Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents
History
Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents
Pirates; Privateering; United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Sources
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 passing [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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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