in close
prison". _Cal. St. P. Col._, 1704-1705, p. 184.]

[Footnote 3: Lately a member of the council of that island.]

[Footnote 4: Capt. John Davison, in the _Eagle_ galley, had arrived at
New York on Mar. 13, but had been long detained by disputes between
the governor, Lord Cornbury, and the collector of the port over
questions concerning the legal status of its cargo. _N.Y. Col. Docs._,
IV. 1105-1110, 1121.]

CASE OF JOHN QUELCH AND HIS FELLOW PIRATES.

_104. Account of their Execution. June 30, 1704._[1]

[Footnote 1: What is here reproduced, to show somewhat of the
harrowing circumstances under which the pirate's career might end, is
a very rare "extra" of the _Boston News-Letter_, found in the
Massachusetts Historical Society's file of that newspaper. The case of
Quelch and his associates is related in much detail by Mr. A.C.
Goodell in the _Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts
Bay_, VIII. 386-398, and in the _Publications_ of the Colonial Society
of Massachusetts, III. 71-77. The pursuit of the pirates is described
in Sewall's diary, with extracts from the _News-Letter_, in Mass.
Hist. Soc., _Collections_, XLVI. 103-110. In August, 1703, the
brigantine _Charles_, fitted out as a privateer to cruise against the
French, was riding off Marblehead, with her captain lying too sick to
take her to sea. The crew seized the ship, put it in command of
Quelch, threw the captain overboard, and sailed for the coast of
Brazil, where for some months they engaged in a profitable career of
piracy at the expense of subjects of the King of Portugal, with whom
England had just concluded a particularly close alliance. In May,
1704, they reappeared on the Massachusetts coast, landed, and
dispersed, but were presently suspected, accused, proclaimed, and
"rounded up", the main capture being made at the Isles of Shoals, by
an armed force under Maj. Stephen Sewall, the diarist's brother. The
trial, June 13, 16, 19-21, was the first held in New England under the
act of Parliament 11 and 12 Will. III., ch. 7, which gave the crown
authority to issue commissions for the trial of pirates by specially
constituted courts, outside the realm of England. The governor, Joseph
Dudley, presided. Mr. Goodell maintains that the trial was conducted
illegally in important particulars. Of the six pirates named above, as
executed on June 30, Lambert was a Salem man, Peterson apparently a
Swede, Roach Irish, Quelch and the other