Instructions to the Living from the condition of the dead was a public broadside notice published in 1717, based upon the execution and story of the surviving pirates from the ship the Wydah Gally, a ex slave ship that had been captured by the crew of Samuel Bellamy or Black Sam. On April 26, 1717, the ship ran aground and capsized during a storm off Cape Cod, drowning most of the crew including Bellamy. Local Cape Cod legend tells that the Whydah was headed for what is now Provincetown Harbor at the tip of Cape Cod, so that Bellamy could visit his love, Maria Hallett – the ‘Witch of Wellfleet’. The Whydah and her treasure eluded discovery for over 260 years until 1984, when the wreck was found becoming the first authenticated pirate shipwreck ever to be discovered.