Prizes, Cargoes and Fencing

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 prizes described in the contemporary record are mostly mundane bulk goods, not treasure. Masters deposing at Antigua in the winter of 1718 to 1719 describe pirates carrying off water and provisions and two of a crew; about thirty barrels of beef, as much flour and wine extorted from St Thomas; a Guinea ship taken with 250 enslaved people aboard and a ship from Madeira with provisions; and a crew standing south for the latitude of Barbados to get "bread or flower and a better ship". The General History of 1724 gives the same picture, a sloop of Barbados "laden with Rum, Sugar and Negroes" and a ship of Ipswich "laden with Logwood". Coin, plate and gold dust appear in the same record, but no count has been made here that would establish which kind of cargo was in the majority. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Depositions in state papers and near-contemporary print: Depositions enclosed with Governor Walter Hamilton's letter, calendared as nos. 797 i to vi in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 30, 1717 to 1718 (December 1718, 11 to 19; pp. 404 to 424), C.O. 152, 12. Nos. 136, 136 i. to vi., read at British History Online: John Brown of the John and Thomas of Rhode Island, Antigua 12 March 1718/19 ("they had thereupon from St. Thomas about 30 barrels of beef as much flower with wine"); John Bois, carpenter of the Wade frigate, Antigua 24 February 1718/19 ("They designed to go to the latitude of Barbados to get bread or flower and a better ship"); Jonathan Bull of the Christiana of Boston, Antigua 17 January 1718/19 ("they took a vessel bound to Barbados from Guinea with 250 negroes, and some small time after another ship from Madera bound for Barbados with provisions"); and Hamilton's own report that a pirate crew "plundered and took away almost all his water and provisions, and took away two of his men". And A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1724), for Stede Bonnet off South Carolina in August 1717 taking a sloop "laden with Rum, Sugar and Negroes", and Charles Vane taking a ship of Ipswich "laden with Logwood". The word "most" in the earlier form of this claim is not established by any document read here and has been removed.
2. A prize was commonly taken by threat rather than battle and was then rummaged. Robert Leonard, master of the snow Eagle of New York, deposed at Antigua in February 1719 that the pirate commander "beat him with his cutlass for not bringing to at first shot", and that the pirates threatened to sink his vessel and throw him overboard with a double-headed shot about his neck "if he concealed where his money was". Pirates took what they needed as well as what they could sell: water, provisions and men were carried off, a crew looked out for "a better ship", and another meant to fit out a captured Guinea ship as their man of war. Skilled men were taken and pressed to sign: witnesses at the trial of Bartholomew Roberts's crew describe a surgeon taken and the articles "about to be imposed on him", and the articles printed in the General History provide for the company's musicians. Bulk cargo that did not suit could be thrown over the side or the ship simply returned: Vane set his prisoners to heave a lading of logwood overboard, then changed his mind, "so Coggershall had his Ship again, and he was suffered to pursue his Voyage home". Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Depositions in state papers and near-contemporary print: Deposition of Robert Leonard, commander of the snow Eagle of New York, Antigua, 24 February 1718/19, and the accompanying depositions of John Brown, John Bois and Jonathan Bull, calendared as nos. 797 i to vi in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 30, 1717 to 1718 (pp. 404 to 424), C.O. 152, 12. Nos. 136, 136 i. to vi., read at British History Online. And A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1724): the articles of Roberts's company, article XI, "The Musicians to have Rest on the Sabbath Day, but the other six Days and Nights, none without special Favour"; the evidence of Jo. Wingfield at the trial of Roberts's crew, that "when one Hamilton, a Surgeon, was taken by them, and the Articles about to be imposed on him, he opposed, and prevented it"; and the account of Charles Vane and the logwood ship of Ipswich, "but when they had more than half cleared the Ship, the Whim changed, and then they would not have her; so Coggershall had his Ship again, and he was suffered to pursue his Voyage home". The word "usually" is a generalisation no single document establishes and has been dropped.
3. Plunder was converted to value ashore through complicit colonial merchants who bought pirate goods below the market price and resold them as ordinary imports, through governors and customs officers who took bribes or shares, and through resident traders such as Adam Baldridge, who ran a fortified post on St Mary's Island off Madagascar that bought from the Indian Ocean crews and was supplied with trade goods from New York by the merchant Frederick Philipse, with enslaved people sent back in exchange; the complicity is documented but the volumes and prices of any single network are not, the trade surviving only in gubernatorial correspondence, Board of Trade complaints, Baldridge's deposition of 1699 and later prosecutions. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Deposition and secondary scholarship: Adam Baldridge's deposition, 1699, and his career on St Mary's Island with his supply relationship to Frederick Philipse of New York; Mark G. Hanna, Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740, 2015
4. One case of buried treasure is authenticated because the state recovered it: on his return in 1699 William Kidd left goods and treasure with John Gardiner on Gardiners Island off Long Island, and after his arrest the authorities under Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, retrieved the deposit and inventoried it as evidence against him. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Colonial records summarised in the Kidd literature: accounts of Kidd's Gardiners Island cache and its recovery by the Earl of Bellomont, 1699, with the primary inventory in the Colonial Office and state papers
5. The buried hoard and the treasure map are nineteenth-century literary inventions, with David Cordingly judging the influence of Treasure Island on the popular idea of piracy impossible to overstate and the treasure map an entirely fictional device. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Secondary scholarship: David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates, 1995