The Pirates Own Book (12 page)

Roberts, himself, made a gallant figure at the time of the engagement,
being dressed in a rich crimson damask waistcoat and breeches, a red
feather in his hat, a gold chain round his neck, with a diamond cross
hanging to it, a sword in his hand, and two pair of pistols hanging at
the end of a silk sling flung over his shoulders, according to the
custom of the pirates. He is said to have given his orders with boldness
and spirit. Coming, according to what he had purposed, close to the
man-of-war, he received her fire, and then hoisted his black flag and
returned it, shooting away from her with all the sail he could pack; and
had he taken Armstrong's advice to have gone before the wind, he had
probably escaped; but keeping his tacks down, either by the wind's
shifting, or ill steerage, or both, he was taken aback with his sails,
and the Swallow came a second time very nigh to him. He had now,
perhaps, finished the fight very desperately, if death, who took a swift
passage in a grape shot, had not interposed, and struck him directly on
the throat. He settled himself on the tackles of a gun; which one
Stephenson, from the helm, observing, ran to his assistance, and not
perceiving him wounded, swore at him, and bade him stand up and fight
like a man; but when he found his mistake, and that his captain was
certainly dead, he burst into tears, and wished the next shot might be
his portion. They presently threw him overboard, with his arms and
ornaments on, according to his repeated request in his life-time.

This extraordinary man and daring pirate was tall, of a dark complexion,
about 40 years of age, and born in Pembrokeshire. His parents were
honest and respectable, and his natural activity, courage, and
invention, were superior to his education. At a very early period, he,
in drinking, would imprecate vengeance upon "the head of him who ever
lived to wear a halter." He went willingly into the pirate service, and
served three years as a second man. It was not for want of employment,
but from a roving, wild, and boisterous turn of mind. It was his usual
declaration, that, "In an honest service, there are commonly low wages
and hard labor; in this,—plenty, satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty,
and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the
hazard that is run for it at worst, is only a sour look or two at
choking? No,—a merry life and a short one, shall be my motto!" But it
was one favorable trait in his character, that he never forced any man
into the pirate service.

The prisoners were strictly guarded while on board, and being conveyed
to Cape Coast castle, they underwent a long and solemn trial. The
generality of them remained daring and impenitent for some time, but
when they found themselves confined within a castle, and their fate
drawing near, they changed their course, and became serious, penitent,
and fervent in their devotions. Though the judges found no small
difficulty in explaining the law, and different acts of parliament, yet
the facts were so numerous and flagrant which were proved against them,
that there was no difficulty in bringing in a verdict of guilty.

Containing an Account of his Atrocities committed in the West Indies
.

This atrocious and cruel pirate, when very young became addicted to
vices uncommon in youths of his age, and so far from the gentle reproof
and friendly admonition, or the more severe chastisement of a fond
parent, having its intended effect, it seemed to render him still worse,
and to incline him to repay those whom he ought to have esteemed as his
best friends and who had manifested so much regard for his welfare, with
ingratitude and neglect. His infamous career and ignominious death on
the gallows; brought down the "grey hairs of his parents in sorrow to
the grave." The poignant affliction which the infamous crimes of
children bring upon their relatives ought to be one of the most
effective persuasions for them to refrain from vice.

Charles Gibbs was born in the state of Rhode Island, in 1794; his
parents and connexions were of the first respectability. When at school,
he was very apt to learn, but so refractory and sulky, that neither the
birch nor good counsel made any impression on him, and he was expelled
from the school.

He was now made to labor on a farm; but having a great antipathy to
work, when about fifteen years of age, feeling a great inclination to
roam, and like too many unreflecting youths of that age, a great
fondness for the sea, he in opposition to the friendly counsel of his
parents, privately left them and entered on board the United States
sloop-of-war, Hornet, and was in the action when she captured the
British sloop-of-war Peacock, off the coast of Pernambuco. Upon the
return of the Hornet to the United States, her brave commander, Capt.
Lawrence, was promoted for his gallantry to the command of the
unfortunate Chesapeake, and to which he was followed by young Gibbs, who
took a very distinguished part in the engagement with the Shannon, which
resulted in the death of Lawrence and the capture of the Chesapeake.
Gibbs states that while on board the Chesapeake the crew previous to the
action, were almost in a state of mutiny, growing out of the non payment
of the prize money, and that the address of Capt. Lawrence was received
by them with coldness and murmurs.

After the engagement, Gibbs became with the survivors of the crew a
prisoner of war, and as such was confined in Dartmoor prison until
exchanged.

After his exchange, he returned to Boston, where having determined to
abandon the sea, he applied to his friends in Rhode Island, to assist
him in commencing business; they accordingly lent him one thousand
dollars as a capital to begin with. He opened a grocery in Ann Street,
near what was then called the
Tin Pot
, a place full of abandoned women
and dissolute fellows. As he dealt chiefly in liquor, and had a
"
License to retail Spirits
," his drunkery was thronged with customers.
But he sold his groceries chiefly to loose girls who paid him in their
coin, which, although it answered his purpose, would neither buy him
goods or pay his rent, and he found his stock rapidly dwindling away
without his receiving any cash to replenish it. By dissipation and
inattention his new business proved unsuccessful to him. He resolved to
abandon it and again try the sea for a subsistence. With a hundred
dollars in his pocket, the remnant of his property, he embarked in the
ship John, for Buenos Ayres, and his means being exhausted soon after
his arrival there, he entered on board a Buenos Ayrean privateer and
sailed on a cruise. A quarrel between the officers and crew in regard to
the division of prize money, led eventually to a mutiny; and the
mutineers gained the ascendancy, took possession of the vessel, landed
the crew on the coast of Florida, and steered for the West Indies, with
hearts resolved to make their fortunes at all hazards, and where in a
short time, more than twenty vessels were captured by them and nearly
Four Hundred Human Beings Murdered
!

Havana was the resort of these pirates to dispose of their plunder; and
Gibbs sauntered about this place with impunity and was acquainted in all
the out of the way and bye places of that hot bed of pirates the Regla.
He and his comrades even lodged in the very houses with many of the
American officers who were sent out to take them. He was acquainted with
many of the officers and was apprised of all their intended movements
before they left the harbor. On one occasion, the American ship
Caroline, was captured by two of their piratical vessels off Cape
Antonio. They were busily engaged in landing the cargo, when the British
sloop-of-war, Jearus, hove in sight and sent her barges to attack them.
The pirates defended themselves for some time behind a small four gun
battery which they had erected, but in the end were forced to abandon
their own vessel and the prize and fly to the mountains for safety. The
Jearus found here twelve vessels burnt to the water's edge, and it was
satisfactorily ascertained that their crews, amounting to
one hundred
and fifty persons had been murdered
. The crews, if it was thought not
necessary otherways to dispose of them were sent adrift in their boats,
and frequently without any thing on which they could subsist a single
day; nor were all so fortunate thus to escape. "Dead men can tell no
tales," was a common saying among them; and as soon as a ship's crew
were taken, a short consultation was held; and if it was the opinion of
a majority that it would be better to take life than to spare it, a
single nod or wink from the captain was sufficient; regardless of age or
sex, all entreaties for mercy were then made in vain; they possessed not
the tender feelings, to be operated upon by the shrieks and expiring
groans of the devoted victims! there was a strife among them, who with
his own hands could despatch the greatest number, and in the shortest
period of time.

Without any other motives than to gratify their hellish propensities (in
their intoxicated moments), blood was not unfrequently and unnecessarily
shed, and many widows and orphans probably made, when the lives of the
unfortunate victims might have been spared, and without the most distant
prospect of any evil consequences (as regarded themselves), resulting
therefrom.

Gibbs states that sometime in the course of the year 1819, he left
Havana and came to the United States, bringing with him about $30,000.
He passed several weeks in the city of New York, and then went to
Boston, whence he took passage for Liverpool in the ship Emerald. Before
he sailed, however, he has squandered a large part of his money by
dissipation and gambling. He remained in Liverpool a few months, and
then returned to Boston. His residence in Liverpool at that time is
satisfactorily ascertained from another source besides his own
confession. A female now in New York was well acquainted with him there,
where, she says, he lived like a gentleman, with apparently abundant
means of support. In speaking of his acquaintance with this female he
says, "I fell in with a woman, who I thought was all virtue, but she
deceived me, and I am sorry to say that a heart that never felt abashed
at scenes of carnage and blood, was made a child of for a time by her,
and I gave way to dissipation to drown the torment. How often when the
fumes of liquor have subsided, have I thought of my good and
affectionate parents, and of their Godlike advice! But when the little
monitor began to move within me, I immediately seized the cup to hide
myself from myself, and drank until the sense of intoxication was
renewed. My friends advised me to behave myself like a man, and promised
me their assistance, but the demon still haunted me, and I spurned their
advice."

In 1826, he revisited the United States, and hearing of the war between
Brazil and the Republic of Buenos Ayres, sailed from Boston in the brig
Hitty, of Portsmouth, with a determination, as he states, of trying his
fortune in defence of a republican government. Upon his arrival he made
himself known to Admiral Brown, and communicated his desire to join
their navy. The admiral accompanied him to the Governor, and a
Lieutenant's commission being given him, he joined a ship of 34 guns,
called the 'Twenty Fifth of May.' "Here," says Gibbs, "I found
Lieutenant Dodge, an old acquaintance, and a number of other persons
with whom I had sailed. When the Governor gave me the commission he told
me they wanted no cowards in their navy, to which I replied that I
thought he would have no apprehension of my cowardice or skill when he
became acquainted with me. He thanked me, and said he hoped he should
not be deceived; upon which we drank to his health and to the success of
the Republic. He then presented me with a sword, and told me to wear
that as my companion through the doubtful struggle in which the republic
was engaged. I told him I never would disgrace it, so long as I had a
nerve in my arm. I remained on board the ship in the capacity of 5th
Lieutenant, for about four months, during which time we had a number of
skirmishes with the enemy. Having succeeded in gaining the confidence of
Admiral Brown, he put me in command of a privateer schooner, mounting
two long 24 pounders and 46 men. I sailed from Buenos Ayres, made two
good cruises, and returned safely to port. I then bought one half of a
new Baltimore schooner, and sailed again, but was captured seven days
out, and carried into Rio Janeiro, where the Brazilians paid me my
change. I remained there until peace took place, then returned to Buenos
Ayres, and thence to New York.

"After the lapse of about a year, which I passed in travelling from place
to place, the war between France and Algiers attracted my attention.
Knowing that the French commerce presented a fine opportunity for
plunder, I determined to embark for Algiers and offer my services to the
Dey. I accordingly took passage from New York, in the Sally Ann,
belonging to Bath, landed at Barcelona, crossed to Port Mahon, and
endeavored to make my way to Algiers. The vigilance of the French fleet
prevented the accomplishment of my design, and I proceeded to Tunis.
There finding it unsafe to attempt a journey to Algiers across the
desert, I amused myself with contemplating the ruins of Carthage, and
reviving my recollections of her war with the Romans. I afterwards took
passage to Marseilles, and thence to Boston."

An instance of the most barbarous and cold blooded murder of which the
wretched Gibbs gives an account in the course of his confessions, is
that of an innocent and beautiful female of about 17 or 18 years of age!
she was with her parents a passenger on board a Dutch ship, bound from
Curracoa to Holland; there were a number of other passengers, male and
female, on board, all of whom except the young lady above-mentioned were
put to death; her unfortunate parents were inhumanly butchered before
her eyes, and she was doomed to witness the agonies and to hear the
expiring, heart-piercing groans of those whom she held most dear, and on
whom she depended for protection! The life of their wretched daughter
was spared for the most nefarious purposes—she was taken by the pirates
to the west end of Cuba, where they had a rendezvous, with a small fort
that mounted four guns—here she was confined about two months, and
where, as has been said by the murderer Gibbs, "she received such
treatment, the bare recollection of which causes me to shudder!" At the
expiration of the two months she was taken by the pirates on board of
one of their vessels, and among whom a consultation was soon after held,
which resulted in the conclusion that it would be necessary for their
own personal safety, to put her to death! and to her a fatal dose of
poison was accordingly administered, which soon proved fatal! when her
pure and immortal spirit took its flight to that God, whom, we believe,
will avenge her wrongs! her lifeless body was then committed to the deep
by two of the merciless wretches with as much unconcern, as if it had
been that of the meanest brute! Gibbs persists in the declaration that
in this horrid transaction he took no part, that such was his pity for
this poor ill-fated female, that he interceded for her life so long as
he could do it with safety to his own!