Time, though a good Collector, is not always a reliable Historian.
That is to say, that although nothing of interest or importance is
lost, yet an affair may be occasionally invested with a glamour that is
not wholly its own. I venture to think that Piracy has fortuned in this
particular. We are apt to base our ideas of Piracy on the somewhat
vague ambitions of our childhood; and I suppose, were such a thing
possible, the consensus of opinion in our nurseries as to a future
profession in life would place Piracy but little below the glittering
heights of the police force and engine-driving. Incapable of forgetting
this in more mature years, are we not inclined to deck Her (the “H”
capital, for I speak of an ideal), if not in purple and fine linen, at
least with a lavish display of tinsel and gilt? Nursery lore remains
with us, whether we would or not, for all our lives; and generations of
ourselves, as schoolboys and pre-schoolboys, have tricked out Piracy in
so resplendent a dress that she has fairly ousted in our affections,
not only her sister profession of “High Toby and the Road,” but every
other splendid and villainous vocation. Yet Teach, Kid, and Avery were
as terrible or grim as Duval, Turpin, and Sheppard were courtly or
whimsical. And the terrible is a more vital affair than the whimsical.
Is it, then, unnatural that, after a lapse of nigh on two centuries, we
should shake our wise heads and allow that which is still nursery
within us to deplore the loss of those days when we ran—before a
favouring “Trade”—the very good chance of being robbed, maimed, or
murdered by Captain Howel Davis or Captain Neil Gow? It is as well to
remember that the “Captains” in this book were seamen whose sole
qualifications to the title were ready wit, a clear head, and, maybe,
that certain indefinable “power of the eye” that is the birth-right of
all true leaders. The piratical hero of our childhood is traceable in a
great extent to the “thrillers,” toy plays, and penny theatres of our
grandfathers. Here our Pirate was, as often as not, a noble, dignified,
if gloomy gentleman, with a leaning to Byronic soliloquy. Though stern
in exterior, his heart could (and would) melt at the distresses of the
heroine. Elvira's eyes were certain to awaken in his mind the
recollection of “other eyes as innocent as thine, child.” In short, he
was that most touching of all beings, the Hero-cum-Villain. And it was
with a sigh of relief that we saw him at the eleventh hour, having
successfully twitted the “Government Men” and the Excise (should he
have an additional penchant for smuggling), safely restored to the arms
of the long-suffering possessor of the other eyes.
Alas! this little book mentions no Poll of Portsmouth, nor does it
favour us with a “Yeo, heave, oh!” nor is there so very much “cut and
thrust” about it. It was written in that uninspiring day when Pirates
were a very real nuisance to such law-abiding folk as you and I; but it
has the merit of being written, if not by a Pirate, at least by one who
came into actual contact with them. I am not at all sure that “merit”
is the right word to use in this instance, for to be a Pirate does not
necessarily ensure you making a good author. Indeed, it might almost be
considered as a ban to the fine literary technique of an Addison or a
Temple. It has, however, the virtue of being in close touch with some
of the happenings chronicled. Not that our author saw above a tithe of
what he records—had he done so he would have been “set a-sun-drying”
at Execution Dock long before he had had the opportunity of putting pen
to paper; but, as far as posterity was concerned, he was lucky in his
friend William Ingram—evidently a fellow of good memory and a ready
tongue—“who,” as our author states in his Preface, “was a Pirate under
Anstis, Roberts, and many others,” and who eventually was hanged in
good piratical company on the 11th of June, 1714.
The actual history of the little book, the major part of which is
here reprinted, is as follows:
Its full title is “The History and Lives of all the most Notorious
Pirates and their Crews,” and the fifth edition, from which our text is
taken, was printed in 1735. A reproduction of the original title-page
is given overleaf.
As a matter of fact, the title is misleading. How could a book that
makes no mention of Morgan or Lollonois be a history of all the
most notorious Pirates? It deals with the last few years of the
seventeenth century and the first quarter of the eighteenth, a period
that might with justice be called “The Decline and Fall of Piracy,” for
after 1730 Piracy became but a mean broken-backed affair that bordered
perilously on mere sea-pilfering.
[Illustration: THE
HISTORY and LIVES
Of all the most Notorious
PIRATES,
AND THEIR
CREWS;
From Capt. AVERY, who first settled at Madagascar, to Captain
John Gow, and James Williams, his Lieutenant, &c. who
were hang'd at Execution Dock, June 11, 1725, for Piracy
and Murther; and afterwards hang'd in Chains between Blackwall
and Deptford. And in this Edition continued down to the present
Year 1735.
Giving a more full and true Account than any yet Publish'd, of all
their Murthers, Piracies, Maroonings, Places of Refuge, and Ways of
Living.
The Fifth Edition.
Adorned with Twenty Beautiful CUTS, being the Representation of each
Pirate.
To which is prefixed, An Abstract of the Laws against Piracy.
LONDON: Printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, at
the Red Lyon in Pater-noster-Row; R. Ware, at the
Sun and Bible in Amen-Corner; and J. Hodges,
at the Looking-glass on London-bridge. 1735.]
A little research into the book's history shows us that it is
consistent throughout, and that it is a “piracy,” in the publisher's
sense of the word, of a much larger and more pretentious work by
Captain Charles Johnson, entitled, “A General History of the Pyrates
from their first Rise and Settlement in the Island of Providence to the
Present Time; With the Remarkable Actions and Adventures of the two
Female Pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny.”
This was published in London, in 8vo., by Charles Rivington in 1724.
A second edition, considerably augmented, was issued later in the same
year, a third edition in the year following, and a fourth edition—in
two volumes, as considerable additions in the form of extra “Lives,”
and an appendix necessitated a further volume—in 1725.
This two-volume edition contained the history of the following
Pirates: Avery, Martel, Teach, Bonnet, England, Vane, Rackham, Davis,
Roberts, Anstis, Morley, Lowther, Low, Evans, Phillips, Spriggs, Smith,
Misson, Bowen, Kid, Tew, Halsey, White, Condent, Bellamy, Fly, Howard,
Lewis, Cornelius, Williams, Burgess, and North, together with a short
abstract on the Statute and Civil Law in relation to “Pyracy,” and an
appendix, completing the Lives in the first volume, and correcting some
mistakes.
The work evidently enjoyed a great vogue, for it was translated into
Dutch by Robert Hannebo, of Amsterdam, in 1727, and issued there, with
several “new illustrations,” in 12mo. A German version by Joachim Meyer
was printed at Gosslar in the following year, while in France it saw
the light as an appendix to an edition of Esquemeling's “Histoire des
Avanturiers,” 1726.
But little is known of the author, Captain Charles Johnson,
excepting that he flourished from 1724 to 1736, and it is more than
probable that the name by which we know him is an assumed one. It is
possible that his knowledge of Pirates and Piracy was of such a nature
to have justified awkward investigations on the part of His Majesty's
Government.
There is one thing that we do know for certain about him, and that
is that the worthy Captain's spelling, according to the pirated version
of his book, was indefinite even for his own day. He was one of those
inspired folk who would be quite capable of spelling “schooner” with
three variations in as many lines. In this edition the spelling has
been more or less modernized.
Lastly, it is to be remembered that the ships of this period,
according to our modern ideas, would be the veriest cockle-shells, and
so that we should know what manner of vessel he refers to in these
pages, I had recourse to a friend of mine whose knowledge of things
nautical is extensive enough to have gained for him the coveted “Extra
Master's Certificate,” and who was kind enough to supply me with the
following definitions:
[Illustration: SLOOP.
A vessel rigged as a cutter, but with one head-sail only set on a
very short bowsprit.]
[Illustration: SCHOONER. TOPSAIL SCHOONER.
Two-masted vessels, fore and aft rigged, sometimes having square
topsails on the fore-mast.]
[Illustration: BRIGANTINE.
A two-masted vessel, square rigged on fore-mast.]
GALLEY.
A large vessel rowed by oars and sometimes having auxiliary sail of
various rigs.
PINK.
Probably a small, fast vessel used as a tender and despatch boat for
river work.
[Illustration: SNOW.
A two-masted vessel with a stay, known as a “Horse,” from the
main-mast to the poop on which the trysail was set. Sometimes a spar
was fitted instead of a stay. The rig was most likely of a brig (
i.e., a two-masted ship, square sails on both masts), and the
triangular trysail set on the stay in bad weather or when hove to.]
C. L. F.
[Illustration]