The Pirates' Who's Who Part 21

GREAVES, CAPTAIN, _alias_ "RED LEGS." West Indian pirate.

Born in Barbadoes of prisoners who had been sent there as slaves by Cromwell. Most of these slaves were natives of Scotland and Ireland, and, owing to their bare knees, generally went by the name of Red Legs. Young Greaves was left an orphan, but had a kind master and a good education.

His master dying, the lad was sold to another and a cruel one. The boy ran away, swam across Carlisle Bay, but by mistake clambered on to the wrong ship, a pirate vessel, commanded by a notoriously cruel pirate called Captain Hawkins. Finding himself driven to the calling of piracy, Greaves became very efficient, and quickly rose to eminence. He was remarkable for his dislike of unnecessary bloodshed, torture of prisoners, and killing of non-combatants. These extraordinary views brought about a duel between himself and his captain, in which the former was victorious, and he was at once elected commander.

Greaves now entered a period of the highest piratical success, but always preserved very strictly his reputation for humanity and morality. He never tortured his prisoners, nor ever robbed the poor, nor maltreated women.

His greatest success of all was his capture of the Island of Margarita, off the coast of Venezuela.

On this occasion, after capturing the Spanish Fleet, he turned the guns of their warships against the forts, which he then stormed, and was rewarded by a huge booty of pearls and gold.

Red Legs then retired to the respectable life of a planter in the Island of Nevis, but was one day denounced as a pirate by an old seaman. He was cast into a dungeon to await execution, when the great earthquake came which destroyed and submerged the town in 1680, and one of the few survivors was Greaves. He was picked up by a whaler, on board of which he served with success, and later on, for his a.s.sistance in capturing a gang of pirates, he received pardon for his earlier crimes.

He again retired to a plantation, and was noted for his many acts of piety and for his generous gifts to charities and public inst.i.tutions, eventually dying universally respected and sorrowed.

GREENSAIL, RICHARD.

One of Blackbeard's crew in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Hanged in Virginia in 1718.

GREENVILLE, HENRY.

Hanged at Boston in 1726 with Captain Fly and Samuel Cole.

GRIFFIN, JACK.

Chief mate of a Bristol vessel. One of the chief mutineers on board the _Bird_ galley in 1718, off Sierra Leone, when he befriended the captain of the _Bird_, with whom he had been at school. Took part in a feast to celebrate the success of the mutiny, the meal being cooked in a huge caldron in which the slaves' food was prepared. In this caldron were boiled, on this occasion, fowls, ducks, geese, and turkeys, which were unplucked; several Westphalian hams were added, and a "large sow with young embowled." The health of King James III., the Pretender, was drunk with full honours.

GRIFFIN, JOHN.

Of Blackwall, Middles.e.x.

Taken out of the _Mercy_ galley and appointed carpenter on board the _Royal Fortune_ by Captain Roberts. Condemned to be hanged at Cape Coast Castle, but pardoned and sold to the Royal African Company as a slave for seven years.

GRIFFIN, RICHARD.

A gunsmith of Boston.

Sailed with Captain Pound. Wounded in a fight at Tarpaulin Cove, a bullet entering his ear and coming out through his eye.

GROGNIET, CAPTAIN.

A French buccaneer who in 1683 was in company with Captain L'Escayer, with a crew of some 200 French and 80 English freebooters. He joined Davis and Swan during the blockade of Panama in 1685, and was in the unsuccessful attempt in May, 1685, on the Spanish treasure fleet from Lima. In July of the same year Grogniet, with 340 French buccaneers, parted company from Davis at Quibo, plundered several towns, and then, foolishly, revisited Quibo, where they were discovered by a Spanish squadron in January, 1686, and their ship was burnt while the crew was on sh.o.r.e. They were rescued by Townley, with whom they went north to Nicaragua, and sacked Granada. In May, 1686, Grogniet and half the Frenchmen crossed the isthmus. In the January following, Grogniet reappeared, and, joining with the English, again plundered Guayaquil, where he was severely wounded, and died soon afterwards.

GULLIMILLIT, BRETI.

Taken with other South American pirates by H.M. sloop _Tyne_, and hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1823.

GUTTEREZ, JUAN.

Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, on February 7th, 1823.

GUY, CAPTAIN.

Commanded the frigate _James_ (fourteen guns, ninety men). Belonged to Tortuga Island and Jamaica in 1663.

HAINS, RICHARD.

One of Captain Low's crew. When Low took a Portuguese ship at St.

Michael's in the Azores in 1723, he, with unusual kindness, simply burnt the ship and let the crew go to sh.o.r.e in a boat. While the prisoners were getting out the boat, Richard Hains happened to be drinking punch out of a silver tankard at one of the open ports, and took the opportunity to drop into the boat among the Portuguese and lie down in the bottom, so as to escape with them. Suddenly remembering his silver tankard, he climbed back, seized the tankard, and hid again in the boat, somehow, by great good fortune, being un.o.bserved by those on the ship, and so escaped almost certain death both for himself and the Portuguese sailors.

HALSEY, CAPTAIN JOHN.

This famous South Sea pirate was born on March 1st, 1670, at Boston, and received a commission from the Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts to cruise as a privateer on the Banks. No sooner was he out of sight of land than Halsey turned pirate. Taking a ship or two, he sailed to the Canary Islands, picking up a rich Spanish ship there. He next doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and paid a call on the "brethren" at Madagascar. He then sailed to the Red Sea, another happy hunting ground of the pirates, and met a big Dutch ship armed with sixty guns. Halsey astounded his men by announcing his sudden determination to attack only Moorish ships in the future. The indignant crew mutinied, threw Captain Halsey and his chief gunner in irons, and proceeded to attack the Dutchman. The mutinous pirates got the worst of the encounter, and released Halsey, who only just managed to get his ship away. Luck seems to have deserted Halsey for a while, for not a Moorish ship could he meet with, so much so that his scruples against taking Christian ships eased enough to permit him to bag a brace of English ships, the _Ess.e.x_ and the _Rising Eagle_.

The captain of the former proved to be a very old and dear friend of Halsey's quartermaster, and to show a friendly feeling, Halsey allowed the captain to keep all his personal belongings. Nevertheless, they took a comfortable booty, comprising some fifty thousand pounds in English gold, out of the _Ess.e.x_, and another ten thousand out of the _Rising Eagle_.

The pirates, being strict business men, produced invoices and sold the two ships back to their legal owners for cash, and having settled this affair to everybody's satisfaction, Halsey and his consort returned to Madagascar. Here they were visited by the captain of a Scotch ship, the _Neptune_, which had come to trade liquor, probably rum, but possibly whisky, with the pirates. A sudden hurricane arose, destroying both the pirate ships and damaging the _Neptune_. Halsey, ever a man of resource, thereupon seized the Scotch ship, and, with even greater enterprise, at once attacked a ship, the _Greyhound_, which lay at anchor, which was loaded with stolen merchandise which the pirates had only just sold to the captain of the _Greyhound_, and for which they had been paid.

The end was now drawing near, for in 1716 Captain Halsey was taken ill of some tropical fever and died. He was a popular commander, respected, ever loved by his men, for he was a humane man, never killing his prisoners unless necessity compelled. A contemporary eyewitness of his funeral rites leaves the following account of his burial:

"With great solemnity, the prayers of the Church of England being read over him and his sword and pistols laid on his coffin, which was covered with a ship's Jack. As many minute guns were fired as he was old--viz., 46--and three English vollies and one French volley of small arms." The chronicler continues: "His grave was made in a garden of watermelons and fenced in to prevent his being rooted up by wild pigs."

This last a truly touching thought on the part of the bereaved.

HAMAN, CAPTAIN JOHN.

He lived all alone with his wife and family on a small and otherwise uninhabited island in the Bahamas.

About the year 1720, he sailed into New Providence Harbour in his 40-ton sloop, intending to settle there. Captain Rackam and Anne Bonny stole this vessel and eloped in her.

Writing of Captain Haman, Johnson tells us "his Livelihood and constant Employment was to plunder and pillage the Spaniards, whose Sloops and Launces he had often surprised about Cuba and Hispaniola, and sometimes brought off a considerable Booty, always escaping by a good Pair of Heels, insomuch that it became a Bye-Word to say, 'There goes John Haman, catch him if you can.' His Business to Providence now was to bring his Family there, in order to live and settle, being weary, perhaps, of living in that Solitude, or else apprehensive if any of the Spaniards should discover his Habitation, they might land, and be revenged of him for all his Pranks."

HAMLIN, CAPTAIN JEAN.

A famous French filibuster who turned pirate.

Set out in 1682 from Jamaica in a sloop with 120 other desperadoes in pursuit of a French ship that was "wanted" by the Jamaican Governor.