King Ferdinand
In India the politico-military success of Robert Clive in securing control of the immense revenues of Bengal was based on seapower. Calcutta and the French enclave at Chandernagore were taken by the fleet in January 1757. French attempts to reverse these successes were blocked by a succession of indecisive, destructive battles in which Commodore George Pocock forced the French Admiral d’Ache to leave the coast in search of supplies, while the British, with a local base at Madras and a dockyard at Bombay, were able to remain on station. Command of the sea again gave the British a decisive advantage.
The death of King Ferdinand in 1759 brought his half-brother Charles III to the throne of Spain. Charles loathed the British, having been humiliated by them in 1742 while king of Naples. Although the opportunity for a combined Bourbon effort had passed, the signature of a new Bourbon ‘Family Compact’ in August 1761 was a clear threat, and Pitt argued for another pre-emptive strike. Anson provided a grand plan to take the port of Havana, the greatest fortress in the New World. In October the Cabinet, arguing that such an act would increase international hatred of Britain’s dominion of the oceans and believing that the culminating point of victory had been reached, rejected Pitt’s advice. читать полностью…
Square-Rigged Buccaneering
The were able reached ashoar by 7 ‘o’ clock. When the Pyrates came aboard, they cut three of our wounded men to pieces. I, with a few of my people made what haste I could to the Kingstown, 25 miles from us, where I arrived next day, almost dead with fatigue and loss of blood, having been sorely wounded in the Head by a musket ball.
The brutality of this hard-fought action is repeated several times in accouns of actions with pirates, featuring Henry Every in the Indian Ocean, Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard in the Carolinas, Bartholomew Roberts off West Africa and several others. This was unlike any neatly fought naval action, with the exchange of long-range broadsides. Instead, these engagements more resembled street fighting, with both. читать полностью…
THE SLOOP FLYING DRAGON, 1719
At dawn on 22 November Maynard crept through the When British rule was stablished over New Providence in passage between Okrakoke Island and Beacon Island to the the Bahamas in 1718, the small-time pirate Edmund south, and entered the nchorage to the north-west side of Condent fled the island in a sloop, one of several pirates Okrakoke. Before dawn, he had lowered a rowing boat, and who elected not to accept a pardon provided they give up its crew took soundings. Blackbeard saw them oming, and piracy. After a singular lack of success, the pirates captured fired a roundshot at the longboat, opening the battle. This their first prize off the Cape Verde Islands. At that point the forced her to return to the cover of the Jane. Maynard order crew elected to depose the captain, and Condent was 46 the Union Flag to be raised on both his ships. The pirate then raised in his place. Shortly afterwards their luck hanged, and the pirates captured a string of vessels, including a wellarmed sloop operated by the Portuguese navy. Condent decided to keep the sloop, which he renamed the Flying Dragon. The sloop re-crossed the Atlantic to the Brazilian coast before heading south-east for the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian Ocean beyond. Condent reached Madagascar in the summer of 1719, and harried snipping in the Indian Ocean for over a year, acquiring a heap of plunder. Condent proved to be one of the smarter pirates of his age. At the French-held island of La Reunion, he
negotiated a pardon from the governor, and retired from piracy. Although the exact circumstances are unclear, it has been proposed that Billy One Hands, one of ondent’s crew, became the new captain of the sloop, and he renamed her the Fiery Dragon. Whatever the origins of the Fiery Dragon, she was burnt in an accidental fire while at anchor in Martinique in 1721. Archaeologists have recently uncovered her remains. читать полностью…
Captain
The Scottish captain was deserted by the English East Indiaman Greenwich and the Dutch East India Company ship that sailed with her, and she was left alone to face the pirates:
For though we did not doubt that he [the Greenwich] would joi n us, because when he got about a league from us, he brought his ship to, and look’d on, yet both he and the Ostender basely deserted us, and left us engaged with barbarous and inhuman enemies, with their black and bloody flags hanging over us, without the least appearance of escaping being cut to pieces. But God, in his good Providence determined otherwise, for notwithstanding their Superiority, we engaged them both about three hours, during which, the biggest received some shot betwixt wind & water, which made them keep off a little to stop their leaks.
The other endeavoured all she could to board us, by rowing with her oars, being with half a ships’ length of us above an Hour, but by good Fortune we shot all her oars to pieces, which prevented them, and by consequence, saved our lives. читать полностью…
Dominica and Martinique ships
Anson’s commanders did not disappoint. In the Mediterranean, Boscawen, with fifteen battleships, intercepted la Clue’s fleet of seven as they passed the Straits of Gibraltar on 18 August 1759, five others having broken off to Cadiz. One ship was captured, two escaped into the Atlantic and four ran aground off the Portuguese city of Lagos, where they were taken or burnt the following day, despite Portuguese neutralit~ In July a mortar flotilla commanded by Captain Sir r nch a on 4 ovemher with twenty-on battleships after a strong esterly gale { ich he believed had blow Hawke back to Plymouth) had enabled a Fre ua ron from the We t Ind· to get into harbour, and provided hi t d··on 1 amen. H ho e to pick up the t oop tran port in the Loir e a y d ail to Scotland without a battle.
However, he was soon located by H ‘s cruisers. Hawke left Torbay ith enty-three battle hips a t He wa well flware of ship and confidence of if they had had ships to fit out and man. This remarkable performance, the culmination of a sustained six-month blockade of Brest, was based on the effective defeat of scurvy by the regular supply of fresh victuals, and the rotation of ships to Plymouth and Torbay for rest, repair and recuperation. читать полностью…
The French fleet
There were no British interests at stake in central Europe. Operations against Canada were delayed in 1757 by the appearance of a French fleet at Louisbourg. At this stage the Western Squadron had yet to take control of the sea approaches to Brest and the French Atlantic ports. However, the return the French fleet to Brest in late 1757 proved to be a disaster on the scale of 1746, for it brought with it an epidemic of typhus that killed thousands and disabled the base and the fleet for months. In 1758 the Western Squadron took control of the French Atlantic coast, while Anson drilled the fleet up to his own high standards. In August Captain Howe led an amphibious expedition that destroyed the shipping and harbour at Cherbourg. читать полностью…
Company ship Cassandra
As for the guns themselves, archaeological evidence shows that these reflected what one would expect from a cross-secuon of maritime ordnance of the period. The majority were of British manufacture, cast-iron pieces, predominantly produced in the Wealden region of Sussex. The 5 guns recovered from the Queen Anne’s Revenge show a smattering of other nationalities, especially French, and all were castiron. By that stage, bronze pieces were both rare and expensive. As the reliability of cast pieces had increased markedly during the later-l7th century, bronze guns were limited to use in major warships or East Indiamen, when they were usually mounted near the ship’s compass, to reduce magnetic distortion. In addition to the main armament of the pirate vessel, evidence from shipwrecks suggests they were extremely well equipped with small arms, shot, powder and grenades.
Previous Osprey titles have examined the way in which pirates hunted for their prey. For the most part, pirates managed to capture their prizes without fighting. Occasionally, though, they encountered a well-armed merchant vessel willing and able to stand its ground. In some cases, this resistance forced the pirates to give up the fight, and sail away in search of an easier victim. In other notable cases, the pirates were determined to quash this resistance, and an incredibly bloody fight ensued. The intention here is to look more closely at how they performed during this type of action. читать полностью…
The pirate ship in action
Clifford and his team recovered a range of artefacts from the wreck, including ordnance, a ship’s bell, small arms, shot, grenades, swivel guns, timber, iron hull fasteners and other objects that were indispensable to a well equipped pirate. An analysis of everyday items such as eating utensils, gaming pieces and other personal items might reveal hitherto unknown information about the pirates themselves. A survey of the wreck site reveals that her hull was only 100ft long, making her small, compact, but heavily armed. It is hoped that work on this fascinating site, plus the three other identified pirate wrecks in North Carolina and Madagascar will provide us with a greater understanding of how these ships were built and operated, although at present only general facts have emerged from the investigations. First, all these ships were very heavily armed, carrying a range of weapons, from pistols and grenades to large guns. Second, apart from Queen Anne’s Revenge, their hulls betrayed damage by teredo worms or poor construction, suggesting the waters of the Caribbean Sea and Indian Ocean were extremely harmful to wooden sailing ships. Finally, all these pirate ships were lost due to accident or carelessness, which underlines the point mat the piratical life was an extremely dangerous one. Life expectancy was short, for ships as well as for the pirates themselves. читать полностью…
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Queen Anne’s Revenge was the Royal Fortune, the flagship of Bartholomew Roberts. A Danish victim of Roberts recalled what the ship looked like:
The said Roberts’ ship is manned with about 180 white men and about 48 French Creole negroes and has mounted 12 eightpounders ; 4 twelve-pounders; 12 six-pounders; 6 [bronze] eight-pounders, and 8 four-pounders; and in [beneath] her main and foremast has 7 guns, two and three pounders, and 2 swivel guns upon her mizzen. читать полностью…
