Howell Davis

Captain Howell Davis (or Hywel) (or Davies) (ca. 1690 – 19th of June 1719) was a Welsh pirate, whose career lasted only 11 months, and is perhaps best remembered as the captain who pressed Bartholomew Roberts into piracy. He is known to have captured 15 English and French ships.

Born in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Davis started out in piracy on the 11th of July 1718 when the slave ship, a snow known as Cadogan, on which he was serving as a mate, was captured by the pirate Edward England. The snow was led by a Captain Skinner, who England and his men once worked for, and were owed wages. England's men tied Skinner to the mast and pelted him with glass bottles, until he was shot through the head out of mercy. Davis chose to join the pirates, and was given command of the Cadogan, to wit he was sent to Brazil on the 18th of July 1718. However, his new crew resisted the call to piracy, and mutinied. Davis was arrested and the crew sailed to Barbados instead, where they were originally headed. The crew completed their voyage, and turned Davis in. However, he was released after three months without trial, having not committed any actual piracy.

Davis made his way to New Providence, which was in the process of being taken over by Woodes Rogers. He found employment on a trading sloop called the Buck, which along with its sister ship, the Mumvil Trader, were heading for Martinique. Once landed, Davis and some conspirators rose in the night and seized the ship. The Mumvil Trader was signalled, and the majority of the men aboard both ships agreed to join with Davies, those disinclined were sent back to the Mumvil Trader to go where they pleased, after Davis had stripped her of anything of value. Davis was quickly elected captain, after which he made a short speech declaring war against the whole world. Davis formed a base in Coxon's Hole in East Cuba, a narrow secluded inlet that was easily defensible by a single ship.

Subsequently, he crossed the Atlantic to terrorize shipping in the Cape Verde Islands. Davis then engaged with a Dutch interloper of thirty guns and ninety men. A heated battle took place, that lasted 20 hours during which Davis lost nine men, before the Dutch vessel surrendered. Davis fitted the Dutch ship for his own use, named her the Rover, mounting her with 32 guns and 27 swivels. Davis sailed to Anomabu, Ghana where he found three ships lying at anchor. These he took without resistance, one of his prisoners being navigator Bartholomew Roberts.  It is said that Davis would use Welsh to communicate with Roberts, keeping it hidden from the rest of the crew.

Two months later, Davis hoisted English colours and sailed to the Portuguese island of Principe, and posing as an English captain, invited the Governor for lunch aboard his ship, intending to hold him hostage. However, the governor knew that Davis was really a pirate, and invited him for a glass of wine at the fortress first. Davis and a small party were making their way from the harbour to the fortress when they were ambushed and shot dead on the 19th of June, 1719. 

Woodes Rogers

Woodes Rogers (ca. 1679 – 15th July 1732) was an English sea captain and privateer, best remembered for leading the royal naval campaign to stamp out piracy in the Caribbean. 

Rogers was probably born in Poole, Dorset, and came from an affluent seafaring family. His father owned shares in many ships, and died in the first years of the 18th century, leaving Rogers control of the family shipping business. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Rogers was approached by Captain William Dampier, who sought backing for a privateering voyage. Rogers led the expedition, which consisted of two well-armed ships, the Duke and the Duchess, and captained the Duke himself. Rogers spent three years travelling the world, raiding Spanish towns and capturing vessels in the Pacific. On the 1st of February, 1709, the Duke rescued the marooned Alexander Selkirk from Juan Fernandez Island, who became the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.  When the expedition returned to England in October 1711, Rogers had circumnavigated the globe, while retaining his original ships and most of his men, and the investors in the expedition doubled their money.

Rogers was wounded and his brother killed in combat in the Pacific, and on his return was sued by his crew, who protested that they had not received a fair share of the profits, bankrupting him and his business. In 1713, Rogers attempted to rebuild his finances by leading an expedition against pirates. He sailed to Madagascar, ostensibly to buy slaves to sell in the Dutch East Indies, but used the voyage to gather intelligence about pirates in the area. Finding many of the pirates had gone native, Rogers persuaded many of them to sign a petition asking Queen Anne for clemency. On his profitable return to London in 1715, the British East India Company vetoed Rogers' appeal to lead a colonial expedition to Madagascar, believing a colony there would pose a greater threat to its monopoly than the pirates and tribes that currently inhabited the island.
Therefore, Rogers turned his attention to the West Indies, and negotiated an agreement for a company to manage the Bahamas, which was famous for being "without face or form of government" as well as being a pirate haven. In 1718, Rogers was officially appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the King's Pardon was announced, promising clemency for all pirates who surrendered within eight months. Rogers spent several months preparing the expedition, amassing a force of seven ships, 100 soldiers, 130 colonists, and a vast range of supplies including religious pamphlets to give to the pirates, whom Rogers believed would respond to spiritual teachings. On the 22nd of April 1718, the expedition, accompanied by three Royal Navy vessels, sailed out of the Thames.

The expedition arrived exactly three months later in Nassau, surprising the town's de facto ruler, Charles Vane as he was returning from sea. When negotiations failed, Vane launched a fireship at the British vessels, forcing them out of the harbour. This gave Vane time to land and gather supplies and organise their escape. Vane and his men slipped out of the harbour on a small sloop, evading Rogers' trap but surrendering the island to his control. At the time, the island's population consisted of about two hundred former pirates and several hundred fugitives who had escaped from nearby Spanish colonies. Rogers organised a local government, granted the King's Pardon to those former pirates on the island who had not yet accepted it, and started to rebuild the island's fortifications, which had fallen into ruin under the pirates.

However, Rogers didn't have time to get comfortable, and suffered a myriad of setbacks. Within a month Vane had written to him, threatening to join forces with Blackbeard to retake the island. To make matters worse, the Spanish were also mounting a force to drive the British from the Bahamas. Disease ravaged his expedition team, an unknown sickness killed almost one hundred of those who had come with him from England, but the long-standing residents of the island appeared to be almost completely immune. The three royal navy vessels, having completed their escort and having no orders to remain, eventually left the island. An envoy ship sent to conciliate with the Spanish governor of Havana failed to arrive, its crew rebelling and turning pirate mid-voyage. Renovation of the islands fortifications proved slow going, as the local residents were disinclined to work for him.

In September, Rogers sent ex-pirate Benjamin Hornigold, who had secretly accepted the King's Pardon to gather intelligence on Vane and if possible bring him to battle. Rogers also declared martial law and set all islanders to work rebuilding the fortifications. Hornigold failed to learn anything about Vane, and in December was sent to recover the ship that had turned pirate en route to Havana, and returned with ten prisoners and three corpses. Eight of the men were hanged, and one of the condemned, Thomas Morris, said as he climbed the gallows, "we have a good governor, but a harsh one." Shortly after Christmas, a conspiracy to overthrow Rogers and restore piracy brewed, but it met with little support. The conspirators were flogged and released.

Rogers ordered many supplies on credit and accrued large debts, hoping the gamble would pay off in the long term for his creditors. He redoubled the efforts to fortify the island which proved invaluable when in February of 1720, the Spanish invaded. Being wary of the fortifications Rogers had built, they landed on nearby Paradise Island, only to be driven off by Rogers' troops. Vane never returned, having been deposed by his crew, he was later recognised and captured aboard another vessel, and was hanged in Jamaica the following year. Troubled by the lack of support and communication from London, Rogers set sail for Britain in March 1721. He arrived three months later to find that a new governor had been appointed, and his company had been liquidated. Personally liable for the obligations he had contracted at Nassau, he was imprisoned for debt. Rogers spent up to two years in prison, but at some point his creditors took pity on him and absolved his debt. Rogers was reappointed governor of the Bahamas in 1728, died in Nassau on the 15th of July, 1732. "Piracy expelled, commerce restored" remained the official motto of the Bahamas until its independence in 1973.

Samuel Bellamy

Captain Samuel Bellamy (c. February 23, 1689 – April 26, 1717), aka Black Sam, the Prince of Pirates, was an English pirate who operated in the early 18th century. Bellamy and his crew captured 53 ships in a pirate career that lasted little more than a year, but in this time established Bellamy as the richest pirate in recorded history. Bellamy and his crew called themselves 'Robin Hood's Men'. Bellamy became known for his mercy, his most widely used monicker Black Sam came from his choice to not wear a powdered wig, as was fashionable, instead simply tying his long black hair back with a band. Bellamy was well-known to his contemporaries and chroniclers as a distinctive figure, a tall, strong, well mannered and very tidy man. He liked expensive clothes, especially black coats. His favourite weapons were four duelling pistols that he always carried in his sash. Bellamy's Jolly Roger, the Death's head and bones across, is the most famous pirate flag in history.

Bellamy was the youngest of six known children born to Stephen and Elizabeth Bellamy in the parish of Hittisleigh in Devonshire, England, in 1689. his mother died soon after, and was buried on 23rd of February, 1689, three weeks before Samuel's baptism on 18th of March. In his late teens, Bellamy joined the Royal Navy, and fought in several battles in the early 18th Century. Leaving a wife and child in England, Bellamy moved to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where he allegedly took up with a  beautiful 15 year old named Maria Hallett. A short time later Bellamy left on a salvage voyage, hoping to recover treasure from the Spanish plate fleet sunk off the coast of Florida, accompanied by his friend and financier Palgraves Williams. While Bellamy was at sea, Hallett gave birth to his child, who survived only a short time. The scandal eventually led to Hallett being jailed, her sentence was relatively short, but Hallett was exiled from the town. The salvage voyage apparently met with little success, as they soon turned to piracy in the crew of pirate captain Benjamin Hornigold, who commanded the Mary Anne with his first mate, a then-unknown Edward Teach. In the summer of 1716, there was unrest within the crew surrounding Hornigold's reluctance to attack English ships, and by a majority vote of the crew, Hornigold was deposed as captain of the Mary Anne and Bellamy replaced him. Hornigold left the vessel with those loyal to him, including Teach. 

Once embarked upon his pirate career, Bellamy soon captured a second ship, the Sultana, which was converted into a galley, and with approval of the crew, Bellamy assigned his friend Palsgrave Williams as its commander. In the spring of 1717, Bellamy captured his greatest prize in the form of the Whydah Gally in the strait known as the Windward Passage. Captained by Dutch buccaneer Laurens Prins, the 300-ton, 18 gun Whydah Gally was a slave ship on its maiden voyage from England, having recently sold 312 slaves and was loaded with gold, ivory, medicine, dyes and other precious goods.
Bellamy chased the Whydah Gally for three days before coming within range. After a single shot, Captain Prins surrendered the Whydah Gally by lowering her flag. True to his reputation for generosity, Bellamy allowed Prins and his crew to take the Sultana in exchange. Removing the captain's quarters and upgrading the ship to 28 guns, Bellamy turned his new flagship northwards along the eastern coast of the Carolinas and on to New England.
Bellamy was known for being an ideologue, and believing strongly in what piracy stood for. He is reported to have said to the captain of a sloop he captured:

"Though 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 knavery; but damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. 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 then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment?"

Just two months after acquiring the Whydah Gally, as she and the Mary Anne approached Cape Cod, Williams told Bellamy that he wished to visit his family in Rhode Island, and the two agreed to meet up again near Maine. If Bellamy intended to return to his lover Maria Hallett, he failed. The Whydah Gally was swept up in a violent storm off Cape Cod at midnight, and was driven onto the sand bar shoals in 16 feet of water some 500 feet from the coast of what is now Wellfleet, Massachusetts. At 15 minutes past midnight, the masts snapped and drew the heavily-loaded ship into 30 feet of water where she capsized and quickly sank, taking Bellamy and 143 men with her, only two survived.
The same storm wrecked the Mary Anne that night several miles south of the Whydah Gally, leaving seven survivors. All nine survivors from the two ships were captured and prosecuted for piracy in Boston, and six were hanged in October of 1717 for piracy, two were acquitted, the court believing their testimony that they had been forced into piracy. The last, a Native American from the Miskito tribe in Central America, John Julian, is believed to have been sold into slavery to John Quincy, the grandfather of U.S. President John Quincy Adams.

In July 1984, the wreck of the Whydah Gally was found, making it the first authenticated pirate shipwreck discovered in North America. At the time of its sinking, Bellamy's ship was the largest pirate prize ever captured, and the treasure in its hold amassed roughly 4.5 to 5 tons, including huge quantities of indigo, ivory, gold, and 20,000 to 30,000 pounds sterling, divided into 180 sacks of 50-pound (23 kg) each.