John Cole (died 1718) was a pirate active off the American eastern seaboard. His brief career is associated with

Richard Worley Richard Worley (died 1718/19) was a pirate who was active in the Caribbean Sea and the East Coast of the American Colonies during the early 18th century. Piracy He is first recorded leaving New York with a small boat and a crew of eight men ho ...

and William Moody. He is known more for the unusual cargo of his pirate ship than for his piracy.

Biography

Governor

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...

of the

Province of South Carolina Province of South Carolina, originally known as Clarendon Province, was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monar ...

was worried about retaliatory attacks from pirates after the capture of

Blackbeard Edward Teach (alternatively spelled Edward Thatch, – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English Piracy, pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's Thirteen Colonies, North American colon ...

’s associate

Stede Bonnet Stede Bonnet (1688 – 10 December 1718) was an early 18th-century English/Barbadian pirate, also known as the Gentleman Pirate for the reason that he was a moderately wealthy landowner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born in ...

. In October 1718 Johnson heard rumors that pirate William Moody was heading to Charles Town and commissioned four vessels to oppose him, including Stede Bonnet’s former ship ''Revenge''. Scouts reported two ships anchored nearby and Johnson’s fleet sailed to meet them. The smaller sloop was not Moody; it had been the ''New York’s Revenge'' captained by Richard Worley, another pirate well-known in the Carolinas. ''Eagle'', the larger ship under John Cole, fled the battle with two of Johnson’s ships in pursuit. Cole had been given the ''Eagle'' after its capture in September, renaming it ''New York Revenge’s Revenge''. It had been used as a

ship’s tender A ship's tender, usually referred to as a tender, is a boat, or a larger ship, used to service or support other boats or ships. This is generally done by transporting people or supplies to and from shore or another ship. A second and distinctl ...

to Worley’s vessel. Johnson’s fleet caught the ''Eagle'' a few hours later. Moody really may have been in the vicinity; later depositions from a sailor captured by Moody indicated that he’d heard of Johnson’s preparations and took a captured ship far offshore to plunder it before fleeing the area. Worley was killed in the fighting; Cole was tried, convicted, and hanged off Charles Town in November 1718 with the remainder of their crews. Johnson shared out the reward for capturing Cole and Worley among the four vessels’ crews. The cargo of Cole’s ''New York Revenge’s Revenge'' turned out not to be treasure or trade goods: its hold was full of prisoners, including 36 women shipped from London and bound for Virginia to be sold as

indentured servant Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment ...

s. Many of the prisoners and crew had joined Worley and Cole’s pirates. At least one source reported that the women were to have been shipped to an island in the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

, to start a new colony after being married off to English men, though the women perished aboard ship for lack of water and food.

References

Year of birth missing 18th-century pirates British pirates People executed for piracy 1718 deaths {{Pirate-stub

Biography

See also

References