vision for executing the death sentence in the case of a
convicted pirate. The difficulties and delays and the large expense
incident to the Kidd proceedings were among the considerations which
moved Parliament, by an act passed in the reign of William III, to
confer upon the Crown authority to issue commissions for the trial of
pirates by Courts of Admiralty out of the realm. Such a commission was
finally sent to Lord Bellomont for the trial of pirates in
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Another document of
the same kind, granting him this power for New York, arrived there
after his death.

These rights were confirmed by Queen Anne, and in her instructions to
Governor Dudley she expressed "her will and pleasure that in all
matters relating to the prosecution of pirates, he govern himself
according to the act and commission aforesaid." The trial of Quelch
was the first to be held by virtue of these authorizations, and
therefore the first capital proceedings against pirates in the New
England Colonies. A special court was convened, and an imposing
tribunal it was, comprising the Governors and Lieutenant Governors of
the Provinces of Massachusetts Bay, and New Hampshire, the Judge of
Vice Admiralty in each, the Chief Justices of the Superior Court of
Judicature, the Secretary of the Province, Members of the Council of
Massachusetts Bay, and the Collector of Customs for New England.

The sessions were held in the Star Tavern, on the present Hanover
Street of Boston, and Quelch was tried first, "being charged with nine
several articles of piracy and murder." He was very expeditiously found
guilty and sentenced to death, after which nineteen of his company, in
two batches, were dealt the same verdict. From this wholesale
punishment only two were excepted, William Whiting, "the witnesses
proving no matter of fact upon him, said Whiting being sick all the
voyage and not active," and John Templeton, "a servant about fourteen
years of age, and not charged with any action." These were acquitted.

There are preserved only two copies of a broadside published in Boston
in July of 1704 which quaintly portrays the strenuous efforts made to
save the souls of the condemned pirates who must have been men of
uncommonly stout endurance to stand up under the sermons with which
they were bombarded. This little pamphlet may serve as a warning to
venturesome boys of the twentieth century who yearn to go a-pirating
and