On the 12th of July, 1726, pirate Captain William Fly was led through the streets of Boston to the gallows waving to the crowd.
Fly had become captain previously through a mutiny, and himself fallen to a recent mutiny by Atkinson who had brought Fly and those loyal to him into Boston on June 27th. When Cotton Mather had spoken to the imprisoned Fly, about his murder of Captain Green, Fly adamantly protested he didn’t do it, to which Mather replied:
”Fly, I am astonished at your stupidity. I cannot understand you. I am sure, you don’t understand yourself. I Shall be better able, another time, to reason with you.”
Mather tried over time to get Fly to admit to his crimes and seek repentance from the Lord, but Fly fought him each time, and Mather gave up trying to reason with the pirate.
When Fly arrived at the site of the execution at 3pm, he eagerly climbed atop the platform with a smile on his face and reportedly reprimanded the hangman for the shoddy work on the noose he had fashioned. Using his knowledge of rope tying from his life as a sailor, Fly re-adjusted his noose into a superior knot.
The other pirates alongside Fly acted as expected, repenting, and warning those in the crowd against repeating their sins they had committed at sea. But when Captain William Fly got a chance to speak, he instead warned “Masters of Vessels to carry it well to their men, lest they should be put upon doing as he had done”, referring to his mutiny he had led due to the poor treatment the crew had suffered previously under Captain Green.
After being hanged, their three bodies were taken out to Nixes Mate, a small island at the entrance to the Boston Harbor, where Fly was hung in chains as a warning, and the other two buried.
