The Whydah Pirates Speak, Volume 2

By Laura Nelson

Before BLACK SAILS there was Sam Bellamy and the WHYDAH

And they plundered 50 ships for tens of thousands of dollars in the North Atlantic

The Golden Age of Piracy went far beyond what occurred on Nassau. Some of the most notorious pirates were active in the North Atlantic.

Part of the reason for their success for so many years was that the American Colonists supported them. Trading with pirates was cheaper than the rates they had to pay to England. This was due to England's edict that they could only trade with English ships. The Pirates of the North Atlantic were seen as heroes who defied the crown!

Learn the exciting history behind:

 

How Sam Bellamy went from penniless to the richest pirate of all

 

Who was the "reluctant carpenter" to the pirates?

 

The pardoning of Richard and Jermemiah

 

What happened to Sam Bellamy at St. Croix

 

How a small tavern in Eastham caused the capture of the 6 pirates of the Whydah

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Nelson
• Release date: May 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393473114

Laura Nelson

Ms Nelson lives in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area. Her interest in pirates began while attending the Real Pirates shipwreck exhibit in Denver, Colorado. In addition to writing about pirates, she likes walking, Tai Chi, and cats. 

Book preview

As before, this book is dedicated to the pirates and prisoners who died in the wreck of the Whydah Galley.

But especially for Peter and Louis.

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Visit my blog The Whydah Pirates Speak at: [e-mail]

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On Facebook, visit @TheWhydahPiratesSpeak, @PeterCorneliusHoof, and @LouisLabous

Contents

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Foreword

I don’t remember thinking much about pirates when I was growing up. I know I watched a couple Errol Flynn movies at one point, but that was about it. My siblings and I never even played at being pirates.

Despite this non-interest in pirates, I felt myself strangely compelled to visit the Real Pirates exhibit when it came to Denver, Colorado, in 2011. Walking through the exhibit was a totally fascinating experience for me. I came out of it with a new field of interest in my life.

Researching and eventually writing about some of the men who sailed on the Whydah Galley has been a wondrous journey for me. So much information has been out there waiting for someone to bring it out into the light where people could learn about the reality of what it might have been like to be a pirate in the age of wooden sail.

I hope these fully researched and documented articles are as engaging for people to read as they were for me to write.

In this volume I included several folklore stories about the Whydah Galley and some of the men who sailed as pirates on her. Personally, I find comparing fact and legend to be illuminating.

Thanks must go out to people like Bonnie Cormier of Eastham Library for research assistance; Cindy Vallar who maintains the web site Pirates and Privateers for her help with research and letting me publish my articles on her blog; and finally to Baylus Brooks, author of Quest for Blackbeard, for his translations of documents from the French and thus bringing to light a whole trove of new information about Olivier Levasseur and events that happened after he parted from Sam Bellamy.

Thanks also goes out to Pam Fortner of Pamfortner.com for photographing the canvas for the cover.

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Of special note, I preserved the spellings from the original documents to give you the feel of how things were written in this period.

I hope everyone enjoys reading these articles and stories as much as I did writing and compiling them!

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Acknowledgement

Original cover art by S Raphael Vinci of @RaphaelVinciArtWork Cover design by Heath O’Campo

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Tales of Piracy: How Six Pirates Were

Captured and Killed

A  pril 26th, 1717, started out as a typical day in the life of the band of pirates led by Samuel Bellamy aboard their ship the Whydah. Like most pirates of their day, they expected to spend it hunting down

ships to plunder. They might even arrive at a safe port where they could trade some of their stolen loot for rum and women, frivolously spent in a tavern or brothel. Unfortunately for them, fate had something entirely different in mind.

Bellamy had been in command of the Whydah since March. He had started out as a treasure hunter in Florida, diving for sunken Spanish silver. He acquired a couple of periaguas (canoes) and plundered a few ships, then hooked up with Benjamin Hornigold, who provided him an opportunity to learn the craft of high seas piracy. When the crew rebelled because Hornigold wouldn’t attack English ships, Bellamy was elected captain, and his career took off. By the time the Whydah and the majority of her crew were lost on a shipwreck off Cape Cod in April of 1717, he had plundered about 50 ships and collected tens of thousands of dollars in treasure and coins.

That day, the pirates sailed northward along the Eastern seaboard of the American colonies, reportedly headed for Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Some accounts say that Bellamy wanted to reconnect with his lover, Maria Hallett. Others say he was headed towards a tavern he knew about in the area – a place where he could trade some of their goods for cash and other necessities. Around 4 to 6 in the morning, between Nantucket Shoals and St Georges

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THE WHYDAH PIRATES SPEAK, VOLUME 2

Banks, they crossed paths with a ship called the Mary Anne. Ordering the captain of the pink to strike her colors, Bellamy sent seven members of his crew over to her in a boat to take charge of her as a prize ship.¹

Of the seven men sent aboard the Mary Anne - Hendrik Quintor, Peter Cornelius Hoof, John Shuan, John Brown, Thomas South, Thomas Baker, and Simon Van Vorst - Baker came aboard with his sword drawn, while South and Shuan came aboard unarmed. They chose muskets, pistols, and cutlasses for arms. The captain of the Mary Anne, Crumpstey, was ordered to go aboard the Whydah with his ship’s papers and five members of his crew. Once on board the Whydah the crew of the Mary Anne were promptly held as prisoners. A perusal of her papers revealed that she was carrying a cargo of 7,000 gallons of Madeira wine.

Back aboard the Mary Anne, the prize crew quickly discovered that a heavy cable was blocking access to the hold. Letting it go for the time being, they plundered the crew quarters, taking clothes and some bottles of wine that they found in the Captain’s cabin. Hearing of the discovery, some of the crew of the Whydah rowed over to get a couple of the bottles to take back and share amongst their crewmates.

While this took place, some of the prize crew finally managed to move the cable blocking the hold and they were able to get at the barrels of Madeira. Van Vorst told two of the crewmen of the Mary Anne, Thomas FitzGyrald and Alexander Mackconachy, That if he would not find liquor he would break his neck.² The pirates began to indulge.

Ordered by Samuel Bellamy to follow the Whydah, the pirates forced the crew of the Mary Anne to alternate taking turns with them at the wheel. Things were going fine until about 4 in the afternoon, when fog began to cover the sea. Bellamy then gave new orders to steer to the North, and put a light on the stern of the Whydah for the prize crew to follow. They also kept

¹  Pirate lingo for a ship that the pirates captured with the intention of plundering it for whatever goods (and sometimes even members of the crew) might be aboard and be of value or use to them.

² (The Trials of Eight Persons Indited [sic] For Piracy, 2007)p. 304.

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TALES OF PIRACY: HOW SIX PIRATES WERE CAPTURED AND KILLED

company with a sloop called the Fisher which was out of Virginia and that Bellamy had captured that same day.

But the prize crew had been partaking of the captured wine since morning and began to fall behind. When Bellamy ordered them to keep up, John Brown swore That he would carry sail till she carried her masts away.³ Thomas Baker told the remaining crewmen of the Mary Anne that they had a commission from King George, upon which Simon Van Vorst answered, We will stretch it to the Worlds end.⁴

Throughout the day the prize crew from the Whydah took charge of the Mary Anne, ordering her remaining crewmembers to do such chores as reefing the topsail. But, when they began to realize how leaky the Mary Anne was, everyone took turns manning the pumps.

About ten o’clock in the evening, the thick fog grew windy and much more ominous. An Arctic storm from Canada was driving into the warm air that had swept up the coast from the Caribbean. The last gasp of a frigid New England winter, the cold front was about to combine with the warm front in one of the worst storms ever to hit the Cape.⁵ According to eyewitness reports, gusts topped 70 miles [113 kilometers] an hour and the seas rose to 30 feet [9 meters].⁶ They had long since lost sight of the Whydah. No one on board the Mary Anne could see adequately, and thus they failed to discover how close they were to the shore until they were dangerously close to the breakers. By then it was too late, and the Mary Anne ran ashore. Upon realizing their plight, one of the prize crew cried out, saying For God’s sake let us go down into the hold and die together!⁷

Everyone stayed in the Mary Anne’s hold for the rest of the night. At one

⁵ Technically known as an occluded front, the warm and moist tropical is driven for miles upward where it cools and falls at a very high speed, producing high winds, heavy rain, and severe lightning. p 262.

⁶ (Donovan, 1999).

⁷ (The Trials of Eight Persons Indited [sic] For Piracy, 2007) p. 304.

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point, one of the prize crew asked Thomas FitzGyrald to read from the Common-Prayer Book, which he did for about an hour. When the ship ran onto shore, Thomas Baker went out and cut down the fore and mizzen masts in an effort to keep the ship from further peril.

When they woke in the morning, they found that one side of the ship had beached on dry ground, allowing them to walk out onto what proved to be a small island. John Shuan and Hendrik Quintor broke into a crewman’s chest and took out some sweetmeats and other items to eat, washing it all down with more wine. John Brown declared himself to be the captain and the other members of the prize crew to be his men. There was talk amongst them of trying to reach Rhode Island, at