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Show ELMO SCOTT WATSON ffi '.iBiWrgT.. .1 j,-. T-Hir-liT i l(cj, lyo, Weaiern Newspaper Union.) A Career of Contradictions '"PHE career of Capt. John Phillips as a pirate was a short one It I lasted only nine months but it va9 one filled with muny queer contradictions. contradic-tions. A carpenter by trade, Phillips Balled from England for Newfoundland Newfound-land in 1723 in a ship that was captured cap-tured by the noted pirate leader, Captain Cap-tain Anstis in his ship the Good fortune. Anstis forced Phillips to become be-come his ship's carpenter. After leaving Anstis Phillips worked for a while in a cod fishery in Newfoundland. New-foundland. Then one night, he with four others, stole a vessel from Peter harbor and sailed away, with Phillips as captain. Articles of agreement were drawn up among the crew which he soon collected and, In the absence of a Bible on board the ship, these articles were sworn to upon a hatchet ! Among these articles were these two curious ones: "There shall be 40 stripes lacking one, known as Moses' law, afflicted for striking a fellow-pirate" fellow-pirate" and "If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer present Death." The pirates were successful almost from the start. They captured several sev-eral fishing boats and in one of them found an ex-pirate named John Rose Archer, who had served his apprenticeship appren-ticeship under the notorious Black-beard Black-beard and who they at once promoted to quartermaster. They next sailed to Barbados, but their luck was poor. At last when they were almost starving they sighted a big French ship, much larger and better armed than their vessel, but so terrified was the French crew when Phillip's men hoisted the black flag that they surrendered sur-rendered without firing a shot. As time went on and Phillips continued to he successful, he became even more desperate and bloodthirsty, often butchering his prisoners without any provocation. Occasionally he did have a "qualm of conscience come athwart his stomach," as one chronicler chron-icler quaintly records it, and on one occasion when he had captured a Newfoundland vessel and prepared to scuttle it, he desisted because he found that it belonged to a Mr. Minors. Phillips had stolen his first vessel from Minors. "We have done him enough injury already," he said and returned the ship to its owner. Although this pirate captured no less than 30 ships and a vast amount of loot in the nine months of his career. It ended in disaster at last. His crew mutinied in April, 1724, off the coast of Newfoundland, where his first act of piracy had been committed, seized Phillips and threw him overboard. |