At Santa Cruz, the seamen’s grievances against their captain burst forth in the very presence of the merchants who had boarded to pay their respects before departure. Several hands accused the commander of keeping them on short rations. The captain replied that the steward was charged with victualling the vessel, adding that all reasonable complaints would be examined in due course. The men withdrew; yet Paterson, one of the principal complainants, dragged his feet when summoned to trim the sails. “As we eat, so shall we work,” he muttered. This dispute over provisions was the prelude to the George galley’s descent into piracy.
John Gow, an Orcadian sailor sailing under the assumed name of Captain Smith, was then serving as second mate and gunner. The crew put to sea once more, but the captain harboured deep suspicions of their insubordination. He conferred with his chief mate and ordered small arms prepared in the great cabin should the men attempt an assault. The conspirators overheard the exchange. The captain further instructed Gow to clean the weapons; from this, Gow perceived that their design might already be discovered. According to Borrow, Gow had already resolved upon turning pirate, well knowing that the ship carried several chests of specie. He determined to strike before the officers could concert their defence.
Half the ship’s company was summoned to evening prayers in the great cabin at eight o’clock, while the remainder kept watch. The service concluded, the men retired to their hammocks. Between nine and ten, the preconcerted countersign—“Who fires first?”—set the plot in motion. Mutineers entered the berths of the surgeon, the chief mate, and the supercargo, cutting their throats as they lay asleep. Grievously hurt, the surgeon soon fell and expired. The other two gained the deck, pressing their hands to their wounds and begging for a moment to commend their souls to God. The pirates dispatched them with pistol-shots.
The captain, aroused by the tumult, came forth demanding what was amiss. The boatswain replied that he knew not, but feared some men had fallen or been cast overboard. The captain leaned over the bulwarks to peer into the sea. Two of the murderers attempted to heave him into the water; he broke free and turned upon them. One drew a blade across his throat without severing the artery. The captain cried for quarter. Another struck him in the back with a dagger, which remained embedded in the flesh; at that instant, Gow reached the deck and discharged two balls into his body. The narrative thus presents Gow’s arrival as the final act of the slaughter, rather than an order issued from a distance.
The corpses of the four officers were committed to the deep. Gow was chosen commander by acclamation; he assigned stations to his confederates and declared his intention to cruise upon the account. Those seamen who had taken no part in the conspiracy concealed themselves in the shrouds or beneath the stores, fearing they would be the next victims. Gow assured them of their safety provided they performed the duties appointed to them. Two men stood over them with drawn cutlasses to enforce obedience. On that first night, the pirates divided the valuables found in the cabin and drank upon the quarterdeck, while the remaining hands worked the ship.
Out of twenty-four souls, four officers had been slain, eight were conspirators, and four others gave their adherence to the new order before daybreak. There remained eight mariners who had not chosen mutiny. Gow declared to them that they should be fed and rewarded according to their merit, and that nothing was required of them but strict discipline. They offered no answer; Borrow observes that Gow took their silence for an assent they had not the power to refuse. Lieutenant Williams kept watch over the reluctant hands and beat them without mercy. This coercion weighed heavily at the subsequent trial, where several prisoners were acquitted upon the ground that they had acted solely under compulsion.
The George galley was rechristened the Revenge and mounted with additional cannon. The company shaped their course for Spain and Portugal, in the hope of taking wine. They took an English vessel carrying Newfoundland fish to Cadiz. C些aring nothing for the cargo, the pirates removed the master and four able seamen to assist in navigating their own craft, and scuttled the prize. They dealt in like manner with a Scottish vessel laden with herrings, having stripped her of crew, arms, ammunition, and stores. This destruction answered the demands of security as much as of plunder: the plundered hulls were not to be left afloat to bear witness or pursue their voyage.
Falling short of provisions after several days’ cruising, the pirates put in at Porto Santo, a Portuguese settlement. They sent ashore a present of salmon and herrings to the governor, giving out that they were bound for another port. The governor came aboard accompanied by several gentlemen and was received with every mark of civility. Yet the boats laden with the promised victuals failed to appear as the visitors prepared to take their leave. Gow’s demeanour altered on the instant: he threatened them with death unless the supplies were immediately forthcoming. The governor was constrained to order several boatloads of provisions sent out until the pirates had sufficient stores to resume their cruise.
Off Cape St. Vincent, they subsequently took an English ship out of the Guinea coast laden with slaves and bound for America. Rather than retain the vessel, they transferred to her the master and men whom they had previously captured, seized her stores together with a portion of her canvas, and permitted her to proceed upon her voyage. A French vessel laden with wine, oil, and fruit provided them with the very lading they desired. Having shifted the cargo, they restored a captured hull to the Scottish master whom they had formerly plundered; he made sail with his crew, save for a single sailor who chose to cast his lot with the pirates.
Yet the company was bound neither by true valour nor by common gain. When a French ship of thirty-two guns bore down upon them, Gow declined an engagement he deemed desperate. Williams denounced him as a coward and levelled a pistol at his breast; the piece flashed in the pan. Winter and Paterson thereupon fired upon Williams, wounding him in the arm and belly. Believing him dead, they were startled when he sprang into the hold, swearing he would set fire to the powder. The pirates clapped him in irons and presently put him aboard another prize, with orders that he be delivered up to an English man-of-war. The brawl made manifest how readily Gow’s authority, founded as it was on murder, might in its turn crumble from within.
Gow now made for the Orkneys, waters familiar to him from his boyhood, instructing his crew to pass themselves off as honest merchants trading from Cadiz to Stockholm. A seaman pressed into service against his will effected his escape during a boat-trip, reached Kirkwall, and laid information before a magistrate. Ten other hands fled in the longboat across the Pentland Firth to the Scottish mainland; there they were cast into prison at Edinburgh upon suspicion of piracy. Despite these alarms, Gow lingered among the islands and ordered a descent upon the house of Sheriff Honeyman to carry off victuals and plunder.
The dwelling was sacked, but Mrs. Honeyman succeeded in escaping with a bag of gold. Her daughter cast the family charters and papers from an upper window and leaped after them, securing the records before the marauders could commit them to the flames. The men made off with the household linen and plate, compelling a domestic servant to play upon the bagpipes before them as they marched. This raid drew all eyes to the menace of their presence upon the coast and roused the islanders to resistance, their first care being to preserve their coin and their title-deeds.
Their next design was directed against the seat of James Fea, an old schoolfellow of Gow’s, situated at Calf Sound. The Revenge lay anchored too near the rocks to work off with ease. Gow addressed a letter to Fea, protesting that he intended no mischief and requesting the loan of a boat to assist in kedging his ship into the channel. Fea refused all succour; he ordered his own boat scuttled and hid her sails and tackle. Five armed pirates came ashore to demand satisfaction. Fea enticed them into an alehouse and plied them with drink. Meanwhile, his servants, who lay concealed near at hand, destroyed the visitors’ boat. Fea then drew the boatswain away from his four companions under colour of showing him his craft; his men sprang from behind a hedge and secured him. They then entered the tavern by two doors at once, disarming the remaining pirates before they could lay hand to their weapons.
Fea raised the country, directing the inhabitants to haul their skiffs high upon the beach and warning them not to row within range of the ship’s ordnance. Supported by a handful of resolute islanders, he ended by securing twenty-eight pirates without the loss of a single life or a man wounded in the enterprise. The prisoners were marched to Edinburgh, embarked on the frigate Greyhound, and conveyed to London. Five of the accused turned King’s evidence against their fellows. At the Old Bailey, Gow at first stood mute, refusing to plead in the hope that his death under the peine forte et dure might preserve an estate for a kinsman. When the officers prepared to inflict the press, he begged leave to return to the bar. Gow and six others were condemned; those whose plea of duress was allowed were acquitted. The convicts were executed at Execution Dock on June 11, 1725. Borrow relates that Gow’s friends pulled upon his legs to shorten his sufferings, whereupon the rope broke, and he was obliged to be turned off a second time before his corpse was hung in chains beside the Thames.