The Archives

Evidence

Disputed

The sources disagree, and we say how. 26 of the 3046 claims in the Archives. All claims, with filters.

  1. The last Royal Fortune was the Royal African Company frigate Onslow, taken in 1721 and mounted with 40 guns; at her capture Ogle's dispatch gives 152 men aboard, 52 of them of African descent, while the 1724 General History gives 157 men, 45 of them Black, and the two counts are carried side by side.
    Official dispatchOgle's dispatch, London Gazette issue 6091 and the 1723 pamphlet: 'his Prize (formerly called the Onslow, and since by the Pyrates the Royal Fortune) had 40 Guns mounted and 152 Men'; A General History of the Pyrates (1724): 'had 40 Guns, and 157 Men, 45 whereof were Negroes'. The Onslow identity and the 40 guns are Confirmed from the dispatch; only the complement is Disputed between the twoOn: Royal Fortune
  2. The charges laid against Fletcher state that he accepted seven hundred pounds to allow Edward Coates to bring the Jacob up to New York in April 1693 and to protect her crew, while Coates was separately reported to have put the whole cost of his protection at thirteen hundred pounds; both are figures asserted in adversarial testimony and neither is an audited sum.
    The Fletcher charges, with the state paper calendarCalendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West IndiesOn: New York
  3. The colony's staple economy failed and the investors turned to privateering against Spain.
    MonographKaren Ordahl Kupperman, Providence Island, 1630-1641: The Other Puritan Colony (Cambridge University Press, 1993), whose chapter on the failure of the staples is headed "Frustrated Hopes for Economic Development" and whose chapter nine is headed "Governing Puritan Privateers" (Confirmed for the chapter titles)On: Providence Island (Providencia)
  4. Roberts kept the Bristol galley he had spared, manned her, mounted sixteen guns on her on the General History's account, eighteen in Moses Renos's sworn deposition, and made her his flagship, which advanced him from a small sloop to a galley-built ship; the 1724 General History does not rename her, and the identification of this galley as the vessel Roberts renamed the Royal Fortune appears only in hobbyist secondary accounts and is contradicted by the primary text.
    Period narrative against secondary retellingsA General History of the Pyrates (1724); "When Black Bart Burned Trepassey", Product of Newfoundland; Wayne Savage, "Bartholomew Roberts"; A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious PyratesOn: Trepassey
  5. The scale of the destruction at Trepassey is not established: the earliest figure is the General History's twenty-two vessels, a later tradition adds about 150 fishing boats or shallops which is absent from the 1724 passage, and later writers state that Roberts found as many as 172 merchant and fishing craft at anchor and burned twenty-two of them.
    Period narrativeA General History of the Pyrates (1724)On: Trepassey
  6. The claim that Blackbeard grounded the ship on purpose rests chiefly on the deposition of the sailing master David Herriot, taken in 1718 in connection with the prosecution of Stede Bonnet's company at Charles Town, which states that "it was generally believed the said Thatch run his Vessel aground on purpose to break up the Companies, and to secure what Moneys and Effects he had got for himself and such others as he had most Value for"; the phrase "generally believed" reports common opinion rather than direct knowledge of motive, and it stands against Ellis Brand's contemporaneous account of a failed attempt to enter harbour, so the deliberate reading is a strong and widely favoured tradition and not an established fact.
    Deposition and Admiralty report, through institutional project historyDeposition of David Herriot (1718), taken in the vice admiralty prosecution of Stede Bonnet and printed in The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates (London, 1719), quoted by the North Carolina Queen Anne's Revenge project, qaronline.org; Ellis Brand's report to the Admiralty, same sourceOn: The Grounding of the Queen Anne's Revenge (1718)
  7. Roberts manned the Bristol galley he took in the harbour and mounted guns aboard her, 16 on the General History's account and 18 in the sworn deposition of Moses Renos calendared in the Colonial papers, then met nine or ten sail of French ships on the Banks of Newfoundland, destroyed all but one of 26 guns which his company seized and christened the Fortune, and left the Bristol galley to the Frenchmen before sailing away in company with his sloop.
    Period narrativeA General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (1724), chapter on Captain Bartholomew Roberts, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson, for sixteen guns; the deposition of Moses Renos, calendared in the Colonial Office papers (CO 194), for eighteenOn: Roberts Sacks Trepassey (1720)
  8. 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.
    Period narrativeA 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 possibleOn: The Battle of Cape Lopez (1722)
  9. 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.
    Trial pamphletThe 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 tablesOn: The Battle of Cape Lopez (1722)
  10. The size of the ransom is reported inconsistently, one line of accounts giving a demand of at least 300 pounds sterling or a value of 300 to 400 pounds and another giving 400 pounds weight of medicine collected, so that a sum of money and a quantity of drugs are conflated in later retellings and the true figure is unresolved.
    Journalism and popular secondary accountsBrian Hicks, "Hicks column: Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet and the end of piracy in Charles Town", The Post and Courier (Charleston, 2020); Virginia Chandler, "Blackbeard's 400 lb Medicine Chest" (2024), virginiachandler.orgOn: Blackbeard's Blockade of Charles Town (1718)
  11. Casualties in the Cape Fear action fell mainly on Rhett's two sloops, and the two accounts differ. The Governor and Council of South Carolina, writing on 21 October 1718, reported that "Wee had killed on board Collo. Rhett eight men and fourteen wounded, of which four are since dead, and on board Capt. Hall, two killed and six wounded", that is ten killed outright, twenty wounded, and four of the wounded dead by the time of writing. The printed narrative of 1724 gives instead "killed in this Action, on Board the Henry, ten Men, and fourteen wounded; on Board the Sea Nymph, two killed and four wounded", that is twelve killed and eighteen wounded, and puts the pirates' loss lower, at "seven killed and five wounded, two of which died soon after of their Wounds". The figures of fourteen dead and twenty wounded sometimes attributed to the Governor and Council are an aggregation of their numbers rather than their wording.
    Official correspondence and printed narrativeGovernor and Council of South Carolina to the Council of Trade and Plantations, Charles Town, 21 October 1718, item 730 in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 30, 1717-1718, ed. Cecil Headlam (London, 1930), pp. 359-381 at page 367 (C.O. 5, 1265. No. 121; and 5, 1293. pp. 173-175), read on British History Online; and Charles Johnson, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (London, 1724), chapter IV, Of Major Stede Bonnet and His CrewOn: The Trial and Hanging of Stede Bonnet (1718); Revenge, later Royal James; Royal James
  12. The complement of the prize is given inconsistently, at about 150 men in the 1724 General History and at 170 by later writers, and this record carries both figures rather than choosing between them.
    Period narrativeA General History of the Pyrates (1724), chapter on Captain Bartholomew Roberts, for about 150 men; A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious PyratesOn: Roberts and the Bahia Treasure Fleet (1719)
  13. The General History states that the brigantine carried away 70 hands and was an excellent sailer whose loss was a sensible shock to Roberts's crew; the figure of about a hundred carried in this archive's own research brief and printed by neither later account consulted matches the complement later put aboard the Morning Star and is not supported by any document read for this record.
    Period narrativeA General History of the Pyrates (1724), chapter IX for the 70 hands and chapter X for the Morning Star's complement of a hundred men, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson; A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious PyratesOn: Anstis Splits from Roberts (1721)
  14. A warning that masters' barbarity to their men was the cause of so many turning pirate was uttered at the Boston gallows on 12 July 1726 by one or more of the condemned, but its attribution is unsettled: the Boston report of 16 July 1726 gives it to Fly as a direct speech, including the advice to pay sailors their wages when due, and Mather gives it to Fly in one indirect sentence, while Benjamin Colman records no speech by Fly at all and attributes the warning to the other prisoners, that is to Cole and Greenvill; Fly's rebuke of the hangman for not understanding his trade and his setting the knot right himself are separately recorded by both Mather and the newspaper report.
    Newspaper report and execution sermonsBoston report of 16 July 1726 reprinted in Abel Boyer, The Political State of Great Britain, volume XXXII, pages 271 to 273, read in an uncorrected optical transcription and corroborated by Marcus Rediker's independent transcription; The Vial Poured Out Upon the Sea (Boston, 1726), attributed to Cotton Mather; against Benjamin Colman, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Boston, 1726)On: The Mutiny and Execution of William Fly (1726)
  15. On the Guinea coast near Cape Sierra Leone in the autumn of 1683 the company boarded and carried away a European ship and shifted into her, but her nationality and force are unsettled: Cowley, the only participant to describe the taking, calls her "a new Ship of 40 Guns" without a nationality, Sir Albert Gray and the Dictionary of National Biography call her Danish and Gray puts her at thirty-six guns, the earliest independent manuscript notice describes John Cook as "said to have come out in a Dutch ship of thirty-six guns", and a modern popular account names her the Charlotte Amalia of Gluckstadt and has her won at cards; the two participants disagree even on the vessel the company left Virginia in, Dampier's seventy men against Cowley's Revenge of eight guns and fifty-two men.
    Printed participant narratives, calendared manuscript and signed biographical dictionary articleWilliam Ambrosia Cowley, Cowley's Voyage Round the Globe, in William Hacke, A Collection of Original Voyages (1699); Sir Albert Gray, introduction to Dampier's A New Voyage Round the World (1927); J. K. Laughton, "Davis, Edward", Dictionary of National Biography, volume 14 (1888); examination of Richard Arnold enclosed in Molesworth to Sunderland, 4 August 1686, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 12, item 805 I; John Fitzhugh Millar, "Buccaneers Davis, Wafer and Hingson, and the Ship Batchelors Delight" (2010)On: The Voyage of the Batchelor's Delight (1683 to 1691); Batchelor's Delight
  16. The date and place of Captain John Cook's death are disputed: Dampier, who was aboard, has him die "of a sudden" within two or three leagues of Cape Blanco at the beginning of July 1684 and buried a league within the cape, Gray's 1927 introduction gives June 1684, Cowley's index places the burial at Cape Tres Puntas, and the widely repeated modern date of 19 July 1684 is the day Dampier assigns to the election of Edward Davis.
    Printed participant narrativesWilliam Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (1697); Sir Albert Gray, introduction to the same (1927); Cowley's Voyage Round the Globe, in Hacke, A Collection of Original Voyages (1699)On: The Voyage of the Batchelor's Delight (1683 to 1691); Batchelor's Delight
  17. Later writers state that Louis XIV recognised William III as King of England and undertook to give no further assistance to James II, but the printed Article IV contains no such words: it styles William King of Great Britain throughout, binds Louis to "on no Account whatfoever difturb" him in the free possession of his kingdoms and to give no assistance "directly or indirectly, to any Enemy or Enemies", and never names James, so that the recognition is carried by styling and by negative undertaking rather than by an express clause.
    Contemporary printed treaty textJacques Bernard, compiler, The Acts and Negotiations of the General Peace, Concluded at Ryswick (London, 1698), Anglo-French treaty, Article IVOn: The Treaty of Ryswick (1697)
  18. Whether Ryswick formally ceded the western third of Hispaniola and Tortuga from Spain to France or merely acquiesced in the French presence by deliberate omission is contested between later writers, one of whom carries both readings at once, and the 1698 English printing of the treaties contains no occurrence of Hispaniola, Tortuga, Santo Domingo, the Antilles or the West Indies in the Franco-Spanish instrument or its separate article.
    Contemporary printed treaty textJacques Bernard, compiler, The Acts and Negotiations of the General Peace, Concluded at Ryswick (London, 1698)On: The Treaty of Ryswick (1697)
  19. 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.
    Period newspapersThe Post-Boy, 2 May 1724 and 25 June 1726; The Daily Courant, 12 June 1724On: The Final Anti-Piracy Campaigns (1726 to 1728)
  20. The same file undermines the commission it records: an enclosed list of ten vessels commissioned by Hamilton in that form is declared by the covering letter not to be genuine, the Remarks transmitted at Hamilton's own desire state that the Tyger snow was the first that committed hostilities, and General Peter Heywood, commanding in chief at Jamaica, wrote on 11 August 1716 that but for the commissions given out on pretext of suppressing piracies the disorders would not have been committed.
    Calendared state papersItems 131 and enclosures iv and v, volume 30, 1717-1718 (C.O. 137, 12. No. 78), and item 308, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 29, 1716-1717, August 1716 (C.O. 137, 12. No. 21)On: Colonial Militias and Private Defence
  21. Colonel William Rhett went out of Charles Town under the Governor's commission with two sloops and about 130 men and received Stede Bonnet's surrender in the Cape Fear river, the sloops' names Henry and Sea Nymph and the captains' forenames John Masters and Fayrer Hall being the General History's and not the despatch's, and the colonial casualties are reported as fourteen dead and twenty wounded by the Governor and Council and as twelve dead and eighteen wounded by the printed narrative.
    Calendared state paper and period narrativeItem 730, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 30, 1717-1718, October 1718 (C.O. 5, 1265. No. 121), with Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pyrates, second edition, London, 1724; A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious PyratesOn: Colonial Militias and Private Defence
  22. The ownership of the Quedagh Merchant is contested between an Armenian attribution and an argument that Armenian merchants freighted a ship owned by a Surat merchant whose name a French pass rendered "Coirgi", read as Kurji, the pass itself naming the Armenian merchant at Surat as Agapiris Kalender, that is Agha Piri Calendar.
    Scholarly monograph, research blog and community reference wikiSebouh David Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, University of California Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-520-26687-2 (SRC007-008), and Aslanian's UCLA research blog posts of January 2020 (SRC007-007), against Khoja Wiki, "The Quedagh Merchant" (SRC007-012)On: Mughal and Armenian Petitions and Complaints
  23. The description of the pirate injury clauses as the world's first workmen's compensation, predating the state's by two centuries, overstates the record: state schemes followed in Germany in 1884 and in Britain with the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897, making the interval nearer one hundred and seventy years, and the pirate provision bound a single crew by private agreement rather than conferring an enforceable right.
    Specialist secondary sourceThe Pirate Surgeon's Journal, "Health Insurance at Sea" and related pages, piratesurgeon.com, against the German accident insurance law of 1884 and the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897On: Plunder, Shares and Compensation
  24. The Adventure Galley is rated at 287 tons burthen in the letter-of-marque declaration of 11 December 1695 (HCA 26/3/58) and in Jameson's edition, and her armament is given as 34 guns in that declaration, in Jameson's summary and in later accounts, and as 30 guns in the 1701 trial account, the two counts being carried side by side; no contemporary survey, builder's certificate or fitting account of the ship has been found.
    Trial pamphlet and edition of state papersDeclaration for letters of marque, The National Archives, HCA 26/3/58; editorial headnote to the Case of William Kidd in Jameson, Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period (1923); The Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701). The tonnage is Probable; the gun count is Disputed between the declaration and the trial printOn: Adventure Galley
  25. The trial record states that Plowman died, while the witness James Parrot said the captain was thrown overboard, and whether he went over the side alive or dead is not settled by the record.
    Printed trial recordThe Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and others of his company, &c. for sundry Piracies, Robberies, and Murder, committed upon the Subjects of the King of Portugal, Her Majesty's Allie, on the Coast of Brasil (Court of Admiralty, Boston, 13 to 21 June 1704)On: John Quelch
  26. The counts of the King's losses at Ocracoke do not agree: Spotswood's letter to Lord Cartwright gives twelve killed and twenty-two wounded, his despatch to the Council of Trade and Plantations of 22 December 1718 counts ten killed in the action and four and twenty wounded of whom one had since died, and the Boston News-Letter gives a lower tally that reads as one sloop's; the decisive stroke was the Adventure's broadside of small shot, swan shot, spick nails and pieces of old iron.
    Colonial official letters and newspaperLieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood to Lord Cartwright (a Lord Proprietor of Carolina), pp. 324-327; Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood to the Council of Trade and Plantations, CSP Colonial vol. 30, no. 800, 22 December 1718; Boston News-Letter account of the death of Blackbeard (dateline Rhode-Island), issue of about early March 1719On: Adventure (Blackbeard's sloop)