FENN, Captain John.
In the year 1721 Captain Anstis took prize a stout ship, the Morning Star, bound from Guiney to Carolina. This ship the pirates armed with thirty-two pieces of cannon, manned her with a crew of one hundred men, and placed Fenn in command, who had until then been gunner in Anstis's ship, the Good Fortune. Fenn was a one-handed man. By carelessness, or perhaps because of Fenn only having one hand, the Morning Star was run on to a reef in the Grand Caymans and lost. Fenn and a few others had just been taken on board by his consort when two King's ships arrived, and the Good Fortune barely escaped capture.
Fenn was soon given another ship, one armed with twenty-four guns. In April, 1723, while cleaning their ship at the Island of Tobago, they were suddenly surprised by the arrival of a man-of-war, the Winchelsea. Setting fire to their ship, the crew ran to hide in the woods. Fenn was caught a few days later struggling through the jungle with his gunner.
FERDINANDO, Lewis.
In 1699 he captured a sloop belonging to Samuel Salters, of Bermuda.
FIFE, Captain James.
Surrendered to Governor Woodes Rogers at New Providence Island, Bahamas, in June, 1718, and received the royal pardon to pirates. Was afterwards killed by his own crew.
FLY, Captain William. Pirate and prizefighter.
He was boatswain in the Elizabeth, of Bristol, in 1726, bound for Guinea. Heading a mutiny on May 27th, he tossed the captain over the ship's side, and slaughtered all the officers except the ship's surgeon. Fly was unanimously elected captain by the crew. His first prize was the John and Hannah off the coast of North Carolina. The next the John and Betty, Captain Gale, from Bardadoes to Guinea. After taking several other vessels, he cruised off the coast of Newfoundland where he took a whaler. Fly was caught by a piece of strategy on the part of the whaler captain, who carried him and his crew in chains in their own ship to Great Brewster, Massachusetts, in June, 1726. On July 4th Fly and the other pirates were brought to trial at Boston, and on the 16th were executed. On the day of execution Fly refused to go to church before the hanging to listen to a sermon by Dr. Coleman. On the way to the gallows he bore himself with great bravado, jumping briskly into the cart with a nosegay in his hands bedecked with coloured ribbons like a prizefighter, smiling and bowing to the spectators. He was hanged in chains at Nix's Mate, a small island in Boston Harbour, and thus was brought to a close a brief though brilliant piratical career of just one month.
FREEBARN, Matthew.
One of Captain Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts on March 11th, 1722.
FULWORTH, Mrs. Anne.
This lady accompanied Anne Bonny to New Providence Island from Carolina in the guise of her mother. When Captain Rackam and Anne Bonny were intriguing to run away from the latter's husband, "a pardoned pirate, a likely young fellow and of a sober life," Mrs. Fulworth offered sympathy and advice to the lovers. The scandal being brought to the ears of Governor Woodes Rogers by a pirate called Richard Turnley, he sent for the two ladies, "and examining them both upon it, and finding they could not deny it, he threaten'd, if they proceeded further in it, to commit them both to Prison, and order them to be whipp'd, and that Rackam, himself, should be their Executioner."
