The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down (26 page)

With that, Bellamy ordered Beer away. He told crewmen to row the captain back over to the
Marianne,
so that Williams could leave him on Block Island. When the pirates finished transferring the last cider and foodstuffs onto the
Marianne,
they set Beer's sloop on fire. The smoke plume could be seen for miles around until the vessel burned down to the waterline, and the flames were quenched by the sea.

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.