If A Pirate I Must Be...

by Richard Sanders

  By now Davis’s crew numbered 150 men and he was acting in concert with two other pirates he had encountered on the coast of Africa - Jeremiah Cocklyn and a Frenchman called Captain La Bouche. At Sierra Leone the three pirate crews took thirteen prizes and it was here they came across William Snelgrave, captain of the slaver Bird, whose memoirs provide a vivid portrait of Davis and his crew just a few weeks before the capture of Roberts.

  Snelgrave was originally taken by Jeremiah Cocklyn and received a beating from his men. It was a relief for him when he encountered Davis a few days later. He painted Davis as a sympathetic figure who claimed to be driven by a sense of injustice. Davis ‘was ashamed to hear how I had been used by them’, Snelgrave wrote, and said ‘they should remember their reasons for going a pirating were to revenge themselves on base merchants, and cruel commanders of ships’. He suspected the ‘ill-usage’ Snelgrave had received was because he had ordered his crew to defend the ship, rather than surrendering. ‘If he had had the good fortune to have taken me,’ Davis told Snelgrave, ‘and I had defended my ship against him, he should have doubly valued me for it.’

  Snelgrave noted that all three of the pirate captains were Jacobites, backing the claim of the ousted Stuart dynasty to the throne of England over that of the Hanoverian King George I. Davis’s ship was named after the would-be King James III and they even claimed, doubtless falsely, to have commissions from him. They regularly drank the Pretender’s health and so were ‘doubly on the side of the gallows, both as traitors and pirates’, wrote Snelgrave. Other captives of Davis’s crew also recalled them cursing King George, calling him a ‘son of a whore’ and a ‘cuckoldy dog’. Jacobite politics were common among pirates at this time and were often used to lend a spurious legitimacy to their activities.

  The three pirate crews left Sierra Leone at the end of April and headed east along the African coastline. When Bartholomew Roberts encountered Davis and his men a few weeks later at Anamaboe they were emerging from a period of turmoil. At the end of May Davis quarrelled with Cocklyn and La Bouche and the three crews agreed to separate. A couple of days later Davis came close to disaster off Cape Three Points at the western end of the Gold Coast. Spotting a large ship, he closed to engage what he thought was a harmless merchant vessel and found himself on the receiving end of a broadside which killed nine of his men. It turned out to be the Marquis del Campo, an East Indiaman from Ostend, with 30 guns and a crew of ninety. Davis returned fire, and a fierce fight followed, lasting from one in the afternoon until nine the next morning, when the Dutch finally surrendered. The pirates were still licking their wounds when they arrived at Anamaboe a few days later and it was the Marquis del Campo that was trailing in the King James’s wake when Roberts first caught sight of it.

  With the capture of Roberts and the other thirty-four men on 6 June Davis was stronger than ever. As his men joyously plundered the liquor stores of the three ships that afternoon he was already considering trading up again. He set the Dutch crew of the Marquis del Campo free, but he kept their ship, intending to convert it for his own use later on, handing them the Morrice to return home. Then, as the sun set, he weighed anchor and headed east, riding a powerful coastal current, the Marquis del Campo now joined by Roberts’ old ship, the Princess, and the Royal Hind in his growing flotilla of prizes.

  2

  BLADES OF FORTUNE

  BIGHT OF BIAFRA

  JUNE 1719

  ‘NEVER DISPUTE THE WILL OF A PIRATE!’

  Bartholomew Roberts remained a sullen, resentful presence aboard the King James for some time. He was not a prisoner. But he knew there was little chance of escape. A few days later Davis released the Princess, having plundered it of all he needed. As Roberts watched his old ship disappear over the horizon, he knew his chances of ever returning to his former life were disappearing with it. The pirates may have kept their distance from the tall, muscular Welshman as he stared moodily over the ship’s rail. But they’d seen this before and they knew that the pleasures of pirate life had a way of wearing down even the most stubborn personality. Sure enough, it was not long before Roberts began to show the first stirrings of interest in the lives of the men around him.

  He witnessed them take a prize for the first time on the very morning after his capture. A cry from the mast-top alerted the pirates to the presence of a sail on the horizon as dawn broke, just off Accra, and they gave chase. It proved to be another Dutch ship. The captain tried desperately to run ashore at the sight of Davis’s black flag. But the pirates were too quick and they pulled alongside, firing a broadside. The Dutch struck their colours and called for quarter - or mercy - which was granted, it being a rule among Davis’s men that quarter should always be given when asked for.

  As at Anamaboe the pirates initially sent aboard a small boarding party to assess the prize. It turned out to be carrying a senior Dutch official and had £15,000 in cash aboard, an unusually rich haul. It’s unlikely Roberts and the other new men from Anamaboe received a cut so soon after being captured. But the solitary Welshman watched with interest as the loot was divided among the rest of the crew. Each man received a share of close to £100. Just a day earlier Roberts had been on a salary of £2 a month.

  From Accra the pirates headed out into open sea, bound for the Bight of Biafra, 500 miles to the east. They arrived at High Cameroon, close to the modern Nigeria-Cameroon border, around the middle of June and set about converting the Marquis del Campo for their own use, knocking down the bulkheads in the hold and clearing the decks of any unnecessary obstacles.

  As the days passed Roberts paid close attention to the work going on around him and Davis’s choice of vessels told him that he was among serious and ambitious pirates. Pirates tended to start out small scale, often beginning their careers in periaguas, a type of indigenous Caribbean canoe. They’d gradually work their way up as they seized larger and larger prizes. But in the Caribbean at this time only a minority operated in anything larger than sloops like the Buck that had been Davis’s first vessel. Part of the purpose of coming to West Africa, with its large, ocean-going vessels, was to move up a league. The King James was a ‘ship’, a term which at this time was restricted to vessels with three or more masts and square rigs - rectangular sails that ran across the ship, rather than being fixed ‘fore and aft’ the mast as on a modern yacht. The Marquis del Campo was a larger version of the same thing. The pirates loaded it with 32 carriage guns and 27 swivel guns (small cannons fitted on stanchions) and renamed it the Royal Rover.

  Roberts knew he was now part of a fighting force that was more than a match for any other ship they were likely to encounter on the African coast. And, like many other pirate captives before him, he was starting to realise that the apparent anarchy of pirate life concealed a surprising degree of organisation. He was soon made aware that Davis’s crew was governed by a strict set of rules - rules that were startlingly democratic and egalitarian. Not only Davis but all other officers on board were elected. And Davis’s authority was restricted to command in battle. All other decisions were put to a vote. At High Cameroon the pirates debated for some time whether to keep the King James and continue in two ships. It was only after a vote was taken that they agreed to abandon their old vessel.

  During his period as a prisoner at Sierra Leone two months before William Snelgrave had been equally intrigued by the pirates’ democratic power structures. He noted that officers on board were the same as on a man of war, with one exception - the quartermaster. This was a minor position in Royal Navy and merchant vessels but had been elevated to second-in-command among the pirates as a counterweight to the power of the captain. He ‘has the general inspection of all affairs and often controls the captain’s orders. This person is also to be the first man in boarding any ship they shall attack,’ wrote Snelgrave. He was responsible for dividing up the loot on prizes they took, and also acted as a ‘civil magistrate’, arbitrating disputes and handing out punishments for minor offences. More serious offences were
tried by a jury of twelve pirates.

  For Roberts the physical environment of the ship emphasised its democratic nature. The removal of the bulkheads below deck was mainly to enable free movement in times of battle and mirrored the design of conventional warships. But Davis’s men went further and also knocked down most of the cabin partitions in the rear of the ship. This broke down the great vertical class divide between officers in the rear and men in the f’o’csle that Roberts was accustomed to on merchant ships. At Sierra Leone, William Snelgrave had noted that ‘everyone lay rough, as they called it, that is, on the deck, the captain himself not being allowed a bed’. Many pirates also cut down the raised quarterdeck at the rear of the ship and the f’o’csle at the front to make the deck ‘flush’, although this wasn’t done on Davis’s ships. Again, this was mainly a practical measure to remove obstacles in time of combat. But it also had the effect of levelling class distinctions since the quarterdeck was traditionally the preserve of the officers, the common sailors not being allowed to set foot on it.

  There was none of the pomp and ceremony that accompanied power on a merchant ship. The ‘Great Cabin’ was preserved and set aside for the use of the captain, Captain Johnson wrote, ‘but then every man, as the humour takes him, will use the plate and china, intrude into his apartments, swear at him, seize a part of his victuals and drink, if they like it, without his offering to find fault or contest it.’ Invited to drink with his captors at Sierra Leone, Snelgrave found ‘there was not in the cabin either chair, or anything else to sit upon, for they always kept a clear ship ready for an engagement. So a carpet was spread on the deck, upon which we sat down cross legged.’

  The rules governing the ship were set out in a list of what were called ‘articles’, which Roberts, like every other new recruit, was obliged to sign within a few days of joining. These were drawn up by the crew as a whole and made fascinating reading for the new recruits. Davis’s men pledged, according to a crew member, ‘to stand by one another ... to ye last drop of blood in ye piratical practice, and to share ye purchase according to ye custom of Blades of Fortune’.

  The precise articles do not survive. But those of a number of other pirate crews do. They outlawed cowardice and desertion, established mechanisms for resolving disputes without bloodshed, and placed restrictions on gambling, which was often a source of discord among pirates. Some rules had an obvious practical purpose. Captain John Phillips’ articles, drawn up in 1723, stipulated that no man ‘shall snap his arms [pull the trigger of his musket], or smoke tobacco in the hold, without a cap to his pipe, or carry a lighted candle without a lanthorn’ - a precaution against fire. Others were surprisingly chivalrous. ‘If at any time we meet with a prudent woman, that man that offers to meddle with her, without her consent, to suffer present death,’ read item nine of Phillips’ articles.

  Execution was usually by firing squad. Pirates at this time never made men walk the plank - one of the great pirate myths. The practice was introduced much later by Hispanic pirates off Cuba in the brief explosion of piracy that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and was never used during the Golden Age. Most punishments were less extreme. They ranged from flogging (often ‘Moses’ law ... forty stripes lacking one’) to marooning on an island or some other desolate shore. Those guilty of minor misdemeanours might find themselves left on a large island with water and animals. Men guilty of more serious crimes were abandoned on a sandbar and were given a pistol and some shot so they could kill themselves if they chose to. Marooning was so common that pirates often referred to themselves as leading ‘a marooning life’ or even referred to themselves as ‘marooners’, the term capturing their sense of apartness from the rest of society.

  Articles also laid out elaborate systems of injury insurance. This was a practice which dated at least back to the 1660s when the Buccaneer Alexander Exquemelin described a complex sliding scale:

  For the loss of a right arm 600 pieces-of-eight [a Spanish gold coin, worth around four shillings and sixpence] or 6 slaves; for the loss of a left arm 500 pieces-of-eight, or 5 slaves; for a right leg 500 pieces-of-eight, or 5 slaves; for a left leg 400 pieces-of-eight, or 4 slaves; for an eye 100 pieces-of-eight, or 1 slave; for a finger of the hand the same reward as for the eye.

  Captain George Lowther’s articles, drawn up in 1721, were simpler:

  He that shall have the misfortune to lose a limb, in time of engagement, shall have the sum of £150 and remain with the company as long as he shall think fit.

  Invalids were given non-combatant jobs and, like Long John Silver in Treasure Island, many ended up as ships’ cooks. Roberts probably saw a number of eye-patches and wooden legs among the men of Davis’s crew, more than on a conventional ship where crippled men struggled to find work.

  Above all, articles laid out the rules for the division of booty. Captain Lowther’s were typical:

  The captain is to have two full shares; the master is to have one share and a half; the doctor, mate, gunner, and boatswain, one share and a quarter.

  The rest of the men received a single share. For Roberts, as he watched the loot being divided up following the capture of the Dutch ship at Accra, this egalitarianism was a stark contrast to the merchant ships he was used to, where captains earned four times more than ordinary seaman and, more importantly, owned a substantial share of the cargo. Pirates, of course, were not obliged to share any of their profits with owners back in Britain. Articles set out severe punishments for any pirate who withheld loot from the common pot.

  For William Snelgrave at Sierra Leone one incident had highlighted the unusual power structures aboard the three pirate ships that had captured him. He was sitting in his cabin on the Bird one day when the three captains - Davis, La Bouche and Cocklyn - came aboard. They’d been inspecting his books and had noticed he had three embroidered coats in the hold, part of his own private ‘adventure of goods’ - that is, goods he was trading on his own account. They asked him to produce them since ‘they were going ashore amongst the negro ladies’ and wished to dress up for their night on the town. Snelgrave had little option but to comply. There was a minor dispute when Cocklyn, ‘who was a very short man’, found the coat he’d chosen ‘reached as low as his ankles’. But the other two pointed out that since ‘the negro ladies ... did not know the white men’s fashions, it was no matter’. Cocklyn was placated and off they went.

  When they returned the following morning there was uproar among the men. They had no problem with the three captains enjoying a night of debauchery. ‘It is a rule among the pirates,’ wrote Snelgrave, ‘not to allow Women to be on board their Ships when in the harbour. ... This being a good political rule to prevent disturbances amongst them, it is strictly observed.’ By going ashore the captains had complied with this rule. It wasn’t the women that were the problem. It was the coats.

  ‘The Pirate Captains,’ wrote Snelgrave, ‘having taken these clothes without leave from the quartermasters, it gave great offence to all the crew, who alleged, “If they suffered such things, the captains would for the future assume a power, to take whatever they liked for themselves.” So, upon their returning on board next morning, the coats were taken from them, and put into the common chest, to be sold at the mast’ - in other words, to be auctioned among the whole crew. Snelgrave himself only narrowly escaped a beating from La Bouche’s quartermaster for having supplied them.

  This egalitarianism had been part of the culture of Caribbean pirates since Buccaneer times. But by 1719 the changing composition of pirate crews had given it a sharper edge. The earlier Buccaneers had been drawn from many walks of life. Henry Morgan, the most famous Buccaneer of all, was a soldier. Others were originally servants or planters who had only ever served at sea on Buccaneer vessels. Many of the later pirates in the Bahamas had originally been privateers. But the majority of these men retired following the royal pardon of 1718. After that pirate crews would be drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the merchant navy and piracy would be colour
ed by the fierce class antagonisms aboard merchant ships - above all, the slavers.

  Howel Davis saw himself as a Robin Hood figure, at war with an unjust social order, and he was not alone. According to Johnson, Captain Bellamy, who operated off the North American coast in 1717, harangued a merchant captain with the following speech:

  Damn ye, you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security, for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery ... Damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference; they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make one of us than sneak after the arseholes of such villains for employment?

  When the captain declined to turn pirate Bellamy retorted:

  There is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure; and pin their faith upon a pimp of a parson; a Squab who neither practices nor believes what he puts upon the chuckle-headed fools he preaches to.

  In 1720 the famous female pirate Mary Read defended the death penalty for piracy on the unconventional grounds that, without it, ‘every cowardly fellow would turn pirate ... many of those who are now cheating the widows and orphans, and oppressing their poor neighbours ... would then rob at sea and the ocean would be crowded with rogues, like the land, and no merchant would venture out’.

  Piracy had been transformed since the days of Francis Drake and the gentlemen adventurers of the Elizabethan era. The men Roberts now found himself among were almost exclusively lower class. If anything they attacked Spanish shipping less than that of any other nation, including their own, and they made no attempt to present themselves as patriots. Theirs was a ‘World Turned Upside Down’ - the title of a song in John Gay’s play Polly, the sequel to The Beggar’s Opera, which was banned in 1729 for drawing a moral comparison between pirates and the inner circle of Prime Minister Robert Walpole.