Villains of All Nations
Page 19
13. Boston News-Letter, May 21, 1716; Spotswood to Council of Trade and Plantations, July 3, 1716, Colonial Office Papers (CO) 5/1364, Public Record Office, London; Examination of John Brown (1717), in Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents, ed. John Franklin Jameson (New York: Macmillan, 1923), 294. [back]
14. Boston News-Letter, April, 29, 1717; “Proceedings of the Court held on the Coast of Africa upon Trying of 100 Pirates taken by his Ma[jes]ties Ship Swallow” (1722), High Court of Admiralty Papers (HCA)1/99, f. 10; History of Pyrates, 319; Peter Earle, The Pirate Wars (London: Methuen, 2003), 195. [back]
15. History of Pyrates, 244, 285–86. See also Robert C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War against the Pirates (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 232–37. Peter Earle has written that “piracy was not an occupation with a very long life expectancy.” See his Pirate Wars, 206. [back]
16. Cotton Mather, Useful Remarks: An Essay upon Remarkables in the Way of Wicked Men: A Sermon on the Tragical End, unto which the Way of Twenty-Six Pirates Brought Them; At New Port on Rhode-Island, July 19, 1723 (New London, Conn., 1723), 31–44, quotation at 33. [back]
17. Archibald Hamilton to Secretary Stanhope, June 12, 1716, CO 137/12, f. 19; History of Pyrates, 286, 643, 660; Arthur L. Hayward, ed., Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals (London, 1735; reprint, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927), 3:603. [back]
18. History of Pyrates, 624–59; “The Tryal and Condemnation of Ten Persons for Piracy at New Providence,” CO 23/1 (1718), ff. 76, 81, 82; Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, October 31, 1718, CO 23/1, ff. 16–29. [back]
19. R.A. Brock, ed., The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood (Virginia Historical Society, Collections, n.s., 2 [Richmond, 1882]), 2:338. [back]
20. History of Pyrates, 285–86. [back]
21. American Weekly Mercury, March 17, 1720; Brock, ed., Letters of Spotswood, 2:338; Mather, Useful Remarks, 20. See also Stanley Richards, Black Bart (Llandybie, Wales: Christopher Davies, 1966), 104. [back]
22. Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (Boston, 1718), 8–19; “Trial of Thomas Davis,” October 28, 1717, in Privateering and Piracy, ed. Jameson, 308; The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates (London, 1719), 45. [back]
23. Governor Hamilton to the Council of Trade and Plantations, October 3, 1720, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1574–1739, CD-ROM, consultant editors Karen Ordahl Kupperman, John C. Appleby, and Mandy Banton (London: Routledge, published in association with the Public Record Office, 2000), item 251, vol. 32 (1720–21), 165 (hereafter CSPC); H.R. McIlwaine, ed., Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia (Richmond, 1928), 3:542; “News from Barbadoes, Antigua and Jamaica” (1721), CSPC, item 463 iii, vol. 32 (1720–21), 295. For a fuller analysis of these acts of revenge, see chapter 5. [back]
24. History of Pyrates, 26; Mather, Useful Remarks, 22. Captain Charles Johnson was long believed to be Daniel Defoe, as originally sug gested by literary critic John Robert Moore in Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1939), 129–88, and broadly accepted thereafter. Recently, however, scholars have begun to doubt the attribution. P.N. Furbank and W.R. Owens have challenged Moore; see their Canonisation of Daniel Defoe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 100–121. Having worked on A General History of the Pyrates for more than twenty-five years, I have come to the conclusion that its author had a deeper and more detailed knowledge of things maritime than Defoe could possibly have had. It should also be noted that Johnson is widely regarded as a highly reliable source for factual information (apart from one fictional chapter, on Captain Misson). For comments on his reliability, see Philip Gosse, The History of Piracy (New York: Tudor, 1932), 182; Hugh F. Rankin, The Golden Age of Piracy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), 161; Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 258; B.R. Burg, Sodomy and the Perception of Evil: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century Caribbean (New York: New York University Press, 1983), 196; and Schonhorn’s introduction to General History of Pyrates, by Johnson, xxvii–xl. [back]
25. Richards, Black Bart, 22. [back]
26. “Anonymous Paper Relating to the Sugar and Tobacco Trade” (1724), CO 388/24, ff. 184–88; Minutes of the Vice-Admiralty Courts of Charleston, South Carolina (1718), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, f. 424; History of Pyrates, 323; Boston News-Letter, June 17, 1718. [back]
27. Deposition of Edward North (1718), CO 37/10, f. 37; Deposition of Robert Leonard (1719), CO 152/12, f. 485, CO137/14; Boyer, ed., Political State, 21:660. [back]
28. Boston News-Letter, August 15, 1720. [back]
29. Ibid., April 16, 1722; American Weekly Mercury, December 13, 1720; CO 23/1; H.C. Maxwell Lyte, ed., Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations (London, 1924), 4:321; Richards, Black Bart, 57; American Weekly Mercury, July 7, 1726; S. Charles Hill, “Episodes of Piracy in Eastern Waters,” Indian Antiquary 49 (1920): 41; Information of Clement Downing (1722), HCA 1/55, f. 79; Further Information of Clement Downing (1722), HCA 1/55, f. 93; Earle, Pirate Wars, 188. [back]
30. It was reported that Captain Green had done nothing to deserve his fate, but Mather noted the claim of Fly and other pirates that the murder and piracy were “Revenge, they said, for Bad Usage.” See Mather, Vial Poured Out upon the Sea, 112. See also my “Seaman as Spirit of Rebellion: Authority, Violence, and Labor Discipline at Sea,” in Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, chap. 5. [back]
31. Mather, Vial Poured Out upon the Sea, 44–45. [back]
Chapter 2: The Political Arithmetic of Piracy
1. Virginia Merchants to Lord Dartmouth, June 24, 1713, Colonial Office Papers (CO) 389/42, Public Record Office, London; Dummer is quoted in Ruth Bourne, Queen Anne’s Navy in the West Indies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939), 183. [back]
2. Ralph Davis, The Rise of the Atlantic Economies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973); Max Savelle, Empires into Nations: Expansion in America, 1713–1824 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974), chap. 4. At this time, a factory was a merchant’s trading post, usually overseas. [back]
3. Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 32–35; A.H. John, “War and the English Economy, 1700–1763,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 7 (1955): 329–44. [back]
4. J.H. Parry, Trade and Dominion: The European Overseas Empires in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Praeger, 1971), 93; Ralph Davis, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Macmillan, 1962), 15–17; R.G. Davies, The Royal African Company (New York: Scribner’s, 1970), chap. 1; Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750 (New York: Academic Press, 1980), 96, 159–61, 249, 269. [back]
5. The theme expropriation is treated in Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000). For other points in this paragraph, see C.L.R. James, “The Atlantic Slave Trade,” in The Future in the Present (London: Alison and Busby, 1980), 235–64; Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800 (London: Verso, 1997), 309; Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972); and Paul E. Lovejoy, “Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” Journal of African History 23 (1982): 473–501. [back]
6. Christopher Lloyd, The British Seaman, 1200–1860: A Social Survey (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970), 27, 287, table 3; History of Pyrates, 4; Davis, English Shipping, 136–37, 154; James G. Lydon, Pirates
, Privateers, and Profits (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Gregg Press, 1970), 17–20; Hugh F. Rankin, The Golden Age of Piracy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), 23; Nellis M. Crouse, The French Struggle for the West Indies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), 310. [back]
7. Savelle, Empires into Nations, 122; History of Pyrates, 34; Robert C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War against the Pirates (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 236–37; Colin A. Palmer, Human Cargoes: The British Slave Trade to Spanish America, 1700–1739 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981). [back]
8. Cornelius van Bynkershoek, De Domino Maris Dissertatio, ed. James Brown Scott, trans. Roger Van Deman Magoffin (Amsterdam, 1702; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1923), 44, 77. [back]
9. Powell v. Hardwicke (1738), High Court of Admiralty Papers (HCA) 24/139, Public Record Office, London; Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, chaps. 2, 5. [back]
10. Alfred P. Rubin, The Law of Piracy (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1988), 37, 44, 46, 77, 83, 92; Sir Thomas Parker, ed., The Laws of Shipping and Insurance, with a Digest of Adjudged Cases (London, 1775), reprinted in British Maritime Cases (Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Professional Books, 1978), 41, 43. [back]
11. Governor Robert Johnson to the Council of Trade and Plantations, June 18, 1718, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1574–1739, CD-ROM, consultant editors Karen Ordahl Kupperman, John C. Appleby, and Mandy Banton (London: Routledge, published in association with the Public Record Office, 2000), item 251, vol. 32 (1720–21), 166 (hereafter cited as CSPC); Walter Hamilton to the Council of Trade and Plantations, October 3, 1720, CSPC, item 556, vol. 30 (1717–18), 266; “A Scheme for Stationing Men of War in the West Indies for better Securing the Trade there from Pirates,” 1723, CO 323/8; Boston News-Letter, July 7–14, 1726. [back]
12. “An Act for the more Effectual Suppressing of Piracy” (1721), in Laws of Shipping and Insurance, ed. Parker, 94–95, 97, 99; Boston News-Letter, October 17, 1722; Rubin, Law of Piracy, 31. [back]
13. Henry A. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World (Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 1924; reprint, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 14, 15, 22, 30, 35, 250; Philip Gosse, The History of Piracy (New York: Tudor, 1932), 103. [back]
14. Edward Vernon to Josiah Burchett, November 7, 1720, in Edward Vernon Letter-Book, January–December 1720, Add. MS 40812, British Library, London; History of Pyrates, 33–34. For an excellent account of how the naval campaign against the pirates improved over time, through better manning, maintenance of seamen’s health, careening, intelligence, knowledge, cruises, and combinations of vessels, see Peter Earle, The Pirate Wars (London: Methuen, 2003), 184–88. [back]
15. James Logan, quoted in Shirley Carter Hughson, The Carolina Pirates and Colonial Commerce, 1670–1740, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 12 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1894), 59; Mr. Gale to Colonel Thomas Pitt, Jr., January 29, 1719, CO 23/1, f. 47; American Weekly Mercury, December 12, 1720. [back]
16. Other estimates include those by the governor of Bermuda (1717), “at least 1,000,” in HCA 1/54, f. 113; Woodes Rogers (1718), “near a thousand,” in History of Pyrates, 615; Captain Charles Johnson (1720), 1,500, in History of Pyrates, 132; and [Anonymous] (1721), 1,500, in The Political State of Great Britain, ed. Abel Boyer (London, 1711–40), 21:659. [back]
17. Governor John Hope to Council of Trade and Plantations, August 21, 1724, CO 37/11, f. 145; Representation from Several Merchants Trading to Virginia to Board of Trade, April 15, 1717, CO 5/1318. For estimates of the numbers of men in the Royal Navy, see Lloyd, British Seaman, 287. [back]
18. Alexander Spotswood to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 31, 1717, CO 5/1364, f. 483; Governor Pullein to Council of Trade and Plantations, April 22, 1714, CO 37/10, f. 13; Deposition of John Vickers (1716), CO 5/1317. [back]
19. Cotton Mather, Instructions to the Living, From the Condition of the Dead: A Brief Relation of Remarkables in the Shipwreck of above One Hundred Pirates (Boston, 1717), 4; meeting of April 1, 1717, in Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, ed. H.C. Maxwell Lyte (London, 1924), 3:359; New-England Courant, March 19, 1722; Deposition of Vickers, CO5/1317; Benjamin Bennett to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 31, 1718, CO 37/10, f. 31, and April 25, 1721, CO 37/10, f. 142; History of Pyrates, 7. Kevin Rushby, Hunting Pirate Heaven: In Search of the Lost Pirate Utopias of the Indian Ocean (London: Constable, 2001). [back]
20. History of Pyrates, 31–34, 131; Leo Francis Stock, ed., Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments Respecting North America (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1930), 3:399; Deposition of Adam Baldridge, in Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents, ed. John Franklin Jameson (New York: Macmillan, 1923), 180–87; R.A. Brock, ed., The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood (Virginia Historical Society, Collections, n.s., 2 [Richmond, 1882]), 2:168, 351; William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London, 1734; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1971), 197; Abbe Rochon, “A Voyage to Madagascar and the East Indies,” in A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels, ed. John Pinkerton (London, 1814), 16:767–71; William Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (London, 1744), 12, 42. [back]
21. History of Pyrates, 3; Brock, ed., Letters of Spotswood, 2:168, 249. [back]
22. History of Pyrates, 74, 264; Stanley Richards, Black Bart (Llandybie, Wales: Christopher Davies, 1966), 59; New-England Courant, July 26, 1722; Governor Woodes Rogers to the Council of Trade and Plantations, October 31, 1718, CSPC, item 737, vol. 30 (1717–18), 372–81; The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates (London, 1719), 8; Governor Hamilton to the Council of Trade and Plantations, October 3, 1720, CSPC, item 251, vol. 32 (1720–21), 165–70; CO 152/14, ff. 43–45. See “Proposals sent by M. de Pas de Feuquières (No. vii) for an Agreement made between the Governor of the French Leeward Islands and Governor Hamilton concerning forces to be sent by the two Nations against the pirates cruising off their coasts etc.,” CSPC, item 501 ix, x, vol. 32 (1720–21), 320. [back]
23. History of Pyrates, 26; Davis, English Shipping Industry, 317. [back]
24. George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630–1730 (Salem, Mass.: Marine Research Society, 1923), 339; “Account of Jabez Biglow” (1719), Humphrey Morice Papers from the Bank of England, Slave Trade Journals and Papers (Marlboro, Wiltshire, England: Adam Mathew Publications, 1998), microfilm; Earle, Pirate Wars, 179. [back]
25. William Snelgrave to Humphrey Morice, April 30, 1719, Morice Papers. [back]
26. Captain Mathew Musson to the Council of Trade and Plantations, July 5, 1717, CSPC, item 635, vol. 29 (1716–17), 338; General Peter Heywood, Commander in Chief of Jamaica, to the Council of Trade and Plantations, December 3, 1716, CSPC, item 411, vol. 29 (1716–17), 212; Davis, English Shipping Industry, 31. [back]
27. I gathered the sample of captured vessels over the years, in the course of reading newspapers, merchant and official correspondence, and the many other kinds of documents cited in these endnotes. I also compiled available information: the name of the ship as well as its captain, owner, cargo, value, home port, place of capture, and capturing pirate crew. The sample, drawing largely on English-language sources, does not fully represent the damage done to French, Spanish, Dutch, or Portuguese shipping. [back]
28. Boston News-Letter, May 21, 1716; Alexander Spotswood to Council of Trade and Plantations, July 3, 1716, CO 5/1364; Earle, Pirate Wars, 166. [back]
29. Examination of John Brown (1717), in Privateering and Piracy, ed. Jameson, 294. [back]
30. Earle, Pirate Wars, 204. [back]
Chapter 3: Who Will Go “a Pyrating”?
1. This miniature biography was cobbled together from four different sources: the account of Kennedy’s life that was published after his death, which is reprinted in Lives of the Most Rem
arkable Criminals, ed. Arthur L. Hayward (London, 1735; reprint, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927); Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pyrates, ed. Manuel Schonhorn (1724, 1728; reprint, Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1972), hereafter cited as History of Pyrates; William Snelgrave’s account of his encounters with Kennedy during his capture by pirates in April 1719 in his New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London, 1734); and legal records gathered in the prosecution of Kennedy and other pirates by the High Court of Admiralty. For points in this paragraph, see Hayward, ed., Remarkable Criminals, 34–36; and History of Pyrates, 208; Examination of Walter Cannady, High Court of Admiralty Papers (HCA) 1/54, ff. 121–22, Public Record Office, London; Joel H. Baer, “‘Captain John Avery’ and the Anatomy of a Mutiny,” Eighteenth-Century Life 18 (1994): 1–26. [back]
2. History of Pyrates, 288; Hayward, ed., Remarkable Criminals, 36. [back]
3. History of Pyrates, 195, 173, 174. [back]
4. Snelgrave, New Account, 236. [back]