In December of 1906 died Captain Thomas Fuller, the oldest shipmaster of Salem, in his ninety-fourth year. He was the survivor of an era on the sea that seems to belong with ancient history. Before 1830 he was a cabin boy in a brig of less than a hundred tons in the Cuban trade. At eighteen he was sailing to South America and Europe, and his shipmates, then in the prime of life, were veterans of the fighting privateers of the War of 1812. He lived well into the twentieth century to tell the tale of the last piracy of the Spanish Main, for he was one of the crew of the brig Mexican. Captured by a swarthy band of cut-throats in their “rakish, black schooner,” while on a voyage to Rio Janeiro, the Mexican carried the period of organized piracy down to the year 1832. Six of the pirates were hanged in Boston three years later, and their punishment finished for good and all, a peril to American shipping which had preyed along the coast for two full centuries.

The Mexican sailed from Salem on the 29th of August, 1832, commanded by Captain John G. Butman and owned by Joseph Peabody. She was a brig of two hundred and twenty-seven tons register, with a crew of thirteen men, including able seaman Thomas Fuller, nineteen years old. There was also on board as a seaman, John Battis of Salem, who before his death many years after, wrote down his memories of the voyage at the request of his son. His story is the most complete account of the famous piracy that has come down to us, and in part it runs as follows:

“I was at Peabody’s store house on the morning of the day of sailing and others of the crew came soon after. After waiting quite a while, it was suggested that we go after the cook, Ridgely, who then boarded with a Mrs. Ranson, a colored woman living on Becket street, so we set out to find him. He was at home but disinclined to go, as he wished to pass one more Sunday home. However, after some persuading he got ready, and we all started out of the gate together. A black hen was in the yard and as we came out the bird flew upon the fence, and flapping her wings, gave a loud crow. The cook was wild with terror, and insisted that something was going to happen; that such a sign meant harm, and he ran about in search of a stone to knock out the brains of the offending biped. The poor darkey did not succeed in his murderous design, but followed us grumbling.

“At about ten o’clock we mustered all present and accounted for, and commenced to carry the specie, with which we were to purchase our return cargo, on board the brig. We carried aboard twenty thousand dollars in silver, in ten boxes of two thousand dollars each; we also had about one hundred bags of saltpetre and one hundred chests of tea. The silver was stored in the ‘run’ under the cabin floor, and there was not a man aboard but knew where the money was stored.

“At last everything being ready we hove anchor and stood out to sea in the face of a southeast wind. As soon as we got outside and stowed anchor we cleared ship and the captain called all hands and divided the crew into watches. I was in the first mate’s watch and young Thomas Fuller was in the captain’s watch. On account of the several acts of piracy previously committed on Salem ships, Captain Butman undoubtedly feared, or perhaps had a premonition of a like happening to his vessel, for the next day while he was aft at work on the main rigging, I heard the captain and first mate talking about pirates. The captain said he would fight a long while before he’d give his money up. They had a long talk together, and he seemed to be very much worried. I think it was the next day after this conversation between Captain Butman and Mr. Reed that I was at the wheel steering when the captain came and spoke to me. He asked me how I felt about leaving home, and I replied that I felt the same as ever, ‘all right.’ I learned afterwards that he put this question to the rest of the crew.

“We sailed along without anything occurring worthy of note until the night of the nineteenth of September. After supper we were all sitting together during the dog-watch (this being between six and eight o’clock P. M.) when all seemed bent on telling pirate yarns, and of course got more or less excited. I went below at twelve o’clock and at four next morning my watch was called. Upon coming on deck the first mate came forward and said that we must keep a sharp look-out, as there was a vessel ’round, and that she had crossed our stern and gone to the leeward. I took a seat between the knight-heads, and had been sitting there but a few minutes when a vessel crossed our bows, and went to the windward of us.

“We were going at a pretty good rate at the time. I sang out and the mate came forward with a glass, but said he could not make her out. I told him he would see her to the windward at daylight. At dawn we discovered a topsail schooner about five miles off our weather quarter, standing on the wind on the same tack we were. The wind was light, at south southwest, and we were standing about southeast. At seven o’clock the captain came on deck and this was the first he knew of the schooner being about us.

“I was at the wheel when the captain came out of the cabin; he looked toward the schooner, and as soon as he perceived her, he reached and took his glass and went into the main-top. He came down and closing his glass, said: ‘That is the very man I’ve been looking for. I can count thirty men on his deck.’ He also said that he saw one man on her fore-top-gallant yard, looking out, and that he was very suspicious of her. He then ordered us to set all sail (as the schooner didn’t seem to sail very fast), thinking we might get away from her.

“While I was up loosing the main-royal I sat on the yard, and let them hoist me up to the truck so that I could have a good look around. I saw another vessel, a brig, to the eastward of us, way ahead and reported it. The schooner had in the meanwhile sailed very fast, for when I started in to come down she was off our beam. From all appearances and her manner of sailing we concluded afterwards that she had a drag out. We then went to breakfast, the schooner kept ahead of us, and appeared to be after the other vessel. Then the captain altered the brig’s course, tacking to the westward, keeping a little off from the wind to make good way through the water to get clear of her if possible. After breakfast when we came on deck the schooner was coming down on us under a full press of sail. I noticed two kegs of powder alongside our two short carronades, the only guns we had. Our means of defense, however, proved utterly worthless, as the shot was a number of sizes too large for the gun.

“A few moments before this, the schooner had fired a shot at us to heave to, which Captain Butman was on the point of doing as I came on deck. The schooner then hoisted patriotic colors (Columbian flag), backed her main topsail, and laid to about half a mile to the windward. She was a long, low, straight topsail schooner of about one hundred and fifty tons burthen, painted black with a narrow white streak, a large figure-head with a horn of plenty painted white; masts raked aft, and a large main-top-mast, a regular Baltimore clipper. We could not see any name. She carried thirty or more men, with a long thirty-two pound swivel amidships, with four brass guns, two on each side.

“A hail came in English from the schooner, asking us where we were from and where bound and what our cargo was. Captain Butman replied ‘tea and saltpetre.’ The same voice from the schooner then hailed us for the captain to lower a boat and come alongside and bring him his papers. The boat was got ready and Captain Butman and four men—Jack Ardissone, Thomas Fuller, Benjamin Larcom and Fred Trask—got in and pulled to the schooner. When they started Captain Butman shook hands with the mate, Mr. Reed, and told him to do the best he could if he never saw him again.

“The Mexican’s boat pulled up to the gangway of the schooner but they ordered it to go to the forechains where five of the pirates jumped into our boat, not permitting any of our men to go on board the schooner and pushed off, ordering the captain back to the brig. They were armed with pistols in their belts and long knives up their sleeves. While at the schooner’s side, after getting into our boat, one of the pirates asked their captain in Spanish what they should do with us, and his answer was: ‘Dead cats don’t mew—have her thoroughly searched, and bring aboard all you can—you know what to do with them.’ The orders of the captain of the schooner being in Spanish, were understood by only one of the Mexican’s crew then in the boat, namely Ardissone, who burst into tears, and in broken English declared that all was over with them.

“It was related by one of our crew that while the Mexican’s boat was at the forechains of the schooner, the brig before mentioned was plainly seen to the eastward, and the remark was made to Thomas Fuller that it would be a good thing to shove off and pull for the other vessel in sight, to which proposition Fuller scornfully answered ‘I will do no such things. I will stay and take my chances with the boys.’

“Our boat returned to the brig and Captain Butman and the five pirates came on board; two of them went down in the cabin with us, and the other three loafed around on deck. Our first mate came up from the cabin and told us to muster aft and get the money up. Luscomb and I, being near the companionway, started to go down into the cabin when we met the boatswain of the pirate coming up, who gave the signal for attack. The three pirates on deck sprang on Luscomb and myself, striking at us with the long knives across our heads. A Scotch hat I happened to have on with a large cotton handkerchief inside, saved me from a severe wounding as both were cut through and through. Our mate, Mr. Reed, here interfered and attempted to stop them from assaulting us whereupon they turned on him.

“We then went down into the cabin and into the run; there were eight of us in all; six of our men then went back into the cabin, and the steward and myself were ordered to pass the money up which we did, to the cabin floor, and our crew then took it and carried it on deck. In the meantime, the pirate officer in charge (the third mate) had hailed the schooner and told them they had found what they were looking for. The schooner then sent a launch containing sixteen men, which came alongside and they boarded us. They made the crew pass the boxes of money down into the boat, and it was then conveyed on board the pirate.

“The launch came back with about a dozen more men, and the search began in earnest. Nine of them rushed down into the cabin where the captain, Jack Ardissone, and myself were standing. They beat the captain with their long knives, and battered a speaking trumpet to pieces over his head and shoulders. Seeing we could do nothing, I made a break to reach the deck by jumping out of the cabin window, thinking I could get there by grasping hold of the boat’s davits and pulling myself on deck. Jack Ardissone, divining my movement, caught my foot as I was jumping and saved me, as I should probably have missed my calculation and gone overboard. Jack and I then ran and the pirates after both of us, leaving the captain whom they continued to beat and abuse, demanding more money. We ran into the steerage. Jack, not calculating the break of the deck, soon went over into the hold and I on top of him. For some reason the pirates gave up the chase before they reached the break between the decks, or they would have gone down with us. By the fall Jack broke two of his ribs. Under deck we had a clean sweep, there being no cargo, so we could go from one end of the vessel to the other.

“The crew then got together in the forecastle and stayed there. We hadn’t been there long before the mate, Mr. Reed, came rushing down, chased by the boatswain of the pirate, demanding his money. The mate then told Luscomb to go and get his money, which he had previously given Luscomb to stow away for him in some safe place; there were two hundred dollars in specie, and Luscomb had put it under the wood in the hold. Luscomb went and got it, brought it up and gave it to the pirate, who untied the bag, took a handful out, retied the bag, and went up on deck and threw the handful of money overboard so that those on the schooner could see that they had found more money.

“Then the pirates went to Captain Butman and told him that if they found any more money which we hadn’t surrendered, they would cut all our throats. I must have followed them into the cabin, for I heard them tell the captain this. Previous to this, we of the crew found that we had about fifty dollars, which we secured by putting into the pickle keg, and this was secretly placed in the breast-hook forward. On hearing this threat made to the captain I ran back and informed the crew what I had heard, and we took the money out of my keg and dropped it down the air-streak, which is the space between the inside and outside planking. It went way down into the keelson. Our carpenter afterwards located its exact position and recovered every cent of it. Strange to say the first thing they searched on coming below was the pickle keg. The search of our effects by the pirates was pretty thorough, and they took all new clothes, tobacco, etc. In the cabin they searched the captain’s chest, but failed to get at seven hundred dollars which he had concealed in the false bottom; they had previously taken from him several dollars which he had in his pocket, and his gold watch, and had also relieved the mate of his watch.

“About noon it appeared to be very quiet on deck, we having been between decks ever since the real searching party came on board. We all agreed not to go on deck again and to make resistance with sticks of wood if they attempted to come down, determined to sell our lives as dearly as possible. Being somewhat curious, I thought I’d peep up and see what they were doing; as I did so, a cocked pistol was pressed to my head, and I was ordered to come on deck and went, expecting to be thrown overboard. One took me by the collar and held me out at arm’s length to plunge a knife into me. I looked him right in the eye and he dropped his knife and ordered me to get the doors of the forecastle which were below. I went down and got them, but they did not seem to understand how they were to be used, and they made me come up and ship them. There were three of them and as I was letting the last one in I caught the gleam of a cutlass being drawn, so taking the top of the door on my stomach, I turned a quick somersault and went down head first into the forecastle. The cutlass came down, but did not find me; it went into the companionway quite a depth. Then they hauled the slide over and fastened it, and we were all locked below.

“They fastened the aft companionway leading down into the cabin, locking our officers below as well. From noises that came from overhead, we were convinced that the pirates had begun a work of destruction. All running rigging, including tiller ropes, was cut, sails slashed into ribbons, spars cut loose, ship’s instruments and all movable articles on which they could lay their hands were demolished, the yards were tumbled down and we could hear the main-boom swinging from side to side. They then, as appears by later developments, filled the caboose or cook’s galley, with combustibles, consisting of tar, tarred rope-yarn, oakum, etc., setting fire to the same, and lowered the dismantled mainsail so that it rested on top of the caboose.

“In this horrible suspense we waited for an hour or more when all became quiet save the wash of the sea against the brig. All this time the crew had been cooped up in the darkness of the forecastle, of course unable to speculate as to what would be the next move of the enemy, or how soon death would come to each and all of us.

“Finally at about three o’clock in the afternoon, Thomas Fuller came running forward and informed us that the pirates were leaving the ship. One after another of the crew made their way to the cabin and on peering out of the two small stern windows saw the pirates pulling for the schooner. Captain Butman was at this time standing on the cabin table, looking out from a small skylight, the one means of egress the pirates had neglected to fasten. We told him that from the odor of smoke, we believed they had fired the brig. He said he knew it and ordered us to remain quiet. He then stepped down from the table and for several moments knelt in prayer, after which he calmly told us to go forward and he would call us when he wanted us.

“We had not been in the forecastle long before he called us back, and directed that we get all buckets under deck and fill them with water from casks in the hold. On our return he again opened the skylight and drew himself up on deck. We then handed him a small bucket of water, and he crept along the rail in the direction of the caboose, keeping well under the rail in order to escape observation from the schooner. The fire was just breaking through the top of the caboose when he arrived in time to throw several handfuls of water on top so as to keep it under. This he continued to do for a long time, not daring to extinguish it immediately lest the pirates should notice the absence of smoke and know that their plan for our destruction had been frustrated.

“When the fire had been reduced to a reasonable degree of safety, he came and opened the aft companionway and let us all up. The schooner, being a fast sailer, was in the distance about hull down. The fire in the caboose was allowed to burn in a smouldering condition for perhaps a half-hour or more, keeping up a dense smoke. By this time the pirate schooner was well nigh out of sight, or nearly topsails under, to the eastward. On looking about us, we found the Mexican in a bad plight, all sails, halyards and running gear were cut, headsails dragging in the water, and on account of the tiller ropes being cut loose, the brig was rolling about in the trough of the sea. We at once set to work repairing damages as speedily as possible and before dark had bent new sails and repaired our running gear to a great extent.

“Fortunately through the shrewdness and foresight of Captain Butman, our most valuable ship instruments, compass, quadrant, sextant, etc., had escaped destruction. It seems that immediately on discovering the true character of the stranger, he had placed them in the steerage and covered them with a quantity of oakum. This the pirates somehow overlooked in their search, although they passed and repassed it continually during their visit.

“The brig was then put before the wind, steering north, and as by the intervention of Divine Providence, a strong wind came up, which before dark developed into a heavy squall with thunder and lightning, so we let the brig go before the fury of the wind, not taking in a stitch of canvas. We steered north until next morning, when the brig’s course was altered, and we stood due west, tacking off and on several courses for a day or two, when finally a homeward course was taken which was kept up until we reached Salem, October 12, 1832.”

Thus ends the narrative of able seaman, John Battis. If the valor of Captain Butman and his crew be questioned, in that they made no resistance, it must be remembered that they were under the guns of the pirate which could have sunk the Mexican at the slightest sign of trouble aboard the brig. And although the decks of the Mexican were not stained with the slaughter of her crew, it is certain that her captors expected to burn them alive. These nineteenth century pirates were not a gentle brood, even though they did not always make their victims walk a plank. In 1829, only three years before the capture of the Mexican, the brig New Priscilla of Salem was found apparently abandoned within a day’s sail of Havana. The boarding party from the ship that sighted her found a boy of Salem, a lad in his teens, spiked to the deck, an act of wanton torture committed after every other soul on board had been thrown overboard.

The capture of the pirates of the Mexican was an extraordinary manifestation of the long arm of Justice. A short time after the return of the brig to Salem, the ship Gleaner sailed for the African coast. Her commander, Captain Hunt happened to carry with him a copy of the Essex Register which under a date of October, 1832, contained the statement of Captain Butman in which he described in detail the model, rig and appearance of the pirate schooner. Captain Hunt perused the statement with lively interest and without doubt kept a weather eye out for a rakish black schooner with a white streak, as he laid his course to the southward. He touched at the island of St. Thomas and while at anchor in the harbor saw a topsail schooner come in from seaward. The stranger anchored nearby, and Captain Hunt sat on his quarterdeck with a copy of the Essex Register in his fist. The more he studied, first the journal and then the schooner, the stronger grew his suspicions that this was the sea robber which had gutted the Mexican. There was her “large main-top-mast, but with no yards or sail on it,” “her mainsail very square at the head, sails made with split cloth and all new,” and “the large gun on a pivot amidships,” the brass twelve-pounders gleaming from her side, and “about seventy men who appeared to be chiefly Spaniards and mulattos.”

Having digested these facts, Captain Hunt went ashore and confided in an old friend. These two invented an excuse for boarding the schooner, and there on the deck they spied two spars painted black which had been stolen from the Mexican. Captain Butman had told Captain Hunt about these black spars before they parted in Salem. The latter at once decided to slip his cable that night, take the Gleaner to sea and run down to the nearest station where he might find English war vessels. There was a leak somewhere, for just before dark, the suspicious schooner made sail and under a heavy press of canvas fled for the open sea. As she passed within hailing distance of the Gleaner a hoarse voice shouted in broken English that if he ventured to take his brig to sea that night, he and his crew would have their throats slitted before daylight.

Captain Hunt stayed in harbor, but his chagrin was lightened when he saw a British frigate come in almost before the schooner had sailed beyond sight. Manning a boat he hurried aboard the frigate, and told her commander what he knew about the Mexican and what he more than guessed about the rakish schooner. The frigate put about and made sail in chase but the pirate eluded her in the night and laid a course for the African coast.

Shortly after this, the British war brig Curlew, Captain Henry D. Trotter, was cruising on the west coast of Africa, and through the officers of the frigate which had chased the pirate out off St. Thomas, she received the story of the Mexican and a description of the schooner. Captain Trotter cogitated and recalled the appearance of a schooner he had recently noticed at anchor in the River Nazareth on the African coast where slavers were wont to hover. The description seemed to fit so closely that the Curlew sailed at once to investigate. When she reached the mouth of the river, Captain Trotter with a force of forty men in boats went upstream, and pulled alongside the schooner at daybreak, ready to take her by storm. The pirates, however, scrambled into their own boats, after setting fire to their schooner and escaped to the shore where they took refuge in the swamps and could not be found. A few days after a prize crew had been put aboard the schooner she was accidentally blown up, killing two officers and two men of the Curlew. The mysterious rakish schooner therefore vanishes from the story with a melodramatic finale.

The stranded pirates meantime had sought the protection of a native king, who promised to surrender them when the demand came from Captain Trotter. After much difficulty, four of the pirates were taken in this region. Five more were captured after they had fled to Fernando Po, and the vigilance of the British navy swelled the list with seven more of the ruffians who were run down at St. Thomas. The pirates were first taken to England, and surrendered to the United States Government for trial in 1834. On August twenty-seventh of that year the British brig of war Savage entered Salem harbor with a consignment of sixteen full-fledged pirates to be delivered to the local authorities.

There was not a British flag in Salem, and the informal reception committee was compelled to ask the British commander for an ensign which might be raised on shore in honor of the visit. The pirates were landed at Crowninshield’s Wharf and taken in carriages to the Town Hall. Twelve of them, all handcuffed together, were arraigned at the bar for examination, and “their plea of not guilty was reiterated with great vociferation and much gesticulation and heat.” One of them, Perez, had confessed soon after capture, and his statement was read. The Pinda, for so the schooner was named, had sailed from Havana with the intention of making a slaving voyage to Africa. When twenty days out they fell in with an American brig (the Mexican), which they boarded with pistols and knives. After robbing her, they scuttled and burned an English brig, and then sailed for Africa.

“The hall was crowded to suffocation,” says the Salem Gazette of that date, “with persons eager to behold the visages of a gang of pirates, that terror and bugbear of the inhabitants of a navigating community. It is a case, so far as we recollect, altogether without precedent to have a band of sixteen pirates placed at the bar at one time and charged with the commission of the same crime.”

The sixteen pirates of the Pinda were taken to Boston to await trial in the United States Court. While in prison they seem to have inspired as much sympathy as hostility. In fact, from all accounts they were as mild-mannered a band of cut-throats as ever scuttled a ship. A writer in the Boston Post, September 2, 1834, has left these touches of personal description:

“Having heard a terrific description of the Spaniards now confined in Leverett Street jail on a charge of piracy, we availed ourselves of our right of entree and took a birdseye glance at the monsters of the deep but were somewhat surprised to find them small and ordinary looking men, extremely civil and good-natured, with a free dash of humor in their conversation and easy indifference to their situation. The first in importance as well as in appearance is the Captain, Pedro Gibert, a Castilian 38 years old, and the son of a merchant. In appearance he did not come quite up to our standard for the leader of a brave band of buccaneers, although a pleasant and rather a handsome mariner.”

Captain Pedro Gibert is further described as having “a round face, ample and straight nose, and a full but not fierce black eye.” Francisco Ruiz the carpenter, was “only five feet three inches high, and though not very ferocious of aspect will never be hung for his good looks.” Antonio Farrer, a native African had several seams on his face resembling sabre gashes. These were tattoo marks, on each cheek a chain of diamond-shaped links, and branded on the forehead to resemble an ornamental band or coronet. With a red handkerchief bound about his head Antonio must have been ferocious in action.

In October, November, 1835, the trial was begun before Justice Joseph Story and District Judge John Davis. The prisoners at the bar were Captain Gibert, Bernado de Soto, first mate; Francisco Ruiz, Nicola Costa, Antonio Farrer, Manuel Boyga, Domingo de Guzman, Juan Antonio Portana, Manuel Castillo, Angel Garcia, Jose Velasquez, and Juan Montenegro. Manuel Delgardo was not present. He had committed suicide in the Boston jail some time before.

The pirates conducted themselves with a dignity and courage that showed them to be no mongrel breed of outlaw, and their finish was worthy of better careers. The trial lasted two weeks and the evidence, both direct and circumstantial was of the strongest kind against seven of the pirates. Five were acquitted after proving to the satisfaction of the jury that they had not been on board the Pinda at the time of the Mexican affair. Thomas Fuller of Salem was a witness, and he upset the decorum of the court in a scandalous manner. When asked to identify the prisoners he stepped up to one of them and shouted:

“You’re the scoundrel that was first over the rail and you knocked me endwise with the flat of a cutlass. Take that.”

The impetuous young witness caught the prisoner on the jaw with a fist like an oaken billet and drove him spinning across the room by way of emphatic identification.

Before sentence was pronounced Captain Gibert rose and said in Spanish:

“I am innocent of the crime—I am innocent.” With that he presented a statement drawn up by himself in a “remarkably well written hand” which he desired might be read. After denouncing the traitor Perez, who had turned State’s evidence, the captain stated that Delgardo, before he had cut his throat in jail, had avowed his determination to commit suicide because his extorted and false confession had involved the lives of his companions. He alleged that his boatswain had been poisoned by Captain Trotter on Fernando Po for denying the robbery, and had exclaimed just before his death:

“‘The knaves have given me poison. My entrails are burning,’ after which he expired foaming at the mouth.”

The first mate, de Soto, presented a paper addressed to the presiding “Senor,” in which he protested his innocence, “before the tribunal, before the whole universe, and before the Omnipotent Being.” He went on to say that he was born at Corunna where his father was an administrator of the ecclesiastical rank; that he had devoted himself to the study of navigation from the age of fourteen, and at twenty-two had “by dint of assiduity passed successfully through his examinations and reached the grade of captain, or first pilot, in the India course. He had shortly after espoused the daughter of an old and respectable family.”

(At this point the clerk, Mr. Childs became much affected, shed tears and was obliged for a time to resign the reading of the document to Mr. Bodlam.)

The memorial of Bernado de Soto closed in this wise:

“Nevertheless I say no more than that they (the witnesses) have acted on vain presumption and I forgive them. But let them not think it will be so with my parents and my friends who will cry to God continually for vengeance on those who have sacrificed my life while innocent.”

Manuel Castillo, the Peruvian, “who had a noble Rolla countenance,” exclaimed with upraised hands:

“I am innocent in the presence of the Supreme Being of this Assembly, and of the Universe. I swear it and I desire the court will receive my memorial.”

The mate de Soto obtained a respite after telling the following story which investigation proved to be true:

He had been master of a vessel which made a voyage from Havana to Philadelphia in 1831, and was consigned to a “respectable house there.” During the return voyage to Havana he discovered the ship Minerva ashore on one of the Bahama reefs, and on fire. The passengers and crew were clinging to the masts and yards. He approached the wreck at great danger to himself and vessel and took off seventy-two persons, whom he carried safely to Havana. He was presented with a silver cup by the insurance office at Philadelphia as token of their appreciation of his bravery and self-sacrifice. The ship Minerva belonged in Salem, and the records showed that the rescue performed by de Soto had been even more gallant than he pictured it to the Court. For this service to humanity he escaped the death penalty for his later act of piracy and was subsequently pardoned by President Andrew Jackson.

When his comrades were called for sentence by Judge Story they showed the same firmness, self-possession and demeanor of innocence which had marked their conduct throughout the trial. The death sentence for the crime of piracy on the high seas was announced in these words:

“The sentence is that you and each of you, for the crime whereof you severally stand convicted, be severally decreed, taken and adjudged to be pirates and felons, and that each of you be severally hung by the neck until you be severally dead. And that the marshal of this District of Massachusetts or his Deputy, do on peril of what may fall thereon, cause execution to be done upon you and each of you severally on the 11th day of March next ensueing, between the hours of 9 and 12 of the same day; that you be now taken from hence to the jail in Boston in the District aforesaid, from whence you came; there or in some other safe and convenient jail within the District to be closely kept until the day of execution; and from thence to be taken on the day appointed for the execution as aforesaid to the place aforesaid; there to be hanged until you are severally dead. I earnestly recommend to each of you to employ the intermediate period in sober reflection upon your past life, and conduct, and by prayers and penitence and religious exercises to seek the favor of Almighty God for any sins and crimes which you may have committed. And for this purpose I earnestly recommend to you to seek the aid and assistance of the Ministers of our holy religion of the denominations of Christians to which you severally belong. And in bidding you, so far as I can presume to know, an eternal farewell, I offer up my earnest prayer that Almighty God may in his infinite goodness, have mercy on your souls.”

The Salem Gazette records that “after the sentence was read in English by the Judge, it was translated into Spanish. Captain Gibert did not waver a particle from his most extraordinary firmness of manner, and the commanding dignity of all his movements. The muscles of de Soto’s face quivered, and he seemed subdued. Castillo looked the same high scorn with which he appears to have regarded the whole proceeding. The rest gave no particular indication of their feelings. The Judge ordered the prisoners to be remanded and they were ironed and carried out of court, the crowd assembled being much excited by this moving scene. Immediately after pronouncing the sentence Judge Story left the court, appearing deeply affected by the painful duty which he has evidently most reluctantly performed under the highest sense of responsibility.”

The local chronicle thus closes the story of the piracy of the Mexican, six months after the trial:

“Five of the pirates, the captain and four of the crew were executed this morning at half past ten. We have already mentioned the temporary reprieve of the mate de Soto on account of rescuing the crew of an American vessel, and of Ruiz, the carpenter, on the score of insanity. They were accompanied to the gallows by a Spanish priest, but none of them made any confession or expressed any contrition. They all protested their innocence to the last. Last night Captain Gibert was discovered with a piece of glass with which he intended to commit suicide. And one of the men (Boyga) cut his throat with a piece of tin, and was so much weakened by loss of blood that he was supported to the gallows, and seated in a chair on the drop when it fell. It would seem from their conduct that they retained hopes of pardon to the last moment.”

De Soto, the mate, who escaped the noose, returned to Cuba and was for many years in the merchant marine in those waters. More than a generation after the Mexican affair, a Salem shipmaster, Captain Nicholas Snell, had occasion to take a steamer that traded between Havana and Matanzas. He had attended the trial of the pirates in Boston and he recognized the captain of the steamer as de Soto. The former buccaneer and the Salem captain became friends and before they parted de Soto related the story of the Pinda’s voyage. He said that he had shipped aboard her at Havana where she was represented as a slaver. Once at sea, however, he discovered that the Pinda was a pirate, and that he must share her fortune. He frankly discussed the capture of the Mexican, and threw an unholy light upon the character of Captain Gibert. The night after the capture the officers of the Pinda were drinking recklessly in the cabin, and one of the mates held up his glass of rum and shouted: “Here’s to the squirming Yankees.”

The captain had taken it for granted that the crew of the Mexican had been killed to a man before the brig was set on fire, and when the truth came out, he was fairly beside himself. With black oaths he sprang on deck, put his vessel about, and for two days cruised in search of the Mexican, swearing to slay every man on board if he could overhaul her in order to insure the safety of his own precious neck. In truth, that gale with thunder and lightning before which the Mexican drove all that thick night was seaman John Battis’ “intervention of Divine Providence.”

When the word was brought to Salem that de Soto was to be found on the Cuban coast, more than one Salem skipper, when voyaging to Havana or Matanzas, took the trouble to find the former pirate and spin a yarn or two with him over a cool glass and a long, black cigar.