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
VALLANUEVA, CAPTAIN.
A Dominican.
Commanded in 1831 a small gaff-topsail schooner, the _General Morazan_,
armed with a brass eight-pounder and carrying a mixed crew of forty-four
men, French, Italian, English, and Creoles of St. Domingo.
VANCLEIN, CAPTAIN MOSES. Dutch filibuster.
Was serving with L'Ollonais's fleet off the coast of Yucatan when a mutiny
broke out, of which Vanclein was the ringleader. He persuaded the
malcontents to sail with him along the coast till they came to Costa Rica.
There they landed and marched to the town of Veraguas, which they seized
and pillaged. The pirates got little booty, only eight pounds of gold, it
proving to be a poor place.
VANE, CAPTAIN CHARLES.
Famous for his piratical activities off the coast of North America,
specially the Carolinas.
In 1718, when Woodes Rogers was sent by the English Government to break up
the pirate stronghold in the Bahama Islands, all the pirates at New
Providence Island surrendered to Rogers and received the King's pardon
except Vane, who, after setting fire to a prize he had, slipped out of the
bay as Rogers with his two men-of-war entered. Vane sailed to the coast of
Carolina, as did other West Indian pirates who found their old haunts too
warm for them.
Vane is first heard of as being actively engaged in stealing from the
Spaniards the silver which they were salving from a wrecked galleon in the
Gulf of Florida. Tiring of this, Vane stole a vessel and ranged up and
down the coast from Florida to New York, taking ship after ship, until at
last the Governor of South Carolina sent out a Colonel Rhet in an armed
sloop to try and take him. On one occasion Vane met the famous Blackbeard,
whom he saluted with his great guns loaded with shot. This compliment of
one pirate chief to another was returned in like kind, and then "mutual
civilities" followed for several days between the two pirate captains and
their crews, these civilities taking the form of a glorious debauch in a
quiet creek on the coast.
Vane soon had a change of fortune, when, meeting with a French man-of-war,
he decided to decline an engagement and to seek safety in flight, greatly
to the anger of his crew. For this he was obliged to stand the test of the
vote of the whole crew, who passed a resolution against his honour and
dignity, and branded him a coward, deprived him of his command, and packed
him off with a few of his adherents in a small sloop. Vane, not
discouraged by this reverse of fortune, rose again from the bottom rung of
the ladder to success, and quickly increased in strength of ships and
crew, until one day, being overcome by a sudden tornado, he lost
everything but his life, being washed up on a small uninhabited island off
the Honduras coast. Here he managed to support life by begging food from
the fishermen who occasionally came there in their canoes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account