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The Battle of Cape Lopez (1722)

The single-ship naval action fought off Cape Lopez, on the coast of present-day Gabon, in which HMS Swallow under Captain Chaloner Ogle took Bartholomew Roberts's consort sloop Ranger on 5 February 1722 and then engaged his flagship Royal Fortune on 10 February 1722, killing Roberts early in the fight, by grapeshot to the throat on Johnson's account, capturing his company and carrying the survivors to Cape Coast Castle for trial; it is conventionally taken to mark the effective end of the Golden Age of Atlantic piracy.

Also writtenThe Action off Cape Lopez; The Death of Bartholomew Roberts

The Royal Navy fourth rate HMS Swallow, Captain Chaloner Ogle, found Bartholomew Roberts's squadron riding at anchor under Cape Lopez, on the coast of present-day Gabon, in the first week of February 1722. The business took two mornings, five days apart. On 5 February Ogle drew off the consort sloop Ranger and beat her into surrender at sea. On 10 February he came back for the flagship Royal Fortune, and Roberts was dead early in the engagement.1

The patrol that came for him

Disease did more damage to the patrol than the pirates did. By February 1722 the Weymouth was crippled and the Swallow hunting alone. What lay at Cape Lopez, a low sandy point sheltering a good roadstead, was the flagship Royal Fortune, the consort Ranger, the smaller Little Ranger, and a prize they had lately taken. Ogle made the ships for what they were and did not close.

The morning of 10 February

The Swallow returned to the anchorage on 10 February and closed with the Royal Fortune. Roberts was on deck in his good clothes, by Johnson's account, when the two ships exchanged fire, and a charge of grapeshot took him in the throat and killed him at once. Two details of that account are routinely got wrong. Grapeshot is an anti-personnel charge, scattered small shot rather than the ship-killing weight of a broadside. He also fell in the opening exchange, where the retellings place his death at the close of a long duel.2

His crew, by Johnson's account, then did the one thing they could still do for him. At his own earlier and often reported wish, they weighted the body and put it over the side before the Swallow's people came aboard, so that Ogle never had the man. The body was never recovered: no grave, no relic, no remains. The Swallow's broadside brought down her mainmast.3

The crimson damask and the plume

Almost every vivid thing anyone knows about that morning descends from one book. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, printed in 1724 under the name Captain Charles Johnson, whose authorship is still unsettled, supplies Roberts's crimson damask and his plume, his temperance and standing orders, the drunkenness of the crew after their recent prize, and the memorable image of a piece of grapeshot no bigger than a penny cutting his throat. Johnson is a commercial book that embellishes. He wrote the penny-sized shot for effect. Some accounts name the prize taken shortly before the battle as the Neptune.4

The prisoners

Ogle carried the survivors up the coast to Cape Coast Castle, the Royal African Company's headquarters on the Gold Coast. The sentences handed down by the vice-admiralty court that sat there from late March 1722 are set out name by name in the 1723 print. Those tables give fifty-four condemned, of whom fifty-two were executed and two respited till the King's pleasure was known. The same tables name twenty men for seven years' servitude in Africa, and seventy-four acquitted, listed by name under the heading Total 74. The Archive's separate record of the trial works from the tables.5

The victor, and the end of an age

Ogle did well out of Cape Lopez. He kept value from the captured pirate ships, was rewarded for the action, and was reported knighted in 1723, said to be the only Royal Navy officer so honoured for a fight against pirates. He went on to a long career that ended at Admiral of the Fleet. The wider consequence is the one the date is remembered for. Roberts commanded the last large pirate force operating openly on the great Atlantic trade routes, and killing him broke it in a morning. Coming after the deaths and captures of the other leading captains in the preceding years, and alongside a firmer naval and judicial response, it is generally taken as the practical end of the Golden Age. That reading is a judgement made afterwards rather than a fact recorded at the time.6

What the sources cannot yet give is the arithmetic. The numbers captured, indentured, sent to the Marshalsea and sold into slavery are unsettled, and would be fixed by the proceedings of the Cape Coast court read against the High Court of Admiralty and Colonial Office papers at Kew and the Royal African Company's books in Treasury T70. The armament of both the Royal Fortune and the Swallow, and the name of the prize taken shortly before the battle, rest largely on the 1724 General History and want the captains' logs. Ogle's dispatch reports Roberts's death without a cause for it, so the grapeshot and the throat wound come down through Johnson alone. The precise form of Ogle's honour, and any later association with the Order of the Bath, has not been confirmed against official records.

What the evidence does not settle

Ogle's honour

  • Ogle's 1723 knighthood and later Order of the Bath link are unprovenLikely

Narrative colour of Roberts's death

  • Independent evidence for Roberts's finery, drunken crew and fatal grapeshotDisputed

Identity of the Ranger

  • The Ranger may be the French ship taken at Whydah
  • The fate of the Little Ranger is also unsettled

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The Battle of Cape Lopez was fought off Cape Lopez, a low point of land on the coast of present-day Gabon, where Bartholomew Roberts's squadron lay at anchor in early February 1722, and it consisted of two actions five days apart: on 5 February 1722 the Royal Navy fourth rate HMS Swallow, Captain Chaloner Ogle, took the consort sloop Ranger, and on 10 February 1722 she returned and engaged Roberts's flagship Royal Fortune, in which action Roberts was killed. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Museum account: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Death of Bartholomew Roberts," rmg.co.uk, accessed 2026, for the location off Cape Lopez on the coast of present-day Gabon, the two-stage action of 5 and 10 February 1722, HMS Swallow as a fourth rate under Captain Chaloner Ogle, and the death of Roberts in the second action (Confirmed)
  2. When the Swallow returned to the anchorage on 10 February 1722 and closed with the Royal Fortune, Bartholomew Roberts was killed early in the engagement; that he was on deck in rich dress and was struck in the throat by grapeshot and killed almost at once, by an anti-personnel charge of scattered small shot rather than by a broadside, is Charles Johnson's account, unmentioned in Ogle's dispatch and in Atkins, and the Archive carries the manner of death as Possible following his own record. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Museum account: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Death of Bartholomew Roberts," rmg.co.uk, accessed 2026, for the death of Roberts by grapeshot to the throat early in the action of 10 February 1722, and for the express correction that grapeshot is an anti-personnel weapon and that he fell near the start of the fight and not at its end (Probable). The rich dress in which he is said to have fallen, and the often quoted detail of a piece of grapeshot no bigger than a penny, derive from Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates (1724); the page attributes both to Johnson by name and the Archive carries the finery as Possible, following its record of Cape Lopez. Captain Chaloner Ogle's own dispatch, printed in the London Gazette and reprinted in the 1723 trial account, reports the fact of Roberts's death and gives no cause for it, a limit the page states
  3. The report that, at their captain's earlier wish, Roberts's crew weighted or wrapped his body and threw it into the sea before the Swallow's men came aboard, so that Ogle never had the man, descends from Johnson's General History and is carried as Possible following his own record, though it is consistent with the fact that no body, grave, remains or relic was ever recovered; the Swallow's broadside then brought down the Royal Fortune's mainmast. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Museum account: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Death of Bartholomew Roberts," rmg.co.uk, accessed 2026, for the crew weighting the body and casting it overboard at Roberts's stated wish, denying Ogle even the body, and for the fact that the remains were never recovered (Probable). The dismasting of the Royal Fortune by the Swallow's broadside is carried on the Archive's existing record of HMS Swallow, from Ogle's dispatch, and the page follows it
  4. Much of the vivid detail of the morning of 10 February 1722, including Roberts's rich dress, the drunkenness of his crew after a recently taken prize, the naming of that prize as the Neptune, and the image of a piece of grapeshot no bigger than a penny cutting his throat, descends from A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, printed in 1724 under the name Captain Charles Johnson, a source that embellishes and whose authorship is disputed. Disputed The sources disagree, and we say how. Period narrative: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson, 1724, as the source of the narrative colour: the penny-sized grapeshot is Disputed, and the crew's drunkenness and the naming of the Neptune are Possible. The detail is attributed to Johnson by name throughout. The same book amplifies a small documentary base, and its statements need corroboration from archival records wherever possible
  5. The prisoners taken in the two actions were carried to Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast and tried there in 1722, and the 1723 printed account sets out its own tables name by name: fifty-four condemned, of whom fifty-two were executed and two respited till the King's pleasure was known; twenty men named for seven years' servitude in Africa; and seventy-four acquitted, listed by name under the heading Total 74. Disputed The sources disagree, and we say how. Trial pamphlet: The tabulated counts of fifty-four condemned, fifty-two executed, two respited, twenty sentenced to seven years' servitude in Africa and seventy-four acquitted are those of the 1723 printed account, A Full and Exact Account of the Tryal of all the Pyrates, and are Confirmed from that print's tables
  6. Chaloner Ogle retained value from the captured pirate ships and rose eventually to Admiral of the Fleet, and he was reported knighted in 1723, said to be the only Royal Navy officer so honoured for an action against pirates; the destruction of the most powerful pirate company then at sea, following the deaths and captures of the other leading captains of the preceding years and a firmer naval and judicial response, is generally held to mark the effective end of the Golden Age of Atlantic piracy. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Museum account: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Death of Bartholomew Roberts," rmg.co.uk, accessed 2026, for the reported knighthood of 1723, the claim that Ogle was the only naval officer so honoured for an anti-piracy operation, his retention of value from the captured ships and his later rise to Admiral of the Fleet (Probable), and for the action as the conventional close of the Golden Age of Atlantic piracy (Probable). The precise form of Ogle's honour awaits confirmation from official records, so the knighthood stands as an open question rather than as a stated fact, and the reading of the action as the end of an age is given as a judgement made afterwards