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Henry Jennings

Jamaica privateer who held Lord Archibald Hamilton's commission for suppressing pirates and used it to rob the Spanish salvage camp on the Florida shore about January 1716.

BornNot establishedDiedNot establishedAlso writtenJennings (Balchen's deposition, C.O. 137, 11); Jenings (Vickers's deposition, C.O. 5, 1317); Captain Henry Jennings (Johnson, General History, 1724)

An Englishman sailing out of Jamaica, Henry Jennings held a commission from Lord Archibald Hamilton dated 21 November 1715. John Vickers, deposing from New Providence, spelt the surname Jenings. Before November 1715 there is nothing: no baptism, no parents, no birthplace, no trade.2,3,4

A commission for suppressing of piracys

Samuel Page, Secretary and Commissary of Jamaica, deposed that the sloops Eagle and Barsheba "were commissioned 21st Nov. last by Governor Lord A. Hamilton to go to sea for six months". Captain Balchen of HMS Diamond set the paper beside the intention: the two sloops "had my Lord Hamilton's Commission for suppressing of piracys, but this design, as they said themselves was upon the wrecks". England was at peace with Spain when it was granted. Who held the other is unsettled: Balchen names Capt. Edward James beside Jennings, while the second commander is given elsewhere as John Wills of the Eagle.5,6

The camp on the Florida shore

Don Juan Francisco del Valle was sent by the Governor of Havana to complain that ships were fitted out at Jamaica under pretext of cruising upon pirates, and wrote it out on 18 March 1715/16. The two vessels anchored in the Canal of Bahama under Spanish colours, lay still until night, landed their people, and marched them to the camp under arms next morning. The Spanish commanding officer "ask'd them, if it was war, they answer'd no, but that they came to fish for the wrecks". He offered them 25,000 pieces of eight, "which they wou'd not be satisfy'd with, but took all the silver they had and stript the people taking likewise away four small cannon, two of them brass". They carried off above 120,000 pieces of eight besides the wrought silver, the captors' own reckoning.8,7,1

Page deposed it in a line: the sloops came back having robbed the King of Spain's subjects on the Florida shore, and the money "was divided between those concerned". One of the two was at Jamaica on 26 January 1716.9

Johnson tells it as a storming: two ships and three sloops out of Jamaica and Barbados under Captain Henry Jennings, three hundred men landed, a guard that "immediately ran away", and on the way home a Spanish ship out of Porto Bello rifled of cochineal, indigo and 60,000 pieces of eight and let go. None of that is in the depositions. Nor is his 350,000 pieces of eight, which counts the hoard on the spot, not what was carried away.10,11

Piracy under colour of a commission

Balchen did not hedge. The sloops came back sooner than could be expected with a considerable sum of money, a thing "which I cou'd not forbear saying I thought to be the greatest of piracy; and indeed 'tis blam'd by some of the Island; but by those who had share of the mony thought just". Hamilton, pressed with a second memorial, would answer only "that the Florida shoar was part of the King of England's dominions", the Spaniards having seized English vessels since the peace and owing more than those effects were worth. The sloops "again sail'd with the Governor's Commission, well fitted with warlike stores".12,13

On 19 May 1716 Secretary Stanhope ordered Hamilton's commission annulled and Peter Heywood put in his place, for abuses committed "of late under the covert of Commissions granted by the said Lord Archibald Hamilton to the prejudice of the Treaties between this Crown and that of Spain". Heywood was to inquire into the piracies in the Gulph of Florida, seize whoever was found guilty and ship them home for trial.14

Jennings never was. He was declared a pirate and then pardoned under the Act of Grace, and no court ever sat on him. The captors admitted the taking; whether it was lawful was disputed between the Spanish Crown and Jennings's backers, and nothing was ever put to trial.16,15

Commodore at New Providence

Vickers deposed that Jennings took a French ship of 32 guns at the Bay of Hounds and brought her into New Providence as prize about 22 April 1716. France was at peace too. Her name is given as the St Marie and as the Marianne.17

Johnson makes Jennings the pirates' "Commadore", a man who "always bore a great Sway among them", and Vickers's informant took him for a leader as well. Authority on the island was quarrelled over all the same, Benjamin Hornigold being called the protector of all the pirates there and Thomas Barrow styling himself Governor of Providence. Johnson supplies the character that has followed him ever since, "a Man of good Understanding, and good Estate, before this Whim took him of going a Pyrating", and it sits beside an armed peacetime robbery of a friendly power's salvors.18,19

When the proclamation reached them the pirates called a general council and agreed on nothing: some were for fortifying the island and treating with the government upon the foot of a commonwealth. Jennings "resolved upon surrendering, without more ado, to the Terms of the Proclamation", and about 150 more came in after him to the Governor of Bermuda and took their certificates.20

Where the record stops

After the pardon he goes quiet. By one account a Pennsylvania newspaper of 4 July 1745 reported West Indies sloops lost, one of them commanded by a Henry Jennings; nothing joins that commander to the privateer of 1716, and he may be a younger man of the same name. No death is recorded.21

Two entries of the colonial calendar carry nearly all of this, both read in the British History Online transcription rather than at Kew, so every quotation above waits on collation with the manuscripts in C.O. 137 and C.O. 5. No baptism, no death notice, no trial paper. Jennings comes down in other men's writing: a Spaniard complaining, a naval captain disapproving, an island secretary itemising, and a narrative printed in 1724 by a man who was not there.22

What the evidence does not settle

Origins

  • Jennings's birth, parentage and life before November 1715Very likely

Second commissioned commander

  • Edward James or John WillsLikely

His end

  • Whether the Henry Jennings reported in 1745 was the privateerUnverified

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 Spanish plate fleet was destroyed on the Florida coast in 1715 and its salvage camp was robbed the following winter. Lt. Governor Spotswood of Virginia reported on 24 October 1715 that the fleet consisted of eleven sail and that all but one were cast away in the Gulf of Florida to the southward of St Augustine; the day of the departure from Havana and the day of the storm are not fixed by anything read here. Two sloops commissioned at Jamaica by Lord Archibald Hamilton on 21 November 1715, the Eagle and the Barsheba, commanded by Captain Jennings and Captain Edward James, anchored under Spanish colours in the Canal of Bahama on the Florida coast, landed their people and carried away, on the captors' own account as calendared, to the value of 120,000 pieces of eight besides the wrought silver; a separate representation places the wrecked flota at Palmar. The name John Wills for the second commander, and the alternative valuation of about 87,500 pounds, are carried by neither document. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Official correspondence and calendared complaints: Lt. Governor Spotswood to [? Mr. Secretary Stanhope], Virginia, 24 October 1715, item 651 in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 28, 1714-1715, ed. Cecil Headlam (London, 1928), pp. 314-327 at page 317 (C.O. 5, 1342. No. 3), read on British History Online: "the Spanish Plate Fleet richly laden, consisting of eleven sail, are, except one, lately cast away in the Gulf of Florida to the southward of St. Augustin"; and item 158 with enclosures i, iv and vii in volume 29, 1716-1717, pp. 76-101 at pages 78 to 82, read on British History Online: "They carried away to the value of 120,000 pieces of eight, besides the wrought silver, this is what the captors own themselves"; "In Novr. there was two sloops fitted out of Jamaica, one belonging to Capt. Edward James, the other to Capt. Jennings, which had my Lord Hamilton's Commission for suppressing of piracys, but this design, as they said themselves was upon the wrecks"; "The sloops Eagle and Barsheba were commissioned 21st Nov. last by Governor Lord A. Hamilton to go to sea for six months"; and "The English sloops under pretence of clearing the coasts of pirates, against all equity have been diving for the silver wch. was lost on the Flota at Palmar"
  2. Henry Jennings was an English privateer sailing out of Jamaica whose sloop held a commission from Lord Archibald Hamilton dated 21 November 1715, his existence and surname being attested by the depositions of Captain Balchen of HMS Diamond and of Samuel Page, by the Spanish complaint laid before Hamilton and by the General History of 1724. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online; CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online; A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580)
  3. The forename Henry is attested by the Spanish complaint of Don Juan Francisco del Valle, by the General History and in the New Providence deposition of John Vickers, where the surname is spelt Jenings; his sloop is written Barsheba and Bersheba in the documents and Bathsheba in later writing. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online; CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 240 i, deposition of John Vickers late of Providence (C.O. 5, 1317. Nos. 45, 45 i.-iii.), read on British History Online; A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580)
  4. No birth date, parentage, birthplace or earlier career for Jennings appears in any document read for this record; the documented life begins with the Jamaica commission of November 1715. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Documented absence: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online; A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580)
  5. Samuel Page deposed that the sloops Eagle and Barsheba were commissioned by Lord Archibald Hamilton on 21 November 1715 to go to sea for six months, and Captain Balchen that the two sloops held that commission for suppressing of piracys while their design, as they said themselves, was upon the wrecks: an anti-pirate commission granted in a time of peace with Spain, and not a letter of marque against Spanish shipping. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online
  6. Which man commanded the second commissioned sloop is unresolved: Balchen names Capt. Edward James beside Jennings, while the second commander is given elsewhere as John Wills of the Eagle. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online; CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online
  7. By del Valle's complaint the two vessels anchored in the Canal of Bahama under Spanish colours, lay still till night, landed their people and marched them to the salvage camp under arms the next morning, where the Spanish commanding officer asked whether it was war and was told they came to fish for the wrecks; his offer of 25,000 pieces of eight was refused, and the raiders took all the silver, stripped the people and carried away four small cannon, two of them brass. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online
  8. Don Juan Francisco del Valle, sent by the Governor of Havana to the Governor of Jamaica to complain that ships were fitted out there under pretext of cruising upon pirates, wrote from Jamaica on 18 March 1715/16; his letter is the earliest item in the surviving file on the raid and the document that records the captors' own admitted figure of above 120,000 pieces of eight besides the wrought silver. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online
  9. Page deposed that the sloops returned having robbed the subjects of the King of Spain on the Florida shore of the value of 120,000 pieces of eight, which was divided between those concerned, and one of the two vessels reached Jamaica on 26 January 1716, the firmest date in the sequence. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online; CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online
  10. The General History has two ships and three sloops fitted out from Jamaica, Barbados and elsewhere under Captain Henry Jennings, three hundred men landed against a guard that immediately ran away, and a Spanish ship from Porto Bello to Havana rifled on the return voyage of cochineal, indigo and 60,000 pieces of eight and then released; none of it appears in the depositions. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Period narrative: A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580)
  11. Two tallies of the plunder stand side by side: the captors' own admitted figure of about 120,000 pieces of eight besides wrought silver, in the Spanish complaint and Page's deposition, and the General History's 350,000 pieces of eight lying on the spot, which describes the hoard at the wreck rather than what was carried off. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers and period narrative: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online; CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online; A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580)
  12. Captain Balchen reported that the sloops went to sea and returned in a shorter time than could be expected with a considerable sum of money, a thing he could not forbear saying he thought to be the greatest of piracy, blamed by some of the island but thought just by those who had share of the money. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online
  13. Page deposed that Lord Archibald Hamilton answered del Valle's second memorial only by saying that the Florida shore was part of the King of England's dominions and that the Spaniards, having seized English vessels since the peace, owed the English more than those Spanish effects would answer, and that the sloops sailed again with the Governor's commission, well fitted with warlike stores. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online
  14. On 19 May 1716 Mr Secretary Stanhope directed that Hamilton's commission be annulled and superseded and Peter Heywood appointed in his place, on account of abuses committed under the covert of the commissions Hamilton had granted, to the prejudice of the treaties between England and Spain, Heywood being instructed to inquire into all such piracies and robberies committed upon the Spaniards in the Gulph of Florida or elsewhere, to seize those found guilty and to send them to England for trial. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online
  15. The governing tension of the case is that a commission for suppressing of piracys was used for a raid that robbed the subjects of the King of Spain in a time of peace: the taking was admitted by the captors, its lawfulness disputed between the Spanish Crown and Jennings's backers. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online; CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online
  16. Jennings was declared a pirate and afterwards pardoned under the Act of Grace, and no trial of him exists because he was never tried; the state-paper trail runs into the inquiry on Lord Archibald Hamilton and not into a prosecution of Jennings, so nothing charged against him was ever proven at law. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers and period narrative: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online; A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580)
  17. John Vickers deposed that Jennings took a French ship mounted with 32 guns at the Bay of Hounds and brought her into New Providence as prize about 22 April 1716, France being then at peace; the ship's name is given variously as the St Marie and the Marianne, and the deposition is the only witness to the taking. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Deposition in calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 240 i, deposition of John Vickers late of Providence (C.O. 5, 1317. Nos. 45, 45 i.-iii.), read on British History Online
  18. The General History calls Jennings the pirates' Commadore, who always bore a great sway among them, and an informant in Vickers's deposition likewise took him for a leader, but authority at New Providence was contested, Benjamin Hornigold being described as the protector of all the pirates there and Thomas Barrow styling himself Governor of Providence. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narrative and deposition: A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580); CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 240 i, deposition of John Vickers late of Providence (C.O. 5, 1317. Nos. 45, 45 i.-iii.), read on British History Online
  19. The General History describes Jennings as a man of good understanding and good estate before this whim took him of going a-pirating, a favourable portrait carried by that book alone and standing beside an armed peacetime robbery of a foreign power's salvors and the taking of French and Spanish vessels. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Period narrative: A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580); CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158 i, del Valle to the Marquis de Monteleon, Jamaica, 18 March 1715/16 (C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 i.), read on British History Online
  20. By the General History's account the New Providence pirates called a general council on the coming of the proclamation and could agree on nothing, some being for fortifying the island and treating with the government upon the foot of a commonwealth, whereupon Jennings resolved upon surrendering to the terms of the proclamation without more ado, and about 150 more came in after him to the Governor of Bermuda and had their certificates. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Period narrative: A General History of the Pyrates (the Jennings wreck-raid narrative and the Porto Bello prize), 1724 (Gutenberg ebook 40580)
  21. Jennings's later life and death are not established: the only thread is a notice in the Pennsylvania Gazette of 4 July 1745 reporting West Indies sloops lost, one commanded by a Henry Jennings, and nothing links that commander to the privateer of 1716, who may not be the same man. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Newspaper notice at second hand: The Pennsylvania Gazette, notice of Bermuda advice of West Indies sloops lost, one commanded by Henry Jennings, issue of 4 July 1745 (not read directly; known at second hand)
  22. The documentary backbone for Jennings is two entries of the colonial calendar, no. 158 with enclosures and no. 240 with enclosures, read in the British History Online transcription rather than in the manuscripts at Kew, so that no quotation from them can be treated as manuscript-exact until collated; there is no baptism, no death notice and no trial paper for him at all. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Calendared state papers: CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 158, enclosing Balchen of HMS Diamond (iv) and Samuel Page (v) (C.O. 137, 11. Nos. 16, 16 i.-xv.), read on British History Online; CSP Colonial vol 29 no. 240 i, deposition of John Vickers late of Providence (C.O. 5, 1317. Nos. 45, 45 i.-iii.), read on British History Online