Prior to August 1724 he crewed a voyage from London to Lisbon and back, during which he plotted to seize control of the vessel.

In London, word spread about the attempt, so Gow fled to Amsterdam, where he joined the Canary Islands-bound Caroline as second mate.

[4] After several months' layover in Santa Cruz on the island of La Palma, on 3 November 1724 the Caroline departed for Genoa, Italy, with a cargo of beeswax, leather, and woolens.

There were complaints about the food on board the ship, and Freneau, the captain of the Caroline, was accused of treating the other crewmen of the vessel improperly.

After a successful career as a pirate off the Iberian Peninsula, Gow decided to return to the Orkney Islands.

[7] Rather than surrender, Gow and his men successfully raided the Hall of Clestrain on 10 February 1725,[5] but when they attempted to attack another remote mansion, they ran aground on the Calf of Eday, where they were captured.

To relieve his pain, some of his friends pulled at his legs, but this just broke the rope, causing him to tumble to the ground, from where he was gathered up and hanged again.

The factual account of the capture of Gow was featured in the book The Real Captain Cleveland by Allan Fea (1860-1956), a distant relative of the pirate catcher, and published by Secker, London, in 1912.