Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents
History
Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents
Pirates; Privateering; United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Sources
De Barbadas fueron a Antica donde fueron recividos sin hacerles
molestia, antes buen acostimiento y de alli se dividieron unas a
Niebes en una balandra, otras como diez y ocho de ellos a londres en
el navio cuyo Capitan se llamaba Portin, otros ocho que erran los
principales se uieron en el Navio llamado la _Comadressa Blanca_ o cui
Wihte, su Capitan Charles Howard, dos de ellos que eran los
principales cabos se llaman el Capitan Sharp, y el otro Gilbert Dike,
y a este declarante le dexaron en Plymuth.
Los demas testigos dicen tambien haver oydo que estos Piratas andan
comprando aora un Nabio para bolver a hacer el mismo viage o continuar
esta pirateria.
_Translation._
Relation of the South Sea Men
Simon Calderon, native of Santiago de Chile, mariner, going from
Callao to Panama in the ship called the _Rosario_ laden with wine,
brandy, pigs of tin,[2] and artichokes, with 24 passengers and all,
they met off Cabo Pasado, about halfway in their voyage, a ship, the
_Trinidad_, and supposed it to be Spanish, but when they perceived
that it was a ship of pirates, they tried to obtain the weather-gauge,
but the pirates obtained it, and then they began to fire musket-shots,
and with the first three shots they killed the captain of the
_Rosario_, who was called Juan Lopez, and fired other shots, and
captured the ship, and took out with the hooks [?] all that they
deemed necessary of the wine and brandy, and all the silver and other
things that had value, and tortured two Spaniards in order to learn
whether there was more silver, and cut down the sails and rigging,
except the mainsail, and turned the ship adrift with the men,
excepting five or six whom they took with them, and among others the
deponent.
[Footnote 2: See document 45, above, note 80.]
Thence they went to the Isla de la Plata, where they remained three
days and a half refreshing themselves, and suspecting that the
prisoners were planning to rise and take the ship they killed one and
flogged another; and thence they went to Payta, where they sent two
canoes ashore with 32 armed men, with design to capture Payta, but
meeting with resistance they returned to the ship. Thence they sailed
away to the Strait of Magellan, but did not go through it, but around
the Isla del Fuego, which was some six or eight days' distance from
the Strait of Magellan. In making this passage of Fuego, to enter into
the North Sea, they were delayed some nine days. They came to
Barbados, where, because of finding there a ship of the King of
England, they did not venture to enter.
On the voyage they divided the booty and obtained 400 dollars apiece,
for each one of 74 persons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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