This John Rackam, as has
been reported in the foregoing pages, was
quarter-master to Vane's company, till the
crew were divided, and Vane turned out of it
for refusing to board a French man-of-war,
Rackam being voted captain of the division
that remained in the brigantine. The 24th of
November 1718, was the first day of his
command; his first cruise was among the
Carribbee Islands, where he took and
plundered several vessels.
We have already taken notice, that when
Captain Woods Rogers went to the island of
Providence with the king's pardon to such of
the pirates as should surrender, this
brigantine, which Rackam commanded, made its
escape through another passage, bidding
defiance to the mercy that was offered.
To the windward of Jamaica, a Madeira-man
fell into the pirate's way, which they
detained two or three days, till they had
their market out of her, and then they gave
her back to the master, and permitted one
Hosea Tidsel, a tavern keeper at Jamaica,
who had been picked up in one of their
prizes, to depart in her, she being bound
for that island.
After this cruise they went into a small
island, and cleaned, and spent their
Christmas ashore, drinking and carousing as
long as they had any liquor left, and then
went to sea again for more. They succeeded
but too well, though they took no
extraordinary prize for above two months,
except a ship laden with convicts from
Newgate, bound for the plantations, which in
a few days was retaken, with all her cargo,
by an English man-of-war that was stationed
in those seas.
Rackam stood towards the island of
Bermuda, and took a ship bound to England
from Carolina, and a small pink from New
England, both of which he brought to the
Bahama Islands, where, with the pitch, tar
and stores they cleaned again, and refitted
their own vessel; but staying too long in
that neighborhood, Captain Rogers, who was
Governor of Providence, hearing of these
ships being taken, sent out a sloop well
manned and armed, which retook both the
prizes, though in the mean while the pirate
had the good fortune to escape.
From hence they sailed to the back of
Cuba, where Rackam kept a little kind of a
family, at which place they stayed a
considerable time, living ashore with their
Delilahs, till their money and provisions
were expended, and they concluded it time to
look out for more. They repaired their
vessel, and were making ready to put to sea,
when a guarda de costa came in with a small
English sloop, which she had taken as an
interloper on the coast. The Spanish
guard-ship attacked the pirate, but Rackam
being close in behind a little island, she
could do but little execution where she lay;
the Dons therefore warped into the channel
that evening, in order to make sure of her
the next morning. Rackam finding his case
desperate, and that there was hardly any
possibility of escaping, resolved to attempt
the following enterprise. The Spanish prize
lying for better security close into the
land, between the little island and the
Main, our desperado took his crew into the
boat with their cutlasses, rounded the
little island, and fell aboard their prize
silently in the dead of the night without
being discovered, telling the Spaniards that
were aboard her, that if they spoke a word,
or made the least noise, they were all dead
men; and so they became masters of her. When
this was done he slipped her cable, and
drove out to sea. The Spanish man-of-war was
so intent upon their expected prize, that
they minded nothing else, and as soon as day
broke, they made a furious fire upon the
empty sloop; but it was not long before they
were rightly apprised of the matter, when
they cursed themselves sufficiently for a
company of fools, to be bit out of a good
rich prize, as she proved to be, and to have
nothing but an old crazy hull in the room of
her.
Rackam and his crew had no occasion to be
displeased at the exchange, as it enabled
them to continue some time longer in a way
of life that suited their depraved minds. In
August 1720, we find him at sea again,
scouring the harbours and inlets of the
north and west parts of Jamaica, where he
took several small crafts, which proved no
great booty to the rovers; but they had but
few men, and therefore were obliged to run
at low game till they could increase their
company and their strength.
In the beginning of September, they took
seven or eight fishing boats in Harbour
Island, stole their nets and other tackle,
and then went off to the French part of
Hispaniola, where they landed, and took the
cattle away, with two or three Frenchmen
whom they found near the water-side, hunting
wild hogs in the evening. The Frenchmen came
on board, whether by consent or compulsion
is not certainly known. They afterwards
plundered two sloops, and returned to
Jamaica, on the north coast of which island,
near Porto Maria Bay, they took a schooner,
Thomas Spenlow, master, it being then the
19th of October. The next day Rackam seeing
a sloop in Dry Harbour Bay, stood in and
fired a gun; the men all ran ashore, and he
took the sloop and lading; but when those
ashore found that they were pirates, they
hailed the sloop, and let them know they
were all willing to come on board of them.
Rackam's coasting the island in this
manner proved fatal to him; for intelligence
of his expedition came to the governor by a
canoe which he had surprised ashore in Ocho
Bay: upon this a sloop was immediately
fitted out, and sent round the island in
quest of him, commanded by Captain Barnet,
and manned with a good number of hands.
Rackam, rounding the island, and drawing
round the western point, called Point
Negril, saw a small pettiaga, which, at the
sight of the sloop, ran ashore and landed
her men, when one of them hailed her. Answer
was made that they were Englishmen, and
begged the pettiaga's men to come on board
and drink a bowl of punch, which they
prevailed upon them to do. Accordingly, the
company, in an evil hour, came all aboard of
the pirate, consisting of nine persons; they
were armed with muskets and cutlasses, but
what was their real design in so doing we
will not pretend to say. They had no sooner
laid down their arms and taken up their
pipes, than Barnet's sloop, which was in
pursuit of Rackam's, came in sight.
The pirates, finding she stood directly
towards them, feared the event, and weighed
their anchor, which they had but lately let
go, and stood off. Captain Barnet gave them
chase, and, having advantage of little
breezes of wind which blew off the land,
came up with her, and brought her into Port
Royal, in Jamaica.
About a fortnight after the prisoners
were brought ashore, viz. November 16, 1720,
Captain Rackam and eight of his men were
condemned and executed. Captain Rackam and
two others were hung in chains.
But what was very surprising, was the
conviction of the nine men that came aboard
the sloop on the same day she was taken.
They were tried at an adjournment of the
court on the 24th of January, the magistracy
waiting all that time, it is supposed, for
evidence to prove the piratical intention of
going aboard the said sloop; for it seems
there was no act or piracy committed by
them, as appeared by the witnesses against
them, two Frenchmen, taken by Rackam off the
island of Hispaniola, who merely deposed
that the prisoners came on board without any
compulsion.
The court considered the prisoners'
cases, and the majority of the commissioners
being of opinion that they were all guilty
of the piracy and felony they were charged
with, viz. the going over with a piratical
intent to John Rackam, &c. then notorious
pirates, and by them known to be so, they
all received sentence of death, and were
executed on the 17th of February at Gallows
Point at Port Royal.
Nor holy bell, nor pastoral bleat,
In former
days within the vale.
Flapped in
the bay the pirate's sheet,
Curses were
on the gale;
Rich goods
lay on the sand, and murdered men,
Pirate and
wreckers kept their revels there.
- THE BUCCANEER |
