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The Final Anti-Piracy Campaigns (1726 to 1728)

The closing phase of the Atlantic anti-piracy suppression, running from roughly the spring of 1726 to the close of 1728, comprising the last colonial admiralty prosecution of a pirate company at Boston in July 1726, the disappearance of the residual captains, the making perpetual of the emergency piracy statute of 1721 in 1728, and the beginning of the legend trade.

Also writtenThe final anti-piracy campaigns; The closing phase of the Atlantic suppression; The end of the golden age of piracy, 1726 to 1728; The last colonial admiralty prosecution of a pirate company

What ran between about 1726 and 1728 was the last working of a machine built over the previous decade: colonial courts of admiralty sitting without juries, station ships on the seaboard, the pardon and the gallows splitting companies, and colonial ports that had turned from fencing stolen goods to funding the sloops that hunted the sellers. By 1726 it had almost nothing left to process.

The emptied sea

The great companies had gone, most untidily. Bartholomew Roberts was killed at Cape Lopez on 10 February 1722 in action with HMS Swallow; some 272 of his people were taken, a reconstructed figure, 52 were hanged after the trial at Cape Coast Castle, and the figures for the remainder do not reconcile.

The residual captains went out less legibly. George Lowther's company was broken at Blanquilla; the Post-Boy of 2 May 1724 reported him escaped, the Daily Courant of 12 June 1724 that he had shot himself on Blanco, at second hand.2

Sixteen men at the Court House

In April 1726 the Bristol snow Elizabeth sailed from Jamaica for Guinea, William Fly aboard as boatswain. The rising that followed lasted twenty-seven days, took four vessels named in the articles of indictment, and ended with Fly's own pressed men putting him in irons. The Special Court of Admiralty sat at the Court House in Boston on 4 and 5 July 1726, Lieutenant Governor William Dummer presiding. Sixteen were arraigned on six articles, twelve acquitted and discharged without fees, four condemned, and George Condick reprieved at the place of execution for a year and a day. Fly, Samuel Cole and Henry Greenvill hanged on 12 July at the usual place for the execution of pirates, in or near Charles River, and Fly's body afterwards hung in chains on the island called Nix's Mate.1

The vessel in the last case was a slaving snow, and of the roughly 272 people reckoned taken with Roberts four years earlier, about 65 to 70 Africans had been sold back into slavery rather than tried. The machinery that hanged pirates and the machinery that carried captives were the same, run from the same ports.

Two men of war after a dead man

On 20 July 1726, eight days after the hanging, the Governor at New York received an express carrying a deposition sworn at New Castle on the 16th: the master and mate of the sloop Rachel had sworn their vessel taken off Cape May by a pirate snow under one William Fly. Captain Norris in His Majesty's ship Lowestoff sailed that morning before break of day in quest of him, and Captain Pearce in the Tartar was expected to follow that afternoon.3

The paperwork that closed the file

Dummer forwarded the printed trial to the Council of Trade and Plantations and to the Duke of Newcastle on 22 August 1726, recommending Condick for the King's grace and promising an inventory of the piratical goods. Both despatches are calendared in the Colonial State Papers for 1726 to 1727 at numbers 276 and 277, the pamphlet enclosed at 276.ii and the manuscript at C.O. 5, 869. The chain of custody proves the trial pamphlet was an official transmission.4

The court itself had long since been made permanent. The Piracy Act 1698 (11 Will. 3. c. 7) let the Crown try pirates overseas before a bench of the governor and whatever Crown and Navy officers were to hand, without a jury; section 3 of an Act of the sixth year of George I, usually cited as 6 Geo. 1. c. 19, made that arrangement perpetual. Boston in July 1726 is probably that instrument in its last full use, with Captain James Cornwall of HMS Sheerness on the bench.6

The Piracy Act 1721 (8 Geo. 1. c. 24) had gone after the pirate economy rather than only the pirate: section 1 made it piracy to trade with a pirate "by truck, barter, exchange, or in any other manner", section 6 stripped the wages of any man of an armed merchant ship who would not "fight and endeavour to defend" her, and section 10 carried it into every dominion in Asia, Africa and America. Section 7 of the Unlawful Games Act 1728 (2 Geo. 2. c. 28) made that Act perpetual. The emergency had been won and the emergency powers were kept.5

War, and the men who would have gone on the account

What fills 1727 and 1728 is war and paper. Piracy is barely a live administrative subject in the colonial calendar for 1728 to 1729, where the substantive references run to buccaneering as history and to privateering as a competitor for the King's forces. The campaign's symbolic terminus is administrative rather than military. Woodes Rogers, who had come to Nassau in 1718 with the King's Pardon in his hand, was reappointed Governor of the Bahamas on 22 October 1728, to a colony from which piracy had already been expelled.

The legend got ahead of the campaign

Legend-making began before the suppression ended. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates appeared in London in 1724 under the name Captain Charles Johnson, reached an enlarged fourth edition by 1726, and had its second volume out in 1728, carrying a chapter on Fly with gallows details Cotton Mather does not report. The authorship is unsettled: Furbank and Owens dismantled the attribution to Daniel Defoe in 1988, and Bialuschewski proposed the printer Nathaniel Mist in 2004.8

When it ended, and who decided

The terminal date is a construct. Bialuschewski's survey is bracketed 1695 to 1725 in its title. The choice of a year is an editorial decision, as is the window set out under the end of the Golden Age.7

What the sources cannot yet give is the quiet after the hanging. How much piracy continued in 1727 and 1728 is not established here: the colonial calendar for 1728 to 1729 shows the subject nearly absent, which is an argument from silence in a series that calendars selectively. Lowther's death year cannot be fixed from the two contradictory reports of 1724, and the Cape Coast Castle figures examined account for only 156 of the 272 people taken with Roberts. That Fly was still believed at large at New York on 20 July is an inference from the sending of the two men of war, the New Castle deposition itself saying no such thing.

What the evidence does not settle

The 1726 terminal date

  • Whether 1726 is a defensible terminal dateUnverified

Piracy in 1727 and 1728

  • How much piracy continued in these years is unclear

Fates of the residual captains

  • George Lowther's death year is unfixed between two accountsDisputed
  • Edward Low's end is unfixed among five incompatible accountsDisputed

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 Special Court of Admiralty sat at the Court House in Boston on 4 and 5 July 1726 under Lieutenant Governor William Dummer; sixteen men were arraigned on six articles, twelve were acquitted and discharged without fees, four were condemned, and George Condick was reprieved at the place of execution for a year and a day, while William Fly, Samuel Cole and Henry Greenvill were hanged on 12 July 1726 at what the calendared warrant calls the usual place for the execution of pirates, in or near Charles River, Fly's body being afterwards hung in chains on the island the warrant calls Nix's Mate at the entrance to Boston harbour. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet and calendared state papers: The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, &c., printed for Joseph Edwards, Boston, 1726, Evans no. 2819; Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 35, 1726 to 1727, nos. 276 and 277; Cotton Mather, The Vial Poured Out Upon the Sea, Boston, 1726, Evans no. 2779
  2. The fate of George Lowther, one of the residual pirate captains whose disappearance emptied the sea before 1726, is unsettled: he either escaped from Blanquilla, as the Post-Boy of 2 May 1724 reports, or shot himself on Blanco, as the Daily Courant of 12 June 1724 reports expressly at second hand. Disputed The sources disagree, and we say how. Period newspapers: The Post-Boy, 2 May 1724 and 25 June 1726; The Daily Courant, 12 June 1724
  3. On 20 July 1726, eight days after Fly was hanged, the Governor at New York received an express carrying a deposition sworn at New Castle on 16 July that the sloop Rachel had been taken off Cape May by a pirate snow commanded by one William Fly, and on the strength of it Captain Norris in His Majesty's ship Lowestoff sailed that morning before break of day in quest of him with Captain Pearce in the Tartar expected to follow that afternoon; the deposition did not report Fly at large, and that he was believed still at large is an inference from the authorities' action rather than a statement in the document. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Period serial carrying colonial dispatches: The Political State of Great Britain, volume XXXII, London, September 1726, pages 271 to 273, edited by Abel Boyer, carrying the New York dispatch of 20 July 1726
  4. Lieutenant Governor William Dummer forwarded the printed trial to the Council of Trade and Plantations and to the Duke of Newcastle on 22 August 1726, recommending George Condick for the King's grace and promising an inventory of the piratical goods; both despatches are calendared at nos. 276 and 277, with the pamphlet enclosed at 276.ii and the manuscript referenced C.O. 5, 869. ff. 381 to 406v. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Calendared state papers: Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 35, 1726 to 1727, edited by Cecil Headlam and Arthur Percival Newton, London, His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1936, nos. 276 and 277
  5. The Piracy Act 1721 (8 Geo. 1. c. 24) attacked the pirate economy as well as the pirate, its section 1 making it piracy to trade with a pirate by truck, barter, exchange or in any other manner, its section 6 forfeiting the wages of any officer or seaman of an armed merchant ship who failed to fight and endeavour to defend her, and its section 10 extending the Act to all his Majesty's dominions in Asia, Africa and America; section 7 of the Unlawful Games Act 1728 (2 Geo. 2. c. 28) made that Act perpetual, two years after the last pirate company was hanged. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Statute: Piracy Act 1721, 8 Geo. 1. c. 24, Statute Law Database; Unlawful Games Act 1728, 2 Geo. 2. c. 28, section 7, Statute Law Database
  6. The colonial special courts of admiralty that carried the suppression, sitting without a jury before the governor and whatever officers of the Crown and Navy were to hand, rested on the Piracy Act 1698 (11 Will. 3. c. 7), which was made perpetual by an Act of the sixth year of George I, the trial print naming it so without a chapter number and the usual identification being 6 Geo. I c. 19; the Boston court of July 1726, with Captain James Cornwall of His Majesty's ship Sheerness sitting as a commissioner, is that instrument in its last full use. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Statute and trial pamphlet: Piracy Act 1698, 11 Will. 3. c. 7, made perpetual by 6 Geo. 1. c. 19 s. 3, Statute Law Database; The Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, Boston, 1726
  7. The terminal date of the golden age of piracy is a historiographical construct rather than a fact: Arne Bialuschewski's published survey is bracketed 1695 to 1725 in its title. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Modern scholarship: Arne Bialuschewski, "Between Newfoundland and the Malacca Strait: A Survey of the Golden Age of Piracy, 1695 to 1725", The Mariner's Mirror 90:2 (2004), 167 to 186, title and pagination confirmed from the Crossref record
  8. Legend-making overlapped the suppression rather than following it: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates appeared in London in 1724 under the pseudonym Captain Charles Johnson, reached an enlarged fourth edition by 1726, and had its second volume published in 1728 with a chapter on William Fly carrying gallows details that Cotton Mather does not report; the authorship remains unsettled, P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens having dismantled the attribution to Daniel Defoe in 1988 and Arne Bialuschewski having proposed the printer Nathaniel Mist in 2004. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narrative and modern attribution scholarship: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates, London, 1724 and 1728; George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630 to 1730, chapter XVIII; P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens, 1988; Arne Bialuschewski, "Daniel Defoe, Nathaniel Mist, and the General History of the Pyrates", PBSA 98:1 (2004), 21 to 38