Ann and bring their goods to Boston in wood boats." If that were thought too expensive the goods could be "run" within the city, where there were "63 wharfs," or in Charlestown, where there were fourteen more, all unguarded. French and Spanish ships were bringing many goods to Newfoundland and the ports of Canada, where they met New England ships ready to "swap" cargoes. There was lively trade carried directly to the ports of Canada and to the French and Spanish ports of the West Indies.
After returning to New York from Boston, Bellomont wrote that "Nassaw alias Long Island" was notorious for smugglers and pirates. "There are four towns that make it their daily practice to receive ships and sloops with all sorts of merchandise, tho' they be not allowed ports." They were "so lawless and desperate a people" that the governor could "get no honest man" to go among them to collect the revenue. From Long Island the goods were brought to New York by wagons and small boats. "There is a town called Stamford in Connecticut colony" where "one Major Selleck lives who has a warehouse close to the Sound. … That man does us great mischief with his warehouse for he receives abundance of goods, and the merchants afterwards take their opportunity of running them into this town." During Bellomont's time Selleck's warehouse was the favorite resort of the merchants doing business with the Madagascar pirates. Selleck had £10,000 worth of the goods which Captain Kidd brought from the East.
Turning now to the stories of the pirates, we read that when one Captain Cromwell, a pirate with three ships, manned by eighty men, came to Plymouth in 1646, and remained five or six weeks with the Pilgrims, Governor Bradley referred to the visit in these words:—
"They spente and scattered a great deal of money among ye people, and yet more, sine, than money."
The statement that the Pilgrims (of all others!) entertained the pirates so well as to detain them for weeks in the harbor is somewhat shocking to one not fully acquainted with the conditions of commerce in that period. The facts regarding the pirates seem worth, therefore, some consideration.
While pirates were found upon the ocean as soon as other ships in the early history of the world, some of the piracy affecting the early commerce of the colonies grew out of a curious system of private reprisals that was previously countenanced by European governments. Thus, when the Inquisition in the Canary Islands seized the property of Andrew Barker, an Englishman, in 1576, and he was unable to obtain redress from any Spanish authority, he, with the permission of his government, "fitted out two barks to revenge himself." He captured enough Spanish merchantmen to recoup his loss with interest. His commission was called a letter of marque and reprisal.
Then recall the system of forcing trade that was practised in the West Indies. Sir John Hawkins sold slaves to the Spanish at the muzzles of his guns. Eventually Sir John's fleet was "bottled up" in Vera Cruz by a Spanish squadron and destroyed. Drake was one of the men ruined by this act of Spanish "perfidy," and to recoup his losses he began the series of raids by which he acquired fortune and a title.
Reprisals led to wanton aggressions, like those of the buccaneers, and wanton aggressions produced reprisals again. All governments encouraged their merchantmen to rob those of rival peoples as a means of promoting commerce, just as the warring fur traders on the American frontier were encouraged in their fights waged to the same end.
The encouragement of reprisals was at all times more or less covert. In war times the armed merchantmen were openly commissioned and sent afloat not only to prey upon the ships of the enemy but upon those of neutral powers as well. It was the theory of all statesmen that the best way to encourage the shipping of one nation was to injure as much as possible, and by all means, the shipping of all rivals. As late as the end of the eighteenth century the Barbary pirates were subsidized by some governments to encourage them to prey upon the shipping of rivals.
At one time the privateer captain was the judge of the offending of the neutral. Later, when privateers were obliged to carry captured ships before a court of admiralty, the difference between the robbery as committed by the privateer and the confiscation ordered by the court was found only in the course of procedure.
A theorist here and there denounced the systems of reprisals and privateering. Governor Bradford was worried somewhat by the doings of Cromwell's men. Government officials denounced as pirates the privateers who smuggled in goods instead of bringing them in openly and paying the usual fees and duties. But the state of civilization warranted the Pilgrims in the warmth of the reception they gave to the pirates.
How far the piratical cruisers influenced the American merchant marine is not definitely told in the documents, but it is certain that damage was inflicted. We get a glimpse of a vicious raid in the story of a French pirate (perhaps he had a commission, however) named Picor, who landed on Block Island in July, 1689. The pirates "remained in possession of the island, plundering the houses, and despoiling it of every moveable thing," for a week. Two of the islanders were tortured to make them reveal the hiding-place of valuables, and two negroes were killed.
From the island the pirates went to New London, but they were driven away. On sailing toward the open sea once more, they were intercepted by two armed sloops that had been sent out from Newport under one Captain Paine. A Naval History of Rhode Island says that Paine had "followed the privateering design" in former years as a lieutenant under Picor, and that the Frenchman, on recognizing him, fled, saying he "would as soon fight the devil as Paine."
In the Canadian Archives (1894) are two stories of raids upon French possessions, made in one case by "Englishmen" (they took Quebec), and in the other by "the people of Massachusetts."
Many letters charging various colonies with encouraging pirates are found in the old documents. Rhode Island, New York, and the two Carolinas were accused in this way more frequently than the others, and New York was the chief offender in the days of Governor Benjamin Fletcher (1692–1697). While the buccaneers were ravaging the Spanish mainland, another horde found opportunity in the conditions prevailing on the coast of Asia. These latter pirates formed a settlement upon Madagascar Island, wherein gold and jewels were abundant, but such products of civilization as rum and weapons were scarce and much wanted. New York merchants usually supplied these wants, but New Englanders sent them at least one cargo of masts and yards for their ships. The merchant captains engaged in this supply trade also took a turn at piracy whenever opportunity offered. Governor Fletcher did a thriving business in supplying captains with commissions when they sailed, and "protections" when they returned. Captain Edward Coates, of the ship Jacob, said that he paid £1300 for "his share" of the price of the commission with which the ship sailed. At the end of the voyage the crew "shared the value of 1800 pieces of eight, a man." Fletcher took the ship, valued at £800, for his bribe when he allowed Coates to land the cargo. The sailors had to pay the governor from seventy-five to one hundred pieces of eight for "protections."
Captain Giles Shelly, of the ship Nassau, carried rum which cost two shillings a gallon to Madagascar, and sold it for from fifty shillings to three pounds a gallon. "A pipe of Madeira wine which cost him £19 he sold for £300."
Captain William Kidd was the most notorious of the captains engaged in the Madagascar trade, but the story of his career is interesting chiefly because of the light it throws upon the state of civilization then prevailing. His troubles began when Lord Bellomont and some other noble lords of England fitted out a private armed ship to go to Madagascar and rob the pirates. Bellomont describes this venture as "very honest." Kidd was chosen to command the ship—The Adventure Galley. On arriving at Madagascar, he found that the pirates had a stronger ship than his, and he was afraid to attack them. The crew had been shipped on the usual privateer plan of no prize, no pay, and on finding they were to get no prize they became mutinous. Many of them deserted to the pirates of the island. In a half-hearted effort to maintain discipline among those remaining, Kidd hit a man with a bucket and happened to kill him. Then he went cruising, pirate fashion, and captured a ship belonging to "the Moors," which was valued at £30,000. In this ship Kidd sailed for home. He learned, on the way, that he had been proclaimed as a pirate. Bellomont had been accused by political enemies in Parliament of fitting out a piratical cruiser, and being unwilling to face the charge by telling the facts frankly, he shuffled, told falsehoods, and eventually made a scapegoat of Kidd, who was hanged (May 12, 1701).
That