The Pirates' Who's Who: Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And BuccaneersGosse, Philip
History
The Pirates' Who's Who: Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers
Gosse, Philip
Pirates
One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at White Point, Charleston, South
Carolina, on November 8th, 1723.
LEWIS, JAMES.
After being a prisoner in France, he managed to reach Spain, and was with
Avery when he seized the ship _Charles the Second_. Tried for piracy at
the Old Bailey in 1696 and hanged.
LEWIS, NICHOLAS.
One of Captain George Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts on March 11th,
1722.
LEWIS, WILLIAM.
The greatest triumph and most important exploit of this pirate was the
attacking, and eventually taking, of a powerful French ship of twenty-four
guns.
Lewis enjoyed a longer career than most of the brethren, and by 1717 he
was already one of the leading piratical lights of Nassau, and his end did
not come till ten years later. In 1726, he spent several months on the
coast of South Carolina and Virginia, trading with the inhabitants the
spoils he had taken from vessels in the Atlantic. He learnt his trade
under the daring pirate Bannister, who was brought into Port Royal,
hanging dead from his own yard-arm. On this occasion, Lewis and another
boy were triced up to the corvette's mizzen-peak like "two living flags."
Lewis, amongst other accomplishments, was a born linguist, and could speak
with fluency in several languages, even the dialect of the Mosquito
Indians. He was once captured by the Spaniards, and taken to Havana, but
escaped with a few other prisoners in a canoe, seized a piragua, and with
this captured a sloop employed in the turtle trade, and by gradually
taking larger and larger prizes, Lewis soon found himself master of a fine
ship and a crew of more than fifty men. He renamed her the _Morning Star_,
and made her his flagship.
On one occasion when chasing a vessel off the Carolina coast, his fore and
main topmasts were carried away. Lewis, in a frenzy of excitement,
clambered up the main top, tore out a handful of his hair, which he tossed
into the wind, crying: "Good devil, take this till I come." The ship, in
spite of her damaged rigging, gained on the other ship, which they took.
Lewis's sailors, superstitious at the best of times, considered this
intimacy of their captain with Satan a little too much, and soon
afterwards one of the Frenchmen aboard murdered Lewis in his sleep.
LEYTON, FRANCIS.
One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged for piracy at Newport, Rhode
Island, on July 19th, 1723. Age 39.
LIMA, MANUEL.
Taken by H.M. sloop _Tyne_, and hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in February,
1823.
LINCH, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
Of Port Royal, Jamaica.
In 1680 Lionel Wafer, tiring of the life of a civil surgeon at Port Royal,
left Jamaica to go on a voyage with Captains Linch and Cook to the Spanish
Main.
LING, CAPTAIN WILLIAM.
A notorious pirate of New Providence. Captured and hanged shortly after
accepting King George's pardon of 1718.
LINISLER, THOMAS.
Of Lancashire.
One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged at Rhode Island in 1723 at
the age of 21.
LITHGOW, CAPTAIN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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