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John Quelch

Lieutenant of the Boston privateer Charles who took command after his captain's death, made nine captures of Portuguese vessels off Brazil, and was convicted of piracy, robbery and murder at Boston and hanged in 1704.

Bornc. 1666, LondonDiedexecuted 30 June 1704, BostonAlso writtenCapt. John Quelch (the 1704 trial print); John Quelch, Mariner (the trial record's list of ages and birthplaces)

John Quelch was tried before a Court of Admiralty at Boston in June 1704 for piracy, robbery and murder, convicted, and hanged on 30 June.1

The name and the rank

He was John Quelch, and Capt. John Quelch, the surname never varying in the spelling. The rest of him goes in one line: a mariner, born in London, aged about thirty-eight, which puts his birth near 1666 on an age given as about. Captain is a courtesy. The indictment styled him lieutenant of the brigantine Charles, Daniel Plowman late commander, deceased. He commanded because the commander was dead.2,3,4

A commission that was not his

The Charles was a new brigantine of about eighty tons, fitted out by Nicholas Paige, Charles Hobby, William Clarke, Benjamin Gallop and John Colman of Boston. Governor Joseph Dudley commissioned her on 13 July 1703: six months, war against France and Spain and nobody else, and the commission was Daniel Plowman's. Sick at Marblehead, Plowman wrote to his owners on 1 and 2 August, urging them to lay the vessel up and warning them against a new commander: "it will not do with these people." She sailed on 4 August with about seventy men.5,6,7

His crew had bolted their captain into his cabin, Anthony Holding named as the man behind it, and Plowman was dead by 6 August 1703. The record has him die in the cabin; James Parrot, one of the three men who turned Queen's evidence, said he was thrown overboard. Quelch came aboard, took command and shaped a course for Brazil. Holding got clear and was never tried.8,9

Nine articles

Nine Portuguese vessels were taken off the coast of Brazil between 15 November 1703 and 17 February following, Old Style, each a separate article. Seven are small: fish and salt worth about three pounds, sugar and molasses, earthenware and rum, cloth and silk out of a boat sunk after plundering, fifty pounds in Portuguese coin, and an enslaved boy called Joachim, carried off and examined afterwards in the Boston court.10

The eighth article hanged them. A brigantine out of Spirito Santo, taken on 15 January, gave up a hundredweight of gold valued at six thousand pounds and nine hundred pieces of coined gold, and Quelch carried it aboard himself. The ninth is the murder: a ship of about two hundred tons and twelve guns near the River of Plate, her commander killed, her beef, guns, powder and sails taken out of her with pieces of eight and an enslaved boy. The men themselves disputed which of them had done the killing.11,12

Boston, May and June 1704

She came into Marblehead about the middle of May 1704, and the Boston News-Letter of 15 to 22 May carried the cover story: she was "said to come from New-Spain & have made a good Voyage". Her owners laid a written information of suspicion, received 23 May, and proclamations went out for the company from 24 May, first over Povey's name and then Dudley's.13,14

The court opened at Boston on 13 June 1704 under a commission grounded on the Act of 11 and 12 William III, Joseph Dudley presiding. There was no jury, and the Crown's counsel conceded that putting an Englishman to death without one might be thought severe. James Meinzies, assigned to the prisoners, objected that the approvers held no pardon and that by the civil law an accomplice could not be a witness. He was overruled.15,16,17

Portugal's alliance with Queen Anne was the Crown's aggravation. Men holding a commission against France and Spain had instead "sheathed it in the Bowels of some of the best Friends and Allies", and two London Gazettes of 1703 were produced to prove the treaty signed at Lisbon on 16 May. The president then took the argument away from his own side, ruling that the case did not stand on the alliance: without it, and without a war, this was piracy still, as Kidd's hanging for robbing the Great Mogul showed. No witness put the killing in Quelch's hand either. By the statute of 28 Henry VIII all present and assisting at a murder on the high sea were principals, and he was convicted as one.18,19,20

Sentence and gallows

He came to trial on Monday 19 June 1704 and was sentenced the same day, guilty on all nine articles. Dow and Edmonds print June 9, a slip. Six were executed on Friday 30 June: Quelch, John Lambert, Christopher Scudamore, John Miller, Erasmus Peterson and Peter Roach. A seventh, Francis King, was taken out with them and reprieved at the gallows.21,22

His gallows words survive on a sheet of dying speeches. Quelch asked what he was there for. "I am condemned only upon Circumstances." He told the crowd to take care how they brought money into New England, to be hanged for it, and Erasmus Peterson said "it is very hard for so many mens Lives to be taken away for a little Gold." The date on the sheet is questioned on the gallows print's own record; heading and narrative alike read 30 June.23,24

The gold outlasted them. Fees and rewards took 726 pounds 19 shillings and fourpence out of the treasure, and by October 1705 the province had weighed 788 ounces of it and shipped it to the Crown in HM Ship Guernsey. Dudley afterwards had a royal bounty as his share. Cotton Mather wrote of "odd Collusions" with Quelch's company, money extorted from the crew for the liberty of the prison yard.25

Matthew Pymer, John Clifford and James Parrot, the three approvers, were examined on oath, and counsel argued before the verdict and the sentence came. Samuel Sewall sat on the court, and on the day he went to look: "the River was cover'd with People, I was amazed." The minister in the boat below the scaffold was Cotton Mather, praying for the seven as they went up.26,28

What the surviving record will not give is the man. No parish entry, no marriage, no ship before the Charles, no likeness, nothing between a London birth about 1666 and a berth in a Boston privateer. Nor has all of it been seen in its first state: the News-Letter arrives here through reproductions inside Dow and Edmonds and the Sewall edition, the dying-speeches sheet only through Dow, and neither of Cotton Mather's imprints on the case at all.27

What the evidence does not settle

Early life

  • Quelch's life before August 1703, including any parish, marriage or earlier ship record

Birthplace

  • His London birth rests only on a trial record age
  • The trial record gives his age as about thirty-eight at execution

Captain Plowman's death

  • The trial record states Plowman died in confinement

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. John Quelch was tried for piracy, robbery and murder before a Court of Admiralty at Boston in June 1704, convicted, and executed on 30 June 1704. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record, contemporary diary and period newspaper: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); Diary of Samuel Sewall, the volume covering 1704 (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections edition); The Boston News-Letter, 1704 issues reporting the Quelch case (arrival notice 15 to 22 May; report of 25 June; execution report early July)
  2. The printed trial record names him throughout as "John Quelch" and "Capt. John Quelch", spelling the surname consistently, so that the forename John and the surname Quelch are both attested in the record itself. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record and contemporary diary: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); Diary of Samuel Sewall, the volume covering 1704 (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections edition)
  3. The trial record's appendix list of ages and birthplaces records him as a mariner, born in London and aged about thirty-eight at his execution, which implies a birth about 1666 on an age the list itself gives as about. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Printed trial record and modern narrative history: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Chapter VII, John Quelch and his Crew who were Hanged in Boston and their Gold Distributed)
  4. On the voyage of the Charles his legal rank was lieutenant, the indictment styling him lieutenant of the brigantine Charles, of which Daniel Plowman, mariner, deceased, was late commander, and he took command only after Plowman's death, so that the title Captain is a courtesy. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  5. The Charles was a new brigantine of about eighty tons, fitted out by the Boston merchants Nicholas Paige, Charles Hobby, William Clarke, Benjamin Gallop and John Colman as a privateer, and Governor Joseph Dudley granted her privateering commission to Captain Daniel Plowman on 13 July 1703, to run six months and to authorise war only against France and Spain. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record and modern narrative history: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Chapter VII, John Quelch and his Crew who were Hanged in Boston and their Gold Distributed)
  6. Plowman, lying sick at Marblehead, wrote to his owners on 1 and 2 August 1703 urging that the vessel be laid up and warning them against sending her out under a new commander, telling them "it will not do with these people". Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  7. The Charles sailed from Boston on 4 August 1703 with about seventy men, as Governor Dudley recorded in his own letter. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  8. The crew shut Captain Plowman in his cabin, Anthony Holding being named as the man who ordered it, Plowman died on 6 August 1703, and Quelch then took command and shaped a course for the coast of Brazil; Holding escaped and was never tried. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  9. The trial record states that Plowman died, while the witness James Parrot said the captain was thrown overboard, and whether he went over the side alive or dead is not settled by the record. Disputed The sources disagree, and we say how. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  10. Nine captures of Portuguese vessels off the coast of Brazil between 15 November 1703 and 17 February 1703 Old Style were charged as separate articles, seven of them small takings of fish and salt worth about three pounds, Brazil sugar, molasses, rice and farine, earthenware, rum, linen, cloth and silk out of a boat that was sunk after plundering, about fifty pounds in Portuguese coined money with a parcel of gold and silver, and the enslaved boy Joachim, who was carried off and afterwards examined in court. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  11. The eighth article charged the seizure of a Portuguese brigantine from Spirito Santo on 15 January 1703 Old Style, from which the company took a hundredweight of gold valued at six thousand pounds and nine hundred pieces of coined gold, Quelch carrying the gold aboard the Charles himself and seeing it weighed. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  12. The ninth article charged the seizure of a Portuguese ship of about two hundred tons and twelve guns near the River of Plate on 17 February 1703 Old Style, in which her commander was killed and beef, guns, arms, powder, sails, an enslaved boy and pieces of eight were carried away, the witnesses being unable to agree which of the company had killed him. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  13. The Charles returned to Marblehead about the middle of May 1704, and the Boston News-Letter of 15 to 22 May 1704 noted her arrival with the company's own account of the voyage, saying she was "said to come from New-Spain & have made a good Voyage". Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period newspaper quoted in modern narrative history: The Boston News-Letter, 1704 issues reporting the Quelch case (arrival notice 15 to 22 May; report of 25 June; execution report early July); The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Chapter VII, John Quelch and his Crew who were Hanged in Boston and their Gold Distributed)
  14. The owners Colman and Clarke laid a written information of suspicion, dated received 23 May 1704, and arrest proclamations followed from 24 May 1704, first over Lieutenant-Governor Povey's name and then over Governor Dudley's. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Printed trial record and modern narrative history: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Chapter VII, John Quelch and his Crew who were Hanged in Boston and their Gold Distributed)
  15. The Court of Admiralty opened at Boston on 13 June 1704 under a commission grounded on the Act of 11 and 12 William III, Joseph Dudley presiding, with Povey, Usher, Byfield, Sewall and others as commissioners. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record and contemporary diary: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); Diary of Samuel Sewall, the volume covering 1704 (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections edition)
  16. The trial was held without a jury under that commission, and Crown counsel conceded in open court that putting an Englishman to death without a jury might be thought severe. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  17. Defence counsel James Meinzies objected that the approvers were incompetent witnesses for want of a pardon and that by the civil law which the Act invoked an accomplice could not be a witness, and the objections were overruled. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  18. The Crown pressed the Portuguese alliance as an aggravation, arguing that men holding a commission against France and Spain had instead "sheathed it in the Bowels of some of the best Friends and Allies", and two London Gazettes of May and July 1703 were produced to prove the treaty signed at Lisbon on 16 May 1703. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  19. The court held that the conviction did not depend on the alliance, the president ruling that had there been no alliance and no war between the two crowns the prisoner and his company would still have been guilty of piracy, and citing Kidd's hanging for robbing the Great Mogul. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  20. Quelch was convicted of the murder as a principal although he was not shown to be the killer, since by the statute of 28 Henry VIII all who were present and assisting at a murder on the high sea were principals. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)
  21. Quelch was brought to trial on Monday 19 June 1704, found guilty of all nine articles and sentenced to death the same day; Dow and Edmonds print the trial day as "Monday, June 9", a slip against the trial record, Sewall and the News-Letter of 25 June, which all give the nineteenth. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record, contemporary diary and period newspaper: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); Diary of Samuel Sewall, the volume covering 1704 (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections edition); The Boston News-Letter, 1704 issues reporting the Quelch case (arrival notice 15 to 22 May; report of 25 June; execution report early July)
  22. Six men were executed on Friday 30 June 1704, Quelch, John Lambert, Christopher Scudamore, John Miller, Erasmus Peterson and Peter Roach, and a seventh, Francis King, was brought out with them and reprieved at the gallows. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record, contemporary diary and period newspaper: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); Diary of Samuel Sewall, the volume covering 1704 (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections edition); The Boston News-Letter, 1704 issues reporting the Quelch case (arrival notice 15 to 22 May; report of 25 June; execution report early July)
  23. Quelch's words on the gallows, reported in the dying-speeches broadsheet as reprinted by Dow and Edmonds, were that he was "condemned only upon Circumstances" and that people should "take care how they brought money into New England, to be Hanged for it", while Erasmus Peterson said "it is very hard for so many mens Lives to be taken away for a little Gold". Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Gallows broadside reprinted in modern narrative history: The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Appendix III, The Dying Speeches of Captain Quelch and his Companions, p. 376)
  24. In the Dow and Edmonds reprint of the dying-speeches broadsheet the heading and the opening of the narrative both date the execution to Friday 30 June 1704. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Gallows broadside reprinted in modern narrative history: The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Appendix III, The Dying Speeches of Captain Quelch and his Companions, p. 376)
  25. By October 1705 the province had sent 788 ounces of coined, bar and dust gold, weighed by Jeremiah Dummer, to the Crown by HM Ship Guernsey, 726 pounds 19 shillings and fourpence having been paid out of the treasure in fees and rewards, Governor Dudley later receiving a royal bounty as his share, and Cotton Mather alleging "odd Collusions" by which money was extorted from the crew for liberty in the prison yard. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Modern narrative history: The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Chapter VII, John Quelch and his Crew who were Hanged in Boston and their Gold Distributed)
  26. The printed trial record is the spine of the case, carrying the constitution of the court, the nine articles, the sworn examinations of the approvers Matthew Pymer, John Clifford and James Parrot, the arguments of counsel, the verdict, the sentence and an appendix of documents, while Samuel Sewall was both a commissioner of the court and an eyewitness of the execution, writing that "the River was cover'd with People, I was amazed". Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed trial record and contemporary diary: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704); Diary of Samuel Sewall, the volume covering 1704 (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections edition)
  27. The Boston News-Letter reports of the case were read for this record only through reproductions inside Dow and Edmonds and the Sewall edition rather than in the original issues, the dying-speeches broadsheet only as reprinted by Dow and Edmonds, and Cotton Mather's Faithful Warnings of 1704 and Deplorable State of New England of 1708 not at all, while Dow and Edmonds' own narrative is a modern retelling carrying at least one slip. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period newspaper and gallows broadside read through modern narrative history and a source edition: The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Chapter VII, John Quelch and his Crew who were Hanged in Boston and their Gold Distributed); The Boston News-Letter, 1704 issues reporting the Quelch case (arrival notice 15 to 22 May; report of 25 June; execution report early July); Diary of Samuel Sewall, the volume covering 1704 (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections edition)
  28. Samuel Sewall's diary of the execution, as reprinted by Dow and Edmonds, has the seven condemned men go up when the scaffold was hoisted and puts Cotton Mather in the boat below it, praying for them as they went up. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Contemporary diary quoted in modern narrative history: The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 to 1730 (Chapter VII, John Quelch and his Crew who were Hanged in Boston and their Gold Distributed, p. 113), quoting the Diary of Samuel Sewall for 30 June 1704