People: The Tale of William Lewis

The greatest triumph and most important exploit of this pirate was the attacking, and eventually taking, of a powerful French ship of twenty-four guns.

Lewis enjoyed a longer career than most of the brethren, and by 1717 he was already one of the leading piratical lights of Nassau, and his end did not come till ten years later. In 1726, he spent several months on the coast of South Carolina and Virginia, trading with the inhabitants the spoils he had taken from vessels in the Atlantic. He learnt his trade under the daring pirate Bannister, who was brought into Port Royal, hanging dead from his own yard-arm. On this occasion, Lewis and another boy were triced up to the corvette's mizzen-peak like "two living flags."

Lewis, among other accomplishments, was a born linguist, and could speak with fluency in several languages, even the dialect of the Mosquito Indians. He was once captured by the Spaniards, and taken to Havana, but escaped with a few other prisoners in a canoe, seized a piragua, and with this captured a sloop employed in the turtle trade, and by gradually taking larger and larger prizes, Lewis soon found himself master of a fine ship and a crew of more than fifty men. He renamed her the Morning Star, and made her his flagship.

On one occasion when chasing a vessel off the Carolina coast, his fore and main topmasts were carried away. Lewis, in a frenzy of excitement, clambered up the main top, tore out a handful of his hair, which he tossed into the wind, crying: "Good devil, take this till I come." The ship, in spite of her damaged rigging, gained on the other ship, which they took. Lewis's sailors, superstitious at the best of times, considered the intimacy of their captain with Satan a little too much, and soon afterwards one of the Frenchmen aboard murdered Lewis in his sleep.

~ from The Pirate's Who's Who by Philip Gosse


Header: Captain Lewis from The Pirate's Own Book by Charles Ellms via Project Gutenberg

People: Captain Jonnia and Lieutenant Bolivar

Today's individuals are mentioned not only by Philip Gosse in The Pirate's Who's Who but also by our old friend Charles Ellms in The Pirate's Own Book. It is probably safe to say that they were real individuals who sailed together in the vast Caribbean sea, but how much their brief life stories have been altered for the sake of entertainment is up for speculation.

Jonnia and Bolivar (or Bolidar according to Ellms) were in that last wave of piracy that sprang up out of the revolutions in Central and South America. When nations like Argentina, Chile and particularly Simon Bolivar's Grand Columbia discontinued their habit of doling out letters of marque against the Spanish, many a man turned from privateer to pirate. While that cannot be said to be the absolute case with our current subjects, their years of operation - 1821 in particular - hint at such goings on.

Gosse tells us that Jonnia, a Spaniard by birth, commanded a "fast schooner in 1821." He carried a crew of 40 men and for a small ship he appears to have been armed to the teeth. A curious aside in the short paragraph that Gosse allows for Jonnia notes that the schooner "had three Mexican negresses" aboard. Whether or not the ladies were wives or paramours of crewmen or were actually a-pirating themselves is not discussed. What a wonderful piece of historical fiction could be made of their possible adventures, however.

Jonnia's schooner took a Boston merchant, Exertion, on December 17, 1821. Gosse notes that the crew was "considerably drunk at the time" and plundered the merchant with reckless abandon:

The pirates took everything from their prisoners, even their clothes, but as a parting gift sent the captain a copy of the "Family Prayer Book" by the Rev. Mr. Brooks. The prisoners were marooned on a small mangrove quay, but they eventually escaped.

This torturous disposal of the prisoners - imagine being marooned naked on a sun baked, mosquito infested salt water quay - seems to have fallen to Lieutenant Bolivar, whom Gosse describes in particular and amusing detail as:

... a stout, well-built man of swarthy complexion and keen, ferocious eyes, huge black whiskers and beard, and a tremendously loud voice.

Jonnia and his crew took the booty they had carried away from Exertion to Principe, Cuba, doubtless to sell and/or trade. Their next cruise was not so felicitous, however, as Gosse ends the entry: "Jonnia and some of his crew were afterwards captured by an English ship and taken to Kingston, Jamaica, and there hanged." Whether or not the jovial Lieutenant Bolivar was in that batch, Gosse does not say.

Header: Pirates by Howard Pyle via Wikimedia

People: The Curious Captain Condent

Christopher Condent is a name that gets tossed around a fair amount when discussing the Golden Age of Piracy. Condent, apparently another native of that great breeding ground of sailors, Devon, has his story told with the same consistency we find in tales of bigger names like Blackbeard, Roberts and Morgan. From Charles Ellms to Philip Gosse, all the high points in Condent’s life are hit consistently. Does this mean that they all occurred as they have come down to us? No, but it certainly makes them a bit more creditable.


In The Pirate’s Who’s Who, Philip Gosse does not give a date of birth for Condent. As he was quartermaster aboard a New York merchant when Governor Woodes Rogers sailed into New Providence in 1718, it is probably safe to place his natal year some time in the 1690s. It is a consistent point in Condent’s story, regardless of who is telling it, that his anonymous captain saw fit to hightail it out of the Bahamas when privateer-turned-pirate-hunter Rogers showed up. This is probably a good indication that the New York “merchant” was already a practicing pirate at the time.

According to Gosse and Ellms, the ship was not a happy one. A Native American aboard her had been mistreated by other crew members and, in his rage, decided to take his revenge by blowing up the ship. The sloop had a fair amount of black powder aboard – another good but not altogether telling indication of piratical activity. The injured sailor locked himself in the powder magazine with intent to ignite the powder and blow up the ship. Condent took it upon himself to curtail the man’s plans, jumping into the hold through a hatch and dispatching the malcontent with a pistol shot to the face.

The rest of the crew, still obviously harboring a grudge, hacked the man’s body to pieces. Both Goss and Ellms tell us that the gunner went so far as to remove the man’s heart from his chest cavity, boil or roast it and serve it up for supper. This consistently retold vignette has a curious ring of truth if for no other reason than it is never thoroughly explained. Why eat a man’s heart? The answer, one imagines, might be why not.

After this bloody episode morale seems to continue to flag aboard the merchant-cum-pirate. An English prize, Duke of York, is taken in the Atlantic and a dispute over something to do with it splits the crew down the middle. The captain and his faction take the prize and sail away, while the remaining crewmen elect Condent their new captain.

Condent sets a course for the Cape Verde Islands and manages to take a number of small ships from the “salt fleet”. Next he is cruising near the island of St. Jago where he takes a Dutch ship. He likes this vessel more than his old sloop and trades up, naming her Flying Dragon and hoisting a black flag decorated with three skulls and crossed bones.

Heading back to the New World, Condent begins cruising off Brazil, taking Portuguese ships and torturing their crews. His ruthlessness earns him a reputation but he is clever enough to continue taking prizes in the area by pretending to be a harmless and friendly English merchant. Eventually his tactics earn him a firefight with a Portuguese warship, and Gosse tells us that Flying Dragon is lucky to escape.

Condent sets a course for the Indian Ocean and arrives at the island of Johanna near Madagascar. Here he runs into the former crew of Captain John Halsey who died in 1716. These men were probably happy to join Condent, and Flying Dragon proceeded to take more than one East Indiaman, using the nearby Ile Sainte-Marie as a base of operations.

It appears that the greatest prize of Condent’s piratical career was a galley carrying the Viceroy of Goa. What became of the official is not mentioned, but Gosse indicates that Condent and company took their prize to Zanzibar where “they plundered her of a large amount of money.”

Back home on Sainte-Marie, Condent seems to have second thoughts about piracy. He pays off his men, some of whom chose to settle on the island. Condent and a few others petition the French Governor on Mauritius for a pardon. The Governor is amenable as long as the pirates will break up their ship when they arrive on his island. This they do and they are allowed to settle down. Christopher Condent, now on the straight and narrow, courts and marries the Governor’s sister-in-law.

“A few years later,” Gosse says in summing up his entry on Condent. “The captain and his wife left the island and sailed to France, settling at Saint Malo, where Condent drove a considerable trade as a merchant.”

A rare and curiously happy ending to the story of another brutal freebooter.

Header: Replica of Christopher Condent’s flag via Black Flag Trading Co.

The Pirates Own Book: When Charles Ellms Met Henry Avery

Most of the stories told of our favorite pirates have trouble at the beginning. No one is really sure where the gentleman rover in question came from. What is more certain is the grisly death met by the dread fellow; from Bartholomew Roberts to Jean Laffite, from Francois L’Olonnais to Thomas Tew, spilled blood and guts come before the end of the story. In other it must be said less frequent cases, the pirate in question fades from history never to be seen or heard from again. From Christopher Condent to that fiction about the Laffite brothers, they simply stop being pirates and “blend in”. Henry Avery was among those “lost to history”, but Charles Ellms tells us that was not at all the case.


In The Pirates Own Book, Ellms begins his chapter on Avery with the usual story of the Captain’s exceeding wealth and marriage to the Great Mogul’s daughter thanks to his capture of one of the ruler’s treasure ships. Ellms quickly sets us straight, however, by informing us that Avery was “… actually starving without a shilling” at the time of his death.

Ellms then launches into the usual routine. Avery was born in Devonshire, he tells us, and went to sea in merchant ships at an early age. Avery was mate aboard the vessel of Captain Gibson when, in 1715, he began to foment mutiny among his fellows. He clearly had the itch to go a-pirating and the rest of the crew, according to Ellms, was just as eager. Gibson was fond of the bottle and one night when he was sleeping off a drunk, Avery and his men cut the ship’s cable and headed out from Corunna in the West Indies. When Gibson awoke, Avery informed him that he had taken over the ship. “You must know that I am captain of this ship now, and this is my cabin, therefore you must walk out; I am bound for Madagascar, with a design of making my own fortune, and that of all the brave fellows joined with me.”

Gibson decides against joining Avery, and is set on shore with a small group of like-minded sailors.

Once in the waters around Madagascar, Avery recruits the captains of two armed sloops to join him in his pirating venture. They form a little flotilla and take a galley of the aforementioned Mogul in the Indian Ocean. The ship is bound for Mecca where the Mogul’s daughter is making a pilgrimage, and it is packed to the gunnels with more riches than can reasonably be imagined. As Ellms points out: “It is a well known fact that people of the east travel with great magnificence…”

Avery and his cohorts plunder the ship of all its wealth and the ship limped home to India where the Mogul immediately protested to the British government. “The noise which this made over all Europe,” Ellms says, “gave birth to the rumors that were circulating concerning Avery’s greatness.”

Meanwhile, Avery was duping the two captains of those sloops out of their share of the Mogul’s treasure. Through assurances of his own ship’s superior sailing and fighting power, he led these captains to understand that their booty would be better off aboard him. When they agreed and transferred their wealth, Avery sailed for the West Indies under cover of night, leaving the unfortunate captains behind.

Convincing his men that their wealth would now allow them to live like kings ashore, Avery first considered settling at New Providence. He then moved on to Boston but was concerned that he would not be able to sell the gems of the Great Mogul without raising suspicions. He sailed for Ireland and eventually ended up in Brideford, Devonshire, according to Ellms.

At this point, most historians agree that further information on what became of Avery is unattainable, but Charles begs to differ. In a wonderful plot twist – which the reader has to hope wasn’t true – he has Avery casting about Devonshire trying to sell his cache of diamonds. “When he unbosomed himself to [a speculator] and other pretended friends,” these men, posing as merchants, assured Avery that they could sell his treasure for the highest possible price. Leaving a deposit with former pirate, they took the diamonds and disappeared with no intention of returning. As Ellms so eloquently puts it: “… the merchants thus proving themselves as good pirates on land as [Avery] was at sea.”

The end of this story is poignant in the extreme. Avery sets out for Ireland in search of the con men. Having no luck, he is reduced to walking home to Brideford from Plymouth. “He had been there but a few days, when he fell sick and died; not being worth so much as would buy him a coffin!”

Thus the man once known as Long Ben and “the Arch Pyrate” ended up buried in a paupers’ field in Devonshire. Or so Charles Ellms tells us.

Header: Captain Avery receiving the three chests of Treasure on board his Ship from The Pirates Own Book

History: The Baratarians Pardoned

On February 6, 1815, the President of the United States did something that had not much been thought of prior to that date. Upon the recommendation of a man who, seemingly overnight, had become a national hero, President Madison pardoned en mass the men who had contributed – according to Andrew Jackson – so much to the victory at New Orleans that ended the War of 1812. Madison put pen to paper and, in one sweeping gesture, welcomed every Baratarian who served under Jackson into the fold of U.S. citizens. Prices on heads were dropped and warrants for arrest were sent to the trash heap; men who once hid in the shadows could now walk freely among their fellows. Here is the proclamation as quote in The Pirate's Own Book by Charles Ellms:


By the President of the United States of America, A Proclamation: Among the many evils produced by the wars, which with little intermission have afflicted Europe, and extended their ravages into other quarters of the globe, for a period exceeding twenty years, the dispersion of a considerable portion of the inhabitants of different countries, in sorrow and in want, has not been the least injurious to human happiness, nor the least severe in the trial of human virtue.

It had been long ascertained that many foreigners, flying from the dangers of their own home, and that some citizens, forgetful of their duty, had co-operated in forming an establishment on the island of Barrataria [sic], near the mouth of the river Mississippi, for the purpose of a clandestine and lawless trade. The government of the United States caused the establishment to be broken up and destroyed; and, having obtained the means of designating the offenders of every description, it only remained to answer the demands of justice by inflicting an exemplary punishment.

But it has since been represented that the offenders have manifested a sincere penitence; that they have abandoned the prosecution of the worst cause for the support of the best and, particularly, that they have exhibited, in the defense of New Orleans, unequivocal traits of courage and fidelity. Offenders, who have refused to become the associates of the enemy in the war, upon the most seducing terms of invitation; and who have aided to repel his hostile invasion of the territory of the United States, can no longer be considered as objects of punishment, but as objects of a generous forgiveness.

It has therefore been seen, with great satisfaction, that the General Assembly of the State of Louisiana earnestly recommend those offenders to the benefit of full pardon. And in compliance with that recommendation, as well as in consideration of all the other extraordinary circumstances in the case, I, James Madison, President of the United States of America, do issue this proclamation, hereby granting, publishing and declaring, a free and full pardon of all offences committed in violation of any act or acts of the Congress of the said United States, touching the revenue, trade and navigation thereof, or touching the intercourse and commerce of the United States with foreign nations, at any time before the eighth day of January, in the present year one thousand eight hundred and fifteen, by any person or persons whatsoever, being inhabitants of New Orleans and the adjacent country, or being inhabitants of the said island of Barrataria, and the places adjacent; Provided, that every person, claiming the benefit of this full pardon, in order to entitle himself thereto, shall produce a certificate in writing from the governor of the State of Louisiana, stating that such person has aided in the defense of New Orleans and the adjacent country, during the invasion thereof as aforesaid.

And I do hereby further authorize and direct all suits, indictments, and prosecutions, for fines, penalties, and forfeitures, against any person or persons, who shall be entitled to the benefit of this full pardon, forthwith to be stayed, discontinued and released: All civil officers are hereby required, according to the duties of their respective stations, to carry this proclamation into immediate and faithful execution.

Done at the City of Washington, the sixth day of February, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifteen, and of the independence of the United States the thirty-ninth. By the President, James Madison. James Monroe, Acting Secretary of State.

According to Winston Groom in his unfortunately historically flawed – he relies heavily on the so called “Diary of Jean Lafitte” written by Laffite maniac John Lafflin – but well written book Patriotic Fire, the proclamation reached New Orleans on February 27th. The stories of what each individual Baratarian did –or didn’t do – with his Presidential pardon will continue to be told here at Triple P, and elsewhere, for a long time to come.

Header: The Battle of New Orleans via alomani.com

The Pirate's Own Book: In the Eastern Sea

Charles Ellms rarely had first hand knowledge of the pirates he wrote about in his seminal work on freebooters. Since the book was published in the 1830s, well after the threat of piracy along the coasts of North and South America had been all but eradicated, he necessarily had to count on second, third or even fourth hand accounts when writing about Christopher Condent or Edward England. The one exception to that rule in The Pirate’s Own Book is Chapter 13: “Authentic History of the Malay Pirates.” In it, Ellms states that he has witnessed these East India pirates with his own eyes, if not in action certainly upon the ocean they called home.


It is curious that this should be the area of piracy with which Ellms is most familiar. His work on pirates, though often more fantasy than reality, is considered standard reading for those who study freebooters. It seems that should also hold true for those who hunt modern pirates; aside from the Gulf of Aden, the Malaysian Archipelago is still one of the main hotbeds of piracy.

Ellms is not kind to the people of whom he writes and the taint of “western superiority” jumps off the page almost immediately. While he is careful to note that most of the tribal people along the coasts of East India Islands are law abiding citizens, he digs at certain of the groups, calling them “…barbarous and poor, therefore rapacious, faithless and sanguinary.” His recognition that the people are impoverished perhaps saves Ellms, if only just a little, from the harsh judgment of modern sympathies. In all places and times, want has driven men to actions they might not take if their families were well provided for.

The hierarchy of the pirates is simple and familiar, smacking of the Barbary corsairs of 200 years before. A wealthy chief funds the forays of the pirates, including provisioning and arming their ships, in return for a cut of the loot taken including captives, arms and any saleable goods. The pirate vessels, known as proas, according to Ellms who again has witnessed them first hand are:

… from six to eight tons burden, and run from six to eight fathoms in length. They carry from one to two small guns, with commonly four swivels or rantakas to each side, and a crew of from twenty to thirty men.

These particular pirates are not interested in chasing ships in open water but will approach a merchant vessel at anchor in groups, surround it and then get to the bloody business of boarding. Ellms tells us that they are “… upon the whole extremely impartial in the selection of their prey, making little choice between natives and strangers…” He is clear, however, that a “resolute crew of Europeans or Americans stand but little danger” from these freebooters.

Ellms does seem to sympathize with the pirates once again when he tells the story of the freebooting “prince of pirates” Raga. Rajah Raga, as he is referred to, was originally a sea captain who watched his crew drown at the hands of a European naval vessel. The westerners offered no help to the dying men and Raga “… swore anew destruction to every European he should henceforth take.” While he does not actually come out and say it, Ellms seems to understand the source of Raga’s rage, even if he does not condone it.

The last seven pages of the chapter tell the story of the Salem, Massachusetts merchant vessel Friendship, captured by Malay pirates in February, 1831. Ellms does not specifically say whether or not he was present at this event, but he happily details the bloody slaughter of Captain Endicott and a good many of his men. In the end, of course, the pirates are overcome by an unnamed U.S. Commodore who bombards the pirate port, encouraging them to surrender and give up to “punishment” those who committed aggression against the Friendship.

Ellms assessment of these pirates, who were his contemporaries, is both forward thinking and rooted in the prejudices of his era. On the one hand he notes their mistreatment by western governments and extreme poverty as reasons for their depredations of both local and foreign vessels. On the other, he writes them off as inferior and easily handled by a “resolute crew of Europeans or Americans.” It is a curious mixture of thoughts that does not come to the page anywhere else in the book.

Reading Ellms makes me wonder what our descendants, who will have so much in the form of media to judge us by, will think of our mores and attitudes some two hundred years in the future. The thought slips away pretty quickly though; I’m fairly certain I already know the answer.

Header: A Piratical Proa in Full Chase from The Pirate’s Own Book

Horror on the High Seas: Devil

The English word “devil” originated with the Greek word diabolos. This word in Greek did not mean some imp or demon but a slanderer (dia – across combined with ballein – to throw). The act of slander in Ancient Greek culture, and later in Rome as well, was so heinous that the word quite literally became demonized. By the medieval period it had morphed into the Middle English devil, a limb of Satan and later still Devil, Satan himself.


Sailors, much like any group of people who live and work in hostile and potentially deadly conditions, tend to both laugh at and fear evil. Use of the word “devil” and calling upon the Devil are not uncommon at sea, or at least they weren’t. When times are really tough, the essence of evil may be more helpful than the essence of sanctity. And, aside perhaps from Saint Brendan, there has rarely in any history been a saintly sailor.

Devil bolts are those with false clenches. As The Sailor’s Word Book notes, they were often used in contract built ships. They were ill thought of among blue water seamen and usually replaced fairly quickly once the ship was afloat.

A devil’s claw is a very strong split hook used for grasping chain cable. Devil is priming made by wetting and bruising black powder. Caulkers called the water line on a ship the devil, probably because it was the hardest part of the vessel to make air tight.

Devil is also used in weather signals and signs. Devil’s smiles are patches of sunshine streaming down through dark clouds, a sure sign that better weather is on the way. Sometimes the officer in charge – and particularly the captain – was said to have “the Devil’s smile”, considered a good sign that a prize might be in the offing. The Devil’s tablecloth is a particular portend of a south-easter off the Cape of Good Hope, where condensation from the impending storm forms a patch of fleecy cloud at the top of Table Mountain.

Devilry is the act of wanton trouble that is only inches from crossing over into crime. Sailors ashore, particularly after a long time at sea, were notorious for drunken devilry.

Men said that there was the Devil to pay and no pitch hot when there was necessary work to be done and no one stepping up to do it. This was also a phrase that indicated impatience with no outlet; rather an old sea-going form of “all dressed up with no place to go”.

Of course, it probably goes without saying that a sailor can all too easily be caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea. That term’s origin has been a source of debate for years but everyone understands its meaning well enough as we’ve all been there in one way or another.

Finally, in the very worst of circumstances and particularly in a vicious storm, an offering might be made to the Devil. In a gale that had torn his fore and main topmasts away, Charles Ellms tells us that the pirate Captain Lewis “… tore off a handful of hair and throwing it into the air used this expression, good devil, take this till I come.” Lewis must have had the Devil’s ear; despite the loss of his topmasts, he overtook the prize he was chasing.

Header: Sea Devil from a medieval manuscript

The Pirates Own Book: Bloody Vikings

The first chapter in Charles Ellms’ now famous tome is entitled “Danish and Norman Pirates”. In it, Mr. Ellms sets himself the daunting task of cataloguing the general history of the Viking hordes from the dawn of the Dark Ages to the beginning of the Crusades. Considering that he’s covering something in the neighborhood of 1,000 years of complex history, I have to say he does a rather impressive job.


This chapter differs quite a bit from the others, which are more specific to an individual freebooter. Here, Ellms attempts a dissection of not only the Viking culture and what made them head out to far flung places in search of land and pillage but also the socio-economic outcome of the period they dominated. A huge task that could be – and has been – sorely under-evaluated in a text of hundreds of pages is nicely boiled down to just one chapter.

Ellms starts with the Saxons who he says carried out many depredations in the “German Ocean”. Here he seems to imply, although he does not come out and say, that the barbarian Saxons were the direct ancestors of the Scandinavian Vikings. This is a curious theory that I am not familiar with in modern research but it may have been a pre-Victorian mainstay of general history. On the other hand, Ellms is very confident in his theories throughout the four hundred plus pages of The Pirates Own Book, so this idea might fall into that category.

At any rate, Ellms spends no more than a page on the Saxons before moving on to the adventures of the lady pirate Alwilda whose objection to an arranged marriage with Alf, prince of Denmark, led her to a life of piracy.

Charlemagne is next on the list and here Ellms, quite courageously for his era, castigates the Holy Roman Emperor for his barbaric treatment of pagans in his lands. Ellms proposes that Charlemagne’s policy of “convert to Christianity or die” probably drove some northern people to retaliate, thus encouraging Viking raiding in France. As he puts it:

Another division of Normans, some years afterwards, in the same spirit of emigration and thirsting, perhaps, to avenge their injured ancestors, burst into the provinces of France, which the degeneracy of Charlemagne’s posterity… rendered an affair of no great difficulty.

Ellms talks us through the Viking sieges of Paris and the outrageous sums of money paid to Viking marauders by monarchs like Pepin and Charles the Bald. These ransoms, bribes and tributes, which became known as the Danegelt in England, were very similar to the tributes demanded by North African states prior to the First and Second Barbary Wars.

Alfred of England, who Ellms clearly admires, is highlighted as the first conqueror of Vikings who had settled on his soil “This prince,” Ellms notes, “too wise to exterminate the pirates after he had conquered them, sent them to settle Northumberland… and by this humane policy gained their attachment and serviced.” It would all be for naught when that other descendant of Vikings, William of Normandy, showed up at England’s door.

The Vikings continue to rove and, though Ellms does not touch on their forays into the New World, he does follow them to Russia. From here they descend on Constantinople, where they are “… only… repulsed by the dreadful effects of the celebrated Greek fire.”

By the time the Crusades are in the offing, piracy has become an interest of wealthy coastal lords, particularly in England. The famous Cinque Ports ships are not only preyed upon but take up their own depredations of any unfortunately unarmed vessel they may happen upon. Ellms tells us that Henry the III tried to put these practices down but could do very little in the face of Simon de Montfort’s private fleet which sacked and burned Portsmouth in the mid-13th century.

The rush to the Holy Land caused by the Crusades turns maritime interest to the business of getting men, arms and livestock to the East. This shift in focus allows for the rise of the Barbary corsairs and in turn the Maltese pirates who fought them. Ellms ends his chapter with a short lecture on how the Crusades, though a political disaster, were in fact a social boon. They allowed the West to not only improve itself through the acquisition of forgotten knowledge but also they broke down the crushing feudal system:

… thus taming the ferocity of men’s spirits, increasing agriculture in value from the safety it enjoyed and establishing a base for permanent prosperity.

Well, at least until the Black Death – born on stout ships – showed up to really change things.

Header: A Priest thrown from the Ramparts of an Abbey from The Pirates Own Book

The Pirates Own Book: Bloody Gow

Charles Ellms devotes a scant four pages in The Pirate’s Own Book to the notorious Captain Gow, and one of those is taken up by the illustration above. His focus in documenting Gow seems to be, not the man himself who is a shadowy figure in the annals of piracy, but cataloguing the prizes he took in his brief career. The second focus is the miserable torture Gow was subjected to upon his capture, and his final avoidance of the worst sort of punishment England was handing out at the time. Of course, this is not surprising for Ellms.


Most historians agree that Gow, whose Christian name is usually given as John, was of Scottish origin. While he probably began his career at sea as a boy, Ellms picks up his story when he is leading a mutiny aboard the merchant George in July of 1724. The mutineers called their captain on deck at night with the distress of a man overboard. When the captain hurried to the rail, they tried to toss him into the sea. The captain fought valiantly, clinging to the forechains even after being wounded, but Gow dispatched him with an axe. Gow was named captain, and the mutinous crew turned to piracy.

It is worth noting that Ellms has Gow telling his men just at this moment that he will brook no treachery or disobedience:

… let every such man depend upon it that he shall certainly go the same way as those that are just gone before.

Gow immediately sets to work taking prizes and Ellms dutifully lists the cargoes therein as if he were a purser completing a manifest. By the next page it is May of 1725 and Gow has the George in port in the Orkney Islands. Here, he and his men are “… apprehended by a gentleman of that country…” and taken to London to stand trial at the Admiralty Court. When brought into court Gow “… obstinately refused to plead, for which the Court ordered his thumbs tied together with whipcord.” This torture, a relative of the thumbscrews, is endured repeatedly by Gow who continues to refuse to plead.

According to English law at the time, a lack of a plea meant that a trial could not commence. It did not, however, mean that the court could not order you put to death or – at the very least – tortured until you made a plea. Gow was sentenced to return to prison and be “… pressed to death.”

This misery, known in Medieval times as “severe and hard punishment” was almost routine and is describe by Geoffrey Abbott in Rack, Rope and Red-Hot Pincers:
The prisoner… [shall be] put in a mean room, stopped from the light and shall there be laid on the bare ground… without garment about him except something about his middle… Then there shall be laid upon his body as much iron or stone as he can bear, and more.

Usually a board was laid over the prisoner before the weights began to be piled on. People survived this hideous ordeal for days on end, slowly crushed to death.

Gow, taken into the “mean room” and shown the instruments of torture decided immediately to drop his obstinacy and plead not guilty. By this time the trials of his mates had been completed and it was short work for the court to convict Gow along with the rest.

Gow was hanged in June of 1725. He was another pirate whose noose broke and who had to ascend the gibbet twice before his execution was complete. Curiously, this is something that Ellms leaves out of his telling, choosing instead to ramble about two other pirates named Weaver and Smith who did not appear in the piece previously. Just one more quirk to appreciate about The Pirate’s Own Book.


Header: Gow killing the Captain from The Pirate’s Own Book

The Pirates Own Book: "A Great Villain"

Charles Vane was one of those who stole away the silver which the Spaniards had fished up from the wrecks of the galleons in the Gulf of Florida, and was at Providence when governor Rodgers arrived there with two men-of-war.


Thus begins the 22nd chapter in Charles Ellms’ The Pirates’ Own Book entitled “The Exploits, Arrest and Execution of Captain Charles Vane”. This particular chapter is surprisingly accurate in its brief retelling of the life a Vane, an Englishman who began his piratical career under Captain Henry Jennings. Jennings is most noted for his 1716 attacks on Spanish wrackers who were pulling up the riches lost when their treasure fleet sunk off the coast of Florida in 1715.

Ellms is usually pretty shy about giving specific dates but he speaks of Vane being at the helm of his own ship by May of 1718. He goes on to note that Vane arrived at New Providence, The Bahamas just as the new Governor was sailing into the bay to put down piracy. Vane, who refused to take the King’s pardon, sailed out to the Caribbean again “… with their piratical colors flying, and fired at one of the men-of-war.” Though in the end Vane would be branded a coward by his own men, he started his pirate career with a defiant lack of reverence for any authority.

Ellms tells us that Vane and his men went out on a prize-taking spree and, as usual, details each prize as if he has a checklist in front of him. In short order, though:

… Vane went to a small island and cleaned; where he shared the booty and spent some time in a riotous manner.

By the end of the summer Vane is leading a small flotilla of prizes that he has given to his various lieutenants to command. Ellms notes that Vane “… always treated his consorts with very little respect…” and his attitude begins to rankle among the men in charge of these ships. The men “…caballed together…” and determined to part with Vane as soon as an opportunity arose. Led by Captain Yeates, the ships did just that and headed for the outer banks south of Charleston in what is now South Carolina. It is here that Yeates petitions for the King’s pardon and in the process appears to inform the Royal Navy of Vane’s favorite hunting grounds.

One Colonel Rhet is dispatched to find Vane and bring him to justice but he was given false information by a merchant ship previously taken by Vane. This was not through any fault of the seaman aboard the merchant but in fact a clever ruse by Vane: he had fed his prisoners incorrect information on purpose. As usual with Ellms, the plot thickens.

Meanwhile, heading in the opposite direction from Rhet, Vane has met up with Blackbeard himself, Edward Teach. Both pirates having had good luck with prizes, they decide to take a break from plundering “… and mutual civilities passed between them for some days.”

Back out at sea in October, Vane’s ship meets a French man-of-war. Though Vane and his First Lieutenant Robert Deal want no part of the Frenchman, quartermaster Jack Rackam and several members of the crew argue otherwise. Though the French Navy ship is avoided, the discussion turns to argument and Rackam accuses Vane of cowardice. A vote is called for and the majority decide with Rackam, who is made captain in Vane’s stead.

Vane and his few remaining followers, including Deal, are given a provisioned sloop and sent off on their own. They head for the Bay of Honduras and have a little luck there, finally deciding to winter at the Island of Barnacho. Setting out in February, Vane’s sloop is hit by a hurricane and wrecked. Ellms tells us that “most” of the men drown but that Vane survived “… reduced to great straits for want of necessaries.”

In fact Vane’s sloop did wreck off Honduras and he and one other man were cast ashore on an unpopulated island where they survived alone for some time. Ellms adds a nice twist to this final stretch in Vane’s career by having a ship captained by an old “acquaintance” of Vane’s put in at the little island for water. Captain Holford immediately recognizes Vane but refuses to rescue him saying:

“Charles, I shan’t trust you aboard my ship unless I carry you as a prisoner, for I shall have you caballing with my men, knocking me on the head, and running away with my ship pirating.”

Vane, of course, wants no part of being taken prisoner and makes a show of outrage at Holford’s accusation. A rather amusing exchange ensues in which Vane asks Holford how he should get off the island and Holford tells him to steal a fishing dory from one of the locals. When Vane says he couldn’t steal a boat Holford replies:

“Do you make it a matter of conscience… to steal a dory, when you have been a common robber and pirate, stealing ships and cargoes, and plundering all mankind that fell in your way? Stay here if you are so squeamish!”

The point is well made but this entire interlude appears, unfortunately, to be a piece of fiction. Needless to say, Holford sails away leaving Vane to argue with his conscience. Another ship soon appears and rescues Vane but the pirate’s luck has run out. Wouldn’t you know that this ship’s captain is a close acquaintance of Captain Holford, and that the two friends’ ships meet, and that the captains get together for a meal, and I’m quite certain you can figure the rest out.

In fact Vane was rescued only to be recognized by one of the rescuing ship’s crew who served on a merchant taken by Vane in the not so distant past. Either way, Vane is brought in to Jamaica, tried and hanged along with his friend and former first mate Deal. Ellms ends this chapter with the thought that:

It is clear from this how little ancient friendship will avail a great villain, when he is deprived of the power that had before supported and rendered him formidable.


Header: Vane arrested by Captain Holford from The Pirates Own Book via Project Guttenberg

The Pirates Own Book: The Dread Pirate Davis

One of the most endearing things about Charles Ellms is his certainty in his facts. As a writer, he is solid, even emphatic, about every story he tells. The tales in his The Pirates Own Book are one hundred percent true if you base that statement solely on the sincerity of the writing. Even the fact that the book is over 150 years old does not cloud his certitude. Given all that, it is at least a little bit of a let down to find out that Ellms’ information is, for the most part, flawed.

Those flaws come across most clearly in chapters about pirates whose careers we are most familiar with. Take, as an example, Howell Davis. This Golden Age of Piracy freebooter is probably most famous for mentoring one of the most successful pirates of all time: Bartholomew Roberts. Davis was, by all accounts, an intelligent opportunist who liked to masquerade as a legitimate privateer or pirate hunter to get into the good graces of local authorities. Unfortunately though, he tried this trick once too often and got burned. Let’s look at the chronology of this short but merry life as Ellms lays it out, and then backtrack a little.

According to Ellms, Davis came out of Monmouthshire and was “… from a boy, trained to the sea”. He had his first brush with freebooting aboard the merchant sloop Cadogan when she was captured by pirates. The raiders killed Cadogan’s captain and installed Davis in his place. Though Davis would later claim to have been forced into piracy, it was the crew of his new command that rebelled against the idea. Arriving in Barbados with the ship’s cargo in tact, the crew ratted out Davis to the authorities saying he tried to exhort them to piracy. Davis was jailed but was later “… discharged without trial.”

Davis made for New Providence, which he had heard was a hotbed of piracy. He was a day late and a dollar short, however. By the time he arrived new Governor Woodes Rogers had rounded up any wayward pirates who would not accept the King’s pardon. Undaunted, Davis signed aboard Rogers’ own Buck as an able seamen. Once he found that a number of his mates were former pirates, he instigated a mutiny, set those who did not care to join him aboard a companion sloop and made for Martinique. Davis was duly elected captain and, after “… a short and appropriate speech” which was a rousing “… proclamation of war with the whole world” the men set out a-pirating.

As is typical with Ellms, a laundry list of engagements and prizes commences in the prose. Davis trades up to larger and larger ships with more and more guns, eventually captaining a flagship he named King James that could easily pass for an English sloop-of-war. He then crosses the Atlantic to the West African coast, planning raids on the wealthy forts of the Portuguese.

Several of the raids come off literally without a hitch. The general MO has Davis and a few of his officers dressing as gentlemen and going ashore to present themselves to the local Governor. Once the dignitary is comfortable that Davis is legitimate – either as privateer or pirate hunter – the wine begins to flow. Davis sends a signal to his men, the fort is captured with little resistance, and an orgy of pillaging and rapine ensues.

This general pattern continues until, after meeting up with an English pirate named Cochlyn and a French corsair named La Boise, Davis reveals his plans to attack the large fort at Sierra Leon. The two other pirates want no part of the scheme and sail off. After some entanglements, including the taking of the ship that would become Bartholomew Roberts’ Rover, Davis sets his sights on the Isle of Princes. Here he takes a French ship in the bay of Acra, claiming she was suspected of piracy and then sends his respects to the local Governor. This time, however, he invites the man and his retinue to dine aboard his ship.

The change in approach did not serve Davis well. Ellms tells us that a slave from the captured Frenchman manages to jump ship, swim to shore and worn the Governor of Davis’ plans to clap him in chains and hold him for ransom. When the Governor does not appear for dinner, the decision is made to attack the fort outright. The pirates storm the walls with Davis leading them but the Portuguese are ready for the attack. Davis is stuck, “… mortally wounded by a musket ball in his belly.” His men, confused and disheartened, drag their commander and the others who have been wounded back their ship. Meanwhile the Portuguese continue to pursue them, firing muskets as the pirates attempt to reboard their vessel.

In the end, Davis dies and his men sail away. As Ellms so eloquently ends this chapter:

And those on board, who expected to hoist in treasure had to receive naught but their wounded comrades and dead commander.

At no point does Ellms mention young Bartholomew Roberts, perhaps because Roberts is curiously altogether missing from The Pirates Own Book. Aside from that omission, the most glaring fiction in the chapter is the dramatic death of Howell Davis.

The pirate, who is thought to have been born in Wales, was indeed killed by the Governor of Principe’s men but he did not go down valiantly leading his men in battle. In fact he was ambushed and ingloriously slaughtered while out on the town with a few of his crew. This miserable death of someone he obviously admired so enraged Roberts that, once he was elected captain by his mates, he bombarded the capital of Principe. He sailed away without a scratch, leaving devastation and death behind him. As so often happens, the truth is more exciting and grisly than fiction.

Header: Retreat of the Pirates and Death of Captain Davis from The Pirates Own Book

Books: The Short List

It flatters me somewhat to have had more than one request to have a list of nautical books I would recommend posted here at Triple P. Being of the writing persuasion myself, I’d hope that someone in my shoes would recommend my book (when it comes out that is) and I’m heartened to know that someone wants my opinion on such a very dear subject.

In the interest of simplicity, here’s the short list in three categories. A brief explanation of the book’s inclusion on the list accompanies the title (hopefully I can keep it brief; I want very much to sing about some of these).

Nonfiction:

These are books I use for research for my novels and for my fact-based writing including Triple P:

The Searover’s Practice, The Buccaneers Realm, The Pirate Hunters, all three by Benerson Little and published by Potomac Books. Little is not only an accomplished writer and researcher but a former Navy Seal as well. His insight into pirating is superb although his descriptions of much of the technical end of sailing and weaponry could be a little hard to follow without some background knowledge of both. While the first two books are personal favorites the last one was a bit disappointing for me. Any book about pirate hunting that 1) calls the Laffite brothers and their associates sorry excuses for freebooters, writing them off in one paragraph and 2) does not even bother to mention David Porter and his Mosquito Fleet is missing the boat. Pun intended.

The Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf by William C. Davis published by Harcourt. I’ve said it before: this is far and away the best book ever published on the Laffite brothers. If there is a fault here it’s Davis’ overt “pro Pierre” stance by which he almost turns Jean into a knuckle-dragging thug good only for keeping the riff raff in line, but that may be a symptom of how very little attention history has given Pierre. Well written, exhaustively researched and a must for anyone interested in the Baratarians.

Under A Black Flag by David Cordingly published by Harcourt Brace. Cordingly’s book is the final word on Golden Age piracy, easily separating fact from fiction. The only drawback here is the author’s clear contempt for the rogues he’s writing about.

The History of Pirates by Angus Konstam published by The Lyons Press. There’s a lot of information here so the individual profiles of pirates are necessarily short but Konstam is an excellent writer and knowledgeable historian and his book is a great jumping off point for further research. As an added bonus, it is full of wonderful illustrations.

She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea by Joan Druett published by Touchstone. Druett is a sailor of the first order and her book is crammed with interesting historical tidbits about women at sea, from pirates to lighthouse keepers to prostitutes.

Jack Aubrey Commands: An Historical Companion to the Naval World of Patrick O’Brian by Brian Lavery published by Naval Institute Press. This is the definitive book on the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic wars and it is written without the unnecessary use of “sailor speak”. The illustrations are also gorgeous.

Empire of Blue Water by Stephan Talty published by Crown. The book that changed my mind about Henry Morgan, Talty’s biography is part history, part imagination and all swashbuckling good time. Excellent reading for any fan of adventure, history, buccaneers and/or the sea.

Fiction:

The Matty Graves novels by Broos Campbell published by McBooks Press. Written in the spirit of Marryat, Forester and O’Brian, but translated to America. Campbell’s novels follow the adventures of their narrator, Lieutenant Matthew Graves, USN, beginning around 1802. These are stay-up-all-night novels with strong characters, gripping action and accurate detail.

Anything by Frederick Marryat, C.S. Forester and in particular Patrick O’Brian. Marryat is, of course, the original. He entered the Royal Navy in 1806 under then Captain Thomas Cochrane and wrote of his adventures in a number of novels with great names like Mr. Midshipman Easy and Peter Simple. Forester created Horatio Hornblower and followed his exploits through 11 books. O’Brian, it goes without saying, wrote the Aubrey/Maturin novels and, in my humble opinion, nothing has matched them since.

The Pirates Own Book by Charles Ellms published by The Marine Research Society and online via Guttenberg. Rip roaring, old time pirate action full of spice and bloodshed. A book to lose yourself in.

For Kids and Parents:

What If You Met a Pirate? written and illustrated by Jan Adkins and published by Roaring Book Press. I love this book for the illustrations alone but the history is accurate, easy to understand and great for preschoolers as well as younger readers. The sketch of the guy on the head always makes me chuckle.

Eyewitness Pirate from Dorling Kindersley. As with all the Eyewitness books, great illustrations, good information and an easy to use format. My daughters have used this and other Eyewitness books for reports and papers more than once to great success.

Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stephenson available from various publishers. Seriously, if you and your children haven’t read this one it’s time for a trip to the bookstore. Like now.

Looking back on this list it is obvious to me that it is lacking, but that’s enough for now. Remember, real books with pages are not without benefit. Libraries and local bookstores and shelves in homes with real books in them lead to a life long love of reading and a memory of history. Those are two things the whole World could use, I reckon.

Header: Illustration by Howard Pyle for his Book of Pirates c 1896

The Pirates Own Book: Captain White

"The Life, Career and Death of Captain Thomas White” is the 20th chapter in The Pirates Own Book by Charles Ellms. I can find very little documentation of a pirate named White in and around the waters of Madagascar during that island’s piratical heyday (the late 17th and very early 18th centuries), but the story as Ellms tells it has value in the broad sense. Though the twenty pages devoted to White’s life read more like a local travel brochure than anything else, the main theme has a ring of unusually common truth.

According to Ellms, White was born in Plymouth, England. His father is never mentioned but evidently his mother kept “a public house” so we can reasonably assume that she ran a tavern and inn which probably catered to sailors and dockworkers. Mrs. White “took great care” with her son’s education and, when he announced his intention to go to sea, she “procured him the king’s letter”. White served aboard a man-of-war and then joined the merchant service, eventually taking command of a brig. He moved to Barbados and married, but his intentions to settle down in the Caribbean never bore fruit.

Instead, while sailing off the Guinea coast of Africa, his ship was taken by French pirates. These men were the picture of barbarous terrorists. Ellms, insinuating himself into his prose on a number of occasions in this particular chapter, tells us:

…I beg leave to take notice of their barbarity to the English prisoners, for they would set them up as a butt or mark to shoot at; several of whom were thus murdered in cold blood, by way of diversion.

White himself was marked for death but saved by a friend he had made aboard the corsair. The Frenchmen, being as drunk and incompetent as they are sadistic, manage to run their ship aground and sink it off Madagascar. White finds a friend ashore in another captain named Boreman and the two, along with a Captain Bowen, take a boat from local natives and make with their remaining crews for St. Augustine Bay. Here they are welcomed by a native king who, evidently tiring of feeding them, eventually pawns them off on a passing pirate ship captained by William Read. In this way, White begins his pirating career, as Ellms says, “…before the mast, being a forced man from the beginning.”

This is probably the most historically accurate observation in the entire chapter. Pirates, privateers and those straddling the invisible fence that separated the two frequently found themselves short of men. A prize ship worth keeping would need to be manned and, in the case of legitimate commissions, sent back to the prize courts for legal libel so that its goods, and possibly even the ship, could be sold. The idea of “forcing” men into service aboard them was in no way unusual for pirates. Ellms’ White, though he is referred to as “Captain”, is actually the picture of a typical jack in the wrong place at the wrong time who ends up a pirate without his consent.

Captain Read is lucky not only in the Indian Ocean but in the Red Sea as well. At one point the pirates come into contact with a French slaver and, boarding her as friends, are asked to dine. When gunplay erupts, the French Captain and his men rather amusingly try to stab one of the pirates at table with their forks. As Ellms tells it, “… but they being silver, did him no great damage.” This is why you can’t have nice things at sea! Needless to say the French ship is taken as prize and the Captain and some of his crew are given a small boat.

The successes continue to rack up while White toils away before the mast. At one point a young sailor named Hugh Man aboard the British slaver Speaker is bribed to wet the priming on his ship’s guns so that, when Read’s ship attacks, Speaker cannot answer. The humor of both the sailor’s name and that of his ship is a puzzle. Whether or not it was intentional is something only Ellms himself could speak to.

Captain Read seems to get a little full of himself after his success with Speaker which he fits out with 54 guns, 240 men and 20 slaves. Landing at “Zanguebar” his men go off to the “public houses” while he accepts an invitation from the local governor. The entire thing is a trap. Read and his entourage are killed by the governor’s men while the rest of the pirate crew is picked off as they flee toward their ship. Some of the men manage to escape in a smaller vessel where they elect Bowen as their Captain and make for the Red Sea to continue their piracy. White is evidently among them but Ellms does not return to him immediately.

Bowen leads his crew to great success in the Red Sea where the Mogul treasure ships sailed back and forth from Arabia to India. Eventually, with over 500 pounds each, Bowen’s crew decides to disperse. On St. Mary’s Island White is elected Captain of one of the groups and he proposes returning “home”. This is the first and last mention of what must have been White’s fond desire to see his wife and Barbados again. His crew, however, is eager for further booty and they return to the Indian Ocean in search of same.

The rest of the chapter is a catalogue of prizes, each it seems more grand than the last. White eventually is back “before the mast” under Captain John Halsey but the prize taking in no way slows down. The last paragraph wraps things up with ruthless efficiency. White returned to Madagascar after becoming ill with the flux “… which in about five or six months ended his days.” White provided for a son whom he had with a “… woman in the country” and asks that the three guardians chosen for the boy see to it that he is put aboard an English ship bound for England to “… be brought up in the Christian religion.” This done and seen to, the story simply ends.

The potential numbers of nameless “Thomas Whites” throughout the historical high points of piracy – including the one we are currently experiencing – are probably beyond imagining. Perhaps at some point the prospect of wealth or the idea of adventure sparks an interest where there never was one. Or perhaps a person simply adapts and evolves, just as all living things at sea always have.

Header: Hugh Man wetting the Priming of the Guns from The Pirates Own Book via Project Guttenberg

The Pirates' Own Book: Piratical Poetry

During this time of the year, carols are everywhere. You are only safe in your car, where your music choices are entirely your own. Even at home, the TV or radio may hit you with a “Fa la la la la” when you least expect it (and usually when you can’t do anything about it). This time of year always makes me long for an hour or two of old sea chanties.

So I thought I’d share “The Pirate’s Song” from our old mate Charles Ellms’ familiar book. The chanty is the final entry in the book and Ellms does not give the origin of the ditty or even the tune to which it should be sung. Most probably, in all fairness, it is an original poem by Ellms. The words are worth pondering either way and the sentiment is very piratical indeed; at least in the form that the idea of “piratical” has come down to modern culture filtered through the lens of Victorian imagination. Enjoy!

To the mast nail our flag it is dark as the grave,
Or the death which it bears while it sweeps o’er the wave;
Let our deck clear for action, our guns be prepared;
Be the boarding-axe sharpened, the scimitar bared;
Set the canisters ready, and then bring to me,
For the last of my duties, the powder-room key,
It shall never be lowered, the black flag we bear;
If the sea be denied us, we sweep through the air.
Unshared have we left our last victory’s prey;
It is mine to divide it, and yours to obey;
There are shawls that might suit a sultana’s white neck,
And pearls that are fair as the arms they will deck;
There are flasks which, unseal them, the air will disclose
Diametta’s fair summers, the home of the rose.
I claim not a portion: I ask but as mine –
‘Tis to drink to our victory – one cup of red wine.
Some fight, ‘tis for riches – some fight, ‘tis for fame:
The first I despise, and the last is a name.
I fight, ‘tis for vengeance! I love to see flow,
At the stroke of my sabre, the life of my foe.
I strike for the memory of long-vanished years;
I only shed blood where another shed tears.
I come, as the lightning comes red from above,
O’er the race that I loathe, to the battle I love.

Header: Pirate Captain on Deck by Howard Pyle c 1909

The Pirates Own Book: The Ghost Of Thomas Veal

The very short tale (it takes up only three pages in Charles Ellms’ book) of the Lynn Pirates reads like an autumn night’s ghost story. In fact I had planned on including it in Triple P’s popular Horror on the High Seas week but with so much misery to hand it fell by the wayside. Here it is, then, as I sit typing in the dark and listen to the icy snow tapping at my windows. A perfect yarn for this kind of morning.

The story begins with a “great earthquake” in New England. The year is 1658 and “some time previous” a vessel dropped anchor at the mouth of the Saugus River. Four men came ashore from her and beat a path into the woods. Though the villagers who lived nearby were aware of what had happened, there was no sign of the small ship the next dawn. Interestingly, a note was found at the local “Iron Works” describing a need for shackles, hatchets and “other articles of iron manufacture” that should be left at a designated spot where upon silver would be put in their place. This was done, seemingly without question, and the silver appeared as promised. A few weeks later the four men emerged from the woods and “… selected one of the most secluded and romantic spots in the woods of Saugus, for their abode.”

It is curious to me that the locals, who at such a time and place one would imagine to be deeply suspicious of interlopers, seem to have accepted the presence of the four sailors. They not only had an iron works, which seems almost unbelievable, but simply made hatchets on demand for strangers. A questionable move to my mind but perhaps I have too much “modern” skepticism.

The area around the “romantic spot” in the woods became known in short order at the Pirates’ Glen which makes it easy to imagine what the villagers thought of their new neighbors. Ellms tells us that in his own day the glen was “a lonely and desolate place”. It appears that the sailors set up shop as smugglers and their location had a particularly good view of merchant vessels going back and forth from the large ports of Salem and Boston. At some point “one of the King’s cruisers” came to the mouth of the Saugus, hauled off three of the four strangers and set sail. The neighbors speculated that the men had been taken to England to hang.

The fourth “pirate”, Thomas Veal, escaped to a cave two miles north of the glen where Ellms tells us “the pirates had previously deposited some of their plunder”. He set up a home in the cave and curiously began to work at the trade of shoemaking. Veal became known in the village, evidently, but never moved to town preferring his cave to a home on the high street. The story goes that when the earthquake hit in 1658, part of the rock outside the cave tumbled down and Veal the shoemaker, who had once been a pirate, was trapped in his unorthodox home. The cave has “… ever since been called the Pirate’s Dungeon”.

Ellms then goes into detail with regard to the area as it appeared in his own day, writing as if he himself had been there:

On an open space in front of the rock are still to be seen distinct traces of a small garden spot, and in the corner is a small well… The Pirates’ Glen, which is some distance from this, is one of Nature’s wildest and most picturesque spots, and the cellar of the pirate’s hut remains to the present time…

Though Ellms stops short of saying the place is haunted, it certainly seems like an opportune area for the specter of Thomas Veal to wander on a misty night, perhaps rattling the mysterious, locally forged chains that he paid hard silver for. A death such as his would make eternal rest very hard to come by.

Header: Dungeon Rock and the Pirate’s Cave in Lynn, Massachusetts from The Pirates’ Own Book

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

The Pirates Own Book: The Spanish Pirates

Chapter Eight of Charles Ellms’ fabulously Victorian book on the history of pirates deviates slightly from most of his others. The events catalogued in “History and Execution of the Spanish Pirates” took place from 1832 to 1835 and were therefore contemporary to Ellms himself. Unlike his musings on Roberts, Teach and Laffite, Ellms documentation of the pirates aboard the former slaver Panda would have been common knowledge in his place and time. Chapter Eight of one of my favorite books is quite literally ripped from the headlines, so to say.

This may be one of the reasons that Ellms begins with a long description of first the Panda, which he calls a “… clipper built vessel of the fairest proportions”, and then goes on to describe in detail many of the pirates featured in his story. There is Captain “Don” Pedro Gibert (who is occasionally referred to as “Gilbert” throughout the text) a Spaniard, “… the son of a grandee; a man of thirty-six years of age and exceedingly handsome, having a round face, pearly teeth, round forehead, and full black eyes, beautiful raven hair, and a great favorite with the ladies.” Captain Gibert is not the only pirate who is given such an in depth evaluation which speaks to one of my main, non-piratical interests in the book. Charles Ellms was an adherent of “physiognomy”, a neighbor if not sister “science” to phrenology that purported to be able to tell a person’s character and even their likely life path by their physical appearance. When he lauds Gibert’s fair appearance, Ellms is telling his audience that this pirate is the worst kind of bad seed: a physically beautiful person rotting with evil on the inside.

Though a number of pages are given up to description the action, when it finally gets going, is fast paced and hard core. Panda comes upon an American merchant at night in the Caribbean. At dawn on an August day in 1832 the ship, Mexican, is overtaken and the crew surrenders without a fight. The pirates ransack the merchant and, unhappy with the prize goods and the twenty thousand dollars in hard cash they find, begin beating the crew to exhort the hiding places of further treasure from them. The Captain of Mexican, a man named Butman, is quoted as saying:

… [the pirates] robbed the mate of his watch and two hundred dollas in specie, still insisting that there was more money in the hold. Being answered in the negative, the beat me severely over the back, said they knew that there was more, that they should search for it and if they found any they would cut all our throats.

From this description alone one would think that Mexican became a bloodbath. In fact, despite the torture of the crew, not a man lost his life during the hours of pillage. It was never Gibert’s intention to leave Mexican’s men alive, however. Once he and his crew were satisfied that they had all they could get in goods and money, they locked Butman and his crew below decks, set fire to a “… tub of tarred rope-yarn and what combustibles they could find about deck” and sailed off across the Atlantic.

Not all the hatches were appropriately secured and a boy in Butman’s crew managed to shimmy out and set his mates free. The fire was extinguished, just in time according to Butman, and Mexican limped back to her home port of Salem, Massachusetts. Gibert and his Pandas were now known pirates and wanted men.

American Navy ships are dispatched to hunt for Panda but she has disappeared. She reached the Guinea coast of Africa some time in November. Gibert and his men are familiar to the African King Gula whose “town” is located at the mouth of the river Nazareth. Gibert exchanges some of his specie for goods and Ellms hints at a deal for slaves being done as well. All this is made mute when the British brig of war Curlew appears on the scene and her Captain, Trotter, chases Panda up the river. The pirates bail out, scattering into the swamps. An unsuccessful attempt to blow up Panda is made by her carpenter, Francisco Ruiz.

Trotter tries negotiating with King Gula for surrender of the pirates but this only leads to long descriptive passages of the King’s looks and Trotter and his men spending some time in the King’s prison. Meanwhile the Pandas are living high on the hog out on nearby Prince’s Island. Here, Gibert doles out prize money to the tune of $300 to $500 per man and upwards of $1,000 for the officers. The good times roll but it is a fool’s paradise. When Trotter is released he mounts an attack on the island and, though the pirates put up an impressive fight, the British take Gibert and his Pandas into custody.

Britain returns the captives to America and they are hurried off to Salem for trial. The trial itself was, in fact, a major news story in the U.S. at the time. All the gory details of beatings and torture aboard Mexican came out in the courtroom and other twists made the Panda trial an O.J.-esque spectacle. The fourteen day trial was considered inordinately long. One Thomas Fuller, a victim from Mexican, attacked and struck Francisco Ruiz in court. It also came out that Panda’s first mate, Bernardo de Soto, had previously saved 70 American lives while captaining a brig called Leon making him a bit of a hero.

Most of the pirates, including de Soto, were convicted and sentenced to death but two, a cabin boy of 16 years old and a young slave who acted as cook aboard Panda were declared not guilty by reason of their youth and station. At the last minute de Soto’s Spanish wife, the lyrically named Donna Petrona Pereyra, managed to achieve a Presidential pardon for her husband from none other than Andrew Jackson himself.

The remaining pirates attempted suicide prior to hanging but only one managed to cut his throat with a shard of tin. He was quickly stitched up and, though “senseless” was hanged along side his brethren who, as Ellms notes righteously, had sailed “… under the black flag of piracy, with the motto of ‘Rob, Kill and Burn’.”

Ellms last paragraph is enlightening as well. He tells us that the Spanish Consul managed to have the bodies of the pirates secreted off to “… the Catholic burial ground in Charlestown”. And so Chapter Eight ends simply:

There being no murder committed with the piracy, the laws of the Unites States do not authorize the court to order the bodies for dissection.

The Pirates Own Book: Through The Victorian Lens

The pirates of high Barbary became a particular fascination of Americans during the tense two years when the sailors of USS Philadelphia were imprisoned and enslaved in Tripoli. Once the boys were dramatically rescued by Eaton and his Marines, they came back to the U.S. with stories of savage tortures, from dunking in sewage to forced circumcision, and countless hours of heavy labor in chains. Of course, the American populace ate it up. The Barbary pirates became the slashers/serial killers/demons of their day. They were Jason, Freddy, Jeffery Dalmer and that thing that crawled into Linda Blair in “The Exorcist” all rolled into one.

Even after the U.S. negotiated peace treaties with the North African states in 1815, the fascination didn’t die. In fact, it seems to have increased as the Victorian era gripped the country. Our old friend Charles Ellms took full advantage of this in The Pirates’ Own Book. Two of his chapters are dedicated to Barbary corsairs and their prose may actually be more purple than anywhere else in the book. I am particularly fond of Ellms’ “Sketch of the Jossamee Chief – Rahmah-ben-Jabir” which is short (a mere five pages) but hits on just about every prurient image held so dear by his audience.

According to Ellms, ben-Jabir is an Arab in control of the port town of Bushire on the Persian Gulf. He is from another city, which is just across the bay in fact, but his “…fellow citizens had the honesty… to declare him an outlaw” and he took up the profession of piracy before taking over Bushire. He is in command of five or six vessels, each crewed by two or three hundred men and beyond that he has a following of some two thousand others.

Ellms quickly points out that ben-Jabir has no more concern for his subjects' lives than he might for his enemies':

An instance is related of his having put a great number of his own crew, who used mutinous expressions, into a tank on board [his ship] in which they usually kept their water, and this being shut close at the top, the poor wretches were all suffocated, and afterwards thrown overboard.

This is a great visual to begin with and no doubt riveted Ellms’ audience. He ratchets up the horror from there by informing on ben-Jabir with regard to his personal hygiene:

The butcher chief… carried his simplicity to a degree of filthiness, which was disgusting, as his usual dress was a shirt, which was never taken off to be washed, from the time it was first put on till worn out; no drawers or coverings for the legs of any kind, and a large black goat’s hair cloak, wrapped over all with a greasy and dirty handkerchief… thrown loosely over his head.

Once again, Ellms as a storyteller is getting the most bang for his buck. For Americans in the 1830’s, a man wandering around without pants would probably have been even more off-putting than someone wrapped in goat’s hair. And given the tales of captured virgins kept in locked harems for later defilement by Barbary chiefs, the whole picture would have been both horrifying and titillating.

Ellms also, through prose claiming to be the recollections of an English visitor to Bushire named Mr. Buckingham, tells of ben-Jabir’s amazing strength. Buckingham is a Royal Navy surgeon and is shown ben-Jabir’s right arm which was injured in battle but now healed. According to the account, the Chief of Bushire had his upper arm shattered from shoulder to elbow and nearly died of infection. He recovered, though, and “… the bone fragments… worked out, and the singular appearance was left of the fore arm and elbow connected to the shoulder by flesh and skin and tendons, without the least vestige of bone.” Despite this, ben-Jabir is quite capable of wielding a dagger expertly in his right hand, with a little help from his left.

As we know, no evil goes unpunished in Ellms’ pirate tales and ben-Jabir cannot escape a cruel fate. Neighboring Arab Sheiks blockade his port and attack his fleet. All but one of ben-Jabir’s ships is put to the torch and he is blinded in the action. When he is told that surrender is his only option, he orders his men to lead him down to the powder magazine of his ship. He brings along a torch and, almost heroically, blows both himself and his ship to bits, taking some three hundred of his enemy’s men with him.

The short chapter, which might seem to modern eyes as no more than an afterthought, was tremendously popular in its day. “Sketch of the Joassamee Chief” appeared in periodicals and pamphlets in the U.S. and abroad, and was happily plagiarized by hacks on both sides of the Atlantic. When Ellms’ name appeared in the byline, it doubtless encouraged sales of his book as well. No one seems to have enjoyed being frightened from their comfortable armchairs at home more than our Victorian ancestors. No one, that is, but us.

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.