william fly

 

Bravery- The captain, William fly, in an attempt to go out heroically, refuses to appear in public on the Lord’s day, or to forgive his executioner or make any sort of repentance: “he seem’d all along ambitious to have it said that he died a brave fellow” (114).  Interestingly, here we see William Fly’s conception of the opposite of piety being not wickedness, but bravery.  Is there perhaps a well-known pressure put on prisoners to become good and repentant, or is the pattern of sudden piety simply a fear of death and damnation?  Either way, William Fly wants nothing to do with it, would rather be brave than religious, and having been condemned by the justice system, “we must leave him for the judgment to come” (215).

 

Repentance- Here, William Fly’s bravery is contrasted with Cole and Greenville’s repentance.  They prayed and warned the mob to take lessons from their own crimes, and Cole even writes papers confessing his sins and warning other seafaring men not to end up how he did.  Although the text seems obviously more favorable to the repentant Cole and Greenville, Fly’s refusal to do what they want him to do—pray, confess, and warn others against temptation—seems to have a certain virtue of its own

 

Spirit- The convicted pirates are “cast into a place…where in the destruction on their flesh their spirit might be saved” (114).  The manner of this saving seems to be the repentance displayed by Cole and Greenville, and we are to assume that Fly’s “judgment to come” means his damnation.  It seems here that there are two forms of judging going on: the guilty or not guilty determination made by the courts, and the heaven or hell determination, the spiritual sentence, not made by God, but by public opinion and documents like this one.  This text has essentially sent William Fly to hell in the eyes of the public for something worse than the crimes he committed—refusing to apologize for them.