WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR?

As Setanta mentioned, ship's crews were usually drawn from the poorest part of the population, with the exception of the officers. The Swedish kingdom has had a fair share of very poor peasants for most of its existence and they were very useful as a ready source of soldiers and sailors. While the last sailing ship owner in the North of Europe (Eriksson of Mariehamn in Åland) used to draw his crew from all of Europe, since the law in those days (late 19th early 20th century) still read that in order to become an officer in the mercantile navy a midshipman needed experience on a sailing vessel. Thus as the only one who still used windjammers he had a steady supply of cheap labour (much of the crew consisted of trainees who did not get full pay), until the rules were changed (after the first world war, I believe).

In the Netherlands the situation was different, because the country was small and urbanised, the supply of rural/urban poor to the navy and merchant fleet was insufficient, therefore much of the crews of Dutch ships from the 16th to the 18th century were made up of poor German peasants (of which there was a never ending supply). They were eager enough to sign up, since I read that the Dutch navy and especially the Dutch mercantile companies paid better than the competition. Thus the Dutch navy did not have the trouble finding crew that their English counterparts had. In fact, it was a source of merriment and bewilderment when a Dutch admiral reported that English survivors pulled from the waves after a battle were still wearing their Sunday clothes, having been shanghaied on their way to church!

<I was shanghaied after the medical examination for the conscription, but they gave me sailor clothes before I entered a ship>

NB: Long Post!
The last story I aim to relate, has a little bit of everything: piracy and mutiny, occultism, storm, shipwreck on a desert island, bloody crime and retribution and some bravery thrown in. This is the tragic tale of the Dutch East Indiaman "Batavia".

When the ship Batavia was launched in 1628 she was the largest merchant vessel built for the united Dutch East India Compavy (VOC) until that day ( http://www.bataviawerf.nl/download/batavia.jpg ). Her maiden voyage was to the town from which she took her name, Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies. Normal East Indiamen on their outward journey, usually carried a cargo of supplies for the outposts of the company and a supply of silver pieces to trade with. As Batavia was new, sturdy and well-armed, the company used her also to carry passengers to its colony, among others a preacher with his family. Part of the ballast was made up of a carved stone portico for a Dutch fort. The ship's crew was the usual rabble, but the officers were able seamen, though, unfortunately, the skipper, Ariaen Jakobz, had a mean disposition and a drinking habit. In addition to them the ship also carried a contingent of soldiers, who were better paid than the sailors (which discouraged them from mingling with the jacktars, while the presence of the soldiers discouraged the latter from mutiny, or so it was thought).

The problem for the Batavia lay in the personalities of the people aboard. The ships of the illustre company all had a merchant in charge, so the skipper could be overruled by someone who was not part of the maritime hierarchy. In the case of the Batavia this was to prove fatal, because the merchant commander Pelsaert and the skipper were bitter enemies. This situation was compounded by the presence on board of a beautiful woman, Lucretia van der Meylen, on her way to join her husband in the East, and a junior merchant, Jeronimus Cornelisz from Haarlem, a chemist who had been pressed into exile on account of his membership of an occult sect.

Batavia sailed as part of a fleet of 7 ships, on October 28th 1628. Guarding the merchant ships was the ship of the line, Buren. In the passage to Cape town, skipper Jakobsz made a pass at Ms Lucretia and was rejected. He satisfied himself then with the lady's maid and fell to drinking with Cornelisz. The two men with a grudge against the powers that be, started plotting, figuring that if they could get away from the cannons of the Buren, they would stand a good change of convincing the crew to mutiny, and the Batavia, being a large and heavily armed vessel, would make a formidable pirate ship.

After leaving Cape Town the Batavia indeed became separated from the Buren and the plotters set their plan in motion. Junior officers and some of the soldiers were included in the conspiracy. Lady Lucretia was assaulted in her cabin, with the aid of the maid, but she recognized one of the men who was subsequently put in irons. The conspirators passed the word that the execution of their friend was to be the signal for the mutiny. However, bad weather forced them to postpone their plan and then, due to a navigational error, the ship stranded on a reef in the Houtman Abrolhos archipelago off the Australian West Coast, on June 4 1629. Most people aboard the ship made it to the rocky islets, but the storm and bad discipline meant that little supplies could be salvaged. When the weather cleared, and the castaways realized water would soon run out, Pelsaert decided to look for water on the surrounding islands. He took the ship's boat with a sail (a copy of that boat http://www.bataviawerf.nl/image/bataviasloep.jpg ) and selected the best officers, Jakobsz among them (because Pelsaert did not trust him), and a few passengers to accompany him. Thus he left the door wide open for the mutineers to strike (he was severely criticized for this later). As no water was to be found, Pelsaert decided to set course for Batavia, which he reached in early July (no small feat in a crowded open boat). He was immediately given a large yacht to seek out the other survivors (and bring back the treasure chest from the Batavia).

In the meantime, Cornelisz had started a reign of terror on the small islands. He started by sending all soldiers that he did not trust to a distant island, to look for water (expecting that they would die of thirst there). After that an orgy of rape and murder commenced ( http://www.liswa.wa.gov.au/treasures/pelsaert/images/battye_pelsaert_massacre_lg.jpg ). Lady Lucretia was forced to become the concubine of Cornelisz, many others were murdered in horrible ways, including the wife and all but one of the daughters of the preacher, who swore allegiance to Cornelisz to save the life of his last daughter. A few men succeeded in escaping to the island where the soldiers were sent, alarming them. The irony of the situation was that the soldiers had found a water supply on their island, so that Cornelisz and his men would be forced to attack them, or else die of thirst. Moreover, in his murderous rampage, Cornelisz had severely limited the number of men he could count on. The soldiers led by corporal Wiebe Hayes (a Frisian) prepared their defence with clubs and sling shots (as they had left their arms behind when sent to look for water). Cornelisz men attacked the island twice, but as their muskets failed, they were easily repulsed. Then Cornelisz tried to use a ruse and went to parley with the soldiers, taking the preacher along. The latter warned the soldiers of a trap and Cornelisz was taken prisoner. His men tried two more attacks in desperation but were beaten back. During the last attack Pelsaert's rescue expedition came into sight and Hayes took an improvised boat to warn Pelsaert of the situation.

The remaining mutineers were quickly overcome and some, Cornelisz in the first place, were tried and executed on the spot, many having their hands cut off before being hanged ( http://www.liswa.wa.gov.au/treasures/pelsaert/images/battye_pelsaert_trial_lg.jpg ). Two were marooned on the coast of Australia (this was done so that, in the off chance that they were saved, they would be able to provide information about the area) and the rest was taken to Batavia, and executed, with the worst sentences (keelhauling and being broken on the rack) reserved for the company staff who had joined the mutiny. In all the mutineers had murdered over 100 people, among which 16 children and 13 women. With some 50 people dying of drowning, thirst or disease the total death toll went up to about half the number of people originally aboard the Batavia.

The wreck of the Batavia was rediscovered already in the 1960's and has given interesting information about shipbuilding in the early 17th century. But no treasure was found, as Pelsaert had taken all the silver and other valuables with him. A copy of the Batavia was built in the Netherlands between 1985 and 1995 using information gathered from the wreck.

In 2002 historian Mike Dash's book, Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny told the whole story

If you have made it to the end of this long message, then you might be interested in a virtual tour of the Batavia replica (Quicktime player required): http://www.bataviawerf.nl/en/VR6.html (Note that the pictures allow 360 degree scrolling, so you can get a good look around!)

Paasky's images:



Batavia





Batavia's boat: ships typically had a large boat, known as the ship's launch, which was used to ferry the Master and passengers to shore, and could step masts and make sail for the salvation of the crew in an emergency.




The rampage




The punishment and executions of the mutineers.

First class post, Paasky, thank you.

This site, which is part of the British Library's Texts in Context series, makes available images selected from 14 original documents relating to shipwrecks and smuggling.

Spent the day on the road with the hamburgers and the dogs, driving along the St. Lawrence and then spending some time at one of the locks on the Rideau Canal. Lots of beautiful boats out there, including one of the brigantines.

Found this site of some folks doing some local sailing, and a link to a nearby boatbuilder http://www.cruising.ca/index.html

Today's the kind of day even I could imagine spending more time on the water.

Swedish privateers: The Gathe brothers

It is not easy to define Finnish pirates from the past, since Finland was part of Sweden for most of its history and Finns were therefore Swedish subjects. Naturally, the was a lot of piracy going on especially during the Viking age, but the establishment of centralized monarchies in Sweden and Denmark, which battled piracy in the Baltic, meant that piracy in later era's was almost exclusively carried out as para-military privateering licensed by the crown.

The apex of pirate activity came during the Great Northern War 1700 - 1721. During the latter half of the war the Swedish navy was becoming increasingly pressed by the Russian and Danish navies and suffered from a lack of supplies (the naval shipyards had been struck by the plague that had wiped out many of the shipbuilders). This is when the Swedish crown decided to supplement their forces by issuing letters of marque and reprisal to ship owners who had been clamouring for them (1710).

One of these families of ship owners were the Gathes based in Göteborg. They consisted of three brothers who threw themselves on privateering with a vengeance. Armed and instructed by the navy, they had the right to fly the Swedish naval flag. They started with a small galley, but soon built a small 8-cannon frigate and prizes were brought in in rapid succession to the detriment of the Danes. Soon 12 privateers were operating out of Göteborg and Marstrand (both harbours protected by a fortress, this is a drawing of Carlsten fortress at Marstrand http://sydaby.eget.net/swe/gbg/carlstens.jpg ), half of them were owned by the Gathe brothers. The official Swedish navy also made a number of privateering sorties to replenish its empty coffers.

At first all was done by the book and only Danish and Russian vessels were attacked, over 100 of them in 1710 alone. The Danish traffic between Denmark and Norway was virtually halted. Naturally, the Danish navy tried to catch the pirates and they put a former-pirate-turned-nobleman Tordenskjöld in charge. Due to his successes the number of prizes taken to Göteborg diminished and the privateers let their eye fall on ships of other nations, most notably Dutch and British merchantmen headed for the Baltic. Naturally, this displeased both the British and the Dutch admiralties. The British already sent a small squadron to the Swedish West Coast in 1714 in protection of merchant ships, but the squadron foolishly let itself be blocked in the harbour of Marstrand by the guns of the fortress and a Swedish frigate.

The next year the Dutch and the British sailed a combined convoy through the Sont of 450 merchant ships protected by some 30 warships boasting around 1800 guns in total. In face of that formidable fleet the privateers wisely stayed in port, looking innocent. The year 1715 however saw a further escalation of the privateering business, when the Swedish king Karl XII published new privateering code, giving privateers more freedom and allowing the hiring of foreign captains by the Swedish privateering enterprises (An engraving of a privateer, a frigate, of the kind used by the Gathenhjielms. The drawings were made by the son of one of their foreign captains, Fredrik Henrik af Chapman, who became the foremost ship builder in Sweden. http://www.maritima.se/upload/xxxii32.tif ). In response George I of Great Britain declared war against Sweden.

In the meantime, things went well for the Gathe brothers. Having survived charges of piracy and smuggling (thanks to their friends in high places), the brothers were knighted to Gathenhjielm, and were counted among the richest families in Göteborg. The next year, Lars Gathe was put in charge of all privateers in Göteborg and could even use navy crews, since there was an enormous shortage of sailors, due to the length of the war which had emptied all poor areas in the realm of its cannon fodder.

1716 and 1717 saw bigger and bigger ships in the fleet of the Gathenhjielm brothers and their associates and they attacked ships as far away as the British channel as well as in the lion's den of Denmark's archipelago. The Swedish government tried to rein in the privateers on the demand of neutral nations who saw their ships plundered, but while the war lasted they had no grip on the Gathenhjielms, who were simply needed to protect the West Coast as was proven when the Danes, led by Tordenskjöld, launched a seaborne attack against Göteborg in 1717 (The fortress protecting the harbour of Göteborg http://hem.passagen.se/olle2344/roroterminalen/pictures/hamn/ab_fastning_hq.jpg ). The privateers were warned in advance and thus the defence was ready for the Danish onslaught and Tordenskjöld lost a number of ships and men.

The most infamous foreign captain in the service of the Gathenhjielm brothers was the Englishman John Norcross, who was more a regular pirate than a privateer and attacked any ship no matter its nationality, even those sailing between England and Holland or England and Ireland, which highly irritated The British the Dutch and the French. He was apprehended in the pirate hide out Dunkirk, but managed to escape by force of arms. In 1718 he was caught by Tordenskjöld, but again managed to escape. In revenge he plotted to kidnap the Danish crown prince, but failed. On the way back to Sweden he captured a British frigate that he used as his pirate ship from then on. He had by then become a liability even for the Swedish who incarcerated him in 1719, but he managed to escape again (perhaps with the aid of the Gathenhjielms) and continued his career even after the war ended. In 1726 he was again caught by the Danish, but escaped to Hamburg only to be arrested again and taken in chains to Copenhagen, where he was finally imprisoned in an open cage for all to see until his death in 1758!

The Gathenhjielm brothers did better than him, mixing privateering with convoy duties for the navy. The best known brother, Lars, died of tuberculosis 1718, but his wife and elder brother Christian continued the family enterprise. They played another important role in the defence of Marstrand and Göteborg when the Danes, led again by Tordenskjöld, launched an all out attack against the two ports in 1719 in an attempt to force Sweden to sign a peace agreement. The attacks ware warded off with severe losses for both sides and privateering continued until peace broke out with Denmark in 1720.

All Gathehjielm privateers were then leased by the Swedish navy and transferred to the Baltic to prey on the Russians, but with the Peace of Nystadt, 30 August 1721, the Great Northern War, and with it all privateering, ended. Sweden was devastated and impoverished but the Gathenhjielms had worked themselves up from small-time small-town middle class ship owners to wealthy aristocrats and major players on the Swedish West Coast.

I'm really enjoying the information on the Baltic sea trade/piracy.

Paasky has made a fine contribution--i'm very grateful for his efforts.

Because the pics are so nice ...

Photos from this year's Kiel week: Teh 'Windjammer Parade' (Tall Ships Parade), lead by Spain's "Juan Sebastian de Elcano"








Captain's Handbook (pdf-file) of the Kiel Week, with data of ships and schedules.

thanks, walter ! enjoyed the trip to "kieler woche".
in the early '50's i went with a friend on a daytrip from hamburg to see one of the sailing events (we had some HUGE binoculars hanging from our necks and felt like real BIGSHOTS ! of course, we had to go back by bus that evening and behave like normal fellows again - back to being "normalverbraucher"). hbg

what shall we do ...
while one might think that piracy on the high seas was the business of swashbucklers in the 1700's and 1800's, it is still very much alive today ... except that is has become much more sophisticated.

MODERN DAY PIRATES ... They use speed boats, automatic weapons and satellite technology to create a wave of terror on the high seas. The pirates of the Nineties are far deadlier than the heroes of the past.




...FULL ARTICLE...


of course you can now also contract for

...MARITIME SECURITY SERVICE...

and take aboard a fully armed security detail and hope to avoid paying ransom to the pirates. hbg

Posted this on another thread, but might be of interest here, too:



Tall Ships Victoria 2005

Tall Ships Tacoma 2005

Vancouver Festival 2005

Tall Ships Port Alberni 2005



And around Great Britain:
Tall Ship Race 2005

Festival of the Sea

Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts



John Roberts, alias Bartholomew Roberts, was one of the most extraordinary of pirates. Often referred to as the greatest of pirates of the "Golden Age" of piracy, this is not strictly accurate. His career begins long after the great age of Carribean piracy in the mid- to late seventeenth century, when piracy was more common in those waters than it had been in any single place or age since Iulius Caesar destroyed the Greek pirates of the eastern Mediterranean more than 1700 years earlier. But there is no doubt that along with Henry Morgan, "Black Bart" ranks as the greatest of pirates. As was the case with Roc Brasiliano and "Calico Jack" Rackham, Roberts was obsessed with finery, and was said to sport scarlet coats and waistcoats, and silk breeches.



In the spring of 1720, Roberts was second mate aboard Princess, a slaver taken off the coast of Ghana by Howell Davis, a relatively successful pirate off the Guinea Coast (western Africa), to which pirates had resorted after the "taming" of the Carribean in the early eighteenth century. In what were essentially the "narrow waters" of the Carribean, the brigs of the Royal Navy and the French Marine made piracy rather too dangerous, and the successful captains cruised the coasts of Africa for the rich prizes and the ease of flight into the Atlantic from prowling naval vessels. Davis offered the standard sign-on or swim contract, and Roberts joined his crew. (Reluctantly, so he claimed, which may be true, but it has been asserted by nearly all pirates of note that they came unwillingly to the trade.) In the Gulf of Guinea was an island controlled then by Portugal, Principe, and the governor there set up an ambush in which Davis was killed, but Roberts and most of the crew escaped. Because of his intelligence and his aggression in a fight, Roberts was elected the captain, but agreed only upon condition that everyone sign an extraordinary document he drafted, known as Bartholomew Robert's Articles:




Although these articles were not necessarily anything new in spirit, they were a radical departure in that they guaranteed the crew the rights which ordinary seamen engaged in piracy had always claimed they were due. The fact of the articles, and the requirement that every man sign them, Roberts and his officers included, secured to him a loyalty uncommon in that profession.



With the death of Davis, Roberts and his crew of about sixty men were left a small, poorly armed sloop, Rover. One of Davis' officers was Walter Kennedy, and Captain Johnson has him as a " . . . a bold daring Fellow, but very wicked and profligate . . . "--and Kennedy lead a faction demanding revenge. Therefore, once again according to Johnson, thirty men were landed, and while Roberts and the remainder of the crew engaged the Portugese fort with the ships guns at long range, Kennedy and his party rushed the fort, driving out most of the garrison and slaughtering those too slow to escape. The guns of the fort were then dumped into the sea, and Kennedy asserted that this was insufficient revenge, and that they should taken and burn the town. I suspect Kennedy was resentful that Roberts had been elected, and sought to supplant his power. ROberts reasoned with the crew, convincing them that such a proposition was more than they could achieve, the town being girt by a dense "hay," or hedge of living trees, and that too many of them would be lost to little profit. They then took a French ship of twelve guns in the harbor, used here artillery to batter down several houses, and to take and plunder two Portugese ships in the harbor. They then returned the French ship to its captain and crew, as being insufficiently seaworthy for blue waters, and too slow and wallowing for combat. Johnson then describes them putting to sea by the light of the two Portugese ships which had been set alight.

Nothing daunted by the possible odds, Roberts made for the coast of Brazil, picking off a Dutch merchant and an English slaver, Experiment, along the way--Johnson reports that most of the crew of the slaver immediately signed on with Roberts, who was otherwise inclined to release captured crew, or put them afloat in the ship's boats. Encountering the annual Portugese trading convoy, escorted by two ships of the line (Captain Johnson says they were both of seventy guns), he used the speed and manoeuvrability of his small sloop to cut out a larger ship said to have had 30,000 pounds in gold coin. He also took a larger sloop of ten guns, and immediately "transferred his flag" to that vessel, at which point Walter Kennedy made off with Rover and the prize ship--he was probably resentful of Roberts. Kennedy then made for Barbados, and took a vessel from Virginia, captained by a Quaker, who was said not only to have been unarmed and made no resistance, but to have been well spoken to the crew, who then decided to return him to Virginia, and divide the plunder and leave the life. Captain Johnson (whose writing style is somewhat tedious for the modern reader) goes on at length about Kennedy's subsequent career, but that has no place here. Roberts was not inclined to look back or seek revenge however, and he pressed on with his newer, faster and better armed sloop, taking four English merchant ships, and successfully evading the brig sent to capture him. Roberts was well on his way to the eventual total of more than 400 ships taken, not counting in excess of 200 fishing vessels plundered and taken or burned. Making a northerly course, he took ships off Barbados, including a brigantine sent to intercept him, which he burned as being "too rotten" for hard service (meaning the hull was deteriorating under the stresses of tropical waters and the toredo "worm"). No fighting vessel being in port, the English fitted out a local trader as a galley, and put guns aboard a sloop, and these then came up with Roberts two days after leaving port. Roberts put a shot across the bow of the galley, which hove to, but put a broadside into Robert's sloop when he laid along side. Roberts and his crew were outgunned, and knew it, and made sail. They were pursued, but threw their guns over the side, and all heavy cargo, and lightened the vessel sufficiently to make their escape. They were able to bluff another merchantman into surrender shortly thereafter, and replace their guns.



Most of the fishing vessels were taken shortly thereafter in June, 1720, when Roberts suddenly appeared off the Newfoundland coast, taking more than 25 sloops and one hundred fifty fishing vessels, as well as plundering towns on the coast and destroying dockyard equipment (to what purpose, Captain Johnson does not enlighten us). Taking a galley (a sailing vessel equipped with oars) which attempted to intercept him, he "traded" this for a twenty-eight gun French brig off Ile Royale. It is charged that he tortured and murdered the French captives. Roberts renamed his brig Royal Fortune, and made sail for the Leeward Islands, taking and plundering ten or more English merchants along the way. Roberts was nothing if not bold, and in September, 1720, he put into the harbor at St. Kitts, making a prize of one ship, and plundering and burning two others. Returning the following day, he was driven off by the artillery of the water batteries, and he made for the small and out of the way island of Saint Bartholomew, where he careened his brig and made repairs of the damage suffered from the shore batteries. In October, he returned to St. Kitts, caught the water batteries napping, dismounting most of their guns with naval artillery, before plundering fifteen English and French ships in the harbor.



By this time, Roberts had already developed a reputation such that English authorities complained that Royal Navy vessels sent to intercept him invariably failed to find him, and alleging cowardice on the part of the officers and crew. Roberts took a large Dutch slaver, and used her as bait. For reasons unknown (and by now unknowable) he had conceived a hatred for the French and for the island of Martinique in particular, and he would sail the Dutchman past Martinique as local trading vessels were putting out with the tide, and signal that he was going to put into St. Lucia with a large number of slaves which could be had cheaply. South of Martinique are two passages, the St. Lucia passage and the St. Vincent passage, which were routinely used by shipping between Martinique and Barbados because of the deep water. Roberts would await his quarry, lured by the Dutchman, on the eastern shore of St. Lucia, with lookouts on land to signal him which passage the prey was making for, and then he would suddenly appear, bearing down on them with the weather guage (with the wind behind him). He is reported to have frequently tortured and murdered French prisoners. In this manner, he took fourteen Frenchmen, the last being an agile brigantine of eighteen guns, which he promptly added to his "fleet," renaming her Good Fortune. He next displayed an incredible audacity, taking a French third-rate ship of the line, of fifty-two guns, which was transporting the new governor of Martinique, whom he immediately hanged. He then added the man of war to his fleet. By this point, Roberts was so incensed againts the people of Martinique and Barbados for the expeditions sent against him, that he ordered a new "jack" to be made, with a man standing upon two skulls, and the legend AMH and ABH: "a Martinique head," and "a Barbadian head."



Roberts had now cruised for a year in the Carribean, and evaded capture or actually taken any pursuers, in waters which had become so infested with naval vessels that piracy had been thought to have ended--especially after Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny and Mary Read had been taken by an English brig. Roberts, however, so often sailing boldly into a harbor to take shipping, and dueling with the forts on shore when he thought the prospect good, had made fools of the English and French navies, and had shelled so many towns that the governors of small, undefended islands offered him and his little fleet safe haven to save their people from his depradations. But Roberts, for all of his rash actions, was not fool. Trade between the Windward and Leeward Islands and the Spanish Main was at a standstill, and the waters were full of brigs, brigantines and sloops of war prowling to find him (even if it seemed they weren't particularly keen on accomplishing their mission). He therefore made sail for the Guinea Coast to sell off the valuable cargoes they had retained, and to get away from pirate hunters. Captain Johnson declares at this point that depravity had taken hold of Roberts and he had become tyrannical to his crew. A more likely explanation is that pirates do not long like to cruise without the opportunity to divide the plunder and squander it ashore. Sailing for the Guinea Coast offered little opportunity for this, and this likely caused discontent. In the spring of 1721, Roberts arrived off the east coast of Africa, and began his method of taking every sail he came up with, and causing serious financial hardship for the Royal Africa Company.

Thomas Anstis absconed with Good Fortune and most of the disaffected crew, and Roberts went about his merry way, nothing daunted, as usual. Off the Ivory coast he took two ships, naming one Ranger and the other, a French frigate of 32 guns, Great Ranger, and abandoning Fortune and Great Fortune as being rotten and no longer fit for the service. He took more than thirty ships by January, including Onslow, a ship wholely owned by the Royal Africa Company, and carrying cargo worth nine thousand pounds. In January, 1722, he arrived at Whydah, where he took nine slavers, offering to ransom each for eight pounds weight of gold dust. When one captain refused, he burned her to the waterline with captain, crew and slaves shut up in the hold. THe others quickly made their deal with him (Captain Johnson gives the text of the receipts made out to the other captains who supplied the gold dust ransom). I cannot estimate what the value of sixty-four pounds weight of gold dust was then or now, but it would be considerable even by our standards. It was at this time that he took the French frigate which became Great Ranger. He had become such a serious threat to trade that the Royal Navy and the French Marine were making a serioius effort to intercept him, and sending veteran ships and crews, unlike the less than enthusiastic pirate hunters who had sort of pursued him in the Carribean.



In February, the English man of war Swallow, Challoner Ogle commanding, came up with Roberts off the coast of Gabon. Swallow had already taken Ranger, which has once again been the scene of a midnight mutiny against Roberts, and had gone off with the boatswain in command. Ogle then tracked down Roberts with information from a French merchant who had been plundered but set free by Roberts, and he came up with him in the early morning. Some accounts contend that Roberts made for Swallow, mistaking her for a Portugese merchant--other accounts claim Ogle surprised Roberts at anchor with a drunken crew. In either case, Roberts made sail to escape, and Ogle fired a salvo at long range. The crew hit the deck, but the range was too great for any serious damage, and when they stood up, they were amazed to find Roberts slumped over a gun. One ball from Swallow had lofted straight to the quarter deck, and taken off Roberts head as he aimed a stern chaser at the Englishman. The crew threw his body overboard so he would not fall into English hands, and tried to escape. Without Roberts, however, and with the long range salvo having damagted the mizzen, they made poor sail, and were soon overtaken. Taken to Ghana and tried, seventy men were acquitted as "forced men," more than seventy black crew members were sold into slavery, more than fifty were hanged, and about thirty were given lesser sentences.

Black Bart's career was truly incredible. Johnson reports that 2000 pounds weight of gold dust was found in Great Ranger when she was taken. Johnson's accounting has Roberts taking more than four hundred ships, and cargo, specie and gold dust to a value of more than one million pounds sterling. What is most remarkable to me about Robert's is the nearly obsessional behavior he displayed once given over to piracy. Johnson's account shows that he took nearly every sail he saw and could come up with, with the few exceptions of those ships which outgunned him. He routinely shelled the harbors of islands and coastal towns which would not yield when summoned, and native war parties on the Guinea Coast and the coast of South America. He is, to my mind, one of the few individuals in history of whom i would say that he was truly afflicted with blood lust. He did not live to enjoy his wealth, however, even though he was arguably the most successful pirate in history.

Thanks, set, for this very interesting update!

Well, this might be interesting as well:

I was aked to post these photos from



which herewith is done :wink:

(Click on the pics to enlarge them)

Thanks Walter, i know Miss Flyer will love those images when she sees them.

Henry Morgan--the King of the Pirates



The birthplace of Henry Morgan is uncertain, as is his year of birth, although that was likely 1635. Born of a Welsh family in either Glamorgan or in Monmouthshire in England. One uncle, Thomas, fought in the English civil wars (1640-50) for the Royalists, while his uncle Edward fought for Parliament, rising to be one of the all-powerful Major Generals. After the execution of King Charles, the country was briefly ruled by the Major Generals, and they were soon replaced by the Protectorate, with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. The Major Generals either retired, or employment was found for them elsewhere. Edward Morgan was to find employment in Jamaica, but only long after his nephew Henry had become a famous bucaneer, and in humble circumstances. The long, and often ludicrous, attempt of the English to take Jamaica and rid the island of Spaniards (many remained behind and fought as guerillas for years) is not a part of the story here. Originally hoping to take Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola, or to loot one of the fabulously wealthy cities of the Spanish main, General Venables and Admiral Penn (father of William Penn for whom Pennsylvania would be named) met with disaster everywhere, and finally turned to Jamaica, considered a worthless island. Suffice it to say that Kingston and Spanishtown were taken, a final Spanish expedition from Cuba was defeated at Ocho Rios, and the English stronghold of Port Royale was established on the southeast coast. Port Royal might never have amounted to much, though, had it not been for Thomas Modyford and Henry Morgan.



Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660, and a great many adjustments were necessary, with compromise on both sides. As Edward Morgan was not technically one of the regicides, he was allowed to remain in Jamaica with a modest estate, and was given the command of the militia. The several first attempts at colonization were very nearly failures, with the colonists dieing in droves from disease and short commons on land they didn't know how to farm--as well, the poor soil of Jamaica in the interior limited the population the primitive agriculture of the day could support, especially as planters were already setting up sugar plantations on what good soil there was. Henry Morgan seems to have gone out to Jamaica with his uncle, or to have joined him later. The first expedition was a paltry force, and few of the soldiers remained by 1660. Of those which did, the most had little taste for garrison duty in what they saw as a pestilential island. Many went off to the French island of Tortuga, which was the main haunt and recruiting ground of the Caribbean pirates.

Henry Morgan must have acquitted himself well, because he first appears in 1662 in the raid against Santiago de Cuba by Commodore Mings. First Admiral Goodson, and the Commodore Mings has attempted to make the best of a bad situation, and used Jamaica as a base for raids against the wealthy cities of the Spanisha Main. Mings' expedition against Santiago de Cuba was the largest to that date, and Henry Morgan was named as a captain of one of the ships. This raid was far more successful than previous raids, and Morgan managed to acquire a ship of his own. He joined Mings for the 1663 raid against San Francisco de Campeche (Campeche was the capital of the province of Tobasco, at the southern end of the Gulf of Mexico, on the west coast of the Yucatan), which again yeilded a fabulous haul of booty. The French bucaneer l'Olonnais, who had shown the way in storming and sacking Spanish cities had failed in his attempt against Campeche, and the exploit spread the renown of the participants throughout the Caribbean. Morgan now recuited large crews and fleets of privateers and bucaneers as l'Olonnais had done (and still was doing), and descended upon Trujillo, Grenada and the wealthy provincial capital of Villa Hermosa (south of Campeche, on the south coast of the Gulf of Mexico). By now Henry Morgan was become a wealthy man (Captains take a share of the plunder far in excess of anyone else), and was becoming influential on land as well. This is when Thomas Modyford enters the story--in 1664 Jamaica elected its first House of Assembly, and Modyford, a Barbadian planter and one time governor of Barbados, arrived with a thousand settlers, who were to thrive in Jamaica, being already acclimated to the region. He offered protection to Morgan and his "privateers" (this was an age when there was little to choose between a pirate and a privateer, and privateers were not finicky about whom they attacked). A Dutchman, Edward Mansvelt (called Mansfield by the English) had organized the lawless society of Tortuga as much as could be done, and had formed "the Bretheren of the Coast," something which had made it possible for bold spirits such as l'Olonnais and Morgan to raise the large bodies of men necessary for assaults on Spanish cities. Mansvelt had died, however, and with his brilliant successes in the Villa Hermosa expedition, the bucaneers elected Morgan "Admiral." Morgan transferred his base from Tortuga to Port Royale on Jamaica, the latter being more central to the action. in 1666, Morgan, who had held an honorary captaincy in the militia on Jamaica, was made the Colonel of the Port Royale militia--given the extent to which the city had become the capital of piracy, it is difficult to consider that title with a straight face.



Not one to rest on his laurels, Morgan organized an expedition in 1667 against Puerto Principe, which despite the name, is in the interior of Cuba. The expedition was diasterous, at least in comparison to the successes at Campeche and Villa Hermosa. The bucaneers were ambushed by lanceros in the forests during the approach march, and the citizens of Puerto Principe fled the city with their valuables. Morgan and his men nevertheless succeeded in taking the city, and the Alcalde had to buy them off with a ransom of 50,000 pieces of eight--but half of Morgan's men quite in disgust. Nothing daunted, Morgan immediately organized another expedition against Puerto Bello on the north coast of the isthmus of Panama. This was the most daring such raid yet, as the city was well-fortified, being the trans-shipment depot for the Pacific colonies contribution to the annual treasure fleet. Many men refused to join, considering the expedition foolhardy, even suicidal. Morgan to a select band of men from the ships, which had stood off the coast until nightfall, and they slipped into the harbor in native canoes. Two of the three forts were quickly taken, but the alarm was raised in the third. Losing men in failed attacks, Morgan turned to a siniste device--he took priests and nuns from a convent in the city, and pushing these before them, his men rushed the landward side of the fort, which fell quickly. Nearly 3000 troops marched from Nombre de Dios and the city of Panama, but Morgan with fewer than a thousand defeated each column in detail from ambush. Apart from any private enterprise in the way of looting done by the pirates, the city was made to pay a ransom of 250,000 pieces of eight and three hundred slaves. The memory of Puerto Principe was wiped away, and Morgan soon disposed of fifteen ships, and had become known to the Spaniard as Morgan the Terrible.



In the following year, Morgan organized an expedition against Maraciabo. It isn't proper to assume that pirates are stupid, though, and many turned down the expedition because they believed the previous expedition by l'Olonnais had reaped the greatest booty. Morgan sailed with nine ships and more than 600 men. They sailed past Maracaibo to Gibraltar, as had done l'Olonnais, but their pickings were slim--as the more astute among the bucaneers had judged, the wealth of these two cities was much reduced after the French expeditions. While attempting to leave Lake Maracaibo, Morgan found his path blocked by three Spanish ships of the line, and water batteries which had been erected at Maracaibo. Morgan took a sloop and filled it with pitch and gunpowder, and this was sent against the Spanish, who at first did not understand what looked like a pathetic attack. The sloop was fired by the crew on board, who immediately put off in a boat which they had towed. The sloop blew up under the railing of Magdalen, Admiral Campo y Espinosa's flag ship--which then burned to the water line. Marquesa was abandoned by her crew and taken by Morgan's men, while Santa Louisa fled. Morgan then put men in long boats and headed them toward the shore. The gunners in the water batteries hurriedly dismounted their guns and hauled them to the fortifications which defended the city, while the men in the long boats immiately put about, rejoined Morgan, and the whole of his little fleet sailed past the city unmolested. Although 20,000 pieces of eight were paid in ransom, and another 15,000 along with gold and silver plate were taken from the hulk of Magdalen, which had sunk in shoal water, the pickings were paltry by previous standards, and Morgan, now married for several years, devoted the rest of the year to expanding his sugar plantations on Jamaica.

Failure seemed to have spurred Morgan on. In 1670, he planned his most ambitious expedition to date. Allying himself with l'Olonnais and the French bucaneers of Tortuga, he rounded up most of the pirates at Port Royal and with the largest such force ever assembled, sailed for the Bay of Honduras. Setting up a base at an abandoned English settlement, Old Providence, by then a haunt of pirates down on their luck, Morgan eventually set sail for the isthmus of Panama with 36 vessels and nearly 1800 men, French and English. Landing at Chagres on the north shore of the isthmus, Morgan showed his usual style by quickly overcoming this fortification intended to protect the isthmus and the convoys for the treasure fleet. Morgan marched overland, and was met by the Governor of Panama with between 2- and 3000 men. But Morgan's reputation preceeded him, and the Spaniards took flight after the first volley from the bucaneers. The pirates now entered the city of Panama, and their very numbers were their undoing. In the seventeenth century it was difficult to govern regular soldiers, pirates were ungovernable. The city caught fire, and burned to the ground. With booty already saved from the flames and the ransom of the city, the haul was 400,000, but this was not considered to have been worth the effort, as the bucaneers had expected much more. Once again, the news of Morgan's approach had lead people to flee with their valuables, and the silver from the South American mines had been spirited away before his arrival.



Returning to Jamaica, Morgan now faced the greatest disaster of his career. In Port Royale, he learned that peace had been concluded between England and Spain before he attacked the city of Panama. Governor Modyford had already been sent to England in irons, and as details of the Panamanian expedition came out, Morgan was named. Althought the newly arrived Governor Lynch hesitated to interfer with a man so powerful and popular, Morgan was arrested and sent to London in the spring of 1672. But Morgan did not end up in the tower as did Modyford. He was wealthy, and had made men in London wealthy, and although a prisoner of the state, he lived in relative comfort in a private home, which was more or less guarded. By then, England and Holland were at war again, and the lackluster Governor Lynch was in danger of losing Jamaica, by now grown to be England's most valuable colony in the Caribbean. His appeals to the bucaneers of Port Royale fell on deaf ears. King Charles is said to have asked advice of Morgan, who replied in writing with detailed instructions on how best to defend the island. Whether or not that tale is apocrypha, it is certain that Morgan was named in the Christmas Honors list in 1675, and was knighted.

He was sent back to Jamaica along with Lord Vaughan who replaced Lynch. Morgan was charged with ridding the seas of pirates, but there was no evidence that he made any effort--and at all events, with Morgan and l'Olonnais out of the game, the great age of the pirates wound down to its sunset unaided. Morgan became the most respected and respectable planter on Jamaica, and took an active affair in local politics. He was made the Deputy Governor by Vaughan, and acted effectively in his absence, but his blunt methods and domineering air did not endear him to the other planters. When the account of the seventeenth century bucaneers was published by Esquelemling (who remains the principle source for Morgan's career), Morgan sued for libel, but failed. Esqueleming made him out to be a drunken sadistic lout, bathing in the blood of innocents. Doubtlessly he casually practiced the cruelty of the age, and in a milieu of slavery, the extermination of the aboriginals and bloody war between the European powers, there is little to choose between the officers of a King and the King of the Bucaneers. Morgan lost his post as Deputy Governor to political intrigue, but more than any other man, he had made Jamaica the wealthy and successful colony it had become, and the jealousies of the other plantes did not reduce his great personal wealth. George Monck was sent out as governor, and attempted to reinstate Morgan as the Governor's Deputy, but failed. He did manage to restore Morgan to the council in 1688, shortly before Morgan's death. The city that Morgan had built, and made the capital of the privateers and pirates--Port Royale--did not long survive him. An earthquake leveled the stone buildings of the city in 1696, and resultant fires laid the remainder in ashes. Thereafter, the site was abandoned. Port Royale was forgotten, but Henry Morgan lives on.

Good stuff, brill.

But I must say, as any Taffy will tell you,

Glamorgan and Monmouth are in Wales.

Wales is part of the UK, but is not England. Sorry.