Pathetic Pirates: The Good Puritan

Most people have some inkling of the famous marooner Alexander Selkirk whose adventure in the wild islands off the coast of modern day Peru would become the basis for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. What many people are not aware of is that Defoe wrote about another man who voluntarily marooned himself rather than join the piratical crew of a captain he found morally reprehensible. Today then, I offer the story of Philip Ashton and his sixteen months on the island of Roatan in the Bay of Honduras.


Ashton was a New Englander from the area of Salem, Massachusetts who was raised in the Puritan faith. He asked for and received his parents’ permission to sign on aboard a merchant as an able seaman some time in his late teens. By 1722 he was a capable hand at sea aboard a schooner plying the Atlantic and Caribbean waters up and down the coasts of Central and North America. That summer, in early June, fate changed everything for Ashton and his mates.

The merchant upon which Ashton sailed was taken by the notoriously sadistic pirate Ned Low and her men pressed into his service. Ashton did as he was commanded, working Low’s Fortune along side others more enthusiastic than he for a pirate’s life, but he refused to sign Low’s articles and actually become a pirate. He saw in Low everything “reprehensible in the eyes of God”. Ashton determined to escape rather than sail under Low’s black flag.

His escape attempts proved futile time after time and his continued bids for freedom enraged one of Low’s lieutenants so thoroughly that the man tried to shoot Ashton not once but four times. When the pistol misfired each time, the man drew his cutlass. Ashton escaped his assailant, according to Defoe, by jumping headlong into the ship’s hold. Other incidents had similar results and, though Ashton was a decent hand aboard ship, Low’s men came to despise him.

After being party to the taking of a dozen prizes, Ashton saw another opportunity for escape when Low put in to a little archipelago now known as the Bay Islands off the coast of modern Honduras. Ashton was selected to go ashore with a party to refresh the ship’s water and, through a ruse of looking for coconuts, he managed to hide in the dense forest of Roatan Island. Though his mates called out for him repeatedly, Ashton refused to rejoin them. As Defoe writes in Ashton’s voice:

Thus was I left on a desolate island, destitute of all help and remote from the track of navigators; but, compared with the state and society I had quitted, I considered the wilderness hospitable and the solitude interesting.

Ashton’s real problems came from the fact that he had nothing with him but the shirt and breeches he wore. Barefoot, without arms or a way to start a fire, he was in worse shape than Bear Grylls on a particularly harrowing episode of “Man vs. Wild”. His Puritan resolve seemed to help him get on with life, though. He had the attitude that doing the right thing was far more important than personal comfort. At least in the beginning.

Ashton became an involuntary vegetarian, eating only fruits including coconuts, figs and a strange, brown fruit with red, juicy insides that he only tried after seeing the local wild boars feast on them. Fresh water was plentiful, and Ashton managed to build shelter, but his feet took a beating from broken shells on the beach and sticks and rocks in the forest. He had days were he could do nothing but sit “… my back leaning against a tree, looking out for a vessel…” His meager diet took a toll on his health and the local flies became an unbearable annoyance.

In a desperate bid for relief from the insect horde, Ashton learned to swim. He at first used a bamboo limb as a float to kick his way to a small sandbar where the constant sea breezes kept flies and mosquitoes away. He returned to Roatan for food and water, and to sleep in his shelter at night, but his days were passed on the sandbar under the shade of some palm fronds.

Ashton began to succumb to depression, no doubt encouraged by his poor diet and the wounds festering on his bare feet. Nine months into his ordeal, though, another soul appeared on the island. An Englishman pulled up in a canoe baring firearms, powder, flint and a good deal of smoked pork. He met Ashton genially, saying he was on the run from mainland Spaniards who had determined to burn him at the stake. Ashton welcomed the man, whose name we are never told, and passed three days with him before his new companion set out in his canoe on a hunting foray. A storm blew up that night, and Ashton never saw the man again.

Another three months passed, with Ashton returning to a semblance of health thanks to the provisions left behind by his anonymous friend. When he found a canoe at the water’s edge one morning he began to paddle to other islands in the archipelago. Though he saw sailing vessels, he was repeatedly disappointed to find them either Spanish (he was almost killed by a party of Spaniards on the island of Bonacco) or freebooters. Time crept by, Ashton’s person became wild looking and his clothes rotted off his body but still he soldiered on.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, a small party of Englishmen appeared on Roatan. They assisted Ashton, who was nearly ready to die, giving him clothes, food and rum (which itself nearly killed him). They were forming a settlement – “plantations” they said – on Barbarat Island and they gladly took the castaway back home with them. As luck would have it, though, Ashton’s comfort was short lived.

Captain Spriggs, a former associate of Ned Low’s, anchored off Barbarat in his pirate schooner Delight. He raided the settlement and captured some men, but others – Ashton among them – escaped to the dense jungle. One man of the Barbarat settlers was killed but Ashton and his fellows managed to avoid capture. Spriggs sailed on with a few of the settlers and the remaining men seemed to count this experience as the end of their settlement. All but one returned to the mainland.

Ashton and a man named Symonds began an enterprise of collecting tortoise shells for sale to passing Jamaica-bound ships. This is where Philip Ashton’s luck finally turned. Sixteen months after deliberately stranding himself on Roatan, a Salem schooner captained by a man named Dove dropped anchor off Bonacco. Coincidently, Dove knew Ashton and he happily took the marooner on as a hand aboard his merchant vessel for the trip back to Massachusetts. Ashton arrived in Salem Harbor on May 1, 1725. One of the last sentences in Defoe’s retelling simply says:

That same evening I went to my father’s house, where I was received as one raised from the dead.

After an ordeal that would have done in lesser men, pathetic pirate but righteous Puritan Philip Ashton returned home. It probably goes without saying that he did not return to sea again.

Header: a beach on Roatan Island from a local realty website, Roatan Dreams

Horror On The High Seas: Crazy In The Caribbean

We've met today’s pirate before as he was filtered through the imagination of Charles Ellms in The Pirates’ Own Book. But the story of Edward “Ned” Low is shocking without any of Ellms’ usual embellishments, for Ned was the kind of pirate that actually reveled in the tortures that most other pirates only wanted their foes to think they enjoyed. Ned, much like the buccaneer Francois L’Olonais, was a dyed-in-the-wool sadist.

Born in England some time in the last decade of the 17th century Low, whose last name is also spelled Lowe or Loe in some documents, grew up wild. He was most probably an abused child (his father appears to have been a hopeless drunk who regularly beat Ned’s mother) and Ned spent much of his youth on the streets leading a gang of boys in petty thefts and apparent animal torture. He did time in a work house in Devon before stowing away with his brother on a merchant ship bound for Boston. Discovered at sea, the young men were put to work and Ned got a taste of the seafaring life.

Once in the New World, Low seems to have made an honest attempt at a respectable life. He opened a store near the Boston wharves, married and fathered children. A summer epidemic, possibly cholera or yellow fever, took the life of his wife and young son and Low seems to have lost it at this point. He left his remaining offspring, a daughter, with her maternal grandparents and went to sea. There was never a time when Low would try to be “respectable” again.

Low began his new livelihood with the logwood gangs in the Gulf of Honduras. The logwood trade was booming, with French and British colonies buying up the wood for houses and shipbuilding, but all the wood cut in the Darien gap was harvested illegally. The men who worked the trade were hanged if caught by the Spanish. Low immediately became a thorn in his Captain’s side, eventually shooting at the man in the middle of an argument. Missing the Captain and killing a mate, Low stole the boat he was in and he and ten compatriots turned to piracy.

Some time in 1721, Low met George Lowther, a successful pirate, in the Cayman Islands. While their men hunted turtles, the two Captains decided to join forces. Lowther was a sadist as well, and Low learned a thing or two about extracting information such as the whereabouts of hidden loot, from captured crewmen. Lowther was known for his chosen torture: forcing splinters of wood soaked in oil under the finger- or toenails of a prisoner and setting them on fire. If the prisoner spoke up about his money or jewels or the ship’s strongbox, the splinters would be extinguished. Otherwise the under side of each nail would slowly be burned away.

Lowther and Low went their separate ways in 1722 after capturing some fifteen vessels together. Low then turned to the tactic he would use for the rest of his brief but bloody pirating career. He would sail into an unsuspecting port, now with a small flotilla of his ships in tow, and attack merchants or whalers at anchor. Frequently the ships were not fully manned so resistance was rarely an option. Crews that did put up a fight would be killed to a man and their ship commandeered for Low’s piratical fleet. It was in these raids that Low became creative and branched out from his mentor’s torture techniques. Many unfortunate sailors, and in particular Portuguese sailors whom Low hated for some unknown reason, from Maine territory to Panama were treated to Ned Low’s horrific imagination.

One Lieutenant who refused to reveal the location of money aboard ship had his abdomen ripped open, his intestine nailed to the main mast and was beaten into walking around the mast until his guts encircled it like a gory wreath. He died without revealing his secret and Low chopped up his body and threw it into the sea. A Captain, of Portuguese descent, who thought to stand up to Low threw a purse of gold coins overboard in front of the pirate. Low came unglued, had the man tied to his ship’s mast and then sliced the Captain’s lips off with his cutlass. Low had the lips cooked while the Captain watched and then force-fed them to the helpless man. He followed this atrocity with the systematic disembowelment of the entire merchant crew, saving the suffering Captain for last. Low was also known to scoop a Portuguese man-of-war, those nasty multiple-creature jelly fish, out of the water with his cutlass and apply the stingers to the naked genitals of a subdued captive. After capturing a whaler off Newfoundland, Low had her Captain’s ears sliced off, roasted with red pepper and salt, and fed to his unfortunate victim.

After abandoning one of his own ships and her crew to a British warship in June of 1723, resentment began to build among Low’s men. He was now taking his anger out not only on prisoners but on his followers as well. The situation came to a head when Low got into an altercation with the quartermaster aboard his flagship, Fortune. The man would not pay off a gambling debt according to Low and one night while the quartermaster slept, Low cut his head off. His crew, now in reasonable fear for their lives, mutinied and set their Captain adrift in one of the ship’s boats along with two loyal mates. The boat was picked up by a French merchant out of Martinique but one of the crewmen, who had escaped Low’s cruelties, recognized and identified him. On docking in their home port the merchant vessel’s Captain turned Low and his men over to the authorities and he was hanged within a week in February of 1724.

After taking well over a hundred ships and countless human lives, the pirate Ned Low’s horrible reign of terror was over at the end of a rope.

Header: Edward Low’s red skeleton flag

Seafaring Sunday: Merciless Torture

August 20, 1722: The pirate Edward "Ned" Low captures the Wright Galley after an arduous chase. For their failure to prudently heave to and surrender, the crew and passengers are horribly tortured by Low and his men. The specifics of the pirates' barbarism will have to wait, though. Horror on the High Seas week returns in October, after all...

The Pirates Own Book: "... By Inspiring Terror"

It's been quite some time since I visited Charles Ellms and his delightful The Pirates' Own Book. As you will recall, Brethren, the book was originally published in the 1830s and it is a clear mirror to both the way pirates were viewed in Victorian America and the way those very Americans loved to be titillated and frightened. Inaccuracies aside, the book is still a good read. No wonder it was a best seller.

Last night I delved into the chapter on Captain Low and was not disappointed. Edward "Ned" Low was one of the few pirates of the Golden Age who rightly deserves every ounce of blue prose heaped upon him by Ellms. From what I can tell he was either horribly abused in childhood or a rare "bad seed" because he started treating his fellow man badly at a very young age and only death cured him of the habit. Low's behavior is so over the top that he has already earned a post in this year's upcoming Horror On The High Seas week. But today, allow me to give you Ellms' version of the story.

Charles calls Low a "...ferocious villain" in his first sentence. Born in Westminster, Ellms concludes immediately that Low "...was by nature a pirate". He started fights in his neighborhood and appeared as if he would never amount to much, if anything. When young, Low took passage to Boston with his older brother. The boys were evidently either indentured or apprenticed to a "rigging-house" there but Low chafed at the work and "his master" and took a berth aboard a sloop headed for Honduras.

The Captain was seeking to make his fortune in the "log trade". This was basically a form of poaching; cutting down trees on Spanish land and hurrying them off to islands in the Caribbean where they could be used for structures or shipbuilding. Low again had a falling out with authority. When he tried to shoot his Captain and missed, killing a fellow sailor, he and a few like-minded mates took off in a boat and turned to piracy.

Low met up with the established freebooter George Lowther and the two cruised together for a short while. They were nearly caught by pirate hunters and Low went his own way thereafter. According to Ellms it was at Port Rosemary that Low began using his trademark attack and rounded up several ships at anchor in the bay. He managed to capture thirteen ships and converted some of them into pirates, pressing men to join his crews and intimidated the island Governor into supplying water and stores.

Low was overcome by a hurricane near the Leewards but according to Ellms this was only a minor setback. He is next seen plundering in small boats while his larger ships are being repaired. Once they are he makes for the Azores and "...the great good fortune of Low is now singular". Ellms frequently notes that Low is by now a feared scourge in the Caribbean and "...by inspiring terror, without firing a single gun" he was able to take ship after ship. Unlike the ruthless Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, however, Low is actually putting whole crews to the sword and torturing those who will not reveal the hiding places of their treasure with what might be termed reckless abandon.

Several cringe-worthy examples of Low's cruelty are served up, as is usual in The Pirates' Own Book. There is the cook on the French frigate that Low's crew find to be "...a greasy fellow" who will "fry well" so they tie him to the mast and set fire to the ship. An unfortunate Portuguese captain who tossed "...a bag with eleven thousand moidores" out his cabin window was treated to special attention. When Low found out, he cut the man's lips off with his cutlass before killing him. Ellms also tells us that Low and his crew very much enjoyed their cruelties and relates the fate of the unfortunate Captain Graves of Virginia. Low offers his captive a bowl of punch and tells Graves: "Captain, here's half for you." When Graves declines the offer, "... Low cocked and presented a pistol... saying 'Either take the one or the other'." Ellms is unfortunately silent on Captain Graves' decision.

At some point Low and the Captain he now works with, Charles Harris, are confronted by the man-of-war HMS Greyhound. Low and Harris make a stand at first but when Harris' mainmast is shot away Low "... abandoned her to the enemy, and fled." This cowardly move brings real venom from Ellms, who seems more outraged at such behavior than he did at the miseries previously inflicted on innocent captives:

The conduct of Low was surprising in this adventure because his reputed courage and boldness had hitherto so possessed the minds of all people, that he became a terror even to his own men; but his behaviour throughout this whole action showed him to be a base cowardly villain...

I think this is telling. Ellms, probably very much like his readers, expects the pirates he writes about to be murderous ruffians. What he does not expect them to be at any point is base, selfish and craven. Perhaps it is this filter of Victorian opinion that is the reason Americans remember Blackbeard and Laffite, but have very little recognition of names like Low and Lowther.

The chapter hurries on to it's end at this point, almost as if Ellms is washing his hands of Low. Finally, Low's crew gets fed up with him when he murders his own quartermaster while the man is asleep. He is put in a boat and a French vessel picks him up. Recognized, he is taken to Matinico (Martinique) where "... after a quick trial by the authorities he received short shift on a gallows erected for his benefit."

And so the villain gets a taste of his own and once again all is right with the world. At least until the next chapter. Thank you again Charles Ellms; you and your pirates always give me something to think about.