A bloody fight occurred at Tarpaulin Cove, near Woods Hole, in October, 1689, between a pirate sloop and a vessel sent out from Boston in pursuit. The pirate was taken and after trial the leader, Capt. Thomas Pound, late pilot of the King's frigate _Rose_, then at anchor in the harbor, Thomas Hawkins, a well-connected citizen of Boston, Thomas Johnston of Boston, "a limping privateer," and one Eleazer Buck, were sentenced to be hanged. When they were on the gallows Governor Bradstreet reprieved all save Johnston--"Which gave great disgust to the People; I fear it was ill done," wrote Judge Sewall. The same day one William Coward was hanged for piracy committed on the ketch _Elinor_, while at anchor at Nantasket Road.
The capture in Boston in 1699, of William Kidd, Joseph Bradish, born in Cambridge; Tee Wetherly, James Gillam, and other men concerned with the Madagascar pirates, created much excitement, but these men were tried in England and gibbetted at Hope Point on the Thames.
In June, 1704, a trial for piracy was held in the Old State House, and the testimony and proceedings were afterwards published. Captain John Quelch had sailed from Marblehead, the previous year, in command of a brigantine commissioned as a privateer. Instead of proceeding against the French off Newfoundland he had sailed south and on the coast of Brazil had captured and plundered several Portuguese vessels. While he was absent, a treaty of peace between England and Portugal had been signed and when Quelch returned to Marblehead harbor he learned that he had piratically taken various vessels belonging to subjects of "Her Majesty's good Allie," the King of Portugal. His arrest and trial followed and with six of his ship's company he was sentenced to be hanged on a gallows set up between high- and low-water mark off a point of land just below Copp's hill. The condemned were guarded by forty musketeers and the constables of the town and were preceded by the Provost Marshal and his officers. Great crowds gathered to see the execution. Judge Sewall in his diary comments on the great number of people on Broughton's hill, as Copp's hill was called at that time.
"But when I came to see how the River was cover'd with People, I was amazed: Some say there were 100 Boats. 150 Boats and Canoes, saith Cousin Moodey of York. Mr. Cotton Mather came with Capt. Quelch and six others for Execution from the Prison to Scarlet's Wharf, and from thence in the Boat to the place of Execution about midway between Hanson's [_sic_] point and Broughton's Warehouse. When the scaffold was hoisted to a due height, the seven Malefactors went up: Mr. Mather pray'd for them standing upon the Boat. Ropes were all fasten'd to the Gallows (save King, who was Repriev'd). When the scaffold was let to sink, there was such a Screech of the Women that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the Orchard, and was much surprised at it; yet the wind was sou-west. Our house is a full mile from the place."