If A Pirate I Must Be...

by Richard Sanders

  ‘I was very much surprised after so much noise of pirates,’ wrote Captain Whitney, with infuriating smugness, to Hamilton when he returned to Antigua a week later. He suggested the whole furore had been cooked up by smugglers, keen to distract attention from their activities, and described de Feuquières’ envoy, Malherbe, as ‘a petty fogging merchant of little account’. He concluded by demanding £28, 16s to pay for food for the soldiers he had had aboard. De Feuquières had also found Captain Whitney ‘impertinent’ and had been informed by Malherbe of the ‘repugnance’ the two Royal Navy captains felt at being ordered to Martinique. He apologised to Hamilton for the change of plans and sent him two barrels of red wine, but it can have been little consolation.

  ‘They write from St Christophers that Captain Roberts, who is now the most desperate pirate of all that range those seas, calls himself admiral of the Leeward Islands,’ reported a London paper a few months later. For Hamilton it was galling. ‘Your Lordships may perceive that I am confined by Captain Whitney’s capricious temper,’ he wrote to London a few weeks later, once more begging for a larger warship, with a more resolute commander, to be sent out.

  De Feuquières was right that Roberts was now at Saint Domingue, or, to be more precise, Hispaniola, the Spanish-owned, eastern half of the same island. After leaving the Leeward Islands the pirates had gone initially to Isla Mona, which lay between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. There they intended to careen. But, finding the seas too rough, they continued westwards and eventually anchored in the Bay of Samaná on the north-eastern coast of Hispaniola. It was a smart move to get away from the region where they had caused so much havoc. And, a century on from when the first Buccaneers had settled there, Hispaniola was still an ideal hideaway.

  It remained an economic backwater. As in most of the Spanish Americas, sugar had never really taken a hold and many of the locals continued to live by hunting wild pigs and cattle which they sold to their French neighbours in the more prosperous, western part of the island. There were also thriving communities of escaped slaves dotted around the interior. An English visitor in 1721 portrayed Hispaniola as a natural wilderness; ‘the sea and rivers [were] full of fish and the country spread with forests of cabbage and palm trees’. In 1717 there were no more than 20,000 people in the entire colony and there were many hidden coves where pirates could take refuge without fear of discovery. The Gulf of Samaná was a particularly well-known pirate haven, and Roberts and his men were once more able to relax among golden sands and nodding palms.

  They careened their vessels and spent several weeks on the island, engaging ‘in their usual debaucheries’, according to Johnson. ‘They had taken a considerable quantity of rum and sugar, so that liquor was as plenty as water, and few there were who denied themselves the immoderate use of it.’ Roberts’ reputation was now spreading and while there he received a curious visit from two sloops, whose commanders, Captain Porter and Captain Tuckerman, came to the great pirate as disciples. They addressed him, wrote Johnson, ‘as the Queen of Sheba did Solomon, to wit, that having heard of his fame and achievements, they had put in there to learn his art and wisdom in the business of pirating, being vessels on the same honourable design with himself’. They were also looking for handouts, ‘being in want of necessaries for such adventures’. Won over by the ‘peculiarity and bluntness’ of these two men Roberts gave them ‘powder, arms, and whatever else they had occasion for’. He also handed them sixteen to eighteen negroes in return for three or four men from their own crew - a revealing exchange in terms of the relative values Roberts’ men attached to white sailors and slaves. Roberts ‘spent two or three merry nights with them and, at parting, said he hoped the Lord would prosper their handy work’.

  Roberts and his men referred to Porter and Tuckerman as ‘private pirates’ - men who profited by trading with pirates without indulging in direct acts of piracy themselves. They ‘said they got much more money in that private way than public pirates’, one of Roberts’ men later recalled. Tuckerman was arrested a few months later at Port Royal in Jamaica after getting drunk in the company of a number of senior military officers and firing off his guns in the harbour. The term ‘private pirates’ could well have been applied to a number of the merchant captains Roberts and his men had dealt with, including Edward Cane, who they’d taken at Cayenne, and now Benjamin Norton, whose brigantine they had seized at St Lucia and who was still with them at Hispaniola.

  Roberts generally had cosier relations with North American captains than those from England or the Caribbean. Less dependent on trade with the mother country, and still a relative backwater economically, the inhabitants, and even some of the authorities, in North America, retained a sympathy for pirates - a source of cheap, stolen property - long after their counterparts in the West Indies. New York had effectively been a pirate haven in the 1690s and, as late as 1718, the Governor of North Carolina was openly sheltering Blackbeard.

  It’s highly likely Captain Norton was commander of the brigantine that Roberts had chased, on Cane’s recommendation, from Devil’s Islands back in December 1719, with such disastrous consequences. Like Cane he was from Rhode Island and was on the same stretch of coast at the time. Cane probably urged Roberts to chase Norton knowing that, once captured, he would be glad to do business. Norton was viewed with deep suspicion by the Rhode Island authorities. When he had fitted out his vessel the previous autumn for the voyage to the West Indies it was felt, by ‘common observation’ to be ‘more fit for [piracy] than trade’, a colonial official later wrote-a conclusion Roberts himself obviously reached in deciding to take over the vessel.

  At Hispaniola Norton cut a potentially lucrative deal with Roberts. In return for his brigantine Roberts agreed to give him the Dutch slaver the Puerto del Principe, laden with much of its original cargo. It was agreed Norton would take the Dutch ship to New England and seek to sell the contents. The two men probably planned to meet up again so the pirates could get a cut and Roberts could add the Puerto del Principe to his fleet, possibly with Norton as commander. On 7 March Norton nosed his way out of the Bay of Samaná and headed north.

  Roberts was now approaching the very zenith of his power. Even without the Puerto del Principe his two ships carried more than 50 guns and perhaps as many as 350 men between them. He was the most formidable pirate the Caribbean had seen since Buccaneer times and more than a match for any of the British warships he was likely to encounter. His name was feared along the entire Atlantic seaboard, from Newfoundland to Brazil, and the addition of the Puerto del Principe would make him all but invincible. As he relaxed on the beaches of Hispaniola, the tall, dark Welshman, now almost forty years old, knew he could ravage the shipping lanes virtually at will.

  But the rapid expansion of the crew over the previous twelve months had also brought with it problems. Most of the new men were volunteers. But a number were forced. Bitter and resentful, they were constantly looking for a chance to slip away, and discontent among this group was coalescing around Henry Glasby. At Hispaniola, he tried to escape for a second time, this time taking ten other men with him.

  Under cover of darkness, or perhaps during an unusually heavy drinking session, they slipped away into the jungle. Glasby had with him a pocket compass and they were doubtless aiming for the Spanish settlements further south. But the sailing master who could navigate his way so skilfully across the wide, empty oceans was soon lost in the dense, dark forests of Hispaniola. Two days passed, and they found themselves going in circles, plagued by mosquitoes, spiders and snakes. Just when it seemed they were doomed to stumble in the gloom forever they suddenly popped back out on to the beach - at almost exactly the same spot from which they had started. They were quickly spotted by a group of Roberts’ men and hauled back to camp. ‘They made such excuses for their absence as they thought might most please,’ Glasby said later, and somehow managed to talk their way out of the situation - an indication of the pirates’ desperation for a good navigator, rather than their gullibil
ity. From this time on Glasby was a prisoner aboard the Royal Fortune, forbidden to board prizes or to go ashore, and Roberts took the precaution of keeping the long boats permanently chained up.

  There was discontent too among the more willing recruits. Although Roberts had dispensed with the division between Lords and Commons, there was still a clear pecking order in the crew. The more experienced men were referred to as ‘Old Standers’, and retained the arrogance of an aristocracy. One of them, James Philips, ‘was morose and drunk, carrying his pistols sometimes about him to terrify newcomers if they offered to speak, saying they ought to serve their time first’, according to a captive. A new recruit later recalled that ‘he was allowed only a quarter share at his first coming, till he roused off his dullness and stupidity, and then received a whole share’. New men often found themselves relegated to the Good Fortune, and Glasby observed that the second ship had ‘not so liberal a share in fresh provisions, or wine’. Their subordinate status chafed, and it was an ominous sign when Thomas Anstis, the belligerent West Countryman who had temporarily supplanted Roberts at the start of 1720, was elected to replace Motigny La Palisse as captain of the Good Fortune.

  Roberts was also having difficulty with the Old Standers. Success seemed to breed insubordination. ‘’Twas with great difficulty they could be kept together under any kind of regulation, for, being almost always mad or drunk, their behaviour produced infinite disorders, every man being in his own imagination a captain, a prince, or a king,’ wrote Johnson. Roberts was forced to become increasingly dictatorial. According to Johnson, when he

  saw there was no managing of such a company of wild, ungovernable brutes by gentle means, nor to keep them from drinking to excess - the cause of all their disturbances - he put on a rougher deportment and a more magisterial carriage towards them, correcting them when he thought fit. And if any seemed to resent his usage, he told them they ‘might go ashore and take satisfaction of him, if they thought fit, at sword and pistol, for he neither valued nor feared any of them.’

  It was a style of leadership that was departing more and more from the traditions of pirate democracy and put him at odds with many in the crew. Around the time of the visit to Hispaniola Roberts found himself having to back these words with actions. According to Captain Johnson, a drunken member of the crew insulted Roberts. In response, Roberts, ‘in the heat of his passion, killed the fellow on the spot’ - the first record we have of Roberts personally killing anyone. The dead pirate had a mess-mate called Thomas Lawrence Jones, ‘a brisk, active young man’, who had been almost two years in the crew. When he heard of the incident, ‘he cursed Roberts, and said he ought to be served so himself’. Hearing this, Roberts attacked Jones, running him through with his sword. The wound was not fatal and Jones, in retaliation, seized Roberts, ‘threw him over a gun, and beat him handsomely’.

  The incident adds another dimension to Roberts’ personality. For all his sobriety and restraint he was a man of violent passions when roused and the murder and its aftermath threw the crew into uproar. Some sided with Roberts, others against him and it was only the intervention of the quartermaster that prevented an armed confrontation. A vote was taken and, according to Johnson, ‘the majority of the company were of opinion that the dignity of the captain ought to be supported on board; that it was a post of honour, and ... should not be violated by any single member’. Jones was sentenced to receive two lashes from every member of the crew. Both Jones and the dead man belonged to the Good Fortune. The incident exacerbated tensions between the two ships and would have important repercussions.

  Roberts was sitting atop a powder keg of simmering grievances. Old Standers resentful at his increasingly autocratic style, and perhaps ambitious for power themselves; Old Standers who’d simply had enough, and were keen to slip away; new recruits resentful at not being fully accepted into the pirate brotherhood; and forced men - it was a dangerous cocktail, one which confronted all pirate captains as their crews expanded. It took all Roberts’ energies to hold them together.

  Strangely, the only group that Roberts didn’t need to watch like a hawk were the slaves. He’d captured a large number since returning to the Caribbean and, by this time, close to a third of the crew were black. Most were ‘French Creole negroes’, according to one captive - a description that makes clear they were not taken fresh from the holds of slavers, but were men living and working in the French Caribbean. Some may have been seized from plantations. But the majority were probably sailors, captured, already trained, from prizes. Ships in West Africa and the Caribbean at this time carried small numbers of slaves trained as mariners and these would have been ideal recruits for Roberts. With the exception of the black man shot for attempting to escape with Glasby at Carriacou, there is not a single reference to them giving him any problems.

  Unlike Howel Davis, Roberts armed his slaves - reflecting not a desperation for recruits but his desire to become as powerful as possible as quickly as possible. For the slaves this must have involved some quid pro quo in terms of living conditions if the pirates were to be sure of their loyalty. It was not a life for the squeamish. But, for a slave in the early eighteenth century, it was probably as good as it got. Compared to the grind of life on the plantations it brought variety and relative freedom. And if pirates got a buzz from power, we can only guess at the emotions of the slaves, accustomed to a life of terror and grovelling servitude, and now licensed to point guns at white men and watch them quiver in fear. Living, sleeping, fighting side by side for months on end, the two races, both outcasts in their own way, surely developed some limited camaraderie. But the slaves’ great virtue was still that they were cheap, since they received no share of the booty.

  By mid-March the pirates were hungry for further plunder and left Hispaniola heading east. De Feuquières’ assessment that Roberts was ‘no longer disposed’ to do harm to either the French or the British was wrong. They headed straight back to the Leeward Islands and parked themselves to the windward of Guadeloupe. There, on 26 March, they seized the Lloyd, a richly laden merchant ship from London bound for Jamaica.

  Going aboard the pirates found the captain was Andrew Hingston, whose ship they had partially burned at St Christophers six months before. Despite General Mathew’s suspicions of complicity between Hingston and the pirates at that time, it wasn’t a joyful reunion. ‘They took away most of my rigging and sails, all my anchors, blocks, provisions, powder, small arms &c,’ lamented Hingston. ‘What of the cargo was not fit for their service they threw overboard.’

  They also took twelve of his eighteen-man crew. Finding that the chief mate, who was Hingston’s brother, had tried to conceal two gold rings in his pocket, the pirates strapped him to the rigging and ‘whipped him within an inch of his life’.

  By now Roberts was displaying extraordinary confidence. He took the Lloyd north to the British island of Barbuda and spent five days plundering it at leisure, despite the fact that Antigua, where Governor Hamilton was based, was only 30 miles to the south. According to Governor Bennet in Bermuda he was also displaying murderous brutality. In a letter to London, Bennet claimed that, shortly before taking the Lloyd, the pirates had captured the Governor of Martinique on a French ship and ‘hanged [him] at the yard arm’. He cited Hingston as his source, though Hingston never mentioned this in his own correspondence. Bennet’s account was included in the same package of letters where he described the supposed massacre at Dominica in mid-January, and was just as untrue. The Governor of Martinique - de Feuquières - was most definitely still alive, as was his number two, the Intendant of Martinique, Monsieur Bernard. But, again, Bennet’s story has been much quoted by historians ever since as evidence of Roberts’ barbarity.

  On 1 April the pirates took Hingston and the Lloyd further north and released him at sea ‘in a very sad condition’. The following day the hapless captain was captured again, this time by a French pirate in a small sloop who stole what few possessions he had left and then dumped him in the
Virgin Islands. He was eventually picked up by Captain Whitney in HMS Rose, who may or may not have been embarrassed to discover that the pirate he had so casually dismissed six weeks earlier was still active and, according to Hingston, now in command of 54 guns and more than 350 men. Whitney immediately set off in pursuit - of the far smaller French pirate, who he also failed to catch.

  Governor Hamilton was furious. ‘If you had followed my orders at your return from Martinique to cruise for some days to windward of these islands, you might in all probability have come up with the pirate Roberts,’ he pointed out in a letter to Whitney. Given the imbalance in their forces Whitney was doubtless relieved he hadn’t. But it seemed a further period of humiliation now awaited the authorities in the Windward and Leeward Islands. The merchants of the Leeward Islands felt so beleaguered that they sent a petition to London at this time, begging for greater naval protection: ‘The pirates are now so strong and numerous in these parts that, not only the trade to and from these islands suffers very much, but likewise all intercourse is broke off betwixt these islands to their very great damage.’

  But the capture of the Lloyd was a parting shot rather than the start of a new rampage. News travelled fast in the highly mobile world of the eighteenth-century Caribbean and Roberts was doubtless aware of the three new French warships in the region. He may also have been aware that there were two fresh British warships on the way - the 40-gun Faversham, which was to replace HMS Milford on station at Barbados, and the 40-gun Launceston, which was coming out on surveying duty. He was bold but he wasn’t stupid and he knew when the time had come to move on. After releasing Hingston he continued north and he had soon left the squabbling officials of the West Indies far behind, hitching a ride on the great clockwise swirl of the Atlantic and bound once more for Africa.