace; so that when they [w]ould commit Pyrates to Goal, they are forced to go to the Governor for his Warrant, and very ... ly the Pyrates get notice, and avoid the Warrant for that time. You may please to o[bser]ve too that Gardiner the Deputy Collector[20] is accused to have been once a Pyrat, in one of the [paper]s. I doubt he will forswear himselfe rather than part with Gillam's gold which is in his hands. [It is] impossible for me to transmit to the Lords of the Treasury these proofs against Gardiner.

[I am] so jaded with writing, that I cannot write to them by this Conveyance, but I could wish [your Lordships might be (?)] made acquainted with Gardiner's Character, and that they would send over honest In----t men to be Collectors of Rhode Island, Conecticut, and New Hampshire; and that they [would h]asten Mr. Brenton[21] hither to his post, or send some other Collector in his room. I could [wish]

that Mr. Weaver were ordered to hasten to New York. Your Lordships may please to observe that [Knott] in one of his depositions accuses Gillam to have pyrated four years together in the [Sou]th sea against the Spaniards.