ALSO BY DAVID CORDINGLY Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors’ Wives Copyright © 2011 by David Cordingly All rights reserved Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc Originally published in the United Kingdom as Spanish Gold by Bloomsbury Publishing, London Maps by John Gilkes Illustrative material within the text is reproduced by permission of the British Library eISBN: 978-0-679-64421-7 www.atrandom.com Jacket design: Base Art Co Jacket painting: Charles Brooking, Shipping in the English Channel (detail) (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/Bridgeman Art Library v3.1 For Shirley CONTENTS Cover Other Books by This Author Title Page Copyright Dedication Author’s Note Maps Prologue Raiding the South Seas The Sea Captain From Bristol to Cape Horn A Man Clothed in Goat-Skins The Manila Galleons The Voyagers Return Sugar, Slaves and Sunken Treasure Governor of the Bahamas Welcome to Nassau 10 Hanged on the Waterfront 11 Blackbeard’s Last Stand 12 Calico Jack and the Female Pirates 13 Great Debts and Bills 14 Death on the Coast of Guinea 15 Back to the Bahamas Epilogue Photo Insert Glossary Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments About the Author Author’s Note The Juan Fernández Archipelago consists of three islands and a rocky islet The largest island, which used to be known as Isla Más a Tierra, is the only one which has ever been inhabited and is the one which the buccaneers and later seafarers called Juan Fernández In 1966 the Chilean government renamed this island Isla Robinson Crusoe, and the smaller, uninhabited island 112 miles to the west (formerly called Isla Más Afuera) was renamed Isla Alejandro Selkirk The third island in the group was, and still is, called Isla Santa Clara, and the rocky islet is called Islote Juananga I have followed the usage of the early seafarers and always refer to the large island by its original name, as in this quote from Woodes Rogers’ journal, ‘At seven this morning we made the Island of Juan Fernandez.’ During the course of this book I have used the terms ‘pieces of eight’, ‘pesos’ and ‘Spanish dollars’ depending on the source of the information All three terms apply to the same silver coin which was worth eight reales and was the common currency used throughout Spain’s empire in the New World for more than three centuries One side of the coin had the Spanish coat of arms and the other side usually had a design which included the pillars of Hercules The twin pillars symbolised the limits of the ancient world at the Straits of Gibraltar and these eventually formed the basis of the dollar sign used today In 1644 one piece of eight (or peso or Spanish dollar) was valued in England at four shillings and sixpence That would be the equivalent of about £18 or US $28 today In their books, Woodes Rogers and Edward Cooke usually anglicised the names of the Spanish ships which they encountered I have used the Spanish names for Spanish ships and smaller vessels However, I have retained the archaic spelling of Dutchess and Marquiss for the English ships because these are the names given to them by the privateers Map of the Pacific coast of South and Central America showing the places associated with the buccaneers and with Woodes Rogers’ privateering expedition Map of the Caribbean and Central America during the time of the buccaneers, privateers and pirates of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century 23/12, part 20 Woodes Rogers to Lord Townshend, 26 November 1726 British Library, Add MSS 32748, ff 317–18 21 British Library, Add MSS 4459, ff 101–2 22 Ibid 23 PRO: CO 23/14, ff 45–52 24 PRO: MPG 1/254 25 Plan of Fort Nassau in New Providence, 24 December 1723 PRO: MPG 1/256 26 Bahamas correspondence 1728–46 PRO: CO 23/14, f.141 27 The painting became the property of Woodes Rogers’ daughter Sarah She died in 1743 and according to her will she bequeathed to ‘Mr Sergeant Eyre, the picture of her father, brother and herself in one frame’ The painting was engraved by W Skelton in 1799 Chapter Fourteen: Death on the Coast of Guinea John Atkins (1685–1757) joined the navy as surgeon’s mate of the Charles Galley in 1701, and subsequently served on the Somerset, the Tartar and the bomb ketch Lion His entry in the Oxford DNB was compiled by the naval surgeon Vice-Admiral Sir James Watt John Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies (London, 1735), p 46 Ibid., p 139 Jean Barbot, A Description of the Coasts of Guinea, quoted by Hugh Thomas in The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440–1870 (London, 1997; edn cited 1998), p 346 Captain Herdman to Admiralty, from Barbados, August 1722 PRO: ADM 1/1880, part Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies, p 139 Captain Herdman to Admiralty, April 1723 PRO: ADM 1/1880, part Captain Ogle to Admiralty, from Cape Coast Road, April 1722 PRO: CO ADM 1/2242 Captain Charles Johnson, History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn (London, 1972; edn cited New York, 1999), p 205 10 Ibid., p 223 11 CSPC, vol 1720–1721, no 463, III 12 Ibid 13 Johnson, History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn, p 228 14 Captain Chaloner Ogle to the Admiralty, April 1722, HMS Swallow in Cape Coast Road PRO: ADM 1/2242 15 For details of the Swallow’s actions against the pirates see: Captain Ogle’s letter to the Admiralty of April 1722, 26 July 1722 and September 1722, PRO: ADM 1/2243; Captain Ogle’s log of the Swallow, PRO: ADM.51/954, part 7; log of Lieutenant Edward Chaloner of the Swallow, NMM: ADM/L/S564; Proceedings of Court held on the coast of Africa upon trying of 100 pyrates taken by HMS Swallow, PRO: HCA 1/99.3; Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies, pp 147, 191–4; Johnson, History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn, pp 237–87 16 Captain’s log of HMS Swallow, February 1722 PRO: ADM.51/954, part 17 Ibid 18 These figures are taken from Captain Ogle’s letter to the Admiralty Johnson, General History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn, p 240, notes that the French Ranger was manned with sixteen Frenchmen, twenty Negroes and seventy-seven Englishmen 19 20 21 22 Johnson, History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn, p 269 Captain Ogle to the Admiralty, PRO: ADM 1/2242 Johnson, History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn, p 244 These figures are from Captain Ogle’s letter to the Admiralty Johnson, General History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn, p 245, notes that the Royal Fortune had a crew of 157, of whom forty-five were Negroes 23 Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies, p 192 24 Ibid., p 147 25 Ibid., p 98 26 See Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge, 1987), pp 12, 260; N A M Rodger, The Wooden World (London, 1986), p 114 27 PRO: HCA 1/99.3 28 Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London and New York, 1991), pp 80, 216–18, 244; and reports in London newspapers of this period such as the Daily Courant, the Post Boy and Applebee’s Original Weekly Journal 29 PRO: HCA 1/99.3 30 These figures are taken from a list drawn up by Captain Ogle which is headed ‘An acct of the men taken in the Royal Fortune and Great Ranger, Pyrate ships, by his Majtys ship Swallow under my command’ PRO: ADM 1/2242 31 Captain Chaloner Ogle to the Admiralty, September 1722 PRO: ADM 1/2242 32 Ibid 33 The London Gazette of December 1722 carried reports of the hurricane received from Kingston, Port Royal, and from HMS Falkland Chapter Fifteen: Back to the Bahamas Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, 12 November 1729 CSPC, vol 36, 1728–1729, no 965 Remarks on the condition of the fortifications at New Providence when Governor Rogers arrived the 25th August 1729, prepared by the lieutenant, gunner and sergeant of the garrison PRO: CO 23/14, f.141 Queries from the Board of Trade for the year 1728 PRO: CO 23/14, f.66 Taken from the census figures sent home by Woodes Rogers on 14 October 1731 PRO: CO 23/2 and quoted by Michael Craton and Gail Saunders in Islanders in the Stream: a History of the Bahamian People (Athens, Georgia, USA, 1992), vol 1, pp 119–121 Estimated population of the English Sugar Islands in 1713, from Richard S Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 (London, 1973), p 312 Richard Sheridan, ‘Caribbean Plantation Society, 1689–1748’, in The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Eighteenth Century, ed P J Marshall (Oxford, 1998; edn cited 2001), vol II, p 401 Quoted by Brian Little, Crusoe’s Captain: Being the Life of Woodes Rogers, Seaman, Trader, Colonial Governor (London, 1960), pp 214, 215 Bahamas Correspondence, 1728–1746 PRO: CO 23/14, ff 121 See also Harcourt Malcolm, A History of the Bahamas House of Assembly (Nassau, 1921) CSPC, vol 38 (1731), nos 419, 526 10 These figures are taken from Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston, 2004), p 29 They are based on detailed studies made by Rediker and are confirmed by many contemporary estimates made by colonial governors, merchants and others 11 Peter Earle, The Pirate Wars (London, 2003), p 206 12 Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge, 1987), p 283 13 The Boston Gazette, 1–8 June 1724 14 Governor Sir Nicholas Lawes to Council of Trade and Plantations, 12 June 1721 CSPC, 1720–1721, no 523 15 Governor Lawes, 18 May 1722 CSPC, 1722–1723, no 142 16 Governor Burnet to Lord Carteret, 25 June 1723 CSPCS, vol 1722–1723, no 606 17 The present Disposal of all His Majesties Ships and Vessels in Sea Pay PRO: ADM 8/14 18 See Earle, The Pirate Wars, p 269, n.14 19 Bahamas Correspondence, 1728–1746 PRO: CO 23/14, f.157 20 Lewis Bonnett to Charles Delafaye, New Providence, 10 February 1730 PRO: CO 23/14, f.183 21 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, 10 February 1731 CSPC, vol 38, 1731, no 47 22 Bahamas Correspondence, PRO: CO 23/14, f.225 23 Gentleman’s Magazine, September 1732, p 979 24 For details of the will of Woodes Rogers and the fate of his son William, see Brian Little, Crusoe’s Captain (London, 1960), pp 199, 210, 219, 222, and G E Manwaring’s Introduction to Captain Woodes Rogers, A Cruising Voyage Round the World (London and New York, 1928), pp xlv, xlvi Epilogue The reference to pirates was dropped when the Bahamas achieved independence in 1973 and adopted the new motto ‘Forward, upward and onward together’ to go along with a fine coat of arms which celebrates the sun, the sea and the fauna and flora of the islands The following works were consulted for this chapter: Paula R Backschreider, Daniel Defoe: His Life (Baltimore, 1989); Peter Earle, The World of Defoe (London, 1976); David Fausett, The Strange Surprising Sources of Robinson Crusoe (Amsterdam, 1994); John Robert Moore, Daniel Defoe: Citizen of the Modern World (Chicago, 1958); John Richetti, The Life of Daniel Defoe (Oxford, 2005); Pat Rogers, Robinson Crusoe (London, 1979); Arthur W Secord, Studies in the Narrative Method of Defoe (Illinois, 1924); Tim Severin, Seeking Robinson Crusoe (London, 2002); James Sutherland, Daniel Defoe: A Critcal Study (Harvard, 1971); Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (London, 1957) Coleridge’s Miscellaneous Criticism, ed Thomas Middleton Raysor (London, 1936), pp 194, 300 Richetti, The Life of Daniel Defoe, p 185 Secord, Studies in the Narrative Method of Defoe, p 31 Glyndwr Williams, The Great South Sea: English Voyages and Encounters, 1570–1750 (London and New Haven, 1997), p 179 Quoted by Rogers in Robinson Crusoe, p 142 Moore, Daniel Defoe: Citizen of the Modern World, p 223 Daniel Defoe, The Compleat English Gentleman, ed K D Bulbring (London, 1890), p 225 10 Secord, Studies in the Narrative Method of Defoe, p 49 11 Rogers, Robinson Crusoe, p 22 12 Captain Charles Johnson, General History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn (London, 1972; edn cited New York, 1999), p 13 Ibid., p 62 14 Ibid., p 141 15 Ibid., p 143 16 Ibid., p 143 17 Professor Schonhorn notes that Rogers probably contributed certain details to Johnson’s book See Johnson, General History of the Pyrates, ed Manuel Schonhorn, p 673 Bibliography Andrew, Kenneth, The Spanish Caribbean: Trade and Plunder, 1520–1630 (New Haven, 1978) Atkins, John, A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies (London, 1735) Backschreider, Paula R., Daniel Defoe: His Life (Baltimore, 1989) Baer, Joel H., ‘Captain John Avery and the Anatomy of a Mutiny’, in Eighteenth Century Life, Johns Hopkins University Press for 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Pyrates (London, 1972), with the author’s name given as Daniel Defoe, but I have cited the Dover Publications edition (New York, 1999) Konstam, Angus, Blackbeard: America’s Most Notorious Pirate (Hoboken, 2006) Lavery, Brian, The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600–1850 (London, 1987) Lee, C D., ‘Alexander Selkirk and the last voyage of the Cinque Ports Galley’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol 73 (1987) Lee, Robert E., Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times (Winston-Salem, 1974; edn cited 1995) Linebaugh, Peter, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London and New York, 1991) Little, Brian, Crusoe’s Captain: Being the Life of Woodes Rogers, Seaman, Trader, Colonial Governor (London, 1960) Lovett, R W., ‘Sir Richard Steele’s “frequent conversations” with Alexander Selkirk’, English Language Notes, 25/1 (1987) Lyon, David, The Sailing Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy, Built, Purchased, and Captured, 1688–1860 (London, 1993) 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Daniel Defoe: A Critical Study (Harvard, 1971) Thomas, Graham A., Pirate Hunter: The Life of Captain Woodes Rogers (Barnsley, 2008) Thomas, Hugh, The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440–1870 (London, 1997) Thomas, Pascoe, A True and Impartial Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas and Round the Globe in His Majesty’s Ship the Centurion (London, 1745) Uring, Nathaniel, The Voyages and Travels of Captain Nathaniel Uring, ed A Dewar (London, 1928) Wagner, Kip, Pieces of Eight: Recovering the Riches of a Lost Spanish Treasure Fleet (London and New York, 1966) Watt, Ian, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (London, 1957) Williams, Basil, The Whig Supremacy, 1714–1760 (Oxford, 1939) Williams, Glyn, The Prize of all the Oceans: The Triumph and Tragedy of Anson’s Voyage Round the World (London, 1999) Williams, Glyndwr, The Great South Sea: English Voyages and Encounters, 1570–1750 (London and New Haven, 1997) Williams, Neville, The Sea Dogs: Privateers, Plunder and Piracy in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1975) Woodard, Colin, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down (New York and London, 2007) Acknowledgments The idea for this book was rst suggested to me by my writer friend Richard Platt, who thought that it was time for a fresh look at the adventurous career of Captain Woodes Rogers My thanks to him and to Bill Swainson, my editor at Bloomsbury, who took on the book and, as usual, had shrewd advice on how to deal with a subject which proved to be more complex and wide ranging than a straightforward biography The book is based on the Colonial O ce and Admiralty documents held by the National Archives (Public Record O ce) in London, and on material in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich The writings of William Dampier, Captain Charles Johnson, Daniel Defoe and Woodes Rogers himself have been an essential resource, while Crusoe’s Captain, a welldocumented biography of Rogers by Brian Little which was published in 1960, proved a most useful starting point I have also made use of a considerable number of more recent books and would like to acknowledge my debt to the following in particular: The Pirate Wars by Peter Earle, Blackbeard by Angus Konstam, Villains of All Nations by Marcus Rediker, Seeking Robinson Crusoe by Tim Severin, British Privateering Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century by David J Starkey, The Great South Sea by Glyn Williams, and The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard Fifteen years ago I organised an exhibition entitled Pirates: Fact and Fiction at the National Maritime Museum in London This led to the writing of Life Among the Pirates (entitled Under the Black Flag in the United States), which has done remarkably well over the years and resulted in my acting as consultant for an exhibition based on the book at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and a small exhibition on pirates at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York I was also involved in the creation of a museum of piracy at Nassau in the Bahamas, and was historical consultant for the rst of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, as well as for several documentary lms on pirates These and other ventures resulted in visits (some under sail) to many West Indian islands as well to Key West, Florida, and several museums on the east coast of North America During the course of these visits my wife and I received generous hospitality from many people and would especially like to thank Peter and Mary Neill, William and Kerstin Gilkerson, Claudia and Craig Pennington, Madeleine Burnside, Julie McEnroe, Benjamin ‘Dink’ Bruce, John Hightower, Simon and Robin Robinson, Tom Goodwin and Ellen, and Orjan and Amanda Lindroth I would also like to thank Gill Coleridge, my literary agent, for her constant support over the years, and to thank her assistant, Cara Jones, for elding a steady stream of queries on pirates and other maritime subjects The sta of Bloomsbury, my publishers, have been as helpful and e cient as always and, in addition to Bill Swainson, I would like to thank Nick Humphrey and Anna Simpson for their valuable input, and Laura Brooke for handling the publicity Thanks also to John Gilkes for the beautifully drawn maps, and to Richard Dawes, the copy editor, for spotting and correcting numerous errors, inconsistencies, and misspellings Of course I remain responsible for any that remain As in the past my greatest debt is to my family My son Matthew has taken a keen interest in the subject and has been a constant source of ideas and practical suggestions; my daughter Rebecca has helped me sort out my thoughts over co ee in the British Library on many occasions; and, in addition to her advice and encouragement throughout the writing of this book, my wife has shouldered most of the responsibility for family and grandparent duties so that I could get the book nished It is to her, therefore, that this book is affectionately dedicated D.C Brighton, Sussex January 2011 ABOUT THE AUTHOR DAVID CORDINGLY was for twelve years on the sta of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, where he was curator of paintings and then head of exhibitions He is a graduate of Oxford, and the renowned author of the de nitive book on pirates, Under the Black Flag, as well as Seafaring Women and Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander Cordingly lives with his wife by the sea in Sussex, England ... Spanish coat of arms and the other side usually had a design which included the pillars of Hercules The twin pillars symbolised the limits of the ancient world at the Straits of Gibraltar and these... proved to be one of the richest sources of silver ore in the world By 1650 the sides of the mountain were peppered with mine shafts and at the base of the mountain there was a town of more than 160,000... those of the hated Spanish After the capture of Jamaica by the British in 1655 many of the buccaneers moved to the harbour and town of Port Royal, which soon acquired the reputation of being the