The Last Words of John Quelch

On June 30, 1704, Captain John Quelch and six crew members dangled lifeless in the Charles River as a jolly roger in stagnant tropical air.[1] Their bodies served as a warning to sailors: “Do not turn pirate.”[2] Like many classic pirates, Quelch was an employed sailor first. His journey began as a privateer with permission from Joseph Dudley, the governor of Massachusetts.[3] Privateers were ships with special permission to attack the merchant ships of enemy nations. As a privateer, he was the first lieutenant of the Charles, and he was elected as the new captain after its original captain Daniel Plowman fell ill and tossed into the ocean.[4] Based on this mutiny, subsequent attacks on nine Portuguese ships, and other piratical behavior attested to by three of Quelch’s crew members and recorded in a journal, Quelch was condemned to hang for piracy.

In 1700, the Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy was passed by Parliament.[5] Pirates were becoming a major disturbance to trade. It provided guidelines for piracy trials, which were used during Quelch’s trial at the Old State House in 1704.[6] Under the 1700 Piracy Act, pirates could be tried throughout the British Empire, not just in England.[7] This act made the trial process more efficient. Quelch was the first pirate to be tried in Boston. As per the guidelines, he was tried by a commission selected by the state and not a jury.[8] A selected commission would have made it more likely for the defendants to be convicted.

The 1700 Piracy Act was also the beginning of hanging as a “performance” to send a message to sailors and establish a cultural understanding of piracy and its consequences.[9] Sailors arriving in ports throughout the colony would now be greeted by the ghastly rotting bodies of seamen who turned to piracy, reminding them to stay on the straight and narrow. The Act made it possible to use violence to demonstrate the difference between piracy and legal sailing.[10]

Boston Reverend Cotton Mather fully supported the 1700 Piracy Act. As a deeply religious man, he was violently opposed to all aspects of piracy, including thievery, swearing, drunkenness, killing, and obstructing trade. The hanging of John Quelch was Cotton Mather’s first opportunity to read a sermon at pirate’s execution.[11] Mather knew the power of speech and he did not waste it with his long and damning address.[12] Mather intoned, “Oh! Let the men fear the Lord Exceedingly, We Pray thee! We Pray thee! Let the Condition of the Six or Seven men, whom they now see Dying for their Wickedness upon the Sea, be Sanctified unto.”[13] Quelch’s execution launched a long struggle against piracy for Mather. In 1709, he established a campaign to return sailors to their faith.[14]

The seven pirates were permitted to speak some words at their execution. Quelch declared to the ministers present, including Mather, that he was “not afraid of Death,” nor “the Gallows,” but “of what follows; [he was] afraid of a Great God, and a Judgment to Come.”[15] Quelch accepted his death eloquently, though not passively. To Quelch, death involved only his relationship with God, so he did not fear judgement from any mortal person, particularly not from Reverend Mather or the government of Massachusetts. Later, he mentioned wryly that one has to be careful of how they “bring money into New England.”[16] With this statement, he promoted the belief that he was innocently doing his duty for the colonies, not acting as an enemy of the state.

—Madeline Martin

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[1] Wesley Fiorentino, “Pirates in Boston: The Trial and Execution of John Quelch" Beehive. Massachusetts Historical Society. January 28, 2015. http://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2015/01/pirates-in-boston-the-trial-and-execution- of-john-quelch/.
[2] Fiorentino, “Pirates in Boston”
[3] Owen Stanwood, "New Histories of the Pirates." The William and Mary Quarterly 73, no. 3 (2016): 561-567. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/627305.
[4] Fiorentino, “Pirates in Boston”
[5] Matthew Norton, “Classification and Coercion: The Destruction of Piracy in the English Maritime System.” American Journal of Sociology 2014, 119 (6): 1537–75. doi: 10.1086/676041, 1565./
[6] Norton, “Classification and Coercion,” 1569.
[7] Norton, 1565.
[8] Norton, 1565.
[9] Norton, 1571.
[10] Norton, 1570.
[11] Steven J. J. Pitt, “Cotton Mather and Boston's ‘Seafaring Tribe.’” The New England Quarterly 2012. 85 (2): 222–52. Doi:23251810, 233.
[12] An account of the behaviour and last dying speeches of the six pirates, that were executed on Charles River, Boston side on Fryday June 30th . Viz. Capt. John Quelch, John Lambert, Christopher Scudamore, John Miller, Erasmus Peterson and Pet. Boston, 1704. https:// www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.03303400/.
[13] Pitt, “Cotton Mather,” 234.
[14] Pitt, 235.
[15] “Behaviour and last dying speeches.”
[16] “Behaviour and last dying speeches.”

Pictured: Entrance to the Copp's Hill Burial Ground, c. 1898. Detail of image depicting the gibbeting of a pirate in London from The Lives, Behavior, and Dying Words of the Most Remarkable Criminals (London, 1740).

**To go Phillis Wheatley (Site 18), turn left into Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. Turn left and continue down the path. Turn left and then make another left. The destination will be straight-ahead.**