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The Mutiny and Execution of William Fly (1726)

The rising led by the boatswain William Fly aboard the Bristol snow Elizabeth on 27 May 1726, in which Captain John Green and the mate Thomas Jenkins were killed, the twenty-seven day cruise that followed under the renamed Fames Revenge, the retaking of the vessel by her forced men on 23 June, and the special Court of Admiralty at Boston on 4 and 5 July 1726 that acquitted twelve of sixteen prisoners and sent Fly, Samuel Cole and Henry Greenvill to the gallows on 12 July, Fly's body being hung in chains on Nick's Mate at the entrance of Boston harbour.

Also writtenThe Fly mutiny; The mutiny aboard the snow Elizabeth; The cruise of the Fames Revenge; The Boston pirate trials of July 1726; The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy (Boston, 1726)

At about one in the morning of 27 May 1726 William Fly, boatswain of the Bristol snow Elizabeth, came aft to Morrice Cundon at the helm. Cundon deposed that Fly told him, "Damn you, if you stir hand or foot, or speak a word, I'll blow your Brains out". He went below with an instrument in his hand. The trial record has Captain John Green hauled up on deck, pleading, "For God's sake, Boatswain, don't throw me overboard, for if you do I shall go to Hell", before he was put into the sea. The mate Thomas Jenkins was cut down the shoulder with a broad axe and thrown over the side. He called from the water for a rope. The ship's doctor was already in irons.1

The Elizabeth was a snow of about seventy tons belonging to Bristol merchants, out of Jamaica for the coast of Guinea, her cargo valued at two thousand pounds sterling. Fly had probably shipped as her boatswain that April, though a Boston report puts the sailing at the end of April or the beginning of May. By the end of the day of the rising he had the command and the vessel a new name, the Fames Revenge. Nothing in the record describes her lading; that she was a slaving vessel is an inference from her owners and her destination, and is no more than likely.2

Twenty-seven days on the coast

The cruise ran twenty-seven days and took five vessels, four of them by the snow herself. On 3 June, off Cape Hatteras, the sloop John and Hannah sent her boat across supposing the stranger wanted a pilot; her master was whipped at the geers and his sloop sank on the bar. The ship John and Betty was chased through the night of 6 June and taken next morning under a black flag. On 11 June the sloop Rachel was taken off Cape May, and on 23 June the snow fired a gun at a Marblehead fishing schooner out on Browns Bank. Popular histories that make it two months of raiding are stretching twenty-seven days.3

Retaken by the prisoners

Fly was no artist, that is no navigator. He kept William Atkinson, late commander of the brigantine Boneta, aboard as pilot on pain of his life. Told to make Martha's Vineyard, Atkinson missed it on purpose and ran the snow past Nantucket. On Browns Bank he advised sending a prize schooner away with six of the pirates in her, which left Fly three companions, one of them the quartermaster Samuel Cole, already ironed for plotting against him. Atkinson then reported sails ahead, and while Fly sat at the windlass with his glass he secured the arms, and Samuel Walker and James Benbrooke laid hold of him. Accounts differ over who else was in the plot.4

The Court House at Boston

The snow was surrendered at Boston at the end of June. A special Court of Admiralty opened at the Court House on Monday 4 July under a royal commission founded on the Act of 11 and 12 William III for the suppression of piracy, made perpetual under 6 George I. William Dummer, the Lieutenant Governor, presided. The Advocate-General, Robert Auchmuty, opened by warning the bench against "that Hackney Defence made by every Pirate upon Trial, namely, That he was a forced Man". Sixteen persons were arraigned, and twelve of them were acquitted on that very plea. Fly was convicted on all six articles, Cole on four, Henry Greenvill on all six, and the cook George Condick on all but the murder.5

The Charles River and Nix's Mate

At an evening sitting on 5 July the court recommended Condick, "commonly Intoxicated with Liquor, and an Ignorant Man", for a reprieve of twelve months, and fixed the other three for Tuesday 12 July at the usual place of execution near the Charles River. Fly's body was then to go to Nix's Mate, at the mouth of the harbour, "and there be Hung up in Chains". All of it was done. Condick was reprieved at the place of execution; the bodies went two leagues down the harbour, Fly to the gibbet and the other two into graves on the island. Johnson's General History names Condick among the three who died, and popular accounts still copy the error; the court's own record has him alive.6

Bad usage

Cole and Greenvill denied the murders and told the court why the rising happened: Green and Jenkins "had both of them been cruel to the Men, and therefore they had agreed to rise upon them, and put them on shoar the first Land they made". Fly said much the same to Cotton Mather in confinement: "Our Captain and his Mate used us Barbarously. We poor Men can't have Justice done us. There is nothing said to our Commanders, let them never so much abuse us, and use us like Dogs". No witness outside the mutineers corroborated it, and the court treated it as immaterial.7

What was said at the gallows

Fly came to the gallows with a nosegay in his hand, told the hangman he did not understand his trade and set the knot right himself. What he said next is the crux of the legend. The Boston report of 16 July gives him a speech, that "all Masters of Vessels might take Warning by the Fate of the Captain (meaning Captain Green) that he had murder'd, and to pay Sailors their Wages when due, and to treat them better; saying, that their Barbarity to them made so many turn Pyrates". Mather reduces the same moment to one indirect sentence. Benjamin Colman, printing his own account, records no speech by Fly at all: "The other Prisoners said little, but warn'd all Masters and Commanders against severity and barbarity to their Men". On Colman's page the words belong to Cole and Greenvill.8

Afterwards, and the argument about it

Dummer sent the print to London on 22 August. One museum-facing site says Fly's death "marks the true end of the golden age of piracy", and Marcus Rediker has made him central to the argument that piracy grew out of merchant brutality. Neither amounts to an end of the Golden Age fixed to a date. The causes ran in parallel: cruelty, opportunism, drink, and a boatswain's ambition for a command of his own. The same Boston commission sat again on 4 October 1726 and condemned five more men for piracy.

What the sources cannot yet give is the man himself, or the fate of the ones who got away. Fly's origins are unknown; the surgeon cannot be named, because the printed trial calls him Richard Ruth and its own errata slip substitutes a passenger, Mr Roan; the six pirates who sailed off in the prize schooner leave no further trace; and the device on the black flag is nowhere described, so any picture of it would be a guess. The scaffold words come from an uncorrected transcription of Boyer's London reprint, and the Boston newspaper files for July 1726 want reading against it.

What the evidence does not settle

Attribution of the gallows warning

  • Warning against masters' barbarity attributed to Fly or othersDisputed

Was the Elizabeth a slave ship

  • Whether the Elizabeth was employed in the slave tradeConfirmed

Fates after the mutiny

  • George Condick's fate after his reprieve is unknown

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. At about one o'clock in the morning of 27 May 1726 William Fly, boatswain of the Bristol snow Elizabeth, led a rising in which Captain John Green and the mate Thomas Jenkins were wounded and thrown overboard and drowned, the helmsman Morrice Cundon deposing that Fly threatened to blow his brains out, that Green pleaded not to be thrown overboard, and that Jenkins was cut down the shoulder with a broad axe and called from the water for a rope while the ship's doctor lay in irons. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Trial pamphlet and execution sermons: The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, &c. (Boston, printed for Joseph Edwards, 1726), Evans 2819, with the examinations of 29 June 1726; Benjamin Colman, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Boston, 1726), Evans 2737; The Vial Poured Out Upon the Sea (Boston, T. Fleet for N. Belknap, 1726), attributed to Cotton Mather, Evans 2779
  2. The Elizabeth was a snow of about seventy tons belonging to merchants in Bristol, sailing from Jamaica for the coast of Guinea with a cargo valued at two thousand pounds sterling, and on the day of the rising Fly took command and the vessel was renamed the Fames Revenge; no document consulted describes her lading, so the inference that she was a slaving vessel rests on her Bristol ownership and her Guinea destination and is carried no higher than Probable. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet and execution sermon: The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, &c. (Boston, 1726), Evans 2819; Benjamin Colman, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Boston, 1726)
  3. The pirate cruise lasted twenty-seven days, from the mutiny of 27 May 1726 to the retaking of the snow on 23 June 1726, and took five vessels, four of them by the snow herself: the sloop John and Hannah off Cape Hatteras on 3 June, whose master John Fulker was whipped at the geers and whose sloop bilged and sank on the bar; the ship John and Betty on 7 June; the sloop Rachel off Cape May on 11 June; and the Marblehead fishing schooner James on Browns Bank on 23 June, a fifth vessel being taken by the prize crew put aboard the James; accounts that give the cruise as about two months of raiding are wrong on the dated record. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, &c. (Boston, 1726), Evans 2819, articles and examinations
  4. Fly was overpowered aboard his own vessel on Browns Bank on 23 June 1726 by forced men led by William Atkinson, late commander of the brigantine Boneta, who had first advised sending six of the pirates away in the prize schooner James, then decoyed Fly forward to the windlass by reporting sails ahead, secured the arms on the quarter deck, and had Samuel Walker and James Benbrooke lay hold of him; the accounts differ over whether the carpenter Thomas Streaton was a fourth confederate and over exactly what part Atkinson himself took in the seizure. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Trial pamphlet, execution sermon and period narrative: The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, &c. (Boston, 1726), Evans 2819, including Atkinson's declaration of 28 June 1726 and Benbrooke's examination; Benjamin Colman, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Boston, 1726); Captain Charles Johnson, The History of the Pyrates, volume II, chapter Of Captain William Fly, And his Crew, for the outline only
  5. Sixteen persons were tried at a special Court of Admiralty held at the Court House in Boston on Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 July 1726, under a royal commission founded on the Act of 11 and 12 William III for the more effectual suppression of piracy and made perpetual by an Act of 6 George I, with Lieutenant Governor William Dummer presiding and Robert Auchmuty as Advocate-General; twelve were acquitted on that very plea, that they were forced men, which Auchmuty had opened by attacking as a hackney defence, and four were convicted, Fly on all six articles, Samuel Cole on four, Henry Greenvill on all six and the ship's cook George Condick on all but the murder. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, &c. (Boston, printed for Joseph Edwards, 1726), Evans 2819; the tally of twelve acquitted stated independently in Benjamin Colman, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Boston, 1726)
  6. William Fly, Samuel Cole and Henry Greenvill were hanged on Tuesday 12 July 1726 at the usual place of execution for pirates in or near the Charles River at Boston, George Condick having been recommended by the court for a twelve month reprieve and being reprieved at the place of execution; the three bodies were then carried about two leagues down the harbour to Nix's Mate, where Fly was hung up in chains by order of the court and Cole and Greenvill were buried, and the statement in the General History that Condick was one of the three executed is an error repeated in later popular accounts. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet, execution sermon and newspaper reports: The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, &c. (Boston, 1726), Evans 2819, sentence, reprieve vote and execution order; Benjamin Colman, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Boston, 1726); Boston reports of 4 and 16 July 1726 reprinted in Abel Boyer, The Political State of Great Britain, volume XXXII, pages 271 to 273; The Boston News-Letter, 7 to 14 July 1726; against Captain Charles Johnson, The History of the Pyrates, volume II
  7. Samuel Cole and Henry Greenvill told the Boston court that Captain Green and the mate Jenkins had both of them been cruel to the men and that the crew had agreed to rise upon them and put them ashore at the first land they made, and Fly complained in the same terms in confinement, in words printed by Cotton Mather, that his captain and mate had used the men barbarously and that poor sailors could get no justice against their commanders; no witness independent of the mutineers corroborated the cruelty, and the court did not treat it as material to the articles. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet and execution sermon: The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, &c. (Boston, 1726), Evans 2819, defence of Cole and Greenvill; The Vial Poured Out Upon the Sea (Boston, 1726), attributed to Cotton Mather, Evans 2779, conferences of 6 and 9 July 1726
  8. A warning that masters' barbarity to their men was the cause of so many turning pirate was uttered at the Boston gallows on 12 July 1726 by one or more of the condemned, but its attribution is unsettled: the Boston report of 16 July 1726 gives it to Fly as a direct speech, including the advice to pay sailors their wages when due, and Mather gives it to Fly in one indirect sentence, while Benjamin Colman records no speech by Fly at all and attributes the warning to the other prisoners, that is to Cole and Greenvill; Fly's rebuke of the hangman for not understanding his trade and his setting the knot right himself are separately recorded by both Mather and the newspaper report. Disputed The sources disagree, and we say how. Newspaper report and execution sermons: Boston report of 16 July 1726 reprinted in Abel Boyer, The Political State of Great Britain, volume XXXII, pages 271 to 273, read in an uncorrected optical transcription and corroborated by Marcus Rediker's independent transcription; The Vial Poured Out Upon the Sea (Boston, 1726), attributed to Cotton Mather; against Benjamin Colman, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Boston, 1726)