The Pirate History Podcast · Matt Albers

Episode 363 - Grave Consequences

·35 min·2 clips

A ten- or eleven-year-old enslaved boy answers “Nothing,” “Rien,” and “Nada” before saying his name is Joaquim.

1. The Pirate History Podcast episode “Grave Consequences” connects John Quelch’s piracy trial to a Bahamian dispute over the ship Seaflower and Henry Every’s circle. 2. Matt, the host, narrates the history and frames the case, while Paul Dudley and the Boston court matter because they shape the prosecution against Quelch. 3. The episode asks whether the Seaflower was a pirate ship, a privateering cover story, or a vessel used for illegal slave trading. 4. In Nassau around 1696, Henry Every arrived on the Fancy, paid Governor Nicholas Trott a large bribe, and handed over a ship that was plainly a pirate vessel. 5. The narrative then follows a Seaflower that appears in Nassau under suspicious circumstances after alleged salt-poaching in Turks and Caicos. 6. The host says John Warren, Matthew Middleton, Dalton, and Parker held important Bahamian offices, which made the local government look entangled with Every’s men. 7. Reed Eldin later took command in the Bahamas, failed to catch James Kelly, and returned with the Bahama Merchant in tow. 8. Eldin also issued a privateering commission to Henry King, a name the host treats as another possible link to Henry Avery. 9. Henry King then sailed the Seaflower in spring 1701 with 8,000 pounds of Nicholas Webb’s money on board. 10. The ship went to the coast of Guinea, where it preyed on the John Hopwell under Captain Robert Monday and took slaves, rum, powder, crewmen, and silver. 11. The host describes how the John Hopwell’s letter exposed the affair and forced the port authorities to inspect the ship and the crew’s money. 12. Lord Bellamont, the Board of Trade, the Admiralty, and the governors in Providence and the Bahamas all became involved as the story widened. 13. Matt suggests the Seaflower had probably carried out illegal interloping and slave trading, then had piracy blamed on it when the accounting went bad. 14. Robert Monday was tried in Providence, where a jury found him not guilty on all charges and he asked for his money back. 15. The episode says Rhode Island looked too friendly to interlopers and smugglers, and Whitehall nearly responded by revoking the colony’s charter. 16. The title “Grave Consequences” comes from the warning that New England had better straighten up or face consequences. 17. The Boston trial then returns to John Quelch, with Paul Dudley arguing that pirates were “not entitled to live in the world” or “in law.” 18. The prosecution presents a letter of marque for Daniel Plowman, Portuguese flags and coins, Portuguese papers, and the testimony of Joaquim and Matthew Pimer. 19. The episode’s tone is fast, skeptical, and comic, with long digressions, legal detail, and pointed commentary on colonial corruption. 20. Listeners who like pirate trials, colonial law, and shipboard intrigues will get the most from this episode, while listeners wanting a clean courtroom verdict may skip it.

As heard by us

A suspected slave-trading scheme strains under silver, paperwork, and one captain's loose talk.

A cache of silver turns this pirate case toward a suspected illegal slave-trading scheme, with the Seaflower and the John Hopwell at the center of the trouble.

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Why you'd press play

Press play when a pirate case starts looking like a cover story for illegal slave trading.

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