GregF

On January 25, 1723, Edward Low’s crew captured two trading vessels from New York as they were within sight of the island of Curacao. The pirates took four men from one of the ships as captives, whipping one of them repeatedly because he had previously served on a British warship. Low kept one of the vessels captured near Curacao, a snow called the Unity. Within a week's time, however, the Unity would be set free with a number of captives aboard. That happened because Low's crew encountered the HMS Mermaid somewhere between Cartagena, Columbia, and the northernmost tip of the coastline of Panama. The pirates initially set a course towards the Mermaid, but as soon as they realized they were chasing a British warship, they changed course. Low put a number of captives on the Unity and set it free. The Mermaid came after Low, but by heading towards some shoal water, he was able to escape.

Also taken from the Greyhound that same day with Atwell was the second mate, Charles Harris, "aged about 25, small stature, born in London." Before long, Harris signed on with Low's crew and by the Spring of 1723 was serving as Low's quartermaster and was in command of second sloop, the Ranger. Harris' career as a pirate came to an end in June 1723 when he and the other men on the Ranger were captured by a British warship called, ironically, the Greyhound. The HMS Greyhound battered Harris' sloop during a celebrated 12-hour battle at sea. Harris and 26 other pirates from Low's crew were tried, convicted, and then hanged in Newport, Rhode Island on July 19, 1723. http://www.gregflemming.com/read-the-prologue/

Speaking of which, if anyone has not read Cordingly's book on Rogers (and a range of other topics), I'd recommend it. I enjoyed it a lot. http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Hunter-Caribbean-Adventurous-Captain/dp/B00DF8MM3M/ref=la_B000APDSD6_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389022010&sr=1-6 Greg

The only other point I would add is that while the design of flags may have been largely a matter of taste, the color -- black or red -- seems to have been significant, at least in the 1720s. A black flag was flown during the initial phase of an attack -- on approach -- as a warning that the vessel was under command of pirates. Often accompanied by one or more warning shots, this was a signal to crews aboard a targeted ship to surrender. In contrast, the red flag was raised when a crew did not surrender. The opportunity to surrender, and be given safe quarter, was gone and the pirates would now fight to the kill. The crews sailing under both Low and Spriggs exhibited this behavior. “When they fight under the Jolly Roger, they give quarter," wrote the sea captain Richard Hawkins, who was captured by Spriggs in 1723, "which they do not when they fight under the red or bloody flag.”

The reference to "Black Flags and Deaths Heads" is from a report printed in the Boston News Letter, June 16 1718 regarding Wyer's encounter. The report describes both Wyer's initial engagement with some of Blackbeard's crew (off the island of Roatan) and the subsequent encounter near Belize. The report states, as quoted above, that Wyer saw a "large ship and sloop with black flags and deaths heads in them and three more sloops with bloody flags all bore down upon the said ship Protestant Caesar..." I would be happy to send you a pdf of this edition of the Boston News Letter if you'd like. Greg

Happy New Year! In 1722, the first week of January was bitterly cold in Boston, and just after noon on this day -- January 1 -- a huge fire tore through a sailmaker’s warehouse on Long Wharf, the massive pier at the center of Boston’s large inner harbor. The fire completely destroyed at least two of the warehouses that lined one side of Long Wharf and damaged several others nearby. What was particularly ominous about that first week of January 1722 is that one of the vessels that set sail from Boston Harbor was a ninety-ton brigantine called the Rebecca. It would be an unforgettable journey. The Rebecca would safely reach its destination, the small sugar-producing island of St. Kitts in the British West Indies, without serious incident. But the journey home would be different, for on May 28, 1722, the Rebecca would be taken by a pirate crew under the command of Edward Low, who would sail the brigantine north past New England and up to the Canadian coastline, capturing dozens of vessels along the way. http://www.gregflemming.com/news-events/ Greg

You and Foxe are correct. Some scholars have spent their entire careers arguing about what Defoe did or did not write. I fully agree with Foxe that many of the events in Four Years Voyage are very well researched and, as I have noted in my book, "Whether or not Defoe wrote or contributed to Four Years Voyages, there is no question that Ashton’s Memorial was being read in London by 1726 and its impact was felt there, as well as in Boston. Whoever wrote Four Years Voyages almost certainly took new details about Low’s crew of pirates, revealed in Ashton’s Memorial, and incorporated them into the storyline of the new book." My only point in the post above is that some of the dialogue attributed to Roberts or to Low or Russel might well be fictional. http://gregflemming.com

For what it's worth, as I note in my forthcoming book about Edward Low's pirate crew, some scholars of Daniel Defoe have suggested The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts was in fact written by Defoe (not a George Roberts, who may or may not have existed). Defoe seems to have obtained many of the details about Low's crew from contemporary newspaper accounts and from a journal kept by Philip Ashton, one of the captives aboard Low's ship. This suggests the conversations attributed to Low and others in The Four Years Voyages may be fictional. Greg http://gregflemming.com

I agree. I posted this a few weeks ago, but another bit of news related to the Whydah: did you see recently that even more of Bellamy’s gold may still be buried on the ocean floor off Marconi Beach on Cape Cod? Barry Clifford, the diver and explorer who discovered Bellamy’s shipwrecked vessel, the Whydah, is in the news again this Fall. Clifford’s team of divers has continued to explore the shipwreck site since its discovery in 1984, and based on work conducted late this summer, Clifford believes there may be far more gold coins and other artifacts still hidden under the sand on the ocean floor. http://abcnews.go.co...ory?id=20189657

Very interesting. Thanks!

I have never seen a source document for that quote and don't know where it might have come from. It's not in General History of Pyrates, or in Cotton Mather's 1717 description of the pirates. Somewhat related to this, did you see recently that even more of Bellamy’s gold may still be buried on the ocean floor off Marconi Beach on Cape Cod? Barry Clifford, the diver and explorer who discovered Bellamy’s shipwrecked vessel, the Whydah, is in the news again this week. Clifford’s team of divers has continued to explore the shipwreck site since its discovery in 1984, and based on work conducted late this summer, Clifford believes there may be far more gold coins and other artifacts still hidden under the sand on the ocean floor. http://abcnews.go.com/US/dive-reveals-buried-treasure-site-mass-pirate-ship/story?id=20189657

I couldn't agree more. Three weeks after they returned to Newport, Rhode Island, Simmons, Barlow, and seven other members of the crew on the John and Mary were brought to trial at the Newport townhouse. The trial was held because the men, with “force and arms,” had killed “two of the subjects of our Lord the King” -- but as you note, because these two “subjects” were by all accounts pirates, there never seemed to be any question of the crew’s innocence. The men recounted their capture and escape, and all of them were found not guilty. What was also particularly unusual about the Barlow-Simmons event was that three months after the trial, Simmons filed a petition in Boston claiming his capture by the pirates had terrorized him so much that he couldn’t go back to working at sea. "And in as much as the said Nicholas Simmons is now under a necessity to leave off his employment of a mariner for fear of the said pirates and has a new employment to seek for his support, he being in but low circumstances," Simmons’ petition stated, "he therefore most humbly prays your honors would be pleased to take the premises into your most just and wise consideration and bestow of your bounty upon him as in your accustomed goodness you shall see meet." By the way, I can't get your web site below (ETFOX.co.uk) to load. Is it down?

Thanks, Foxe. I looked at several editions of Fillmore's narrative, but relied primarily on the 1790 Haswell & Russell printing, A Narration of the Captivity of John Fillmore and his Escape from the Pirates. More contemporary information about Fillmore's experiences can be found in the report of his deposition (Boston Gazette, May 4 1724) and in the trial of the pirates and captives from Phillips' crew in Boston that May. I am quite impressed that you know about Barlow and Simmons -- not many do! Their story is another fascinating window into an uprising by captives aboard a pirate ship. Greg

Foxe, you are absolutely correct when you say that they *heard* the rumor of George's death. I became quite familiar with Hawkins' experiences aboard Sprigg's galley while researching my forthcoming book on the pirates Low and Spriggs. The full quote from Hawkins' letter, published in the British Journal, August 22, 1724, is as follows: "Captain Pike of Rhode Island, the master of the sloop which they burnt while I was with them, said he was informed in Jamaica that the King was dead. On this they immediately hoisted the Jolly Roger half mast...". As it turned out, after holding Hawkins, the other captain, Samuel Pike, and several crewmen aboard for a number of days, Spriggs eventually dumped them on the remote island of Roatan in the Bay of Honduras. The men were put on the island with a few supplies to sustain them. Hawkins had a cutlass, a musket, and a small supply of gunpowder and shot. The men also had some flour and about a week’s supply of beef and brandy. "The manner of our living on the island was tolerable considering our circumstances, for we were not sent away empty-handed," Hawkins wrote. The men were rescued by a passing ship about a week later. (You can read more at gregflemming.com).