Antill family index [OCR source: The Antill Family by R.V. Pockley]

The Antills ...page 10

for a patent for a mill he had invented, for an improved method of dressing flax and hemp.

Various records exist to show the trust reposed in Antill by those who knew him. There were letters of administration on the estate of Captain Thomas Graswellon 17 September, 1697, the Attorneys of Gilbert Ramsay, "of ye parish of X church, in the Island of Barbadoes, clarke, and Ann his wife, Executors of the last will and testament of John Dorne, her former husband, deceased, appoint their trusty and well—beloved friend Edward Antill, of the City of New York, their Attorney." There were similar references in 1701 and 1703.

The next mention of Antill as an Attorney brings to mind the extraordinary story of that craze which in the last two or three years of the 17th Century engaged not only the most reputable merchants of New York, but members of the English Cabinet, and even the King himself, in the quest for sudden riches in the Arabian Gulf, by preying on the pirates The King, on the advice of the Earl of ho infested those waters. Bellomont, Governor of New York, took a tenth interest in the ship commanded by Captain William Kidd, who was sent out to suppress the pirates, but who was subsequently hanged in London as the worst pirate of them all.

A contemporary of Captain Kidd was Captain Giles Shelley, Master of the ship Nassau, which sailed for Madagascar in June, 1698. Stephen de Lancey and other prominent merchants of New York and London were interested in the venture. Lord Bellomont was at odds with some of the owners and did not hesitate to call Shelley a pirate, though with little foundation, judging by his own statements, "I am told", he wrote on 2 July, 1699, "this Shelley sold rum which cost but 2s per gallon at New York, for 50s and £3 per gallon at Madagascar and a pipe of Madeira wine, which cost him £19 he sold there for £3OO." Shelley returned in May 1699, and touching at Cape May, landed "14 men who had been upon piratical voyages to the East Indies, and put some others on board a New York Sloop... to be landed and dispersed in other places as they found opportunities". He landed 40 or 50 others in Pennsylvania. It was suspected — in fact, believed, at least by Lord Bellomont and by Governor Basse of New Jersey — that many if not most of the men thus surreptitiously landed, had served under Captain Kidd, and that they paid Shelley "12,000 pieces of Eight, and 3000 Lion Dollars, nominally as passage money, for 29 men to America." Having landed and secured all his goods and money, he ran his ship ashore near New York, and then came to the city, where he "so flushed them with Arabian Gold and East India goods that they set the government at defiance"

The Governor ordered Shelley to be committed, without bail, for piracy. In the morning, the Attorney—General, Mr. Graham, advised the Council that this could lawfully be done. In the afternoon, however, he changed his mind, and Shelley was granted bail. His bond was drawn up by ...