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Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or delegated authority issued commissions, also referred to as a letter of marque, during wartime. The commission empowered the holder to carry on all forms of hostility permissible at sea by the usages of war. This included attacking foreign vessels and taking them as prizes, and taking prize crews as prisoners for exchange. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, with the proceeds divided by percentage between the privateer's sponsors, shipowners, captains and crew. A percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission (i.e. the sovereign). Privateering allowed sovereigns to raise revenue for war by mobilizing privately owned armed ships and sailors to supplement state power. For participants, privateerin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confiance Kent Fight
USS ''Scorpion'' was a schooner of the United States Navy during the War of 1812. She was the second USN ship to be named for the scorpion. The British captured her on 6 September 1814 and took her into service as HMS ''Confiance''. She was placed in Ordinary in 1817 and broken up in 1831. Career ''Scorpion'' was launched in the spring of 1813 at Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania), probably by Noah Brown of New York, for service on the upper Great Lakes during the War of 1812. ''Scorpion'', commanded by Sailing Master Stephen Champlin, first cousin to Oliver Hazard Perry, operated with Commodore Perry's squadron on Lake Erie during the summer and fall of 1813. On 10 September 1813, she participated in the battle off Put-in-Bay, Lake Erie, which resulted in the defeat and capture of the British fleet (see Battle of Lake Erie). ''Scorpion'' had the distinction of firing the first and last shot in the battle in which she lost two men. At the close of the action, she and pur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miguel Enríquez (privateer)
'' D.'' Miguel Enríquez (c. 1674–1743), was a privateer from San Juan, Puerto Rico who operated during the early 18th century. A ''mulato'' born out of wedlock, Enríquez was a shoemaker by occupation. After working for the governor as a salesman he was recruited to defend Puerto Rico, then a colony of the Spanish Empire, and commanded a small fleet that intercepted foreign merchant ships and other vessels dedicated to contraband. These outlaws were thriving in the waters of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, notably in the areas surrounding Saint Thomas, Curaçao and Jamaica. Operating during the height of the Golden Age of Piracy, his fleet was also credited with controlling the proliferation of buccaneers in the region. However, he was considered a pirate himself by the enemies of Spain, since it was common practice of the government to ignore when foreign ships were attacked. After some time operating independently, Enríquez received a letter of marque and reprisa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Quelch (pirate)
John Quelch (166630 June 1704) was an English pirate who had a lucrative but very brief career of about one year. His chief claim to historical significance is that he was the first person to be tried for piracy outside England under Admiralty Law and thus without a jury. These Admiralty courts had been instituted to tackle the rise of piracy in colonial ports where civil and criminal courts had proved ineffective. Pirate career In July 1703, Governor Joseph Dudley of Boston sent out Captain Daniel Plowman of the ''Charles'' with a privateering license to attack French and Spanish ships off the coast of Newfoundland and Arcadia. John Quelch was Plowman's lieutenant. Before leaving Marblehead, Massachusetts, the ''Charless crew under Quartermaster Anthony Holding mutinied and locked the ailing Plowman in his cabin.New England Pirates [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House of Boston, where he continued to preach for the rest of his life. A major intellectual and public figure in English-speaking colonial America, Cotton Mather helped lead the successful revolt of 1689 against Sir Edmund Andros, the governor imposed on New England by King James II. Mather's subsequent involvement in the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693, which he defended in the book ''Wonders of the Invisible World'' (1693), attracted intense controversy in his own day and has negatively affected his historical reputation. As a historian of colonial New England, Mather is noted for his '' Magnalia Christi Americana'' (1702). Personally and intellectually committed to the waning social and religious orders in New England, Cotton Math ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanging
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging". Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since medieval times, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging was in Homer's ''Odyssey'' (Book XXII). In this specialised meaning of the common word ''hang'', the past and past participle is ''hanged'' instead of ''hung''. Hanging is a common method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness and then death by suspension or partial suspension. Methods of judicial hanging T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William III Of England
William III (William Henry; ; 4 November 16508 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of County of Holland, Holland, County of Zeeland, Zeeland, Lordship of Utrecht, Utrecht, Guelders, and Lordship of Overijssel, Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Monarchy of Ireland, Ireland, and List of Scottish monarchs, Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is sometimes informally known as "King Billy" in Ireland and Scotland. His victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is The Twelfth, commemorated by Unionism in the United Kingdom, Unionists, who display Orange Order, orange colours in his honour. He ruled Britain alongside his wife and cousin, Queen Mary II, and popular histories usually refer to their reign as that of "William and Mary". William was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, Princess Royal an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Kidd
William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd ( – 23 May 1701), was a Scottish sea captain who was commissioned as a privateer and had experience as a pirate. He was tried and executed in London in 1701 for murder and piracy. Kidd had captured a French ship, commanded by an English captain, as a prize. He had been commissioned by the Crown as a privateer for this expedition, but the political climate of England turned against him in this case. Some modern historians, for example Sir Cornelius Neale Dalton, deemed his piratical reputation unjust and said that he was acting as a privateer. Documents found in the early 20th century in London court papers supported Kidd's account of his actions. Life and career Early life and education Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland prior to October 15, 1654. While claims have been made of alternate birthplaces, including Greenock and even Belfast, he said himself he came from Dundee in a testimony given by Kidd to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; Tigrinya: ቀይሕ ባሕሪ ''Qeyih Bahri''; ) is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal). It is underlain by the Red Sea Rift, which is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 438,000 km2 (169,100 mi2), is about 2250 km (1398 mi) long, and — at its widest point — 355 km (220.6 mi) wide. It has an average depth of 490 m (1,608 ft), and in the central ''Suakin Trough'' it reaches its maximum depth of . The Red Sea also has exten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the dynasty and the empire itself became indisputably Indian. The interests and futures of all concerned were in India, not in ancestral homelands in the Middle East or Central Asia. Furthermore, the Mughal empire emerged from the Indian historical experience. It was the end product of a millennium of Muslim conquest, colonization, and state-building in the Indian subcontinent." For some two hundred years, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus river basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of present-day Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and the uplands of the Deccan Plateau in South India. Quote: "The realm so defined and governed was a vast territory of some , rang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Tew
Thomas Tew (died September 1695), also known as the Rhode Island Pirate, was a 17th-century English privateer-turned-pirate. He embarked on two major pirate voyages and met a bloody death on the second, and he pioneered the route which became known as the Pirate Round. Other infamous pirates in his path included Henry Every and William Kidd. Life and career It is frequently written that Tew had family in Rhode Island dating back to 1640, but it is not known where he was born. He may have been born in New England; another hypothesis suggests that he was born in Maidford, Northamptonshire, England before emigrating to the American colonies as a child with his family, although there is only a little circumstantial evidence for this. He lived at one time in Newport, Rhode Island. He is reported as being married with two daughters. According to one source, his wife and children all greatly enjoyed the New York City social scene after Tew became rich, but there is no supporting evide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Fletcher
Benjamin Fletcher (14 May 1640 – 28 May 1703) was colonial governor of New York from 1692 to 1697. Fletcher was known for the ''Ministry Act'' of 1693, which secured the place of Anglicans as the official religion in New York. He also built the first Trinity Church in 1698. Under Col. Fletcher, piracy was a leading economic development tool in the city’s competition with the ports of Boston and Philadelphia. New York City had become a safe place for pirates. Fletcher was eventually fired for his association with piracy. Early life Fletcher was the son of William Fletcher and Abigail Vincent. His father was killed in 1643 during the Siege of Gloucester in the First English Civil War. Life in America Since the 1680s, New York city had had to deal with a new, nearby, maritime rival, Philadelphia, which had boomed since its founding. As added attractions, Philadelphia had "the purest bread and strongest beer in America." Despite such appeal, the pirates preferred the saf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
