Governor to join with the Royal African Company in an attack on the French
factory at Goori, at Gambia. Instead of going to West Africa, Tew and his
crew turned pirates, and sailed to the Red Sea. Here he met with a great
Indian ship, which he had the hardiness to attack, and soon took her, and
each of his men received as his share £3,000, and with this booty they
sailed to Madagascar. He was already held in high esteem by the pirates
who resided in that favourite stronghold. At one time he joined Misson,
the originator of "piracy-without-tears" at his garden city of Libertatia.
A quarrel arose between Misson's French followers and Tew's English
pirates. A duel was arranged between the two leaders, but by the tact of
another pirate--an unfrocked Italian priest--all was settled amicably, Tew
being appointed Admiral and the diplomatic ex-priest suitably chosen as
Secretary of State to the little republic. Such a reputation for kindness
had Tew that ships seldom resisted him, but on knowing who their assailant
was they gave themselves up freely. Some of Tew's men started a daughter
colony on their own account, and the Admiral sailed after them to try and
persuade them to return to the fold at Libertatia. The men refused, and
while Tew was arguing and trying to persuade them to change their minds,
his ship was lost in a sudden storm. Tew was soon rescued by the ship
_Bijoux_ with Misson on board, who, with a few men, had escaped being
massacred by the natives. Misson, giving Tew an equal share of his gold
and diamonds, sailed away, while Tew managed to return to Rhode Island in
New England, where he settled down for a while. To show the honesty of
this man, being now affluent, he kept a promise to the friends in Bermuda
who originally set him up with a ship, by sending them fourteen times the
original cost of the sloop as their just share of the profits.
At last, Tew found the call of the sea and the lure of the "grand account"
too great to resist, and he consented to take command of a pirate ship
which was to go on a cruise in the Red Sea. Arrived there, Tew attacked a
big ship belonging to the Great Mogul, and during the battle was mortally
wounded.
His historian tells us "a shot carried away the rim of Tew's belly, who
held his bowels with his hands for some space. When he dropped, it struck
such terror to his men that they suffered themselves to be taken without
further resistance." Thus fell fighting a fine sailor, a brave man, and a
successful pirate, and one who cheated the gallows awaiting him at
Execution Dock.
THOMAS, CAPTAIN, _alias_ STEDE BONNET.
THOMAS, JOHN.
Of Jamaica.
This Welsh pirate was one of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal
James_. Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.
THOMPSON, CAPTAIN.
A renegade pirate who joined the Barbary corsairs, becoming a Mohammedan.
Commanded a pirate vessel, and was taken prisoner off the coast of Ireland
by an Elizabethan ship. Hanged at Wapping.
THURBAR, RICHARD.
Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
THURSTON, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
Of Tortuga Island.
Refused to accept the Royal offer of pardon of 1670, when all commissions
to privateer on the Spanish were revoked. Thurston, with a mulatto, Diego,
using obsolete commissions issued by the late Governor of Jamaica,
Modyford, continued to prey upon Spanish shipping, carrying their prizes
to Tortuga.
THWAITES, CAPTAIN JOSEPH.
Coxswain to Captain Hood, he was promoted in 1763 to be a midshipman in
H.M.S. _Zealous_, cruising in the Mediterranean. Putting into Algiers,
Thwaites was sent ashore by the captain to buy some sheep, but did not
return to the boat and, it being supposed he had been assassinated, the
ship sailed without him. The fact was that young Thwaites, who spoke
Turkish and Greek, had accepted an invitation to enter the Ottoman
service. Embracing the Mohammedan religion, Thwaites was put in command of
a forty-four gun frigate.
His first engagement was with the flagship of the Tunisian Admiral, which
he took and carried to Algiers. He soon brought in another prize, and so
pleased the Dey that he presented him with a scimitar, the hilt of which
was set with diamonds.
Thwaites, having soiled his hands with blood, now became the pirate
indeed, taking vessels of any nation, and drowning all his prisoners by
tying a double-headed shot round their necks and throwing them overboard.
He stopped at no atrocity--even children were killed, and one prisoner, an
English lieutenant and an old shipmate of his, called Roberts, he murdered
without a second thought. When Thwaites happened to be near Gibraltar, he
would go ashore and through his agents, Messrs. Ross and Co., transmit
large sums of money to his wife and children in England. But Thwaites had
another home at Algiers fitted with every luxury, including three Armenian
girls.
For several years this successful pirate plundered ships of all nations
until such pressure was brought to bear on the Dey of Algiers that
Thwaites thought it best to collect what valuables he could carry away and
disappear.
Landing at Gibraltar in 1796, dressed in European clothes, he procured a
passage to New York in an American frigate, the _Constitution_. Arriving
in the United States, he purchased an estate not far from New York and
built himself a handsome mansion, but a year later retribution came from
an unlooked-for quarter, for he was bitten by a rattlesnake and died in
the most horrible agonies both of mind and body.
TOMKINS, JOHN.
Of Gloucestershire.
Hanged at the age of 23 at Rhode Island in 1723. One of Charles Harris's
crew.
TOPPING, DENNIS.
He shipped on board the sloop _Buck_ at Providence in 1718, in company
with Anstis and other famous pirates. Was killed at the taking of a rich
Portuguese ship off the coast of Brazil.
TOWNLEY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
A buccaneer who in the year 1684 was one of the mixed English and French
fleet blockading Panama. On this occasion, he commanded a ship with a crew
of 180 men. By the next year the quarrels between the English had reached
such a pitch that Townley and Swan left Davis and sailed in search of
their French friends. In May, 1685, Townley was amongst the company that
took and sacked Guayaquil. In January, 1686, Townley rescued the French
pirate Grogniet and some 350 Frenchmen who, when attacking the town of
Quibo, were surprised by a Spanish squadron, which burnt their vessels
while the crews were on shore. Townley then sailed north with his French
comrades and sacked Granada.
His next adventure was to take the town of Lavelia, near to Panama, where
he found a rich cargo which the Viceroy had placed on shore because he was
afraid to send it to sea when so many pirates were about.
In August of the same year, Townley's ship was attacked by three Spanish
men-of-war. A furious fight took place, which ended by two of the Spanish
ships being captured and the third burnt. In this action the gallant
Townley was gravely wounded, and died shortly afterwards.
TRISTRIAN, CAPTAIN. French buccaneer.
In the year 1681 Dampier, with other malcontents, broke away from Captain
Sharp and marched on foot across the Isthmus of Darien. After undergoing
terrible hardships for twenty-two days, the party arrived on the Atlantic
seaboard, to find Captain Tristrian with his ship lying in La Sounds Cay.
The buccaneers bought red, blue, and green beads, and knives, scissors,
and looking-glasses from the French pirates to give to their faithful
Indian guides as parting gifts.
TRYER, MATTHEW.
A Carolina pirate, accused and acquitted on a charge of having captured a
sloop belonging to Samuel Salters, of Bermuda, in 1699.
TUCKER, ROBERT.
Of the Island of Jamaica.
One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried, condemned, and hanged at
Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718. The prisoners were not
defended by counsel, because the members of the South Carolina Bar still
deemed it "a base and vile thing to plead for money or reward." We
understand that the barristers of South Carolina have since persuaded
themselves to overcome this prejudice. The result was that, with the
famous Judge Trott, a veritable terror to pirates, being President of the
Court of Vice-Admiralty, the prisoners had short and ready justice, and
all but four of the thirty-five pirates tried were found guilty.
TUCKERMAN, CAPTAIN.
Sailed with Captain Porter in the West Indies. Captain Johnson gives an
account of the meeting between these two pirate novices and the great
Captain Roberts at Hispaniola.
TURNLEY, CAPTAIN RICHARD.
A New Providence pirate who received the general pardon from Captain
Woodes Rogers in 1718. When, a little later, the scandal of Captain
Rackam's infatuation for Anne Bonny was causing such gossip among the two
thousand ex-pirates who formed the population of the settlement, it was
Turnley who brought news of the affair to the notice of the Governor. In
revenge for this action, Rackam and his lady, one day hearing that Turnley
had sailed to a neighbouring island to catch turtles, followed him. It
happened that Turnley was on shore hunting wild pigs and so escaped, but
Rackam sank his sloop and took his crew away with him as prisoners.
TYLE, CAPTAIN ORT VAN.
A Dutchman from New York.
A successful pirate in the days of the Madagascan sea-rovers. For some
time he sailed in company with Captain James, taking several prizes in the
Indian Ocean.
Van Tyle had a plantation at Madagascar and used to put his prisoners to
work there as slaves, one in particular being the notorious Welsh pirate,
David Williams, who toiled with Van Tyles's other slaves for six months
before making his escape to a friendly tribe in the neighbourhood.
UPTON, BOATSWAIN JOHN.
Born in 1679 of honest parents at Deptford.
Apprenticed to a waterman, he afterwards went to sea, serving on different
men-of-war as a petty officer. Until July, 1723, when 40 years of age,
Upton lived a perfectly honest life, but his wife dying, Upton found she
had contracted various debts and that he was in danger of being arrested
by the creditors. Leaving his four orphans, Upton hurried to Poole in
Dorsetshire, and was taken on as boatswain in the _John and Elizabeth_
(Captain Hooper), bound for Bonavista in Newfoundland. He seems to have
continued to sail as an honest seaman until November 14th, 1725, when
serving as boatswain in the _Perry_ galley, on a voyage between Barbadoes
and Bristol, the vessel was taken by a pirate, Cooper, in the _Night
Rambler_. At his subsequent trial witnesses declared that Upton willingly
joined the pirates, signed their articles, and was afterwards one of their
most active and cruel men.
Upton kept a journal, which was his only witness for his defence, in which
he described how he was forced to sign the pirates' articles under threats
of instant death. If his journal is to be believed, Upton escaped from the
pirates at the first opportunity, landing on the Mosquito coast. After
being arrested by the Spaniards as a spy, he was sent from one prison to
another in Central America, at last being put on board a galleon at Porto
Bello, to be sent to Spain. Escaping, he got aboard a New York sloop and
arrived at Jamaica in December, 1726. While at Port Royal he was pressed
on board H.M.S. _Nottingham_, serving in her for more than two years as
quartermaster, until one day he was accused of having been a pirate. Under
this charge he was brought a prisoner to England in 1729, tried in London,
and hanged, protesting his innocence to the last.
URUJ. See BARBAROSSA.
VALLANUEVA, CAPTAIN.
A Dominican.
Commanded in 1831 a small gaff-topsail schooner, the _General Morazan_,
armed with a brass eight-pounder and carrying a mixed crew of forty-four
men, French, Italian, English, and Creoles of St. Domingo.
VANCLEIN, CAPTAIN MOSES. Dutch filibuster.
Was serving with L'Ollonais's fleet off the coast of Yucatan when a mutiny
broke out, of which Vanclein was the ringleader. He persuaded the
malcontents to sail with him along the coast till they came to Costa Rica.
There they landed and marched to the town of Veraguas, which they seized
and pillaged. The pirates got little booty, only eight pounds of gold, it
proving to be a poor place.
VANE, CAPTAIN CHARLES.
Famous for his piratical activities off the coast of North America,
specially the Carolinas.
In 1718, when Woodes Rogers was sent by the English Government to break up
the pirate stronghold in the Bahama Islands, all the pirates at New
Providence Island surrendered to Rogers and received the King's pardon
except Vane, who, after setting fire to a prize he had, slipped out of the
bay as Rogers with his two men-of-war entered. Vane sailed to the coast of
Carolina, as did other West Indian pirates who found their old haunts too
warm for them.
Vane is first heard of as being actively engaged in stealing from the
Spaniards the silver which they were salving from a wrecked galleon in the
Gulf of Florida. Tiring of this, Vane stole a vessel and ranged up and
down the coast from Florida to New York, taking ship after ship, until at
last the Governor of South Carolina sent out a Colonel Rhet in an armed
sloop to try and take him. On one occasion Vane met the famous Blackbeard,
whom he saluted with his great guns loaded with shot. This compliment of
one pirate chief to another was returned in like kind, and then "mutual
civilities" followed for several days between the two pirate captains and
their crews, these civilities taking the form of a glorious debauch in a
quiet creek on the coast.
Vane soon had a change of fortune, when, meeting with a French man-of-war,
he decided to decline an engagement and to seek safety in flight, greatly
to the anger of his crew. For this he was obliged to stand the test of the
vote of the whole crew, who passed a resolution against his honour and
dignity, and branded him a coward, deprived him of his command, and packed
him off with a few of his adherents in a small sloop. Vane, not
discouraged by this reverse of fortune, rose again from the bottom rung of
the ladder to success, and quickly increased in strength of ships and
crew, until one day, being overcome by a sudden tornado, he lost
everything but his life, being washed up on a small uninhabited island off
the Honduras coast. Here he managed to support life by begging food from
the fishermen who occasionally came there in their canoes.
At last a ship put in for water, commanded by one Captain Holford, who
happened to be an old friend of Vane's. Vane naturally was pleased at this
piece of good fortune, and asked his dear old friend to take him off the
island in his ship, to which Holford replied: "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, knock me on the head, and run away with my ship
a-pirating." No promises of good behaviour from Vane would prevail on his
friend to rescue him; in fact, Captain Holford's parting remark was that
he would be returning in a month, and that if he then found Vane still on
the island he would carry him to Jamaica to be hanged.
Soon after Holford's departure another ship put in for water, none of the
crew of which knew Vane by sight, and he was too crafty to let them find
out the notorious pirate he was. They consented to take off the
shipwrecked mariner, when, just as all seemed to be going well, back came
the ship of friend Holford. Holford, who seems to have been a sociable
kind of man, was well acquainted with the captain who was befriending
Vane, and Holford was invited to dine on board his ship. As the guest was
passing along the deck of his host's ship on his way to the great cabin he
chanced to glance down the open hold, and there who should he see but his
dear old friend Vane hard at work; for he had already won his new master's
good graces by being a "brisk hand." Holford at once informed his host
that he was entertaining a notorious pirate, and with his consent clapped
Vane in irons, and removed him to his own ship, and when he arrived in
Jamaica handed his old friend to the justices, who quickly tried,
convicted, and hanged him.
VANHORN, CAPTAIN NICHOLAS. A Dutch filibuster.
Of Hispaniola.
Sailed from England in 1681 in command of the _Mary and Martha_, _alias_
the _St. Nicholas_, a merchant ship. Vanhorn soon showed his hand by
putting two of his merchants ashore at Cadiz and stealing four Spanish
guns. Next he sailed to the Canary Islands, and then to the Guinea coast,
plundering ships and stealing negroes, until November, 1682, when he
arrived at the city of San Domingo. In April, 1683, he picked up some 300
buccaneers at Petit Goave, and joined the filibuster Laurens in the Gulf
of Honduras with six other buccaneer captains, who were planning an attack
on the rich city of Vera Cruz. The fleet arrived off the city in May, and
the pirates, hearing that the Spaniards were expecting the arrival of two
ships from Caracas, they crowded a landing party of 800 men into two
ships, and, displaying Spanish colours, stood in boldly for the city. The
inhabitants, imagining these were the ships they were expecting, actually
lit bonfires to pilot them into the harbour. Landing on May 17th two miles
away, they soon found themselves masters of the town and forts, all the
sentinels being asleep. For four days they plundered the churches,
convents, and houses, and threatened to burn the cathedral, in which they
had put all the prisoners, unless more booty was forthcoming. An
Englishman found the Governor hiding in some hay in a loft, and he was
ransomed for 70,000 pieces of eight. While this was taking place a Spanish
fleet of fourteen ships had arrived from Cadiz, and anchored just outside
the harbour, but would not venture to land nor to attack the buccaneer
ships. The buccaneers, feeling it was time to depart, sailed right past
the fleet without opposition to a cay not far off, and there divided the
spoils; each of the 1,000 sailors getting 800 pieces of eight as his
share, while Vanhorn's own share, was 24,000 pieces of eight. This
division of the spoil did not take place without some bickering, and the
two leaders, Vanhorn and Laurens, came to blows, and Vanhorn was wounded
in the wrist. Although the wound was little more than a scratch, he died
of gangrene a fortnight later.
It is significant that Vanhorn had originally been sent out by the
Governor of Hispaniola to hunt for pirates, but once out of sight of land
and away from authority the temptation to get rich quickly was too great
to resist, so that he joined the pirates in the expedition to sack Vera
Cruz.
VEALE, CAPTAIN.
On July 1st, 1685, he arrived at New London in a sloop, but was compelled
to hurry away, being recognized as a pirate by one of the crew of a ship
he had previously taken in Virginia.
VEALE, THOMAS.
One of four New England pirates who in the middle of the seventeenth
century rowed up the Saugus river and landed at a place called Lynn Woods.
The boat contained, besides the pirates, a quantity of plunder and a
beautiful young woman. They built a hut on Dungeon Rock, dug a well, and
lived there until the woman died. Three of the pirates were captured, and
ended their days on the gallows in England.
Thomas Veale escaped and went to live in a cave, where he is supposed to
have hidden his booty, but he continued to work as a cordwainer. In the
earthquake of 1658 the cave was blocked up by pieces of rock, and Veale
was never seen again.
VERPRE, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
His ship _Le Postillion_ carried a crew of twenty-five men and was armed
with two guns.
VIGERON, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
Of San Domingo.
Commanded a bark, _La Louse_, thirty men and four guns.
VILLA RISE.
In the year 1621 this Moorish pirate commanded a small squadron of five
vessels which took an English ship, the _George Bonaventure_ (Captain John
Rawlins, Plymouth), in the Straits of Gibraltar. One of the finest deeds
ever achieved by English sailors was the escape of Rawlins and some of his
crew from the Moors at Alexandria in a stolen ship.
VAN VIN, MOSES. Buccaneer.
One of L'Ollonais's officers. After burning Puerto Cavallo and torturing
and murdering the inhabitants, L'Ollonais marched away to attack the town
of San Pedro with 300 of his crew, leaving van Vin as his lieutenant to
govern the rest of his men during his absence.
VIRGIN, HENRY.
Of Bristol.
One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal James_. Hanged for piracy
at White Point, Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and
buried in the marsh below low-water mark.
VIVON, CAPTAIN M. LA. French filibuster.
Commanded the _Cour Valant_ of La Rochelle. In December, 1668, his ship
was seized by Captain Collier for having robbed an English ship of
provisions.
WAFER, LIONEL. Surgeon, buccaneer, and author.
Believed to have been born about the year 1660.
He could speak Gaelic and also Erse, which languages he had learnt during
his childhood, which was spent partly in the Highlands of Scotland and
partly in Ireland.
In 1677 he sailed as mate to the surgeon of the _Great Ann_, of London
(Captain Zachary Browne), bound for Java.
Two years later, he again sailed as surgeon's mate on a voyage to the West
Indies. He deserted his ship at Jamaica and set himself up as a surgeon at
Port Royal, but one day meeting with two noted buccaneers, Captain Linch
and Captain Cook, he agreed to sail with them as ship's surgeon.
Wafer's subsequent adventures are recounted by Basil Ringrose in his
"Dangerous Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and
Others," and by William Dampier in his "New Voyage Round the World."
After taking part in 1679 in the futile expedition of the buccaneers to
Panama, Wafer joined the party of malcontents who left Captain Sharp and
returned on foot across the Isthmus of Darien. Wafer was accidentally
wounded in the knee by an explosion of gunpowder on May 5th, 1681, which
he recounts in his narrative as follows: "I was sitting on the ground near
one of our Men, who was drying of Gunpowder in a Silver Plate: But not
managing it as he should, it blew up and scorch'd my knee to that degree,
that the bone was left bare, the Flesh being torn away, and my Thigh burnt
for a great way above it. I applied to it immediately such Remedies as I
had in my knapsack: and being unwilling to be left behind by my
companions, I made hard shift to jog on."
The whole story of these adventures is told by Wafer in a book he wrote,
and which was published in London in 1699. It is called "A New Voyage and
Description of the Isthmus of America, giving an Account of the Author's
Abode there," and is illustrated by some quaint copperplates.
Wafer and his companions suffered extreme hardships as they struggled
through the dense tropical jungle during the wettest season of the year.
On one occasion when in danger of his life, Wafer was spared by the
Indians owing to his skill as a phlebotomist, after he had been allowed to
exhibit his skill to an Indian chief called Lacentra, when he bled one of
his wives so successfully that the chief made Wafer his inseparable
companion, to the no little discomfort of the buccaneer, who wished to
reach the Atlantic and rejoin his companions who had left him behind.
Wafer described the birds, animals, fishes, and insects with considerable
minuteness, although it is obvious that he had no special training in, or
great gift for, natural history. Wafer eventually reached Philadelphia,
where he availed himself of King James's general pardon to pirates.
WAKE, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
A notorious pirate, one of those particularly named in the Royal Warrant
issued in 1695 to Captain Kidd, authorizing him to go in search of the
American pirates.
WALDEN, JOHN, _alias_ "MISS NANNEY."
Born in Somersetshire.
Taken in the _Blessing_, of Lymington, by Roberts in Newfoundland, he
joined the pirates, and was later on hanged at the age of 24 in West
Africa. Walden was one of Captain Roberts's most active men. On taking
Captain Traher's ship, Walden carried a pole-axe with which he wrenched
open locked doors and boxes. He was a bold and daring man, of violent
temper, and was known amongst his shipmates by the nickname of Miss
Nanney. He lost a leg during the attack on the _Swallow_. After the
pirates took the _King Solomon_, Walden had to get up the anchor, but he
cut the cable, explaining to the captain that the weather was too hot to
go straining and crying "Yo Hope," and he could easily buy another anchor
when he got to London.
WANSLEY, THOMAS.
A negro steward on the brig _Vineyard_, he mutinied and assisted to murder
the captain and mate, afterwards becoming one of Captain Charles Gibbs's
crew. Hanged at New York in February, 1831.
WANT, CAPTAIN.
A Carolina pirate who was referred to at the trial of Captain Avery's crew
at London in 1696.
WARD.
One of the first English pirates to establish himself on the Barbary coast
in North Africa. By the year 1613 some thirty others had their
headquarters at the mouth of the Sebu River.
WARD, CAPTAIN.
As a poor English sailor he went to Barbary, turned Mohammedan, offered
his services to the Moors, and became captain of a galley. He grew to be
very rich, and "lived like a Bashaw in Barbary."
WARREN, WILLIAM.
Joined Captain Pound's crew from Lovell's Island.
WATERS, JOHN.
Of Devonshire.
Quartermaster to Captain Charles Harris. Tried and hanged at Newport,
Rhode Island, on July 19th, 1734. Aged 35.
WATKINS, JOHN.
An English soldier stationed at Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine. Deserted and
sailed with the pirate Pound. Killed at Tarpaulin Cove in 1689.
WATLING, CAPTAIN JOHN. Buccaneer.
When Bartholomew Sharp's crew mutinied on New Year's Day in 1681 on the
_Most Holy Trinity_, they clapped their captain in irons and put him down
below on the ballast, and elected an old pirate and a "stout seaman," John
Watling, in his place. One of the reasons for the revolt was said to be
the ungodliness of Captain Sharp.