Samuel Bellamy
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Samuel Bellamy aka "Black Sam" Bellamy sailed "the Whydah Gally" when she sank off Cape Cod in a storm. Its gold was retrieved in modern times, being the only known pirate ship salvaged at the time. Whydah was the name of a trading post in Africa near ivory coast. Gally is spelled galley today.
The following text is excerpted from Appendix C of Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone, which is a Free text.
- Daniel Defoe, writing under the pen name Captain Charles Johnson1, wrote what became the first standard historical text on pirates, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. According to Patrick Pringle's Jolly Roger, pirate recruitment was most effective among the unemployed, escaped bondsmen, and transported criminals. The high seas made for an instantaneous levelling of class inequalities. Defoe relates that a pirate named Captain Bellamy made this speech to the captain of a merchant vessel he had taken as a prize. The captain of the merchant vessel had just declined an invitation to join the pirates.
- "I am sorry they won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief, when it is not to my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by knavery; but damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment?"
- When the captain replied that his conscience would not let him break the laws of God and man, the pirate Bellamy continued:
- "You are a devilish conscience rascal, I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world, as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea, and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me: but there is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure."
Notes
1. It is currently believed that Defoe was not in fact the true author of the General History; see P. N. Furbank and W.R. Owens (1994). Defoe De-Attributions : A Critique of J.R. Moore's Checklist. London: Hambledon Press. ISBN 1852851287