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
Sailed from England in 1681 in command of the _Mary and Martha_, _alias_
the _St. Nicholas_, a merchant ship. Vanhorn soon showed his hand by
putting two of his merchants ashore at Cadiz and stealing four Spanish
guns. Next he sailed to the Canary Islands, and then to the Guinea coast,
plundering ships and stealing negroes, until November, 1682, when he
arrived at the city of San Domingo. In April, 1683, he picked up some 300
buccaneers at Petit Goave, and joined the filibuster Laurens in the Gulf
of Honduras with six other buccaneer captains, who were planning an attack
on the rich city of Vera Cruz. The fleet arrived off the city in May, and
the pirates, hearing that the Spaniards were expecting the arrival of two
ships from Caracas, they crowded a landing party of 800 men into two
ships, and, displaying Spanish colours, stood in boldly for the city. The
inhabitants, imagining these were the ships they were expecting, actually
lit bonfires to pilot them into the harbour. Landing on May 17th two miles
away, they soon found themselves masters of the town and forts, all the
sentinels being asleep. For four days they plundered the churches,
convents, and houses, and threatened to burn the cathedral, in which they
had put all the prisoners, unless more booty was forthcoming. An
Englishman found the Governor hiding in some hay in a loft, and he was
ransomed for 70,000 pieces of eight. While this was taking place a Spanish
fleet of fourteen ships had arrived from Cadiz, and anchored just outside
the harbour, but would not venture to land nor to attack the buccaneer
ships. The buccaneers, feeling it was time to depart, sailed right past
the fleet without opposition to a cay not far off, and there divided the
spoils; each of the 1,000 sailors getting 800 pieces of eight as his
share, while Vanhorn's own share, was 24,000 pieces of eight. This
division of the spoil did not take place without some bickering, and the
two leaders, Vanhorn and Laurens, came to blows, and Vanhorn was wounded
in the wrist. Although the wound was little more than a scratch, he died
of gangrene a fortnight later.
It is significant that Vanhorn had originally been sent out by the
Governor of Hispaniola to hunt for pirates, but once out of sight of land
and away from authority the temptation to get rich quickly was too great
to resist, so that he joined the pirates in the expedition to sack Vera
Cruz.
VEALE, CAPTAIN.
On July 1st, 1685, he arrived at New London in a sloop, but was compelled
to hurry away, being recognized as a pirate by one of the crew of a ship
he had previously taken in Virginia.
VEALE, THOMAS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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