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

History: Treasure Hunting

For those of us who study the history of piracy, finding a glorious cash of sunken treasure is a dearly held dream. We want to hold what our ancestors might have held, see it up close and not through the thick glass of a museum case and maybe even wear a piece of it. In my case, I imagine a silver cross studded with ruby cabochons and suspended from a braided, silver chain. The perfect accessory for a lady privateer.


Unfortunately for we who dream, treasure hunting is purely business and treasure hunters are nothing like us. While they may give lip service to history, they’re in it for the cold, hard cash. Fiddling with a bunch of old coins is just the first step to making that money.

As an example, take this article from Mail Online about a recently found ship wrecked off the coast of the Dominican Republic some time in the 1500s. The find is, from all indications, fabulous and potentially unprecedented as the ship may be the oldest wreck yet found in the Caribbean. Digging in the silt and sand off “the northern coast” of the island (exact location will, of course, not be revealed) has not even begun yet but the treasure hunting company of Deep Blue Marine has already pulled up thousands of dollars worth of artifacts. In the article, Ray Champion, the vice president of Deep Blue, is quoted as saying:

We have just scratched the surface… All of the stuff we’ve found is just from mucking about, really.

The picture at the header, which is from the article and provided by Deep Blue Marine, gives you just a sample of the incredible things they’ve pulled up. These include 700 silver coins, jade figurines, jewelry of both New and Old World origins and the lovely pyrite mirror featured in the picture.

The article does not speak to the ship which was carrying this treasure trove in much detail. Champion speculates that it was Spanish, on its way to Spain from her New World colonies, that she was carrying some wealthy passengers and that she was small:

… around 50 to 60 feet with 25 to 45 people aboard…

This brings up some interesting questions. A smaller ship discounts the possibility that the ship was one of Spain’s vast “treasure fleet” almost invariably named after the Virgin. Such a ship would have been large and manned with hundreds of sailors. The “wealthy passengers”, however, do not discount the possibility that she was a freebooter but her destination does; no pirate in that area and period would have been headed for Spain. Given that all details about the ship – where she went down and who she actually was – are completely avoided for reasons of security, these “facts” come off as broad speculation on the part of Mr. Champion. They may be educated guesses, in fact, but it’s hard to tell without more information.

Then too there is the conflict of purpose given in the article. Champion tells the author that “We’re trying to find out what happened to this ship” just a few paragraphs after noting that the coins found so far “… could be worth millions. But they aren’t worth anything unless someone buys them.” Point taken.

Of course what Champion and his crew are doing is dangerous work, and not just because of the risks of diving in any water. Their hours are long; according to the article it takes them twelve hours “… to sail around the island to the dive site” just for starters. They also need to be constantly vigilant against potential thieves. Already a good amount of diving equipment has been stolen from one of their ships and it goes without saying that pre-Columbian jade and Renaissance jewelry would fetch quite a price on the black market. Much like Sam Bellamy in the 18th century “wracking trade”, modern pirates are not above absconding with the treasure someone else has worked hard to free from the ocean floor.

Champion blithely dismisses all that with a simple “It’s better than being stuck at a desk,” at the end of the article. That rings true to me, too. I do hope, though, that the fabulous find is looked after well and that her secrets are revealed to those of us who love the kind of history she represents. In the end, everything about her is worth more than any currency on Earth.

Seafaring Sunday: Joining the Union

April 30, 1812: Louisiana, home of some of the most notorious freebooters in history, becomes the 18th State with William Charles Cole Claiborne as her first Governor.

Header: St. Louis Cathedral and the statue of Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square, New Orleans from a 1950s postcard

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Grain

Since ships for most of recorded history have been built of wood, the properties of timber were a constant concern in a sailor’s world. The ability of wood to remain sturdy while still bending and stretching make it ideal for the stresses of sea and wind. A good sailor knew just how much his wooden ship, masts and spars were capable of, and that meant knowing the wood and her grain.


Of course timber has a grain, but the language at the dockyard differs, at least in some cases, from that used at the construction site. When a tree trunk is cut horizontally two types of grain are revealed. The silver grain is the circular pattern known as “rings” by which a tree’s age can be discerned. The bastard grain is that which radiates outward and is seen in a plank cut from the trunk vertically. Grain cut timber is that cut through the grain when the grain of the wood does not conform to the shape necessary.

A mast that has buckled is said to have had its grain upset. This is generally caused not so much by a faulty piece of wood but by an inappropriate stepping of the mast itself.

Grained powder is that which has been scraped from black powder cakes for various uses. Sometimes this is known also as corned powder and is distinct from mealed powder. A grains is a lance with five prongs used for catching fish.

Grain is also the French seamen’s word for a squall or water funnel. The term translates to English as a tornado-like weather element that is encountered in the English Channel, particularly off Normandy and Brittany. The grain is said to be preceded and followed by unusual dead calms.

A ship is said to be in the grain of another when is goes directly before it in the same direction. A bad grain is someone who is annoying or troublesome and it is also the term frequently used by sailors of the past to indicate a lawyer.

Fair winds and following seas to you this Saturday, Brethren; and do try not to go against the grain.

Header: Ship at Sea by Edward Moran

Booty: Break Out the Bubbly!

By now all the Brethren have certainly heard of the late 18th century champagne found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea last year. (If not, here’s my original post.) The bottles, hand blown and dated to around the first decade of the 19th century, were pulled up from the wreckage of the ship they were being transported on and their contents caused a bit of a sensation. Not only were the glass bottles themselves in perfect condition, so was the bubbly inside them.


Now, according to this article from Yahoo! News, two of the bottles will be up for auction in June. The historical champagne is the property of the autonomous state of Aland and the government there plans to use the proceeds to fund maritime archaeology and the upkeep of the Baltic Sea environment. They should have no problem with such funding, at least for a while, given that experts are estimating the bottles will sell for $82,000 U.S. (or 500,000 Swedish krona) each. It’s interesting to note that this estimate is up $12,000 U.S. from the original made back in July of 2010.

Experts have tasted the champagne, from other bottles of course, and have some pleasant things to say about it. The bottles up for sale are from two different champagne houses; one is Veuve Cliquot and the other Juglar, a French distiller that the article says “…closed its doors in the early 19th century”. The Veuve is said to be “… more mushrooms” in taste while the Juglar is “…sweet,” with “secondary flavors” of “leather… tobacco [and] dried fruit”. Obviously, very complex indeed. The sommeliers also opine that being in the dark and decidedly cold environment 150 feet under Baltic waters allowed the champagnes to age to their current pallet.

And there you have it, Brethren; your chance to own a little piece of history from a time when pirates and privateers plied the waters of the world and champagne was just one of their sweet rewards. In this case, if you’ve the money to spend, you can have your booty and drink it too.

Header: Champagne Ruinart by Alphonse Mucha

People: Perpetual Sidekick

The name Olivier La Bouche comes up in stories of more familiar pirates like the name of an actor who consistently plays the wingman. Howell Davis, Sam Bellamy and Bartholomew Roberts are all said to have sailed with La Bouche. After a while, it’s only natural for the curious student of piratical history to wonder about the Frenchman’s story in and of itself. Today, then, I offer what I could piece together.


Some authorities claim that La Bouche was born in France and went to sea early in life. These theories point to a birthplace on the Bay of Biscay, such as La Rochelle, while the minority put the La Bouche family in Saint-Mayo on the Channel. Judging from the dates of known events in his career, however, it is possible that Olivier (or Oliver) La Bouche may have been a native of Saint Domingue, now Haiti. This would have made him a potential son of the original boucaniers, born to be a pirate. Regardless, La Bouche was almost certainly born some time in the 1680s and at sea by the first decade of the 18th century.

We first hear of La Bouche in 1716. By this time he is captaining his own vessel when he meets up with Sam Bellamy. Bellamy, of Whydah fame, had been elected captain of the sloop Mary Anne after her former commander, Benjamin Hornigold, had been marooned by his crew for refusing to attack British ships. La Bouche, who seems to just mysteriously appear in all the stories told of him, hails Bellamy in the fall of 1716 and the two captains decide to sail in company. Whether or not they were familiar with one another prior to meeting is never revealed, but they cruised together with some success until February or March of 1717 when their ships were separated by a storm.

All these exploits took place in the Caribbean and it may be that La Bouche was using one of the French held islands such as Saint Domingue, Guadalupe or St. Kitts as a base. Whatever the case, the captain seems to have set his sights on the slave trade because we next hear of him in 1718 off the coast of Gambia in West Africa. Here La Bouche attacked Buck, the brig of pirate-masquerading-as-slaver Howell Davis. The two captains fired broadsides until both, according to legend, raised their black flags. Recognizing each other as brothers-in-arms, the ships hoisted white flags and the crews settled in to make merry and enjoy the barrels of wine taken from a recent prize. La Bouche informed Davis he was hunting for a new ship and Davis suggested they form a partnership, offering the next prize taken to La Bouche. The agreement was sealed, and the ships began to cruise the African coast.

Perhaps curiously, one of the few details that makes it into every retelling of this story is the ethnicity of La Bouche’s crew. Invariably, although there is no description of La Bouche or even a mention of his ship’s name, historians write that the Frenchman’s crew was half French and half African (with older sources using “negro”). Obviously this is a salient point, or it was at one time, since it comes up so consistently. For me it raises more than one question. Were the black crewmen free or slaves? If they were free men – as I would speculate they were – how did they feel about their French captain capturing slavers and selling the people within for a profit? The list of related issues could go on and on. As usual, history creates more puzzles than it solves.

The next ship La Bouche and Davis met was another freebooter, this one captained by Thomas Cocklyn. The three commanders agreed to sail together with Davis in charge of their flotilla. They captured the English slaver Bird and her captain, William Snelgrave, left a written account of his experiences published in A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade in 1734. Snelgrave basically rates the raiders and their crews on a 1 to 10 cruelty scale, giving Cocklyn and his men a 10 for absolute sadism, Davis’ crew a 1 for good nature and putting La Bouche and his multinational seaman firmly in the middle.

The pirate captains began to disagree more and more frequently as time went on. By the end of 1719, they had gone their separate ways but not before capturing the ship Princess out of London. Her second mate, a sober scholar but snappy dresser, would soon become the infamous Bartholomew Roberts upon the untimely death of Davis.

It seems La Bouche continued to cruise the African coast for he is next documented in 1721 at the island of La Reunion where he is now in company with John Taylor. Here the two pirates happened upon the galleon of the Viceroy of Goa, in harbor for repairs after a storm. She was a virtual treasure ship and La Bouche and Taylor descended on her like ants on a sugar loaf. According to documentation the gold, silver and gems stripped from the ship were worth well over 100 million in modern dollars. Each sailor – approximately 200 in all – received a bag of 40 loose diamonds and La Bouche personally carried away a solid gold cross so heavy that it took three men to lift it. The haul was the stuff of legend, prompting La Bouche to consider retirement or so it seems.

Olivier La Bouche parted with Taylor in December of 1721 but what became of him thereafter is pure speculation. One story says he settled down in the pirate colony at Isle Saint-Mary off Madagascar, living comfortably with a local woman until his natural death. Another says the authorities at La Reunion caught up with the Frenchman and hanged him when they discovered he still owned that enormous gold cross.

Even La Bouche’s name is scrambled like so much gibberish in various stories. In some he is Le Bouche, which is doubtless incorrect. Bouche in French means mouth or muzzle of a gun and is a feminine noun; “la” would be the only prefix possible. In others he is Le Bouse or de le Bouse. Since bouse translates as dung, let’s hope not. Wikipedia tells us authoritatively that Olivier La Bouche was in fact Olivier Le Vasseur, a name I can find in no other source and one which seems to confuse La Bouche with the Tortuga buccaneer Jean Le Vasseur who built the fortress at Basse-Terre. The article proceeds to tell stories similar to what I have recounted with added piratical set-pieces such as an eye patch and an encoded map to “buried treasure”. Finally, a researcher from Louisiana once told me that La Bouche was an alias for Beluche, and Olivier was a relative – possibly even a brother – of my ancestor Charles Beluche. This grandfather to the famous Renato Beluche was born near the Bay of Biscay around 1697 but that’s probably where any similarity, much less relation, to Olivier La Bouche ends.

Whatever the facts, La Bouche, the perpetual sidekick, will be remembered if only by association.

Header: Attack on a Galleon by Howard Pyle c 1905

History: Piratical Insurance

I did the corporate grind, as they like to call it now, for something like fourteen years and all of that working for the same workers’ compensation insurance company. Initially it was a way to pay for college but I got good at it and eventually carved out what must have looked like a nice career. Because of my knowledge – and the first mate’s as well – of the WC system, I have always maintained that pirates were the first providers of work comp in history. Apparently, the insurance industry now agrees with me.


The first mate sent me this article yesterday regarding the 100th anniversary of the first WC law in America, enacted in Wisconsin in 1911. The author, an insurance attorney, points out that:

Pirates in the 18th century looking to protect their employees (scurvy mates) from a loss of income (booty) as a result of job-related injuries (there were many) instituted the precursor to modern day workers’ compensation laws.

Even with the farcical tone, the point is very well taken as well as accurate. Perhaps my only issue with that statement would be the “18th century” exclusion. Ship’s articles delineating remuneration for lost time, lost limbs and even loss of life continued into the 19th century. The finest but perhaps the last example of pirate work comp was authored by Jean and Pierre Laffite and applied to both their Barataria and Galveston operations. In fact, these articles were even more broad and inclusive than those of 18th century pirates. Captains like John Philips and Bartholomew Roberts had signed articles, of course, but they only applied to their own ship and perhaps a small group of accompanying prizes. The Laffites’ articles, which should more properly be called commissions, were required to be carried by any captain who wanted to do business with the brothers.

These commissions became almost excruciatingly detailed, naming specifics such as what color flag a ship was expected to fly when it entered the Laffites’ bay (particularly at Galveston) and where it might anchor. Percentages of prize profits were meticulously dolled out to captains, officers, ship’s owners, crews and the Laffites with no room for negotiation. Commissions were executed in triplicate and captains were expected to sign a new one each year with the expectation that each point would be strictly adhered to. The brothers ran a take it or leave it operation and Jean in particular was not above simply revoking a commission and kicking a privateer to the curb if anything shady went on.

Specific percentages were set aside for those injured. These, which generally appear as five percent of total prize value, were turned over to Jean or one of his lieutenants and held for future use. Any man injured in the taking of a prize or the working of a ship would be paid out according to his injury. An eye, for instance, was of more value than a thumb but an arm netted more than an eye.

The Laffites’ commissions were unique in that they also provided for the living relatives of a man who died at sea. There were certain parameters around this – death by suicide or in a duel were specifically excluded, for instance – but generally speaking a man who lost his life in service to his ship could expect any family he had to be taken care of.

More than one interesting point can be raised here. First, although surely the majority of men who sailed on Laffite ships had no family at all, there were enough who did to warrant inclusion of the point in the first place. This gives us an idea of the settled nature of the communities that grew up around the Laffites’ operations. Second, this clause in their commissions speaks volumes with regard to the Laffites’ business savvy and insurance underwriting skills. Of course it was a calculated risk, but if only one in ten men had a relative to claim their death benefit, then a profit could be made.

Perhaps one could go so far as to say that Jean and Pierre Laffite, in their time and turn, went further than simply providing for their men and developed the seed of modern insurance risk taking. At least we can say that their structure of risk vs. retention is the nature of insurance even today.

Header: foundation of what is believed to have been Jean Laffite’s “Maison Rouge” in Galveston, Texas