Pirates: A History

by Travers, Tim

  39. ‘A Journal Kept by Bartholomew Sharp …’ 7 January 1681, f. 61, ms. 46A, BL.

  40. Richard Mandervell or Manderwell, deposition, 1721, ff. 21–22, HCA 1/55, PRO.

  41. Padre Dominici, Trattato delle Miserie, Rome, 1647, cited in Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500–1800, Palgrave, MacMillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2004, p.125.

  42. Snelgrave cited in Douglas Botting, The Pirates, Time Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1978, pp.17–18; re: Davis, Johnson, p.134; re: Roberts, Johnson, p.192; re: Spriggs, Johnson, p.327.

  43. Johnson, pp.212, 54.

  44. Botting, The Pirates, pp.17–18.

  45. Johnson, p.264.

  46. Johnson, pp.335–336.

  47. William Cowley, ‘Voyage to the Cape Verde Islands’ 1683–1686, ff. 7, 16–18, 22–24, 27, ms 54, BL.

  48. Johnson, p.211.

  49. Cited in Richard Zacks, The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd, Hyperion, New York, 2002, p.44.

  50. Ibid, p.44.

  51. Ibid, p.149.

  52. Deposition of John Shattock, 18 January 1720, St.Jago de la Vega, Jamaica, Tryalls of John Rackam and others, p.24, CO 137/14, PRO.

  53. Charles Grey, Pirates of the Eastern Seas, edited by Sir George MacMunn, Kennikat Press, Port Washington and London, (1933), 1971, p.35.

  54. Witness at the trial of Robert Hudson, 10 March 1720, St. Jago de la Vega, Jamaica, Tryalls of John Rackam and others, p.36, CO 137/14, PRO.

  55. Thomas Grant, 1721, f. 120, HCA 1/54, PRO.

  56. Deposition of Clem Downing, 28 October 1724, f. 93; Philip or John Roth, ff. 44–45, 1722, HCA 1/55, PRO.

  57. Deposition of Michael Moore, 3 April 1725, HCA 1/55, PRO.

  58. Johnson, p.193.

  59. Peter Gosselin, jailor, Guernsey, overhearing John Ashley shouting at John Prie, 1727, f. 20, HCA 1/56, PRO.

  60. John Ashley, 1 February 1727, f. 17, and f. 30; John Upton, 1726, f. 27; HCA 1/56, PRO.

  61. Deposition of Samuel Perkins, 25 August 1698, f. 390, CO 323/2, PRO.

  62. Morgan Miles, deposition, 1721, ff. 9–10; Joseph Stratton, deposition, 14 November 1721, f. 14; HCA 1/55, PRO.

  63. Richard Zacks, The Pirate Hunter, chapter 15, for the complicated story of the recovery of Kidd’s treasure.

  64. Alexander Farquharson, deposition, 22 October 1724, f. 90, HCA 1/55, PRO. Barry Clifford tells the story of diving on wrecks at St Mary’s in his Return to Treasure Island and the search for Captain Kidd, Harper Collins, New York, 2003. It seems that a number of previous treasure hunters have been to St Mary’s Island. Barry Clifford and his crew did locate the wreck of Conden’s ship, the Flying Dragon., and found some gold coins. Kidd’s Adventure Galley was also located, and a large pewter mug recovered from the wreck.

  65. Clement Downing, A History of the Indian Wars, 1737, ed. and introduction by William Foster, Oxford University Press, London, 1924, pp.111–112. Clement Downing, deposition, 28 October 1724, f. 93, HCA 1/55, PRO.

  66. Cordingly, Under the Black Flag, p.191. ‘Blackbeard Lives’, National Geographic, July 2006, pp.146–161.

  67. Sloane Collection, ms 50/1070, 1687, BL. This item may or may not have referred to pirates.

  68. Johnson, p.56.

  69. ‘A Narrative abt. the Mocha Frigatt written by William Willocks a Prisoner aboard them 11 Months’, f. 729, CO 323/2, PRO.

  70. Cited from Pelsaert, The Unlucky Voyage of the Ship Batavia, (1647), Amsterdam, 1994. See also Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster: the Life of Francisco Pelsaert, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1963.

  71. Ibid. There is a very large historiography of this event, as well as a radio play and an opera.

  72. Cited in Cordingly and Falconer, Pirates: Fact and Fiction, Collins and Brown, London, 1992, p.108.

  73. Narrative of Phillip Middleton, 4 August 1696, f. 114, CO 323/2, PRO.

  74. Johnson, pp.297–298.

  75. Ibid, pp.298–299.

  76. This is the argument of Rediker, Villains of All Nations, pp.170 ff.

  77. Johnson, pp.295, 300, 305–307. The medieval Mongols also cut off ears, but this was simply to count their victims.

  78. Ibid, p.289.

  79. Ibid, pp.327–328.

  80. Ibid, pp.328–330. Rogozinski, Dictionary of Pirates, entry for ‘blooding’.

  81. Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, to My Lords Commissioners, 18 May 1722, ff. 152–153, CO 137/14, Part 1, PRO. Peter Earle, The Pirate Wars, (2003), Methuen, London, 2004, pp.199–200.

  82. Thomas Grant, deposition, 1721, f. 120; Edward Green, deposition, 29 April 1721, f. 123; HCA 1/54, PRO.

  83. Johnson, pp.177–178.

  84. ‘Piracy’, American Monthly, February 1824, cited in The History of the Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates, Lyons Press, Guilford, Connecticut, 2004, pp.259–265.

  85. Johnson, p.81.

  86. V.A.C Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770–1868, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1994, on the practice of hanging in England.

  87. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, p.163. Johnson, pp.256–259, 323–324.

  88. Zacks, The Pirate Hunter, pp.390–392.

  89. Clement Downing, A History of the Indian Wars, 1724, p.119.

  90. Captain Charles Johnson, ed., Arthur Hayward, A General History of the Pirates, Fourth Edition, 1726, Dodd Mead, New York, 1926, pp.590–592.

  CHAPTER 2: FROM CLASSICAL PIRACY TO THE MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN

  1. Cited in Henry Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World, (1924), Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, 1997, p.49.

  2. Cited in N.K. Sandars, The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean, Thames and Hudson, London, 1985, pp.186–187.

  3. Herodotus, The History: Herodotus, translated by David Grene, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987, p.229.

  4. Philip de Souza, Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p.25.

  5. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World, pp.115–116; Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1984, p.70.

  6. Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, Penguin edition, Harmondsworth, 1971, p.150.

  7. History of Diodorus of Sicily, translated by Russell Geer, William Heinemann, London, and Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, Book XX, vol. 10, pp.355–401.

  8. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World, pp.139 ff., 222.

  9. De Souza, Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World, p.140; Philip Gosse, The History of Piracy, (1932), Rio Grande Press, Glorieta, New Mexico, 1995, pp.4–8.

  10. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World, p.227.

  11. De Souza, Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World, pp.168–175.

  12. John Haywood, Dark Age Naval Power: a re-assessment of Frankish and Anglo-Saxon seafaring activity, Routledge, London and New York, 1991, passim.

  13. Procopius, cited in Archibald R. Lewis and Timothy.J. Runyan, European Naval and Maritime History, 300–1500, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1990 edition, p.11.

  14. John H. Pryor, Geography, technology, and war: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649–1571, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988, p.153 and passim. See also chapters by John H. Pryor and Michel Balard in David Abulafia, ed., The Mediterranean in History, Thames and Hudson, London, 2003.

  15. Lewis and Runyan, European Naval and Maritime History, p.45.

  16. Aly Mohamed Fahmy, Muslim Sea-Power In the Eastern Mediterranean From the Seventh to the Tenth Century ad, National Publication and Printing House, Cairo, 1966, passim.

  17. Ibid, pp.128–132; E. Clutton and A. Kenny, Crete, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1976, pp.94–95; Pierre Brule, La Piraterie Cretoise Hellenestique, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1978, p.183. Some historians dispute the label of piracy as applied to the Muslims in Crete.

  18. Pryor, Geography, technology and war,
p.105. Michel Balard, ‘A Christian Mediterranean, 1000–1500’, in David Abulafia, ed., The Mediterranean in History, p.199.

  19. Cited in Trevor Rowley, The Normans, Tempus Publishing, Stroud, 2004, p.147.

  20. Ibid, p.156.

  21. Lewis and Runyan, European Naval and Maritime History, p.68.

  22. Frederic C. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore and London, 1973, p.29.

  23. Rowley, The Normans, p.171.

  24. Ibid, p.172.

  25. Charles Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180–1204, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass:, 1968, pp.208–214.

  26. Ibid, p.211.

  27. J.K. Fotheringham, ‘Genoa and the Fourth Crusade’, English History Review, vol. 25, pp.26–57; E. Clutton and A. Kenny, Crete, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1976, pp.99 ff..

  28. Steven Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese: 958–1528, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1996, pp.180, 120; Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic, p.80.

  29. Pryor, Geography, technology and war, p.126.

  30. Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, Laurel edition, Dell Publishing, New York, 1962, p.99.

  31. Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, pp.198, 274.

  32. Ibid, p.210.

  33. Ernle Bradford, Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1971, p.397.

  34. Alberto Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580–1615, (1961),UCLA Press, Berkeley, 1967, p.82.

  35. Susan Rose, Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000–1500, Routledge, London and New York, 2002, p.118.

  36. Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580–1615, p.86; Jan Glete, Warfare at Sea, 1500–1650, Maritime Conflicts and the Transformation of Europe, Routledge, London, 2000, pp.107–111.

  37. Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice, pp.26–27.

  38. Ibid, pp.112–147.

  39. Cited in Wendy Bracewell, ‘Women among the Uskoks of Senj: Literary Images and Reality’, in C.R. Pennell, ed., Bandits at Sea: A Pirates Reader, New York University Press, New York and London, 2001, pp.324–325.

  40. Pryor, Geography, technology and war, pp.153–154; see also Glete, Warfare at Sea 1500–1650, p.136.

  CHAPTER 3: PIRACY IN THE NORTHERN WORLD

  1. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Alcuin of York, cited in Else Roesdahl, The Vikings, (1987), translated by Margeson and Williams, Penguin, London, 1991, p.193.

  2. F. Donald Logan, The Vikings in History, Hutchinson, London, 1983, pp.189–190.

  3. Ibid, p.191.

  4. Roesdahl, The Vikings, pp.145–146.

  5. Ibn Fadlan, cited in Johannes Brondsted, The Vikings, (1960) Penguin, London, 1965, p.265.

  6. Ibn Rustah, cited in Ibid, pp.267–269.

  7. Benjamin Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion, and Empire in the North Atlantic, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p.22.

  8. Ibid, p.23. Logan, The Vikings in History, p.51.

  9. William Ledyard Rogers, Naval Warfare Under Oars, 4th to 16th Centuries: A Study of Strategy, Tactics and Ship Design, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1940, 1967, pp.78–79.

  10. Roesdahl, The Vikings, pp.198–199.

  11. F. Donald Logan, The Vikings in History, p.118.

  12. Ibid, pp.130–132.

  13. Susan Rose, Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000–1500, Routledge, London and New York, 2002, p.29.

  14. Ibid, pp.72–73. Phillipe Dollinger, The German Hansa, trans and edited D.S. Ault and S.H. Steinberg, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1970, pp.80–81; Jan Rogozinski, Dictionary of Pirates, pp.327–328; Philip Gosse, The History of Piracy, Rio Grande Press, Glorieta, New Mexico, 1995 (1932), pp.90–92.

  15. Douglas Botting, The Pirates, Time Life, Alexandria, Virginia, 1978, p.23.

  16. Jan Glete, Warfare at Sea, 1500–1650: Maritime Conflicts and the Transformation of Europe, Routledge, London, 2000, p.134.

  CHAPTER 4: ELIZABETHAN SEA ROVERS AND THE JACOBEAN PIRATES

  1. Nick Hazlewood, The Queen’s Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, And The Trafficking in Human Souls, Harper Collins, New York, 2005, p.34.

  2. Ibid, pp.53, 56–57.

  3. Harry Kelsey, Sir John Hawkins: Queen Elizabeth’s Slave Trader, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2003, pp.88–89.

  4. Ibid, pp.88–106.

  5. Harry Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1998, pp.64–65. Most of the foregoing information on Drake comes from this book, chapter 3.

  6. Ibid, pp.75–86.

  7. Ibid, pp.107–109.

  8. Ibid, pp.156–157.

  9. Ibid, pp.211–218.

  10. Ibid, chapter 11.

  11. Ibid, p.372.

  12. Peter Earle, The Pirate Wars, Methuen, London, 2004, pp.60–61.

  13. Sir Henry Mainwaring, ‘Of the Beginnings, Practices, and Suppression of Pirates’, 1618, in G.E. Manwaring and W. G Perrin, eds., The Life and Work of Sir Henry Mainwaring, vol. 2, Navy Records Society, LVI, London, (1922), pp.3–49.

  14. Rogozinski, Dictionary of Pirates, p.243.

  15. Earle, Pirate Wars, pp.65–66.

  16. Information from Johnson on each pirate.

  17. Depositions of Michael Moor, aged 17 years, and Daniel McCauley, aged 21 years, 1725, HCA, 1/55, PRO. On the words of the chief mate, Mr. Jelfs, Joseph Wheatley, deposition, 2 September 1725, HCA 1/56, PRO.

  18. Ibid, and Johnson, chapter on John Smith/Gow.

  CHAPTER 5: BUCCANEERS OF THE CARIBBEAN

  1. Information from Rogozinski, Dictionary of Pirates, pp.323, 194.

  2. Clark Russell, ‘Life of Dampier’, cited in Gosse, The History of Piracy, (1932), Rio Grande Press, Glorieta, New Mexico, 1995, p.143.

  3. Cited in Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: the Life of William Dampier, Walker and Company, New York, 2004, pp.45–46.

  4. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, (1678–1684), Routledge, London, and E.P. Dutton, New York, 1923, pp.56–57. There is some question as to the reality of the Pierre Le Grand exploit. On the rise of the buccaneers, Kris Lane, Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500–1750, New York, 1998, chapter IV.

  5. Rogozinski, op cit, pp.198–199; Lane, Pillaging the Empire, chapter 5.

  6. Rogozinski, Dictionary of Pirates, entry for L’Olonnais; Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, p.103.

  7. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, pp.73–75, Rogozinski, op cit, p.42; Gosse, The History of Piracy, p.148.

  8. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, p.116.

  9. Ibid., pp.173–178.

  10. Ibid, pp.185 ff.

  11. Ibid, pp.204 ff.

  12. Ibid.; Philip Lindsay, The Great Buccaneer: being the life, death and extraordinary adventures of Sir Henry Morgan, P. Nevill, London and New York, 1950, pp.143 ff.

  13. Lindsay, op cit, 156; Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, pp.215 ff.; Peter Earle, The Sack of Panama, Bury St Edmunds Press, Suffolk, 1981, p.223; Dudley Pope, Harry Morgan’s Way, Secker and Warburg, London, 1977, pp.240 ff. Baer, Pirates of the British Isles, Tempus Publishing, Stroud, 2005, p.44.

  14. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, pp.220–223.

  15. Ironically, one of Morgan’s doctors was Dr. Hans Sloane, who gathered together a large collection of pirate and maritime manuscripts that forms a valuable part of the British Library manuscript collection.

  16. Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, p.34.

  17. Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, p.75.

  18. Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, pp.32–51.

  19. Bartholomew Sharp, ‘Voyage from Jamaica to Porto Bello (1679)’, ms. 2752, ff. 29–35, BL.

  20. Anonymous, ‘Journal of our intended voyage’, ms. 2752, f. 37, BL.

  21. Ibid, f.38.

  22. Ibid, f. 40.

  23. Ibid, f. 42.

  24. Ibid, f. 42; John Cox, ‘John Cox
his Travills over the Land into the S/o Seas…’ f. 8, 26 April – 13 May 1680, ms 49, BL.

  25. Anonymous, ‘Journal of our intended voyage…’ ff. 43–45; John Cox, ‘John Cox his Travills…’ f. 8; ‘A Journal kept by Bartholomew Sharp…’ f. 23, ms. 46 A; BL.

  26. John Cox, ‘John Cox his Travills’, ff. 31–32, ms. 49; Sharp, ‘A Journal kept by Bartholomew Sharp’, ms. 46 A, f. 65; BL.

  27. John Cox, ‘John Cox his Travills’, ff. 34, 40, 49, ms. 49, BL; Ringrose in Esquemeling, Buccaneers of America, p.433.

  28. John Cox, ‘John Cox his Travills’, ff. 42, 64, ms. 49, BL. Joel Baer, Pirates of the British Isles, pp.58–59.

  29. William Ambrose Cowley, ‘Voyage to Cape Verde Islands’, ff.1–5, 1684, ms. 54, BL. Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, chapter VII.

  30. Cowley, ‘Voyage to Cape Verde Islands’, f. 7, ms. 54, BL.

  31. Ibid, ff. 10–11. Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, p.115.

  32. Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, pp.127–128; Baer, Pirates of the British Isles, pp.62–63.

  33. Rogozinski, Dictionary of Pirates, entry for Edward Davis.

  34. Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, pp.132–133, 141–142.

  35. Ibid, chapters 11 and 12; Baer, Pirates of the British Isles, pp.65–66.

  36. Baer, Pirates of the British Isles, p.68; Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, pp.179 ff.

  37. Rogozinski, Dictionary of Pirates, entry for John Read; Robert Downie, The Way of the Pirate, ibooks, New York, 1998, entries for John Read and Josiah Teat; Diana and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, p.204.

  38. Cowley, ‘Voyage to Cape Verde Islands’, ff. 10–13, ms. 54, BL.

  39. Ibid, ff. 16–40.

  40. Ibid, ff. 48–49, 53, 65.

  41. Cited in Peter Wood, The Spanish Main, Time Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1979, pp.144–145.

  42. Ibid, pp.150–158.

  43. Ibid, pp.159–161.

  CHAPTER 6: THE MADAGASCAR MEN

  1. Edward Randolph, ‘A Discourse about Pyrates’, 1695, in GOS/9, Philip Gosse Papers, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

  2. John Banks, examination, 1699, D74, CO 5/1259, PRO. On privateering commissions, folios D41, D42, 1699, Ibid.

  3. File A 14, CO 323/2, PRO.