Spanish Gold: Captain Woodes Rogers and the Pirates of the Caribbean

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In parts it's a biography of Woodes Rogers, the governor of the Bahamas, but in large parts it more about the general history of the time and place, and an introduction to some of the main players. This, for me, makes it a bit too messy. Some parts of it is great, other parts are boring. I was between two and three stars, and I'm giving it three, because I know Cordingly is a good writer. I just feel he missed the mark a bit with this book.

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The only content we will consider removing is spam, slanderous attacks on other members, or extremely offensive content eg. It did not reach Africa, but was captured by the French. He turned to privateering as a means of recouping these losses. In late , Rogers was approached by William Dampier , a navigator and friend of Rogers' father, who proposed a privateering expedition against the Spanish. Unaware of this, Rogers agreed.

Woodes Rogers

Financing was provided by many in the Bristol community, including Thomas Goldney II of the Quaker Goldney family and Thomas Dover , who would become president of the voyage council and Rogers' father in law. Rogers encountered various problems along the way. Forty of the Bristol crew deserted or were dismissed, and he spent a month in Ireland recruiting replacements and having the vessels prepared for sea.

Many crew members were Dutch , Danish, or other foreigners.

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When the mutiny was put down, he had the leader flogged, put in irons, and sent to England aboard another ship. The less culpable mutineers were given lighter punishments, such as reduced rations.

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Considering the latter the more important problem, the expedition made a stop at Tenerife to stock up on the local wine, and later sewed the ships' blankets into cold weather gear. Rogers stocked his ships with limes to fend off scurvy , a practice not universally accepted at that time. Dampier was able to guide the ships to little-known Juan Fernandez Island to replenish supplies of fresh produce. The next morning Rogers sent a party ashore and discovered that the fire was from Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk , who had been stranded there four years previously.

After leaving Juan Fernandez on 14 February , the expedition captured and looted a number of small vessels, and launched an attack on the town of Guayaquil , today located in Ecuador.

Spanish Gold: Captain Woodes Rogers & the Pirates of the Caribbean by David Cordingly

When Rogers attempted to negotiate with the governor, the townsfolk secreted their valuables. Rogers was able to get a modest ransom for the town, but some crew members were so dissatisfied that they dug up the recently dead hoping to find items of value. This led to sickness on board ship, of which six men died. The other vessels searched for Hatley's ship, but to no avail—Hatley and his men were captured by the Spanish. On a subsequent voyage to the Pacific, Hatley would emulate Selkirk by becoming the centre of an event which would be immortalised in literature.

His ship beset by storms, Hatley shot an albatross in the hope of better winds, an episode memorialised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The crew of the vessels became increasingly discontented, and Rogers and his officers feared another mutiny. This tension was dispelled by the expedition's capture of a rich prize off the coast of Mexico: Rogers sustained a wound to the face in the battle. The ships then went to the Dutch port of Batavia in what is now Indonesia, where Rogers underwent surgery to remove a musket ball from the roof of his mouth, and the expedition disposed of the less seaworthy of the two Spanish prizes.

Rogers' book was much more successful, with many readers fascinated by the account of Selkirk's rescue, which Cooke had slighted. Among those interested in Selkirk's adventure was Daniel Defoe, who appears to have read about it, and fictionalised the story as Robinson Crusoe.

While Rogers' book enjoyed financial success, it had a practical purpose—to aid British navigators and possible colonists. Much of Rogers' introduction is devoted to advocacy for the South Seas trade. Rogers notes that had there been a British colony in the South Seas, he would not have had to worry about food supplies for his crew. A third of Rogers' book is devoted to detailed descriptions of the places that he explored, with special emphasis on "such [places] as may be of most use for enlarging our trade".

Rogers encountered financial problems on his return. Sir William Whetstone had died, and Rogers, having failed to recoup his business losses through privateering, was forced to sell his Bristol home to support his family. He was successfully sued by a group of over of his crew, who stated that they had not received their fair share of the expedition profits. The profits from his book were not enough to overcome these setbacks, and he was forced into bankruptcy.

Rogers decided the way out of his financial difficulty was to lead another expedition, this time against pirates. In , Rogers led what was ostensibly an expedition to purchase slaves in Madagascar and take them to the Dutch East Indies , this time with the permission of the British East India Company.

Rogers' secondary purpose was to gather details on the pirates of Madagascar, hoping to destroy or reform them, and colonise Madagascar on a future trip. Rogers collected information regarding pirates and their vessels near the island. Accordingly, Rogers turned his sights from Madagascar to the West Indies.

His connections included several of the advisers to the new king, George I , who had succeeded Queen Anne in , and Rogers was able to forge an agreement for a company to manage the Bahamas, which were infested with pirates, in exchange for a share of the colony's profits. At the time, according to the Governor of Bermuda, the Bahamas were "without any face or form of Government" and the colony was a "sink or nest of infamous rascals".

On 5 January , a proclamation was issued announcing clemency for all piratical offences, provided that those seeking what became known as the "King's Pardon" surrendered not later than 5 September Colonial governors and deputy governors were authorised to grant the pardon. On 22 April , the expedition, accompanied by three Royal Navy vessels, sailed out of the Thames.

The expedition arrived on 22 July , surprising and trapping a ship commanded by pirate Charles Vane. After negotiations failed, Vane used a captured French vessel as a fireship in an attempt to ram the naval vessels. The attempt failed, but the naval vessels were forced out of the west end of Nassau harbour, giving Vane's crew an opportunity to raid the town and secure the best local pilot.

Vane and his men then escaped in a small sloop via the harbour's narrow east entrance.

At the time, the island's population consisted of about two hundred former pirates and several hundred fugitives who had escaped from nearby Spanish colonies. Rogers organised a government, granted the King's Pardon to those former pirates on the island who had not yet accepted it, and started to rebuild the island's fortifications, which had fallen into decrepitude under pirate domination. Less than a month into his residence on New Providence, Rogers was faced with a double threat: Vane wrote, threatening to join with Edward Teach better known as Blackbeard to retake the island, and Rogers learned that the Spanish also planned to drive the British out of the Bahamas.

Rogers' expedition suffered further setbacks. An unidentified disease killed almost a hundred of his expedition members, while leaving the long-term residents nearly untouched.

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Two of the three navy vessels, having no orders to remain, left for New York. Ships sent to Havana to conciliate the Spanish governor there never arrived, their crew revolting and becoming pirates mid-voyage.

Finally, the third naval vessel left in mid-September, its commander promising to return in three weeks—a promise he had no intention of keeping. Work on rebuilding the island's fortifications proceeded slowly, with the locals showing a disinclination to work.

As the weeks passed, and hopes of their return dimmed, Rogers declared martial law and set all inhabitants to work on rebuilding the island's fortifications. Finally, the former pirates returned.

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