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NOTES 347 |
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The ballad follows very closely the facts set forth at the trial of six of Every's crew in 1696. Henry Every, alias Bridgman, on May 30, 1694, seized a merchant ship called The Charles the Second, Charles Gibson master, as she lay at anchor about three leagues from the Groyne (i.e. Corunna). Having set Gibson and sixteen honest men ashore and renamed the ship, Every sailed for the coast of Guinea. A proclamation against Captain Henry Every, of the ship Phancy, was issued July 18, 1696 (Luttrell's Diary, iv. 86). The reference to the different flags used by pirates in verses 9-1 z is explained by the following extract from the narrative of a captive: ' About eleven of the clock one night, after the whole crew had been some time assembled in the great cabbin, I heard three huzzas, and then they all came up on deck and hoisted Jolly Roger (for so they call their black ensign, in the middle of which is a large white skeleton with a dart in one hand striking a bleeding heart, and in the other an hour-glass). . . . When they fight under Jolly Roger they give quarter, which they dc not when they fight under the red or bloody flag.' (From Captain Richard Hawkins's account of his capture by Captain Spriggs and his sufferings amongst the pirates of the Spanish Main in the year 1724, reprinted in Boyer's Political State of Great Britain, vol. xxviii. pp. 147-156).
P. 133. Villany Rewarded. From the Pepys collection (ii. 99). A broadside printed for Charles Barnes, 1696. See The Trial of Joseph Dawson &c.for several Piracies and Robberies by them committed in company of Every the Grand Pirate : London, 1696, folio. The six accused were all condemned and hanged at Execution Dock, November 25, 1696.
P. 134. Captain Kid's Farewell. This ballad is reprinted, for the first time, from the unique example in the collection of Lord Crawford. The trial of William Kid (or Kidd), which took place in 1701, is contained in volume xiv. of the State Trials, p. 123. The ballad follows the trial pretty closely. One indictment against Kid was for the murder of his gunner, William Moore. The dialogue which caused the assault is thus related. Captain Kid called Moore 'a lousy dog.' 'Says William Moore, " If I am a lousy dog, you have made me so; you have brought me to ruin, and many more." Upon his saying this, says Captain Kid, " Have I ruined you, ye dog ? " and took a bucket bound with iron hoops and struck him on the right side of the head, of which he died next day.' Another indictment was for the capture of a merchant ship called The Quedagh Merchant, bound from Bengal to Surat, the property of certain Armenian merchants and Moors, but commanded by an Englishman (see verse 7). This was in January 1698. About June 1696 Kid had taken on his voyage to New York ' a French banker,' as a |
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