Part 13

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Was hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh below low-water mark.

KNEEVES, PETER.

Of Exeter in Devon.

Sailed with Captain Charles Harris, and was tried for piracy with the rest of his crew at Rhode Island in 1723. Hanged at Newport at the age of 32.

KNIGHT, CAPTAIN W. Buccaneer.

In 1686 Knight was cruising off the coast of Peru and Chile with Swan, Townley, and Davis. At the end of that year, having got a fair quantity of plunder, he sailed round the Horn to the West Indies.

KNIGHT, CHRISTOPHER.

One of Captain Coward's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in January, 1690, and found guilty, but afterwards reprieved.

KNOT, CAPTAIN.

An old Massachusetts pirate who retired from the sea and was settled in Boston in 1699. His wife gave information to the Governor, the Earl of Bellomont, of the whereabouts of a pirate called Gillam, who was "wanted."

KOXINGA. His real name was Kuo-hsing Yeh, Koxinga being the Portuguese version.

The son of a Chinese pirate, Cheng Chih-lung, by a Japanese mother, he was born in 1623.

From early youth Koxinga was inspired with a hatred of the Manchus, who had imprisoned his father.

The young pirate soon became so successful in his raids along the coast of China that the Emperor resorted to the extraordinary expedient of ordering the inhabitants of more than eighty seaboard towns to migrate ten miles inland, after destroying their homes.

There can be no doubt that Koxinga was a thorough-going cut-throat pirate, worked solely for his own ambitious ends and to satisfy his revengeful feelings, but the fact that he fought against the alien conquerors, the Dutch in Formosa, and defeated them, caused him to be regarded as a hero pirate.

His father was executed at Peking, which only increased his bitterness against the reigning house. Koxinga made himself what was, to all intents and purposes, the ruler of Formosa, and the island became, through him, part of the Chinese Empire.

After his death, which took place in 1662, he received official canonization.

The direct descendant of Koxinga, the pirate, is one of the very few hereditary nobles in China.

LACY, ABRAHAM.

Of Devonshire.

Hanged at the age of 21 at Rhode Island in 1723.

DU LAERQUERAC, CAPTAIN JOHN.

This Breton pirate was captured in 1537 by a Bristol seaman called John Wynter. Du Laerquerac, with other pirates from Brittany, had been holding up ships on their way to the great fair of St. James at Bristol. On being arrested, he denied that he had "spoiled" any English ships, but on being further pressed to confess, admitted that he had taken a few odds and ends, such as ropes, sailors' clothes, some wine, fish, a gold crown in money and eleven silver halfpence, as well as four daggers and a "couverture."

LAFITTE, CAPTAIN JEAN.

Jean and his brother first appeared in New Orleans in the year 1809. Though blacksmiths by profession, they soon took to smuggling goods brought by privateersmen and pirates. The headquarters of this trade was on the Island of Grande Terre in Barataria Bay. This island was inhabited and governed by ex-pirates; one Grambo being the acknowledged chief, until he was shot by Jean Lafitte.

In 1813, the Baratarians were denounced by the Governor of Louisiana as pirates. This made no difference to the pirate smugglers, who grew more and more rich and insolent. The Governor then secured an indictment against Jean and his brother, Pierre, who retained the very best and most expensive lawyers in the State to defend them, and they were acquitted. In 1814, war was declared with England, and Jean was invited by the English to fight on their side, with the offer of a commission in the navy and a large sum of money. He refused this, and eventually General Jackson accepted his offer of the services of himself and his Baratarians, who proved invaluable in the Battle of Orleans, serving the guns. He disappeared completely after the war until 1823, when a British sloop of war captured a pirate ship with a crew of sixty men under the command of the famous Lafitte, who was amongst those who fell fighting.

LAGARDE, LE CAPITAINE.

A French filibuster of San Domingo, who in 1684 commanded a small ship, _La Subtille_ (crew of thirty men and two guns).

LAMBERT, JOHN.

One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Hanged on Charles River, Boston Side, on Friday, June 30th, 1704. In a broadside published at Boston in July of the same year, Lambert's conduct on the gallows is described thus: "He appeared much hardened and pleaded much on his Innocency. He desired all men to beware of Bad Company and seemed to be in great Agony near his Execution."

LANDER, DANIEL.

One of Captain Pound's crew.

LANDRESSON, CAPTAIN MICHEL, _alias_ BREHA.

Filibuster.

Accompanied Pain in his expedition against St. Augustine in 1683. He was a constant source of annoyance to the Jamaicans. His ship was called _La Trompeuse_, but must not be confused with the famous ship of that name belonging to Hamlin. Landresson, when he had got a good booty of gold, jewels, cocoa, etc., would go to Boston to dispose of it to the godly merchants of New England. In 1684 a Royal proclamation was published in Massachusetts, warning all Governors that no succour or aid was to be given to any of the outlaws, but, in spite of this, Landresson was received with open arms and the proclamations in the streets torn down.

In 1684 he was at San Domingo, in command of _La Fortune_ (crew of 100 men and fourteen guns). At this time the filibuster was disguised under the _alias_ of Le Capitaine Breha.

Captured in 1686 by the Armada de Barlorento, and hanged with several of his companions.

LANE, CAPTAIN.

In 1720 Lane was one of Captain England's crew when he took the _Mercury_ off the coast of West Africa. The _Mercury_ was fitted up as a pirate ship, named the _Queen Ann's Revenge_, and Lane was voted captain of her. Lane left Captain England and sailed to Brazil, where he took several Portuguese ships and did a great deal of mischief.

LARIMORE, CAPTAIN THOMAS, or LARRAMORE.

Commanded the _Larimore_ galley. In 1704 was with the pirate Quelch and several other pirates, and, among other prizes, seized a Portuguese ship, the _Portugal_, from which they took gold dust, bar and coined gold, and other treasure, and at the same time "acted divers villainous Murders." For these Larimore was tried, condemned and hanged at Boston, June 11th, 1704.

LAWRENCE, NICHOLAS.

Tried for piracy with the rest of Quelch's crew at Boston in 1704.

LAWRENCE, RICHARD.

One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.

LAWSON, EDWARD.

Born in the Isle of Man.

One of Captain Harris's crew. Hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, in July, 1723, at the age of 20.

L'ESCAYER. A French filibuster.

In 1685, in company with Grogniet, Davis, and Swan, sacked Paita and Guayaquil and blockaded Panama. Afterwards sailed with Townley and his English pirates and again plundered Guayaquil. Suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the Spaniards at Quibo, afterwards being rescued by Townley, with whom he and his crew of buccaneers sacked Granada in Nicaragua.

LESSONE, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.

In 1680 he joined Sharp, Coxon, and other English buccaneers in an attack on Porto Bello. Putting 300 men into canoes, they landed some sixty miles from the city and marched for four days, arriving in a weak state through hardship and lack of food, but in spite of this they took the city on February 17th, 1680.

LEVERCOTT, SAM.

Hanged in 1722 at the Island of St. Kitts, with the rest of Captain Lowther's crew.

LEVIT, JOHN.

Of North Carolina.

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.

Famous in his day for his activities in the West Indies, this pirate had his headquarters at New Providence in the Bahamas.

LIVER, WILLIAM, _alias_ EVIS.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged for piracy at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.

LO, MRS. HON-CHO.

This Chinese woman pirate was the widow of another noted pirate who was killed in 1921. She took command after the death of her husband, and soon became a terror to the countryside about Pakhoi, carrying on the work in the best traditions of the craft, being the Admiral of some sixty ocean-going junks. Although both young and pretty, she won a reputation for being a thorough-going murderess and pirate.

During the late revolution, Mrs. Lo joined General Wong Min-Tong's forces, and received the rank of full Colonel. After the war, she resumed her piracies, occasionally for the sake of variety, surprising and sacking a village or two, and from these she usually carried away some fifty or sixty girls to sell as slaves.

Her career ended quite suddenly in October, 1922.

LODGE, THOMAS. Poet, buccaneer, and physician.

Born about 1557, he was the son of Sir Thomas Lodge, grocer, and Lord Mayor of London in 1563. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Trinity College, Oxford. The poet engaged in more than one freebooting expedition to Spanish waters between 1584 and 1590, and he tells us that he accompanied Captain Clarke in an attack on the Azores and the Canaries. "Having," he tells his friend Lord Hunsdon, "with Captain Clarke made a voyage to the Islands of Terceras and the Canaries, to beguile the time with labour, I writ this book, rough, as hatched in the storms of the ocean, and feathered in the surges of many perilous seas." On August 26th, 1591, Lodge sailed from Plymouth with Sir Thomas Cavendish in the _Desire_, a galleon of 140 tons. The freebooters sailed to Brazil and attacked the town of Santa, while the people were at Mass. They remained there from December 15th until January 22nd, 1592. Some of the Englishmen, of whom Lodge was one, took up their quarters in the College of the Jesuits, and this literary buccaneer spent his time amongst the books in the library of the Fathers.

Leaving Brazil, the small fleet sailed south to the Straits of Magellan. While storm-bound amongst the icy cliffs of Patagonia, Lodge wrote his Arcadian romance "Margarite of America."

From the point of view of plunder, this expedition was a dismal failure, and the _Desire_ returned and reached the coast of Ireland on June 11th, 1593. The crew had been reduced to sixteen, and of these only five were even in tolerable health.

At the age of 40, Lodge deserted literature and studied medicine, taking his degree of Doctor of Physics at Avignon in 1600. His last original work was a "Treatise on the Plague," published in 1603. After practising medicine with great success for many years, Thomas Lodge died, it is said, of the plague, in the year 1625, at the age of 68.

LONG, ZACHARIAH.

Of the Province of Holland.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at White Point, Charleston, in 1718, and buried in the marsh below low-water mark.

LOPEZ, JOHN.

Of Oporto.

This Portuguese pirate sailed in the _Royal James_, and was hanged with the rest of the crew at Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718.

LORD, JOHN.

A soldier. Deserted from Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine. Killed at Tarpaulin Cove in 1689.

LOW, CAPTAIN EDWARD, or LOE.

Born in Westminster, he began in very early life to plunder the boys of their farthings, and as he grew bigger used to gamble with the footmen who waited in the lobby of the House of Commons. While still quite small one of his elder brothers used to carry little Edward hidden in a basket on his back, and when in a crowd the future pirate would, from above, snatch the hats and even the wigs off the heads of passing citizens and secret them in the basket and so get away with them. The Low family were the originators of this ingenious and fascinating trick, and for a time it was most successful, until the people of the city took to tying on their hats and wigs with bands to prevent their sudden removal. When he grew up, Ned went to Boston and earned an honest living as a rigger, but after a while he tired of this and sailed in a sloop to Honduras to steal log-wood. Here Low quarrelled with his captain, tried to shoot him, and then went off in an open boat with twelve other men, and the very next day they took a small vessel, in which they began their "war against all the world." Low soon happened to meet with Captain Lowther, the pirate, and the two agreed to sail in company. This partnership lasted until May 28th, 1722, when they took a prize, a brigantine from Boston, which Low went into with a crew of forty-four men. This vessel they armed with two guns, four swivels, and six quarter-casks of powder, and saying good-bye to Lowther, sailed off on their own account. A week later a prize fell into their hands, which was the first of several. Things soon became too hot for Low along the American coast and the West Indies, as several men-of-war were searching for him; so he sailed to the Azores, taking on his way a big French ship of thirty-four guns, and later, in the harbour of St. Michael, he seized several vessels which he found at anchor there. Here they burnt the French ship, but let the crew all go, except the cook, who, they said, "being a greasy fellow would fry well in the fire, so the poor man was bound to the main mast and burnt in the ship to the no small derision of Low and his Mirmidons."

Low and his crew now began to treat their prisoners with great brutality. However, on one occasion the biter was bitten. It happened that one of the drunken crew, playfully cutting at a prisoner, missed his mark and accidentally slashed Captain Low across his lower jaw, the sword opening his cheek and laying bare his teeth. The surgeon was called, who at once stitched up the wound, but Low found some fault with the operation, as well he might, seeing that "the surgeon was tollerably drunk" at the time. The surgeon's professional pride was outraged by this criticism of his skill by a layman, and he showed his annoyance in a ready, if unprofessional, manner, by striking "Low such a blow with his Fists, that broke out all the Stitches, and then bid him sew up his Chops himself and be damned, so that the captain made a very pitiful Figure for some time after." Low took a large number of prizes, but he was not a sympathetic figure, and the list of his prizes and brutalities soon becomes irksome reading. Low, still in the _Fancy_, and accompanied by Captain Harris in the _Ranger_, then sailed back to the West Indies, and later to South Carolina, where he took several prizes, one the _Amsterdam Merchant_ (Captain Willard), belonging to New England, and as Low never missed an opportunity of showing his dislike of all New Englanders, he sent the captain away with both his ears cut off and with various other wounds about his body.

Low and Harris now made a most unfortunate mistake in giving chase to a ship which on close quarters proved to be not a merchant vessel, but H.M.S. _Greyhound_. After a short fight, the coward Low slipped away, and left his consort, Harris, to carry on an unequal contest until he was compelled to surrender his ship.

Low's cruelties became more and more disgusting, and there can be little doubt that he was really by this time a lunatic.

In July, 1723, Low took a new ship for himself, naming himself Admiral, and sporting a new black flag with a red skeleton upon it. He again cruised off the Azores, the Canaries, and the Guinea coast, but what the end was of this repulsive, uninteresting, and bloody pirate has never been known.

LOWTHER, CAPTAIN GEORGE.

Sailed as second mate from the Thames in the _Gambia Castle_, a ship belonging to the African Company, sixteen guns and a crew of thirty men. On board as passengers were Captain Massey and a number of soldiers. Arriving at their destination, Massey quarrelled with the merchants on shore, and, a few days later, with Lowther, seized the ship, which he renamed the _Delivery_. They now went a-pirating, their first prize being a Boston ship, and cruising about off the Island of Hispaniola, several more were taken, but nothing very rich. Lowther quarrelled with Captain Massey, who, being a soldier, wished to land on some island to plunder the French settlements, but this was not agreed to, and Massey and his followers were sent away in a sloop. Life for Lowther now became a series of successes, prizes being taken, and visits to land being occasionally made for the crew to enjoy a drunken revel.

Having met with Captain Low, for a while the two sailed together, and took the _Greyhound_, a merchantman, and several more rich prizes. Lowther now commanded a small pirate fleet, and styled himself Admiral, his flagship being the _Happy Delivery_. While careening their ships in the Gulf of Matigue, they were suddenly attacked by the natives, and the pirates barely escaped in a sloop with their lives. Lowther soon improved himself by seizing a brigantine, and in her shaped his course to the coast of South Carolina, a favourite resort for the pirates. Here he attacked an English ship, but was so roughly handled that he was glad to run his ship ashore and escape.

In 1723 he steered for Newfoundland, taking many small vessels there, and returning to the West Indies. While cleaning his ship at the Isle of Blanco, he was suddenly attacked by a South Sea Company's ship, the _Eagle_, and the pirates were compelled to surrender. Lowther and a dozen of his crew escaped by climbing out of the cabin window, and, reaching the island, hid themselves in the woods. All were caught except Lowther and three men and a boy. He was shortly afterwards found lying dead with a pistol by his side, and was supposed to have shot himself. Three of his crew who were caught were carried to St. Christopher's, and there tried for piracy and hanged.

LUDBURY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.

Sailed in company with Captains Prince and Harrison in October, 1670, ascended the San Juan River in Nicaragua with a party of 170 men, and surprised and plundered the city of Granada.

LUKE, CAPTAIN MATTHEW.

This Italian pirate had his headquarters at Porto Rico, and specialized in attacking English ships. In 1718 he took four of these and murdered all the crews. In May, 1722, Luke made a terrible mistake. Perceiving what he thought to be a merchant ship, he attacked her, to find out all too late that she was an English man-of-war, the _Lauceston_. Luke and his crew were taken to Jamaica and hanged. One of his crew confessed to having killed twenty English sailors with his own hands.

LUSHINGHAM, CAPTAIN.

In 1564 this pirate was at Berehaven in the South of Ireland, having just sold a cargo of wine out of a Spanish prize to the Lord O'Sullivan, when some of Queen Elizabeth's ships arrived in the bay in search of pirates. By Lord O'Sullivan's help the pirates escaped, but Lushingham was killed "by a piece of ordnance" as he was in the act of waving his cap towards the Queen's ships.

LUSSAN, LE SIEUR RAVENEAU DE.

This French filibuster was a man of much better birth and education than the usual buccaneer. Also, he was the author of a most entertaining book recording his adventures and exploits as a buccaneer, called "Journal du Voyage fait a la Mer de sud avec les Flibustiers de l'Amerique en 1684."

Pressure from his creditors drove de Lussan into buccaneering, as being a rapid method of gaining enough money to satisfy them and to enable him to return to the fashionable life he loved so well in Paris. De Lussan was, according to his own account, a man of the highest principles, and very religious. He never allowed his crew to molest priests, nuns, or churches. After taking a Spanish town, the fighting being over, he would lead his crew of pirates to attend Mass in the church, and when this was done--and not until then--would he allow the plundering and looting to begin.

De Lussan was surprised and grieved to find that his Spanish prisoners had a most exaggerated idea of the brutality of the buccaneers, and on one occasion when he was conducting a fair young Spanish lady, a prisoner, to a place of safety, he was overwhelmed when he discovered that the reason of her terror was that she believed she was shortly to be eaten by him and his crew. To remedy this erroneous impression, it was the custom of the French commander to gather together all his prisoners into the church or the plaza, and there to give them a lecture on the true life and character of the buccaneers.

The student who wishes to learn more about the adventures of de Lussan can do so in his book. There he will read, amongst other interesting events, particulars about the filibuster's surprising and romantic affair with the beautiful and wealthy Spanish widow who fell so violently in love with him.

It happened on one occasion that Raveneau and his crew, having taken a town on the West Coast of South America after a somewhat bloody battle, had, as usual, attended Mass in the Cathedral, before setting out to plunder the place.