Captain John Smith

John Smith was born in Cathness in Northern Scotland, but had been raised by relations in Carisston in the Orkneys. On reaching maturity he sailed on several ships until signing on as mate on the George Galley, formerly known as the Princess Carolina. The ship sailed for Sancta Cruz on the Barbary Coast. Having been scrimped on by the peevish captain Ferneau during the month long trip, Smith and James Williams conspired to take the ship and turn to piracy. During the return trip from Sancta Cruz, Smith and his confederates seized the ship, killing all the officers that stood in their way.
After some refit and renaming the ship as the Revenge, the crew fell to the trade of pirating. Crossing paths with the Delight and the Bachelor, ships bound from Newfoundland to Cadiz, on November 18 and December 18 respectively, the pirates plundered them of all of value and sank them to prevent any news of their work. From the Coast of the Southward Cape to Cape Finisterre they took a Scottish snow and French ship bound from Cadiz to Brest.
Their next victim was the Triumvirate within thirty leagues of Vigo. The next ship was a French ship of some means that upon approach fired on the pirates rather than surrender. Smith made to stand off form the ship; Williams provoked by this fired a pistol at Smith's head and castigated him for cowardice and upbraided him for passing up a ship that would have had plenty of plunder. The crew, however, approved of Smith's actions and put Williams into the Triumvirate with all the prisoners of earlier raids and set them free. Williams was surrendered to authorities on an English ship in Lisbon, commanded by a Captain Davis. At this time the Ludlow Castle, an English warship was set out to search for the pirates, but after fifteen days gave up the search and returned to Lisbon.
Thinking that things might be getting too hot for them in the area, the pirates set sail for the Orkneys to careen and refit their ship. Here several of the crew who had been pressed into service, made off with a longboat and appraised the authorities of the identities of this ship's crew. Attempting to escape Smith set the ship to rights and making little headway, the wind turned them into shore and grounded the ship off Calf Sound. The pirates were captured and transported to England for trial. Smith refused to plead guilty or not for the court and was punished for this stubbornness. He was hanged on June 11, 1725.
The best of pirates may have had years of success before reaching Smith's demise, but not most. Many would have had short runs like Smith, due to a lack of luck, experience or intelligence. Smith seems to have suffered from two if not all of these shortcomings.

Captain John Evans

John Evans started upon his pirate career in September of 1722. Up to that time he had been legitimately involved in a variety of sailing jobs from master of a sloop belonging to Nevis to work as a mate sailing from Jamaica. Due to a lack of berths on ships at the time he and a band of three or four others rowed out of Port Royal in a canoe. Their first ilegal acts were simple rabbery of houses near the shore, but this was not entirely to their liking and they greatly desired to secure a true ship and move their work out to sea.
They made good their plans when they encountered a sloop, belonging to Bermuda, lying at anchor in Dunns Hole. Having taken the ship they put into at a little village and proceeded to ransack a local tavern of any and all goods that they desired. The next day they set sail for Hispanola in the sloop, which they renamed the Scowerer. Their first true prize as pirates was a Spanish sloop. After this they set coarse for the Windward Islands, where they captured the Dove, a ship bound from New England to Jamaica, off Puerto Rico, captained by a Captain Diamond. They forced the Dove's mate into service and added three others to the crew. After releasing the Dove, they set into one of the islands for fresh water and supplies.
The next prize was the 200 ton Lucretia and Catherine, Captain Mills, off the island of Disseada on January 11th. This done they went to the little island of Avis, intending to careen their hull and clean. However, before they could begin they sighted a sloop and gave chase, but failed to catch the ship, being slowed by the Lucretia. They were then nearer the island of Ruby, and so decided to careen there. This design was again forstalled as they ran up with a Dutch sloop and captured her. This new sloop being more to their liking than the Lucretia, they released the Lucretia and kept the sloop. The Scowerer and captured sloop set sail for the north coast of Jamaica and soon captured a sugar drover, before driving to the Grand Caymans, again with the intention of cleaning their hulls.
Prior to making landfall, the boatswain and Captain Evans exchanged ill language, and the boatswain taking offense challenged Evans to a duel. When the sloop arrived, however, the boatswain refused to go ashore and pursue the duel. Captain Evans, angered by the man's cowardance, beat him about the shoulders and back with his cane, upon which the boatswain drew his pistol and shot Evans in the head. The boatswain then jumped overboard and tried to swim to shore, but he was soon picked up by the Scowerer's crew. The crew, so angered at the death of the captain resolved to torture the man, but were unable to fulfill the threat as two of the crew shot him first. Lacking a willing candidate to take over as captain the crew set ashore at the Caymans with 9,000 pounds to be split among the 30 crew members.
Evans and his crew seemed to be doing pretty well, if it had not been for the unfortunate death of the captain at the hands of one of the crew, we can speculate that Evans might be a little more well known today. As is, the crew had a run of several months, perhaps giving them enough plunder to last a few months in port, while they looked for further opportunities.

Captain John Bowen

John Bowen was a Welsh pirate. He operated in the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf before he died 1704. Born in Bermuda, Bowen moved to South Carolina and became captain of a ship trading in the West Indies. After some years, he was captured by French pirates. The French brigands crossed the Atlantic, pillaged along the African coast, and wrecked their ship on Madagascar's southwestern coast. About 18 months later, Bowen and the other survivors were picked up by a Captain Read. The pirates took over a larger Arab ship (but little hooty) in the Persian Gulf. At this time (or perhaps earlier), Bowen enlisted with the pirates and was elected sailing master.
Returning to western Madagascar, Bowen's gang sailed in consort with George Booth. In April 1700, the two crews captured and took over the Speaker, a strong 50-gun slave ship. More than 200 pirates of many nationalities sailed to Zanzibar with George Booth as captain. Bowen took command at the end of 1700, when Booth was killed fighting Arab troops. Near the mouth of the Red Sea, Bowen captured an Indian vessel with £ 100,000 in booty and (in November 1701) a British ship that was sold on the Indian coast. Returning to Madagascar, Bowen wrecked his ship on Mauritius Island but saved most of the men and treasure. In return for large bribes, the Dutch governor warmly welcomed the pirates and allowed them to buy a ship. In April 1702, Bowen went back to Madagascar and set up camp on the eastern coast. Some time after, the pirates seized and took over the Speedy Return, which had stopped to buy slaves. After cruising alone with little success, Bowen joined Thomas Howard, and the two captains seized a rich British merchantman in March 1703. Afterwards the pirates set in at Rajapora.
After separating for a time, Bowen and Howard again joined forces. In August 1703, two Indian vessels and more than £ 70,000 were captured in the Red Sea. The pirates divided their plunder at Rajapura, India, and judging their ships to be unsound they burned them and moved their crews to the prize, naming it the Defiance, mounted with 56 guns and mustering some 160 plus fighting men. Some stayed with Howard on the Indian coast. Bowen and 40 crewmen retired on Mauritius, where he died of intestinal ailment about six months later.
The need for accurate charts and maps or a pilot well acquainted with local waters was a necessity for pirates as can be seen from the above account. Lack of them could lead to the loss of a ship and worse. From the time of Francis Drake on one of the more valuable things that a pirate could take from a captured ship was the set of charts. The ability to read them and navigate were often enough to qualify a pirate for captain. While not famously successful Bowen was lucky and skillful enough to live long enough to retire from piracy.

Captain James Kelley

James Kelley was aboard a slave ship when he was captured off West Africa by John Williams in 1680. Kelley joined Williams and was with him when Williams rescued John Cook as well as other pirates in the Caribbean in early 1681.
Kelley left Williams and joined Cook after Williams and Cook had argued after capturing a Spanish prize. Kelley in the company of Cook aboard the ship Bachelor's Delight plundered along the South American Pacific coast from 1684 to 1688. Cook died during this time and Edward Davis came into command of the ship. While the ship was at Jamaica, Kelley left Davis' company, accepted a pardon and became a privateer.
A few months passed and Kelley helped seize a sloop which he was elected captain of. Kelley set sail for the Indian Ocean. While in the East Indies, Kelley (using the alias James Gilliam) reunited with his old ship, the Bachelor's Delight. Kelley chose to join his old ship as quartermaster. Near Bombay in January 1692, the pirates captured the Unity. The defeated crew of the Unity joined with the pirates, put their officers out to sea, and elected Kelley as their captain.
Kelley next took his crew to northwest India where they put in for water. While in harbor, Kelley and 20 others were arrested. The charges against them were that they hadn't paid for supplies during an earlier stop while still onboard the Bachelor's Delight. The prisoners were forcibly converted to the Muslim faith and several of them died while undergoing circumcision. Kelley remained there for several years.
Around 1696, Kelley with the aid of others was able to steal a boat and reach Bombay. Kelley joined the ship Mocha, an East Indiaman ship. Eight days after leaving port the crew mutinied and Ralph Stout was elected captain. The pirates were very successful in their plundering, taking very rich prizes. In May 1698, the Mocha anchored at Saint Mary's Island. Kelley having much booty decided to join William Kidd who was heading home. This decision cost him his life, as unknown to Kelley, the authorities were hunting for Kidd. When Kidd landed at Boston, he was arrested as was Kelley.
Kelley was taken to England to be tried for his crimes. Kelley was found guilty and hanged in 1701. While awaiting his fate, Kelley wrote his memoirs which were later published as..."A Full and True Discovery of all the Robberies, Pyracies and Other Notorious Actions of James Kelley".

Were they pirates, or were they warriors for Islam

For centuries, historians have debated the significance of one of the most stirring episodes in the history of Britain’s Muslim minority. Men such as Captain John Ward of Kent astounded their compatriots by proudly adopting Islam to fight the Inquisition and the expansionist powers of Europe. Contemporaries called such men ‘corsairs’; they themselves considered themselves mujahidin. Some were among the most pious Muslims this country has yet produced. Others were famous drunkards and lechers.
Ward and his likes were described by the adventurer John Smith. Later to be Disneyfied thanks to his romance with Princess Pocahontas, Smith was one English traveller who saw these Muslims at first hand, having spent some years in the Ottoman army before sailing to New England. He wrote a book, the True Travels and Adventures, to describe the European Muslims who were fighting for the Crescent against the Cross. Leading the list were men of Holland and England, who, disgusted by religious wars in their own countries, and unpersuaded by Trinities and Vicarious Atonements, ‘took the Turbant of the Turke’. ‘Because they grew hateful to all Christian princes,’ Smith observed, ‘they retired to Barbary.’
Smith was firmly of the opinion that the pirating lifestyle was introduced to the Barbary States by these Europeans, ‘who first taught the Moors to be men of war.’ His compatriots were well aware of the names of the seaborne mujahidin, particularly Captain Danseker and Captain Ward, among the most skilled seamen in the annals of English history, who placed their gifts at the disposal of emirs and sultans, and whose swashbuckling exploits Smith was able to retell in hair-raising detail.
Until the arrival of these European adventurers, the coastal ports of North Africa had been unused to war. They had, however, found new prosperity as the home of Spanish Muslims expelled by King Phillip III in 1610, an event that was perhaps the greatest act of racial brutality seen in Europe prior to the Nazi Holocaust. Most Moors knew little of the sea, and still less of the infernal arts of gunpowder; but they welcomed Muslims from the Mediterranean lands, and from the seafaring nations of the North, who were willing to accept Islam in exchange for military service with the Spanish exiles. By the middle of the sixteenth century, English Muslims were at the forefront of this movement, ranging the seas to capture first Spanish, and then any Christian ship, enslaving the crew, and selling the cargo as spoils of war.
Horrified priests regularly emerged from the churches of Algiers, Tunis and Sale, to witness the regular conversion celebrations in the streets. They report that slaves who converted would accept Islam in a simple ceremony in a mosque; but free men and women would do so at the tomb of a local saint, to which they would be led in a great public procession, preceded by a military band. Riding a horse, and holding an arrow in his hand to symbolise commitment to the Jihad, a newly-circumcised Englishman would then learn the basics of the Qur’an, and apply himself to his new vocation. Only a minority took to the sea; others are known to have made a living as tailors, or butchers, or even as imams of mosques. To this day there is a building in the Moroccan town of Sale known as the ‘Englishman’s Mosque.’
Most of these individuals took the secret of their lives with them to the grave. Thanks to the Spanish Inquisition, however, historians have access to information about a good number of them. Those who returned to a seafaring life ran the risk of recapture and interrogation by the Inquisition’s priests, and it is from the Inquisition’s meticulously-kept records that we know the details of their conversion, and, often, their tragic fate.
One Inquisition court, in the year 1610, investigated no fewer than thirty-nine Britons. Twelve of them were from the ports of the West Country. Ten were Londoners; six were from Plymouth, and others originated in Middlesbrough, Lyme, and the Channel Islands. In 1631, the Inquisition in the Spanish city of Murcia tried one Alexander Harris, who as Reis Murad had become a prominent Muslim seafarer. He was convicted, forced to convert to Catholicism, and sentenced to seven years as a galley-slave. Another unfortunate Englishman was Francis Barnes, who admitted to the inquisitors that he had faithfully prayed and fasted ‘in the Mahometan manner’ while working as a ship’s pilot at Tunis, where he was captured by Spanish raiders. In 1626, Robin Locar of Plymouth, also known as Ibrahim, was captured by Tuscan galleys and convicted of practising Islam. Captain Jonas of Dartmouth, known as Mami al-Inglizi, was yet another victim of these dreaded Spanish raiders.
An interrogation by the Inquisition was meant to be terrifying. One survivor, the Plymouth Muslim Lewis Crew, described how the priests, after using various forms of torture, would ask the Muslim captive whether they would accept papal teaching on six issues. Firstly came the Trinity, as the main point at issue between Islam and Christianity. Second was the perpetual virginity of Mary. Third was the Immaculate Conception. Fourthly, questions would be asked about the doctrine of Purgatory. Fifthly, the accused would be required to demonstrate his orthodoxy on the doctrine of papal supremacy. Finally, the Sacraments of the Catholic Church would be the subject of a complex investigation, which no doubt confused the simple sailors who made up the majority of the Inquisition’s convicts. Like many others, Crew had steeled himself for a religious debate of the kind held in public between converts and Christians in Algiers; he found, however, that the Inquisition was interested only in enforcing orthodoxy, not in justifying it.
The Inquisition’s writ counted for nothing in Protestant England; but even here, those Muslim sailors who returned to their homes could face interrogation and martyrdom. Sir Walter Raleigh, commenting on the gravity of the problem, recorded that ‘Renegadoes, that turn Turke, are impaled’, and this seems to have been the usual punishment for such men. Three English martyrs are known in the year 1620, while in 1671, a Welshman was put to death by impalement after refusing to reconvert to Christianity. Archbishop Laud was so concerned by the Muslim presence that he instituted a miniature English version of the Inquisition. His ‘Form of Penance’, enforced in 1637, laid down strict rules to ensure the sincerity of reconversions to Christianity, including the use of penitential robes and white wands borrowed directly from Catholic practice.
Despite the best efforts of the inquisitors, the corsair cities continued to thrive. By the end of the sixteenth century, the number of Englishmen and other Europeans who had joined this adventure had become enormous. Diego de Haedo, a Benedictine priest, estimated that by 1600, half of the population of Algiers was made up of European converts and their descendents. Later, Voltaire was to remark on ‘the singular fact that there are so many Spanish, French and English renegades, whom one may find in all the cities of Morocco.’
Most of the corsairs were of humble origins. A few, however, were well-known in their own lands. One such was Sir Francis Verney (1584-1615), who ‘turned Turk in Tunneis’, and was later captured and served for two years as a galley slave as a punishment for his conversion.
But perhaps the two best-known English corsairs were the celebrated sea-dogs John Ward and Simon Danseker. A seventeenth-century ballad heard throughout the taverns of England sang that

All the world about has heard
Of Danseker and Captain Ward
And of their proud adventures every day.

Ward, in particular, rose in the public eye until he became the best-known English pirate since Sir Francis Drake. Born at Faversham, he spent his teenage years working the fisheries. Late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth he joined the Navy, where his rebellious temperament impelled him to the unofficial capture of a ship rumoured to be carrying the treasure of Catholic refugees. The ship turned out to be empty of treasure, but the enterprising Ward used her to capture a much larger French ship off the south coast of Ireland, and to vanish from the Navy for good.
It was in this ship, which he called the Little John to drive home his image as a kind of latter-day Robin Hood, that he sailed to Tunis, hoping to join the campaign against the Catholic nations of the Mediterranean. He found favour with Kara Osman, the commander of the local janissary garrison, and at some point joined Islam.
His maritime prowess soon put him, according to a French report of 1606, in command of over five hundred Muslim and Christian volunteers. Among these were Captain Samson, in charge of prizes, Richard Bishop of Yarmouth (Ward’s first lieutenant), and James Procter of Southampton, who served as his gunner. Perhaps his greatest seaborne achievement was the capture of the Venetian galleon Reinera e Soderina, displacing 1500 tons, whose treasure amounted to over two million ducats.
By the second decade of the seventeenth century, Ward was master of the central Mediterranean. Another ballad has him send the following message to James I:

Go tell the King of England, go tell him this from me,
If he reign king of all the land, I will reign king at sea.

Life in Tunis, as in the Muslim world generally, was more refined and comfortable than its equivalent in Europe, and despite several offers, Ward showed no sign of yearning for his home shores. He built a palace, described by William Lithgow, the Scottish raconteur who passed through Tunis in 1616, as ‘a fair palace beautified with rich marble and alabaster stones. With whom I found domestics, some fifteen circumcised English renegades, whose lives and countenances were both alike. Old Ward their master was placable and diverse times in my ten days staying there I dined and supped with him.’ Another visitor, Edward Coxere, reported that Ward ‘always had a Turkish habit on, he was to drink water and no wine, and wore little irons under his Turk’s shoes like horseshoes’.
When Ward died of the plague in 1622, England seemed to be in two minds about him. There were many who hailed him as the scourge of the Papist navies, or as a man of humble origins who rose to humble the rich and powerful. Others found it harder to accept him, because of his voluntary conversion to Islam, and his adoption of Turkish ways and values. He was ‘the great English pirate … it is said that he was the first that put the Turks in a way to turn pirates at sea like himself’. But he was not soon forgotten. Later generations of English Muslims, both at home and in North Africa, admired him as a superb mariner, fearless in battle, and a doughty warrior for the Crescent against those who expelled the Moriscos, and sought to impose their implacable and cruel customs on the free lands of the South, where church, mosque and synagogue coexisted for centuries, and where humble birth was no barrier to glory.

Sir Anthony Sherley

Anthony Sherley was a rogue in the strictest sense of the word. He was born into a wealthy but was forced to find his own way after his families property went into bankruptcy. He had an Oxford education, but had to take to soldiering, forgoing his education.
In 1591 he went to Normandy as one of the Earl of Essex's soldiers. While there he was knighted by the French. In 1593 he was imprisoned until he renounced his foreign title. Striving to rise in stature, he married a cousin of the earl, but soon found his wife intolerable. Seeing nothing for him to gain by staying in England, he left to seek his fortune elsewhere. Sherley used his relation to the earl to aquire funds for an expedition to capture Sβo Thomι, a Portuguese island off the coast of Africa.
In May 1596 Sherley assembled eight ships carrying about 400 soldiers. The expedition was struck by disease early in the voyage. Sherley was forced to change his course to the north. Sherley took Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands but the booty was very sparse. His force much depleted, Sherley then attacked and took Santa Marta, Colombia. In early 1597, they sacked the poor Jamaican settlement of Santiago de la Vega. Their main purpose in the attack was to replenish supplies. So far the sum total of booty for his raids was pretty sparse.
While in Jamaica, Sherley met Captains William Parker and Michael Geare. The two joined with Sherley in an attack upon Trujillo (Honduras), but were unsuccessful. Next they tried their luck in attacking Puerto Caballos, and after taking it, found it to be destitute. Geare left to seek his fortune. Sherley and Parker, decided to try to march across the Guatemala mountains to the Pacific. Once again they were daunted by the severity of the trip and chose to take their remaining men through the Strait of Magellan. By this time Sherley's men have lost faith in their captain and deserted him. With his remaining ship, Sherley went back to England and also to tremendous debts.
Toward the end of 1597, Sherley was sent to Ferrara, Italy in the company of English troops. By the time they arrived the differences between Italy and England were settled and Sherley was faced with unemployment. Sherley, once again using his relationship with the Earl of Essex, managed to raise enough money to sail to Persia. He planned to establish diplomatic relations (without the consent of the crown) with the new shah. The shah made Sherley his ambassador and enlisted him to gain allies against the Ottoman Empire. When Sherley returned to England his plan was condemned and he was forbade to return to Persia. Sherley then made his rounds from royal court to court and conned nobles out of funds.
In 1607, Sherley managed to become an agent of the Spanish. During this time he wrote to Simon Simonson and John Ward trying to sway them to make attacks upon the Ottoman Empire. Two years later, in 1609, the Spanish had Sherley assemble ships in Sicily to attack the Barbary corsairs. It was planned that Sherley would join in a Spanish attack on Tunis, but instead Sherley attacked European merchantmen and looted the Greek Islands. After Sherley's failure to support Spain's attack on Tunis, he lost all influence in the Spanish courts but stayed in Spain constantly trying to gain political stature. He died destitute in Spain circa 1637.

Captain John Callice

Born in southeastern Wales, Callice moved to London as a youth, became a retailer and sailor, and joined the navy in about 1571. In early 1574, while commanding a royal ship, he seized an Italian merchantman and sold her cargo in Cardiff and Bristol. For the next four years, Callice plundered mercilessly, and other captains sailed under his leadership. Arrested in May 1577, Callice was imprisoned in London and charged with six major cases of piracy and many minor ones. He was sentenced to hang for the six important crimes, which occurred near Cornwall, off France and Denmark, and as far south as the Azores. Callice normally disposed of his booty in Wales, where he was intimate with local landowners and royal officials, including the Vice-Admiral. He apparently had friends of even higher status, for Queen Elizabeth pardoned him in November 1577 at the request of Scotland's king.
Callice was paroled in July 1578 but soon fled and became a pilot for Sir Henry Knollys in Sir Humphrey Gilbert's expedition. Gilbert planned to plunder the Spanish Caribbean, but Knollys and Callice instead attacked ships in English waters. From 1580, Callice raided in the north (he captured two ships near Hamburg, Germany) but continued to visit Wales. In August 1582, he was appointed captain by William Fenner, who had a commission to arrest pirates at sea. In March 1583, Callice instead looted two Scottish merchantmen and took their cargo to Portsmouth. He kept one Scottish prize renamed the Golden Chalice but abandoned her soon after to avoid arrest. The ship passed to Sir Humphrey Gilbert and formed part of his 1583 Newfoundland expedition.
In 1584, William Fenner was licensed to take Spanish and Portuguese prizes, and Callice served as his lieutenant. In December, Callice took command of a captured French warship and was separated from Fenner in foul weather. Although he was arrested in Ireland, he soon was released or escaped and captured several French vessels. By 1585, Callice apparently felt that Wales and Ireland no longer were safe havens. He henceforth operated from the Barbary States, and was killed in the Mediterranean in 1586 or 1587.

Guillaume Le Testu

Guillaume Le Testu was born at Le Havre in Normandy. Nationality being French and was active between 1551-1572 in the Caribbean. His exact birthdate is unknown, but is believed to be circa 1509. At Dieppe he studied navigation and was pilot of a French ship during an exploration mission of Brazil in 1551.
Le Testu participated in an expedition which founded a colony near Rio de Janeiro in 1555 and in 1556 he was appointed royal pilot and presented to King Henry II a world atlas which consisted of 56 maps, which he drew. Le Testu's atlas included a southern continent which didn't exist, stating: "not imaginary even though no one has found it."
During the 1500's France was in turmoil over religion. France had been catholic for centuries and in the 1520's Lutheranism entered the country. By 1534 Lutheranism threatened Catholicism and the crown adopted a policy of rooting it out, by force if necessary. Calvin (also a Frenchman), an outspoken man of protestant ideas whose ideas were expressed as Calvinism and by 1540 he had gained quite a bit of support for his cause. In the 1550's many of the Noblemen, being on the side of the Protesants fought against the the local churches and established the church. By this time France had effectively been split into two religious parties, the Catholics and the Calvinist (who were, by this time called the Huguenots). The tensions between the parties escalated until fighting broke out in the spring of 1562.
The war was temporarily ended in 1563 when the Edict of Amboise was issued. It gave limited right of worship to the Huguenots. This was a deversion set up by the crown while they tried to gain support from the people. This was only temporary for the Catholics were about to enlist the aid of Spain in their cause. In 1567 warfare broke out again due to the fear of an alliance with Spain. It was during this time that Le Testu raided for the Huguenot side. He raided throughout 1567 and 1568 until he was captured by the Catholics. He was imprisoned for the next four years when King Charles IX, after being subjected to many pleas, allowed his release. The religious wars would continue long after Le Testu's death.
Le Testu became captain of an 80 ton warship with about 70 men in his crew. Sir Francis Drake encountered Le Testu in April 1573 off Panama. Just why Le Testu was cruising around Panama is anyones guess. Spanish reports of the time stated that the French were planning a large expedition for 1572 but it is more likely that he was cruising on his own. Whatever his reason, Le Testu joined Drake in an attack on a mule train carrying treasure to Nombre de Dios. The attack was a complete success and the pirates loaded themselves with as much gold as they could carry, burying the rest. Le Testu's booty was around £ 20,000.
Le Testu was wounded in the assault and choose to remain behind to regain his strength. Two of his men stayed with him. While resting, Spanish soldiers fell upon them and Le Testu was killed. Le Testu was beheaded and his head was put on prominent display in the marketplace at Nombre de Dios.

Elizabeth Shirland

Elizabeth Shirland was born around 1577 in Devonshire, England. Elizabeth and some of her family joined a group of settlers to live on a colony founded by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585. Elizabeth was known as a very beautiful yet vigorous and energetic girl, and maybe that is the reason for her career after the mysterious happenings on Roanoke Island. Some chapters of Elizabeth Shirland's life are suspected to be fictional, especially when it comes to the mystery of her lost booty. Hidden treasures always inspired the fantasies of story tellers who passed on the legends of secret wealths.


Historical background:

Although John Cabot (ca. 1450-1499) established an English claim to the North American continent as early as 1497-1498, more than half a century elapsed before Englishmen turned their attention to the new lands. The most well-known early colony was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh (ca. 1554-1618) on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina. In 1585, Raleigh's men settled on the small island. Raleigh sent groups of settlers for three years, beginning in 1584. (Raleigh's initiative was successfully imitated by a group of London investors who founded Virginia in 1607.)

Relations with the Native American inhabitants were peaceful at first, but as the colonists' supplies dwindled, amity dwindled too. The colonists left in 1586 after beheading the local Indian chief, Wingina.

Raleigh arranged for Governor John White and a group of families to return to live in peace with the natives in 1587. Violence, however, is not easily forgotten. Within one month, hostilities resumed, and White was forced to return to England to ask Raleigh for reinforcements. Time was not on White's side. When the war with Spain erupted, White could not return to the colony for three years. When he set foot on Roanoke Island in August 1590, he searched frantically for the settlers, including his daughter and granddaughter, the first English New World baby, named Virginia Dare.

All that could be found was the remains of a village and a mysterious word, "CROATOAN," engraved on a tree. White concluded there must be a connection between the word and a nearby Indian tribe, but before he could investigate, a violent storm forced him out to sea and back to England.

Left for three years, the 117 men, women, and children had disappeared mysteriously. This lost colony remains one of the greatest mysteries of the colonial period. Although Raleigh sent an expedition to search for them, the colonists are never found and their fate remains unknown.


However, it is known that Elizabeth Shirland was amongst those settlers. It is rumored that after being left behind the colonists built a wall around their homes for protection from the Indians. This was the wall that John White found on his return to Roanoke Island in 1590. The men would leave the fort to hunt and fish as the colonist's food supply eventually ran out. The Indians ambushed and killed each man as they left the fort. In time all the men were killed and the Indians captured the women and children. The Indians took the hostages to their villages to live and work as slaves.

Elizabeth was raised by Indians and left the island 1589 on board of a Spanish ship after she was picked up by Spanish soldiers. It is said that she was held captive and raped several times by the soldiers before she killed her sentinel with his own knife during the turmoil of a pirate attack a few weeks later.

Disguised as a young man she had served under the command of Sir Francis Drake, before she returned to England and got married in 1595. However, she could not stand the life of a housewife and soon left her husband and went to sea again. Little is known about her life and destiny from that point forward. She returned to York, England again once or twice, where she gave birth to a little son. Soon afterwards she left her family for good.

Elizabeth had prepared her own career as a woman pirate. It is safe to assume that she was inspired by the criminal career of the famous woman pirate Grace O'Malley. When she was captain on her own ship, she disclosed her sex to her crew and she commanded and ruled them with her iron will and her strong ability to assert herself. She used men from the crew for her sexual pleasure, and some of them left the ship with a cut throat. Due to that fact and her ability to master the blade she was also known as the Cutlass Liz.

Cutlass Liz was not too successful as a pirate captain, and hardly anything is known about her operations. The only successful strike reported was the capturing of a Spanish merchant in 1604, where Cutlass Liz looted silk and gold before burning the captured ship. A few weeks afterwards she was betrayed to the Spanish by two members of her crew and was arrested while making love to one of her traitors. As the Spaniards dragged the naked woman pirate from the bed, she was suddenly aware of the treason and managed to stab her lover with the dagger she had hidden beneath her pillows. She was instantly killed by the soldiers, what spared her from public humiliation and the painful death of hanging.

However, her only mentionable booty - gold and goods worth at least £ 30,000 - was not on board of her ship anymore and could never be retrieved.

Captain Hiram Breakes

Hiram Breakes was a Dutch pirate, second son to the Councillor of the Island of Saba. As pirates go, Breakes was notoriously violent, believing in the adage that "dead men tell no tales". In 1764, Breakes was nineteen years old, tall and handsome. He was appointed to a Dutch trading vessel that sailed between Sabo and Amsterdam.
He performed well in his services and eventually took command of a trading ship which operated between Schiedham, Holland and Lisbon, Portugal It was around this time he fell in love with a married woman named Mrs. Snyde. A little later, Mr. Snyde was poisoned. Breakes and the now Widow Snyde were acquitted of the murder and it was shortly after this that Breakes would tire of the life of a trading ship captain.
Wasting little time, he stole the ship and cargo of his employers and renamed it the vessel "The Adventurer" Almost immediately he came upon the Chilean vessel "Acapulco" which was carrying 200,000 small gold bars, about (about 1cm x 10cm). The hapless crew were all murdered in a most despicable manner, and being the Acapulco was better ship than the The Adventurer Breakes stole the ship and refitted it for piracy.
From there, Breakes bought a letter of marque from the governor of Gibraltar, no doubt with a portion of the stolen gold bars. Upon receiving his letter he turned to pillaging throughout the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean.
As with many pirates, Breakes held some strange religious convictions. He would pillage and plunder six days of the week and then on the Sabbath hold a service on board the ship asking for forgiveness. The service was mandatory for the whole crew.
One of his more ruthless acts was the plundering of a Convent in the Balearic Islands. Upon invading the convent he decided it was inappropriate for his men not to be married and order them all to take wives. Each man selected a nun, who was then promptly kidnapped and returned to the ship to perform the necessities that were expected of a wife.
This act apparently made Breakes somewhat homesick and he decided to return to Holland and marry his mistress, the former Mrs. Snyde. Upon returning home, he was greeted with the sad news that Mrs Snyde was hanged for attempting to poison her new born son (fathered by none other than Breakes).
According to most accounts the news of Mrs. Snyde's death drove Breakes "melancholy mad" and in a fit of depression he threw himself off a dyke and drowned to death.