Mary Read

Mary Read was an English pirate born outside of London circa 1690, famously one of only two women convicted of piracy in the early 18th Century.

Read was bastard-born to a widow of a sailor who had died at sea. To preserve her dignity, Read's mother moved to the countryside so as to hide her bastard child from those who knew her. Read had had an elder brother, Mark, a year older who had died in infancy. Read's mother dressed her as a boy to disguise the girl as her brother in order to continue receiving financial support from her late husband's mother. Upon presenting the child, the old woman was fooled and offered to adopt the child from her, but Read's mother claimed parting would break her heart, and so instead the grandmother gave Read's mother a crown a week as maintenance until she died when Read was thirteen.

Read completely assumed the identity of her brother Mark, and apparently having a masculine bearing and making a convincing boy, found employment on a ship before joining the British Army. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Read fell in love with a Flemish soldier, and using their military wages and gifts from well-wishing comrades, moved to the Netherlands and opened an inn named 'De drie hoefijzers' (The Three Horseshoes).Read's husband died in obscure circumstances not long after they were married, and with the Peace of Ryswick being concluded, the military custom their inn had relied on dried up, and so with her life in the Netherlands ruined, she readopted her male persona and enlisted in the Dutch military. However, with the war over there was no room for advancement, so Read quit the service and found work on a ship bound for the West Indies.

The ship was taken by pirates, and being the only 'Englishman' aboard, Read was pressed into their crew. Later, Read and the crew she served in took the king's pardon, but later enlisted as a privateer in a war against the Spanish. No sooner had this crew set sail than they, with Read among them, turned on their captain and resumed their old trade.
In 1720, she joined Calico Jack's crew, still disguised as a man. She revealed herself to Rackham's lover Anne Bonny, who having taken Read for a handsome young lad, sought to make his better acquaintance. Read was forced to disappoint Bonny by revealing that she was a woman, and so as to quiet the jealous Jack Rackham, revealed herself to him also.

Read took a lover among those pressed into Rackham's crew, whose name is lost to history. However it is known that he quarrelled with one of the pirates, and one challenged the other to a duel ashore. Read was afraid for her lover's life, and so made a point of quarrelling with the same pirate, and also challenged him to a duel ashore, two hours sooner than he was to face her lover. She fought him with sword and pistol, and killed him on the spot. Later at her trial, Read would not give up her lover's identity, but would only say he was an honest man pressed into the pirate crew and they had both resolved to find an honest livelihood at the first opportunity.

Later that year, while hosting an off-shore rum party, Rackham's crew were attacked by pirate hunter Captain Jonathan Barnet, who disabled Rackham's ship with a broadside. Rackham and most of his crew fled into the hold, probably dead drunk, leaving only Read, Bonny and one unnamed other to fight the hunters. Read allegedly fired angrily into the hold where the crew were hiding and killed one for cowardice.

The crew was overwhelmed and arrested, and Read and the others were taken to Spanish Town, Jamaica and convicted of piracy. However as Read was pregnant, she was granted a stay of execution, known as 'pleading the belly' to postpone her hanging.

Read died of a fever in prison, and was buried on the 28th of April, 1721, aged c.30.