In spite, however, of all the disadvantages under which they labored, the crew of the merchant vessel managed to get into Block Island, and from there a small boat was hurriedly rowed over to Rhode Island, carrying intelligence of the bold piracy which had been committed so close to one of its ports.
When the Governor heard what had happened, he quickly sent out drummers to sound the alarm in the seaport towns and to call upon volunteers to go out and capture the pirates.

So great was the resentment caused by the audacious deed of Low that a large number of volunteers hastened to offer their services to the Governor, and two vessels were fitted out with such rapidity that, although their commanders had only heard of the affair in the morning, they were ready to sail before sunset.

They put on all sail and made the best speed they could, and although they really caught sight of Low's ship, the pirate vessel was a swifter craft than those in pursuit of her, and the angry sailors of Rhode Island were at last compelled to give up the chase.
The next of Low's transactions was on a wholesale scale.

Rounding Cape Cod and sailing up the coast, he at last reached the vicinity of Marblehead, and there, in a harbor called in those days Port Rosemary, he found at anchor a fleet of thirteen merchant vessels.

This was a grand sight, as welcome to the eye of a pirate as a great nugget of gold would be to a miner who for weary days had been washing yellow grains from the "pay dirt" which he had laboriously dug from the hard soil.
It would have been easy for Low to take his pick from these vessels quietly resting in the little harbor, for he soon perceived that none of them were armed nor were they able to protect themselves from assault, but his audacity was of an expansive kind, and he determined to capture them all.