Chapter 5

At the rate Stanly was going, he would soon become the major ship owner on the west coast. He had to figure out a good use for all the ships he captured from the pirates. He would soon have one of the largest navies in the world! The problem was that he didn't have the sailors to man the ships. Once a sailor got to California, all he wanted to do was head for the gold fields. Well, Stanly thought he'd work on the problem, but, right now, there was the more interesting problem of attacking the pirates that were preying on the coastal shipping.

The island that Stanly was calling Nameless1 was clear of pirates, so it was time to turn his attention to the next island in the chain. Santa Carlotta was nothing to brag about as islands go, but she was bigger than Nameless1, so there was more room for coves where pirates could tie up. There were also several springs on the island, as well as a few goats, so pirates liked to tie up here for a short rest between forays. Fresh goat meat was a welcome change from salt beef.

It rarely happened, but two pirate crews were sharing a cove as the Elizabeth sailed past. Capt. McFadden sailed on as if he was looking for a place to tie up. Once out of sight of the pirates, the Elizabeth was slowed to barely making seaway while Capt. McFadden and Stanly considered their course of action. After some discussion, they decided to have a little fun at the pirates' expense.

Capt. McFadden suggested that they foment animosity between the two pirate crews and see if they could get the two gangs to fight each other. The easiest way to do this was to have each crew think that the other side was stealing from them. They could have members of their own crew sneak aboard each of the pirate ships and take some valuables from the other crew. If one of the pirates was killed during the raid, so much the better.

With this plan in mind, the Elizabeth was tied up in a convenient cove and a detail was sent out under the command of John Sessions, the first mate of the Elizabeth. Sessions took the sailing skiff and six men for the first raid. They timed their arrival for after most of the pirates were asleep so that it would be easier to sneak up on them.

It wasn't difficult to climb on board one of the ships on the side opposite the other anchored ship; the guard was watching for trouble that way and not paying much attention to the other directions. To make sure that their raid was noticed, Sessions crept up behind the watchman and clipped him with a club, hard enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to kill him.

Meanwhile, the rest of the boarding party slipped quietly down into the fo'c'sle and stole whatever they could find; the main intent was to take as much as they could without waking the sleeping men. Mostly, they got away with knives and a few coins; nothing big or really important to anyone but the owner. They slipped away and returned to the Elizabeth.

The next day, a watcher was posted on a hill overlooking the cove to keep watch on the two pirate crews and observe developments. That evening back at the Elizabeth, he reported some shouted accusations between the crews, but nothing special.

That night, Sessions led a boarding party to attack the other ship. They did the same kind of raid, but, this time, Sessions was forced to leave a knife sticking in the ribs of the watchman. The next morning, except for an unlucky few left as guards, Stanly led the rest of his men to the hill to observe what happened in the cove.

There was already considerable activity aboard the two ships. Crewmen were standing at the rail of each ship shouting insults at each other. Suddenly, a musket shot was fired from one of the ships. Return fire rang out, and this rapidly escalated into a serious gun battle. Several pirates from both sides were wounded, and this was the final straw. Somebody fired a cannon load of grape shot at the other ship, which was enough to trigger a full scale battle with both sides firing cannon.

The two ships were close together and not moving relative to each other, so the cannon fire was notably more accurate than usual. As a result, the battle was soon over with both sides nearly annihilated. This was when Stanly led his men to attack the two pirate ships.

The attack was so unexpected that Stanly's men had no trouble killing all the remaining pirates on both ships. In short order, bellies were slit, and the corpses were thrown over the side. They looked through both ships and found little of value. Apparently, these pirates were losers, in more ways than one! At least, the ships could be salvaged; they might be worth something, one day.

Stanly now had 4 ships he didn't know what to do with, and he was about to acquire another one. They rounded a point to find a ship just sitting, dead in the water. The Elizabeth approached cautiously, but they could find no one aboard. There was some blood on the deck, and a little more below, but there was no clue as to what had actually happened. The hold was completely empty of useful cargo, and there were no stores left on board. Very strange! They would probably never know what happened to cause the ship to be abandoned, but Capt. McFadden put a prize crew on board, and they sailed the ship to their anchorage on San Cristabel.

Since they were so close to San Francisco, Stanly dropped by the gunsmith and picked up some more of the custom-made shotguns and shells. He now had 7 shotguns and over a hundred shells. He was getting close to the unstoppable boarding party he was looking for.

They headed back to Santa Carlotta since they had not finished their sweep of the island before they left. The two pirate ships were still where they had left them, so they moved on to the next cove. It was empty and so was the next, but the following cove, the last on the island, held a ship.

This ship was much larger than the Elizabeth, and Capt. McFadden questioned the wisdom of attacking it. However, most of the crew was on shore, so here was their golden opportunity. Stanly proposed that they leave a skeleton crew aboard the Elizabeth and attack the ship with every one of the available crew members. He was certain that the shotguns would give them the edge they needed against the greater number of pirates. Besides, most of the pirates were on shore, so there couldn't be many left to defend the ship.

Stanly's argument prevailed; after all, he was the paymaster! They loaded three boats with 18 raiders, 8 of whom had shotguns. The first boat to board was one in which every boarder had a shotgun, one shotgun was left in each of the other two boats. The first boatload of raiders to reach the pirate ship swarmed aboard and quickly overpowered the three pirates on deck without firing a shot. The other two boats arrived as the first boatload of raiders was headed into the bowels of the ship to look for additional pirates. Two were found who were also killed with cutlasses; the shotguns were not needed, and no loud noises were made to alert the pirates on shore.

Stanly had his men load the cannon on one side with grape shot. Two of the small boats were fastened to the bow of the ship, and it was pulled around so that the side with the loaded cannon was facing the men on shore. The cannon were aimed at the largest group of pirates and fired in one salvo.

The results were devastating! Those pirates in that bunch who were not killed were severely wounded. Stanly's men rushed to their boats and charged the beach. The pirates had nearly an equal number of effective fighters as their attackers, so they ran to the beach to meet the oncoming boats. Unfortunately for them, they did not know about the shotguns.

Stanly had impressed on his men about not firing until the target was close enough, so there were no wild shots to warn the pirates. Stanly's men, still in their boats, waited until the pirates were within 40-60 feet of the boats before letting off a deadly volley of fire. The buckshot killed every one of the pirates in the front row and wounded many others. A second volley killed most of the rest. At this point, Stanly's men were forced to reload, so some of the laggard pirates managed to escape.

At this point, there was no need to continue to shore, so Stanly's men returned to the ship to search it for valuables. The hold turned out to be full of trade goods intended for China. The way it was stowed made Stanly believe that this was actually a merchant ship that had been bound for China, but had been captured by pirates before it got far out to sea. Probably, the pirates had simply abandoned their own ship and taken over this one when they captured it.

Stanly and Capt. McFadden carefully went through all the papers they could find in the captain's cabin. They found a reference to a trading company operating out of Oakland which appeared to have been the original owners of the ship. Capt. McFadden proposed returning the ship to the owners in exchange for a reward. John Sessions and a prize crew sailed the ship to San Francisco Bay, followed by the Elizabeth.

The trading company was surprised to see their ship sail into the bay. They were grateful to get their ship and its contents back, so they came up with a reasonable reward. This was divided among the participants just as if it had been a normal prize sale, so everyone was happy.

Stanly checked with the gunsmith and one more shotgun was ready. They now had a total of 9 shotguns, and Stanly was content.

Stanly and Capt. McFadden held a conference aboard the Elizabeth to plan their next move. McFadden had found some charts aboard their last prize which indicated some unusual anchorages on the east coast of Baja California in the Gulf of California. These anchorages looked like they could be pirate rendezvous points. Capt. McFadden suggested that they form their own little navy and raid these anchorages.

He knew two captains whom he was sure would be happy to join them in such a raid. They already had the ships they would need. They could recruit the seamen they needed from the bay area, Los Angeles, and San Diego. It was much easier to recruit seamen for a grand adventure with a chance of prize money than it was for a routine voyage.

Capt. McFadden and John Sessions spent over a month carefully recruiting men they could trust to be loyal and to fight. The gunsmith had been able to finish Stanly's order for shotguns and shells, so Stanly was able to issue 5 shotguns to the two new crews and keep a total of 7 on the Elizabeth. The other two ships, Rose of Sharon and El Dorado, were sailed to Los Angeles and made ready for "war."

Capt. McFadden broke with the traditional merchant ship organization and divided his ships' crews into specialists. There were men who were primarily responsible for sailing the ship, men who were primarily cannoneers, and men who were marines. Thus, they were truly more like a real Navy, though, in a pinch, every man could do both of the other jobs.

Stanly commanded the "marines," and spent a lot of time drilling them on fighting aboard ship and on dry land, but they spent no time in marching or close-order drill. John Sessions was an accomplished cannoneer, so he was raised in rank to Lieutenant and put in charge of the cannon crews on all three ships, though, at sea, he also functioned as first mate aboard the Elizabeth. McFadden was now Admiral of Stanly's little fleet, but was also captain of the Elizabeth.