0:00

You're listening to an Airwave

0:02

Media Podcast. Dog

1:31

and Bootstraps Bailey. Hello.

2:00

Welcome to the Pirate History Podcast.

2:02

My name is Matt. Thank you for listening. For

2:07

just a moment, let me take you back

2:09

to 1679. The

2:11

Third Anglo-Dutch War had just

2:14

ended. The West Indies

2:16

were crawling with privateers who were

2:18

suddenly out of work. Near

2:21

Jamaica, a fleet of those privateers met

2:23

to sit in council on what they

2:25

should do next. Among

2:27

this council of captains, you would find

2:29

men like John Coxen, Bartholomew

2:31

Sharp, and Robert Allison.

2:34

They chose to follow in the footsteps

2:37

of Henry Morgan and assault the rich

2:39

cities on the Spanish Main. Their

2:42

first assault was on Portobello, in

2:44

which we would find Robert Allison in

2:46

the vanguard. After that

2:49

first successful raid, Coxen and

2:51

Sharp decided to march across

2:53

the Ithsmus and raid Panama

2:55

itself. That marks the

2:57

beginning of the first Pacific adventure. But

3:00

Robert Allison and a few others decided

3:02

to remain in the West Indies. They

3:05

didn't go. And back

3:07

when we talked about the Pacific adventures,

3:09

that's where we left Captain Allison. That

3:12

was more or less the end of his

3:14

piratical career. He made good

3:16

on one raid and decided to invest

3:18

that money elsewhere. But

3:21

it's not the end of his story,

3:23

nor his connection to piracy. By

3:26

the mid-1680s, Allison had settled down

3:28

in New York. Now,

3:30

his activities there aren't super well

3:33

recorded, but we do know that

3:35

in 1689 he opposed Jacob Leisler's

3:38

rebellion. We could probably

3:40

extrapolate from that that he took part

3:42

in the 1688 rebellion against

3:44

Edmund Andros and the Dominion of

3:46

New England. But

3:49

beyond that, we'd just have to assume.

3:51

Probably he was one of those smugglers

3:53

that was running goods more

3:55

or less illegally between French

3:57

Louisiana, Tortuga, Nasa,

4:00

Carolina and New York. By.

4:03

The time Benjamin Fletcher became

4:05

governor, Allison was among the

4:08

Cod rails smugglers and privateers

4:10

that worked for Fletcher, alongside

4:12

Frederick Philips and Adam Baldwin.

4:15

Know. We've talked a great deal about

4:17

this international slave trading conspiracy, but there's

4:19

one element to that conspiracy that we

4:21

haven't talked about too much. mostly because

4:23

we don't know that much about it.

4:27

And that would be the Dutch. It's

4:30

beyond dispute that there was

4:32

a lot of Dutch financial

4:34

backing for this world piratical

4:36

conspiracies. I mean, Frederick Phillips

4:39

was Dutch. But.

4:41

It's kind of tough to pin down exactly

4:43

who was involved when. There's.

4:46

Two big reasons for this First,

4:48

when the English finally do get

4:50

around to prosecuting the conspirators, mostly

4:53

they didn't arrest the Dutch nationals.

4:56

Frederick Phillips probably got the worst of

4:58

it, as he was an English subject

5:00

at the time, but even he didn't

5:03

spend much if any, time in jail.

5:05

Most of the investors that were Dutch

5:07

merchant farms and those. Aren't.

5:09

English subjects. And

5:12

unless they're. Incredibly stupid about

5:14

how they invest this money. There's

5:16

very little way to prosecute them.

5:19

But. Even if there were sufficient evidence. I

5:21

mean, these are some of the richest people

5:23

in the world. He. Could be

5:26

politically and physically dangerous to

5:28

arrest them. But.

5:30

Dutch pirates know. You

5:33

can arrest though. Three

5:36

in particular come into our story

5:38

here. In Sixteen

5:40

Ninety Seven, Robert Allison traveled to

5:42

St. Mary's Island to conduct some

5:45

business with atom bomb threats. But.

5:48

He wasn't in commands the ship

5:50

this time he sailed on board

5:52

the sloop Fortune underneath Captain Thomas

5:54

Most. And now we've mentioned this

5:56

voyage before. when

5:59

captain most and the fortune

6:01

arrived at St. Mary's Island, John

6:03

Hoare was at St. Mary's with

6:05

Abraham Samuel, his quartermaster, on board

6:07

the John and Rebecca. Captain

6:10

Moston traded some supplies to Captain Hoare,

6:13

but then he departed St. Mary's

6:15

with Adam Baldrige on board. Now

6:19

it's unclear if their intention was to

6:21

sail back to New York. Maybe that's

6:23

why Robert Allison had been sent to

6:26

collect Adam Baldrige, or

6:28

maybe they were just off on some voyage to trade

6:31

with a nearby French island, something like that.

6:34

Whatever their plan was, though, after

6:37

they departed, the Malagasy there on

6:39

St. Mary's rose up and killed

6:42

John Hoare and his men. And

6:44

there's something, you know, I don't want to

6:47

rehash that story, but there's something

6:49

fishy about all of this. Robert

6:52

Allison was listed on board the fortune

6:54

as a supercargo. That means that

6:56

he was the primary reason for that voyage having

6:58

taken place, which suggests

7:00

that there may have been some reason

7:03

for him to sail to Madagascar and

7:05

collect Adam Baldrige. Not

7:07

only that, Adam Baldrige elected to take

7:09

all of his records with him when

7:11

he left. It sounds

7:14

a little bit like the conspirators back in

7:16

New York maybe knew that the hammer was

7:18

about to fall and wanted Baldrige to come

7:20

so they could get their story straight. However,

7:23

it's funny that this uprising

7:25

takes place at exactly this

7:28

same time. I

7:30

don't know that Adam Baldrige had any part to

7:32

play in the uprising that was soon to happen.

7:35

All I'm saying is, if

7:37

you're running a pirate outpost in the

7:39

middle of the Indian Ocean, it might

7:41

be a good idea after you leave

7:43

to ensure that everyone who knows anything

7:45

is dead. Whatever

7:48

actually happened there on St. Mary's,

7:50

Adam Baldrige, Thomas Mostyn, and Robert

7:52

Allison returned to New York on

7:55

board the fortune. And

7:57

here's where the Dutch enter the story. See,

7:59

there were... Who Dutchman present at

8:01

St. Mary's at this time. They.

8:03

Were brothers Otto von Tool

8:05

and air to Vontobel. Not.

8:09

They'd been serving as pirates on board

8:11

the John and Rebecca. Auto was the

8:13

ships doctor and air. It was the

8:15

carpenter. When. The Malagasy rose

8:17

up. Though they fled, they didn't get

8:19

caught up in the massacre. Maybe.

8:22

They were on the ship with

8:24

Abraham Samuel. Either way, they ended

8:26

up taking refuge with a rival

8:28

Malagasy tribe. They. Probably took

8:31

refuge with the but see me so

8:33

rocket people who were just to the

8:35

south of St. Mary's Silent. Which

8:38

will matter later when ruff see me

8:41

hello comes and takes over there but

8:43

see me So rocket people and fights

8:45

Abraham Samuel. But.

8:48

For now, Otto von Tool returned

8:50

to New York. Aired.

8:52

Von Tool though stuck around and

8:54

got married. He. Had a

8:57

mess of children with his Malagasy

8:59

wife, and built a pretty large

9:01

farm complete with a proper.and there

9:04

he traded in. You know,

9:06

anything that might come his way.

9:10

This. Is episode three thirty. The.

9:13

Reigning Vice of the West

9:15

Indies. We're. Going to be look

9:17

into day at a number of families that are

9:19

operating kind of. Behind. The

9:21

scenes of all of this golden

9:24

age of piracy business. For.

9:26

Some of them, there will be some

9:28

pretty solid evidence down the line, but

9:31

for others, there's nothing really concrete to

9:33

blink them to. piracy. But.

9:35

There's an awful lot of

9:37

circumstantial evidence. We're. Also going

9:40

to be talking about a number

9:42

of Dutch pirates and pirate adjacent

9:44

tights and I know my Dutch

9:46

pronunciation isn't great. I'm always

9:48

working on it and I always try to

9:50

get as close as possible, but for whatever

9:52

reason, Dutch gives me a lot of trouble.

9:55

It's. summer so close to

9:57

english and specifically american english

10:00

certain dialects anyway, that

10:02

whenever I'm trying to figure out how to pronounce

10:04

something, you know, watching a video on it, say,

10:06

I kind of

10:08

feel like I'm in a bar

10:10

in Milwaukee, which is

10:12

to say it almost sounds like English,

10:14

just not quite. So

10:17

to our Dutch listeners out there, I

10:19

apologize and I'll try to get there.

10:22

If you have any suggestions, please feel

10:24

free to write. I'd

10:26

like to begin today by taking a look

10:28

at the background of the Vantool clan. A

10:31

lot of these families we're going to be

10:34

talking about today come from money, but usually

10:36

by 1700 or so, they've fallen on hard

10:38

times. They

10:42

still have a little bit of capital, but

10:44

they don't have the influence they once did,

10:46

so they have to invest that money in

10:50

extra legal trade. And

10:52

the Vantools are no different. They

10:55

can trace their lineage back to a

10:57

14th century night in the Netherlands. His

11:01

descendants would form a minor branch

11:03

of Dutch gentry for a couple

11:05

of centuries, but

11:07

in the late 1500s, they had a

11:09

few years of pretty serious crop failures.

11:12

As such, they fell out of the

11:14

landed class and back to a commoner

11:17

status. At

11:19

that point, they went into business. However,

11:22

the late 1500s proved to be

11:24

an amazing time to go into

11:27

business in the Netherlands. The

11:29

Dutch Golden Age was about to explode and a

11:31

lot of people were going to make a lot

11:33

of money, and the Vantools

11:36

were no different. However, in

11:39

1662, Jan-Ottenvantool killed

11:41

a man in a barroom

11:44

knife fight. It

11:46

was murder. He and

11:48

his wife, Gertrude, along with their young

11:50

son, Otto, had to flee for New

11:52

York. New York was

11:54

maybe the best place in the world

11:56

for a Dutch fugitive. There were still

11:58

a lot of people. people living there from

12:00

when it had been a Dutch colony, but

12:03

now that it was owned by the

12:05

English, they weren't eager to prosecute Dutch

12:07

nationals. And this

12:10

kind of story is an

12:12

incredibly common story in America.

12:15

If you're American, or if you come from any

12:18

country that was peopled by immigrants,

12:20

look at your family history, and there's a

12:22

good chance that you'll find a similar story

12:25

to Jan Atenvantul.

12:28

In my own ancestry, I find

12:30

at least two murderers, one

12:32

religious nonconformist, she was a

12:35

Quaker, and one

12:37

violent political revolutionary. And

12:40

that last one, the revolutionary, according

12:43

to the Kaiser, he was also

12:45

a murderer, but he disputed that.

12:48

As far as I know, none of them got

12:51

involved in piracy, but all of them did find

12:53

themselves on the wrong side of the law, and

12:55

then on a boat bound for

12:57

America. When the Vantools

12:59

arrived in New York, they bought a

13:01

worthless little piece of land in New

13:03

York. It was in

13:05

a run-down little part of town called

13:07

Wall Street, right next to the wall,

13:09

so I'm sure that was never going

13:11

to become worth anything. Shortly

13:15

thereafter, though, they opened up a shipwright

13:17

business, outfitting and repairing

13:19

ships for the New York Mariners.

13:23

All of this set them up perfectly

13:25

to get involved in the St. Mary's

13:28

trade, and we know

13:30

the story from there. Otto and

13:32

Ertvantool head to Madagascar, survive the

13:34

uprising, and Ert sticks around. For

13:37

now, though, I'd like to follow Thomas Mostyn

13:39

and the fortune back to New York. When

13:43

they got home, all of

13:45

the drama surrounding Captain Kidd had begun

13:47

to unfold. Benjamin

13:50

Fletcher was in London, undergoing

13:52

questioning. Lord Belmont had

13:54

taken his place in the governor's ship.

13:58

Captain Kidd was still on the lam. But

14:00

as soon as Thomas Moston

14:02

arrived, with Adam Baldrige, they

14:04

were arrested. Robert

14:07

Allison was probably arrested as well, but I

14:09

don't have any record of that. The

14:12

fortune was impounded by the governor.

14:14

All of this was part of

14:16

Belmont's campaign against piracy. Remember

14:19

when he said, quote, I have

14:21

given all the discountenance to piracy that

14:23

I am capable of doing, and

14:25

that is an article which raises their

14:27

clamor against me in this town. They

14:31

say I have ruined the town

14:33

by hindering the privateers, for so

14:35

they call pirates, from bringing in

14:37

one hundred thousand pounds since my

14:39

coming. End quote. The

14:43

arrest of Thomas Moston and the seizure

14:45

of his ship left

14:47

his crew without a job. And

14:51

this brings us to our next

14:53

important Dutch player. His

14:55

name was Hendrik von Hoeven. At

14:58

least, that's one of the names I

15:00

have for him. Some

15:03

historians, including Bennerson Little, believe that

15:05

Hendrik von Hoeven was the same

15:07

man who would go on to

15:09

become known as the notorious pirate

15:11

captain, the Grand Pirate of the

15:14

West Indies, Captain Hine.

15:17

Now not everybody makes that

15:19

connection. David F.

15:21

Marley in Pirates of the Americas

15:24

has an entire entry on Captain

15:26

Hine with no mention of Hendrik

15:28

von Hoeven, but

15:30

I think they were probably the

15:32

same person, and this discrepancy probably

15:34

comes from the fact that the

15:36

English had some serious problems with

15:39

Dutch names. For

15:41

example, Erte van Tule,

15:43

spelled A-E-R-T, is

15:45

almost always written in the

15:48

English documents as Oort van

15:50

Tule, spelled O-R-T. Now

15:53

as yet, there's no mention of

15:56

this notorious pirate captain, Hine, but

15:58

we do know that Hendrik If Van Hoven did

16:01

manage to get his hands on a

16:03

sloop and take a crew, probably the

16:05

crew that had been on board the

16:07

fortune, south toward Tortuga.

16:11

Records of their early piracies are kind

16:13

of spotty. There's quite a

16:15

few ships that go missing in the region

16:17

at this time that are generally

16:20

applied to Captain Hine,

16:23

but nobody's really sure. The

16:25

first solid evidence we have of

16:28

Captain Van Hoven comes from

16:30

a letter written by the Governor of

16:32

Bermuda named Samuel Day. He

16:35

was writing a report to the Board of

16:37

Trade back in London, and

16:39

he had news from a Captain

16:41

John Trinningham. Trinningham

16:44

was returning to Bermuda from the

16:46

West Indies, and he told

16:48

Governor Day all about this pirate

16:50

galley that was terrorizing shipping all

16:52

around the region. If

16:55

we were to amalgamate all of

16:57

the ships that went missing between

17:00

Tortuga and New Providence Island in

17:02

about an eighteen-month period that Hine

17:04

would have been active, there

17:07

may have been as many as twenty-one

17:09

ships captured there. Now,

17:11

none of these ships were particularly

17:13

impressive prizes. You know, he's not

17:15

capturing any Spanish treasure galleys, but

17:18

he is capturing an awful lot

17:20

of smaller, mostly regional trading craft.

17:24

And the reason that we have so

17:26

little information on what he actually did

17:29

is because Captain Van Hoven or

17:31

Captain Hine focused almost

17:33

exclusively on Spanish shipping,

17:37

and he was known famously

17:40

as a pirate that never left

17:42

survivors to tell the tale. The

17:45

Spanish, though, were aware of this

17:47

rash of disappearances, and they did

17:49

attribute it to Captain Van Hoven.

17:53

They were issuing formal diplomatic complaints to

17:55

the governors of Saint Domingue and the

17:57

Bahamas, New York, Carolina, and the West

17:59

Indies. And this

18:01

suggests that Van Hoven was

18:03

using Tortuga and Nassau as

18:06

his basis of operation, primarily

18:09

Nassau, which, remember, was under

18:11

the control of the Carolina

18:14

colony, which might explain

18:16

why it was Carolina that

18:18

did something about it. They

18:21

dispatched a young privateer as a

18:23

pirate hunter named William

18:25

Rhett. Imagine

18:37

you're one of the sailors from the

18:39

fortune, now sailing under Captain Haim, and

18:42

think about some of the experiences you've had

18:44

in the last year. You're

18:47

sailing to the Indian Ocean with Robert

18:49

Allison on board, a real old sea

18:51

dog. And

18:53

that's not a short voyage. At

18:56

some point, somebody who knows a little bit about

18:58

who he is is going to ask him

19:00

about his story, and he

19:02

had a story to tell. You

19:04

know, he never sailed with Henry Morgan, but I bet

19:06

he told you he did. Not

19:09

just Morgan, but Francois Lolaune, Roque

19:11

Braziliano, and Laurence Prince, all

19:13

about the raid on Panama, and he would tell

19:15

you about the Brethren of the Coast, which he

19:17

knew a little bit about. He was

19:20

there living that life in the 1670s, you know,

19:22

20, 25 years earlier. And

19:26

here you are just a little over a

19:28

year later, being hunted by William Rhett. Now

19:31

you don't know that yet, and you don't even

19:33

know who William Rhett is. But

19:36

William Rhett, not to give

19:38

too much away, is going to play

19:40

a major role in the end of

19:43

the Golden Age of Piracy. He's

19:45

a Carolina pirate hunter who's going

19:47

to be very invested in what's

19:49

happening at Nassau, and he's

19:51

going to take part in the battle of Cape

19:53

Fear against Steed Bonnet.

19:57

So it's worth taking a moment to introduce him.

22:00

louder." The record continues, quote,

22:03

After this one John James

22:05

took upon him the command of the

22:07

ship, and standing out to see they

22:09

spied a sail, which proved to be

22:11

a man of war, and

22:14

they chased her into Virginia, having

22:16

killed her above forty men. The

22:19

said pirates, James and company, have given

22:21

out that they resolve to stay there

22:23

and take a better ship which lies

22:25

within the capes of Virginia. I

22:28

have news of several other vessels,

22:30

some belonging to these islands, which

22:33

have been taken by the pirates

22:35

aforesaid, but cannot at present

22:37

give a particular account." End

22:40

quote. Now

22:42

we know that last bit, of course. If

22:45

you were trying to remember how

22:47

you knew Captain Hine, he was

22:49

the captain against whom John James

22:51

mutinied before heading to Virginia. That's

22:54

what happened after William Rhett attacked. But

22:57

what we didn't talk about was the fate

23:00

of Captain Hine. He was

23:02

marooned with the Dutch and French from his crew,

23:04

and were left three pistols with

23:06

which to end their suffering, should

23:08

it come to that. And

23:11

that, apparently, was

23:13

that. Now

23:15

for no reason at all, let's

23:18

shift gears to a very interesting

23:20

man named Reed Elding. Reed

23:23

Elding was born on Barbados in

23:25

the 1660s to an English father

23:28

and a mother of African descent.

23:31

That almost certainly means she wasn't

23:33

slaved, but Elding's father decided to

23:35

do something that was a bit

23:37

out of the ordinary. He

23:40

accepted Reed Elding as his

23:42

son openly and legally. This

23:45

was far from common, but in

23:48

the colonial world it wasn't unheard of

23:50

to accept a son of mixed race

23:52

as your proper legal heir. Now

23:55

Reed Elding certainly had to deal with a

23:58

ton of prejudice in his life, but maybe

24:00

Legally he was a free subject

24:02

of the English crown with all of the

24:04

rights that that conferred. In

24:07

1695 he

24:09

moved to Boston, where he married

24:12

a woman named Hannah Pemberton. The

24:15

Pemberton family were very English,

24:17

very white, and just a

24:19

little bit Puritan. They

24:22

also had ties to another influential family

24:24

in the region, the

24:26

Wentworth family, and

24:29

this matters because of a man

24:31

named John Wentworth. John

24:35

Wentworth ran something of a sugar

24:37

empire in Nassau. Now sugar never

24:39

really took off like the English

24:41

hoped it would on New Providence

24:43

Island, but John Wentworth gave it

24:45

the old college try. Back

24:48

in 1676 John

24:50

Wentworth had been up for the governorship

24:52

of the Bahamas. He

24:54

was known as the People's Choice.

24:58

But he wasn't permitted to serve by

25:00

the Admiralty. The Admiralty

25:02

was pretty sure he was a patron

25:04

of scallywags and pirates and suspected

25:07

he would have encouraged a culture of

25:10

lawlessness in Nassau, so they didn't let

25:12

him take the job.

25:15

But in 1697 or

25:17

so, Reed Elding and his wife

25:19

Hannah moved to Nassau, where they

25:22

bought a pair of sugar plantations

25:24

for a very reasonable price from

25:26

John Wentworth. But

25:29

these families are colonial

25:31

nobility. You know, they're wealthy

25:33

people. When the

25:35

Eldings had their first child, a

25:37

daughter also named Hannah, they sent

25:39

her back to Boston to be

25:41

raised by her grandparents, and

25:44

in time the younger Hannah would

25:46

marry into the Wentworth family. That

25:49

branch of the family would go

25:51

on to produce two governors of

25:53

New Hampshire immediately before

25:56

and immediately after the

25:58

American Revolution. were

26:00

fairly important people, but

26:02

a lot of their money, a lot of

26:04

their foundational capital, as it were, came

26:07

from a deep financial interest

26:10

in a piratical conspiracy that

26:12

stretched from Madagascar to Nassau

26:15

to Boston. So

26:17

John Wentworth, and later on his

26:19

son, and Reed Elding, these are

26:22

important players in what's about to

26:24

become the Pirate Republic at Nassau.

26:28

If we were to go back to 1696, when

26:31

Henry Every and the Fancy arrived

26:34

at Nassau, we would find that

26:36

the governor, Nicholas Trott, quote, received

26:38

him as a friend. He

26:41

also welcomed in many of the

26:43

officers and a few other crewmen

26:45

from the Fancy who decided to

26:47

settle down there at Nassau. Now

26:50

I'm sure it has nothing to do

26:53

with the fact that with these pirates

26:55

came a huge infusion of gold and

26:57

silver from the Mughal Empire, but right

27:00

about that same time, completely

27:02

coincidentally, there was a boom

27:04

in building at Nassau. A

27:07

contemporary historian who was in Nassau

27:10

at the time wrote, quote, By

27:12

this time the town of Providence was grown

27:15

so considerable that it was honored with the

27:17

name of Nassau. Before

27:20

Mr. Trott's government expired, there were 160 houses,

27:22

so that it was as big as the

27:27

cities of St. James and St.

27:29

Mary's in Maryland and Virginia. In

27:32

the town of Nassau there was a church

27:34

in Mr. Trott's name, and

27:36

he began a fort in the

27:38

middle of it, which with his

27:40

house made a square, end quote.

27:44

It's also worth mentioning that he

27:46

owned Hog Island, the long spit

27:48

of land that protected the harbor

27:51

at Nassau. But

27:53

he's saying here that Nassau town was

27:56

as large as Jamestown, or St. Mary's,

27:58

which was at this point a year

28:00

ago. the capital of Maryland, it was

28:02

not a small town, not

28:04

in respect to other colonial townships

28:07

anyway. Once

28:09

Nicholas Trott's tenure was up, though,

28:12

Nicholas Webb, his successor, allegedly

28:14

appointed a number of, quote,

28:17

Red Sea men into

28:19

positions of power in the Bahamas.

28:23

He made a man named John

28:25

Warren, attorney general of the Bahamas.

28:28

John Warren, allegedly, was one of

28:30

Henry Every's crew. Another

28:32

Red Sea man named Matthew Middleton was

28:35

named governor of one of the smaller

28:37

islands in the Bahamas, so kind of

28:39

a mayor, you know, sub-governor. All

28:42

of this made Governor Webb a very

28:44

suspicious figure to the board of trade.

28:48

And Webb knew it. You know, he knew this

28:50

didn't look good, but I'm sure he owed those

28:52

men some favors. However,

28:54

he tried to rebrand himself as

28:56

kind of a staunch anti-pirate governor.

29:00

In 1699, James

29:03

Kelly arrived on a sloop after

29:05

escaping Imugol Prison and raiding with

29:07

Robert Culliford for a few months.

29:11

You may remember James Kelly as the pirate

29:13

who was convicted after it was discovered he

29:15

had had a certain delicate

29:18

part of his anatomy removed in

29:20

Imugol Prison. When

29:22

Governor Webb got word that James

29:24

Kelly had arrived in the region,

29:27

he issued a letter of mark

29:29

to Reed Elding to sail out

29:31

and hunt him down. Elding

29:34

put to sea and chased James Kelly

29:36

all the way from the Bahamas to

29:38

Boston, but he never

29:40

managed to catch him. James

29:43

Kelly was intercepted by one of Belmont's

29:45

agents near Boston, which left

29:48

Reed Elding empty-handed,

29:51

which wasn't great. You know,

29:53

he was supposed to return home with

29:55

a commandeered pirate ship and, hopefully, a

29:58

hold full of pirate. But now he had nothing.

30:03

However, when Reed Elding returned to

30:05

Nassau, he had a ship in

30:07

tow called the Bermuda Merchant.

30:11

Apparently, according to Elding anyway,

30:13

he spotted the Bermuda Merchant

30:15

up near Massachusetts skulking around

30:18

and being vaguely suspicious. He

30:21

considered this reason enough to consider her a

30:23

pirate, and since he was on a mission

30:25

of pirate hunting, he captured the Bermuda Merchant.

30:28

Now the owners of the

30:30

Bermuda Merchant were law-abiding Bermuda

30:32

merchants, and they accused

30:35

Reed Elding of piracy of having

30:37

feloniously seized their ship and put

30:39

their crew to the sword. This

30:42

was a legal dispute that took a couple

30:45

of years to iron out, and it really

30:47

dragged Reed Elding's name through the mud. Eventually

30:51

it would be settled, mostly quietly, with

30:53

a large cash settlement. This

30:56

did nothing at all to alleviate

30:58

the suspicions that had fallen on

31:00

Governor Nicholas Webb. Webb

31:02

realized that he looked even worse

31:04

than he had before, and

31:07

he knew that he was likely not long

31:09

for the office. So

31:12

he appointed Reed Elding as his

31:14

lieutenant governor. Soon

31:16

enough the order to remove Nicholas Webb did

31:19

come down from the Board of Trade, and

31:22

a couple of weeks later the Board of

31:24

Trade wrote to the Lord's proprietor in Carolina

31:26

a letter that read, quote, We

31:29

understand Governor Webb has left you

31:31

without any order from us, but

31:34

hope he has observed his instructions

31:36

in appointing a deputy. We

31:38

expect he and you shall

31:40

act according to law and

31:43

justice, discouraging vice, especially piracy,

31:45

the reigning vice of the

31:47

West Indies, which, if not

31:49

rooted out, will destroy all

31:52

commerce. End quote. To

31:55

paraphrase, they're telling the Lord's proprietor that they'd better

31:57

get somebody in office who's not going to be

31:59

a governor. going to act like the

32:01

last two governors and encourage piracy.

32:05

Now, there are a few other pieces of interest

32:07

in that letter. For

32:09

example, the Board of Trade granted two

32:11

parcels of land to a man who

32:13

was going to build whaling stations there.

32:16

And he did, but, you know, whaling

32:19

stations require docks, and

32:21

he built those docks. And

32:23

in about fifteen years, those two

32:26

whaling stations were going to be

32:28

notorious pirate haunts. Those

32:31

two whaling stations were to be

32:33

found on Abaco Island and Andrews

32:35

Island. Now, you

32:37

know Abaco Island, mainly

32:40

because that's where Edward Kenway stopped

32:42

to hunt iguana for his assassin

32:44

bracers. You know

32:47

Andrews Island because that's where Kenway

32:49

met with James Kidd to discuss

32:51

raiding a nearby Spanish plantation. The

32:55

Board of Trade also had some

32:57

suggestions about how to minimize smuggling

32:59

in the region and to do

33:01

away with prostitution on New Providence

33:03

Island. Neither of those things

33:05

would work, of course, but, you know, they knew what

33:07

was going on. Still,

33:09

they hoped that Webb had appointed

33:12

a deputy governor that would discourage

33:14

vice, but he had

33:16

not. Instead, he

33:18

appointed Reed Elting. The

33:22

Board of Trade considered Reed Elting,

33:24

quote, a known pirate for his

33:26

capture of the Bermuda merchant. But

33:29

then Elting went even a step farther than

33:32

that. He fired the

33:34

local Admiralty judge and appointed a

33:36

known Red Sea pirate in his

33:38

place, a guy named Dalton. But

33:41

then he appointed his own brother-in-law

33:44

as the Nassau Marshal. Now,

33:47

his name was Parker, and that's the

33:49

only name we have, but

33:51

the Admiralty considered Parker, quote,

33:53

one of the chief of Every's

33:56

men, end quote. Now

33:58

I don't know who this is. Parker

34:01

was exactly right. If he

34:03

was Elding's brother-in-law, that

34:05

means that his wife's family, tied

34:07

to the Wentworths, remember, was also

34:09

tied to Henry Every. Now, I'm

34:11

not sure how that could

34:14

be, since her name definitely wasn't Parker,

34:16

so it all seems a little bit

34:19

suspect to me, but that's

34:21

at least what the Admiralty believed. Now,

34:24

Reed Elding had at this point

34:26

done exactly what his predecessor had

34:28

done, appointed two known Red Sea

34:31

pirates to positions of authority. You've

34:34

got to kind of wonder why, since he saw

34:36

that didn't work out too well for Nicholas Webb,

34:39

and he knew now that he'd done that, that

34:41

he was in the Admiralty's sights. So

34:44

he tried to again make the

34:47

exact same course correction that Webb

34:49

had. When a known

34:51

pirate was dropped on his doorstep,

34:53

Governor Elding acted swiftly. This

34:56

time it was the grand pirate of the

34:58

West Indies, Captain Hine.

35:02

When he learned that Captain Hine

35:04

had suffered a mutiny and been

35:06

marooned on a nearby island, Berry

35:08

Island, he sent a ship out

35:10

to collect the notorious pirate. That

35:14

ship arrived before they made use

35:16

of their pistols and arrested the

35:18

marooned men. When

35:20

they got back to new Providence Island,

35:22

the Admiralty judge there, remember a

35:25

pirate, a Red Sea man, well,

35:27

he assembled a court to hear the trial,

35:30

and Van Hoven had two main

35:32

defenses to offer. First,

35:34

he said to the court, you know,

35:36

I'm Dutch. Why is he being

35:38

tried here in this English court? But,

35:41

of course, pirates are villains of all

35:44

nations, and thus eligible to be tried

35:46

by any nation on Earth. His

35:49

second argument, though, was that he

35:52

had only ever attacked Spanish ships,

35:55

which was an even less

35:58

convincing argument. You know, Spain

36:00

may have been the old enemy of the

36:02

Dutch, but in the nine years' war, which

36:04

had only just ended a couple of years

36:06

back, Spain had been an ally.

36:09

And it looked very much like in

36:11

this war that was clearly brewing on the

36:13

horizon, the war of Spanish succession, Spain

36:16

was likely to be an ally again,

36:18

more to the point no one was

36:20

at war at this time. While

36:23

Hendrik von Hoven had been engaging

36:26

in piracy, there were no official

36:28

enemies. So you don't just

36:30

get to massacre Spaniards and steal their

36:32

stuff that's against the law. It

36:35

was clear that his arguments had failed, and

36:38

it was clear he was facing the gibbet. So

36:42

Captain Hine, the grand pirate

36:44

of the West Indies, tried one last

36:46

tactic. He told

36:49

the court that he had buried

36:51

treasure somewhere in the Bahamas, and if the

36:53

court granted him a reprieve, he would lead

36:55

them to it. I

36:57

like to imagine that at this point

36:59

the prosecution held a bit of a

37:01

side bar to discuss this interesting proposition,

37:05

but in the end it won him no

37:07

favor. Captain Hine

37:10

and his men were led

37:12

to the gallows at Fort Charles. Captain

37:16

Hine and his men were

37:18

led to the gallows at Fort Charles.

37:22

The nooses were affixed around their necks,

37:25

a trap door was opened, and

37:27

the men danced the hempen jig. Next

37:32

time we're going to return to the Indian Ocean.

37:35

We're going to return to the story of John

37:37

Bowen, Thomas White, and

37:39

Nathaniel North, as they

37:42

encounter a certain Dutch planter named

37:44

Errit von Toole. I'd

37:48

like to thank everybody for listening. I'd

37:50

like to thank everybody who helps to support

37:53

this show, all of our patrons on Patreon,

37:55

everybody who has left us ratings and reviews,

37:57

and everybody who has recommended this show. make

38:00

it possible. So thank you. The

38:03

Pirate History Podcast is a member of

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the Airwave Media Podcast Network. If

38:08

you'd like to check out some of their other

38:10

fine shows, like Gray History, you

38:12

can do so at airwavemedia.com. Our

38:15

theme music was, as always, The Old

38:17

Captain by the fantastic Band Brillic. If

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you'd like to check them out, you can find

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them on YouTube, Facebook, Band Camp, or anywhere fine

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music is found. As

38:26

always, most importantly, thank you

38:28

for listening. The Old Captain by the fantastic Band Brillic. As

39:01

always, thank you for watching. I'll

39:30

see you again, tonight.