Nathaniel Grubing (
fl. 1692–1697) was an English pirate who sailed in service to the French. He is best known for leading several raids on
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
before his capture.
History
Grubing was English and Jamaica-born but sailed for the French after the outbreak of
King William's War
King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand All ...
, as did many other English sailors –
Jacobites
Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to:
Religion
* Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include:
** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometime ...
and Catholics, debtors, and
privateers
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 deleg ...
dissatisfied with England's discouragement of privateering.
Jamaica's
Governor Beeston wrote, “Among the chief of these rogues was one Grubbin, who was born here of English parents, and who knowing every part of the Island had done much mischief by landing in the night, robbing lone settlements, and going away again before notice could be given to any force to oppose him.”
In early 1692 Grubing raided
Spanish River in Jamaica.
Local authorities commissioned two armed sloops to chase Grubing and other French privateers and offered a reward for his capture. They soon commissioned a third sloop to sail after him and strengthened the island's fortifications. The sloops were unsuccessful and that September they ordered a fourth captain to command the efforts against Grubing, though insubordinate officers hampered his efforts.
On
Hispaniola
Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...
in the summer of 1694 a Jamaican sloop took aboard Grubing's wife, who complained that he “used her very ill.”
On his next raid Grubing warned the Jamaicans to return her or “he would carry off every woman he met with till he had his wife again.”
He made good on his threat, kidnapping a Major's wife and the 14-year-old daughter of a minister's widow. Beeston sent representatives to French Governor
Du Casse to complain but the French ignored their flag of truce and captured Beeston's men as well.
Finally in January 1697 an Englishman named Captain Moses apprehended several Frenchmen, Grubing among them.
Beeston rewarded him handsomely. Du Casse demanded Grubing's return and threatened a captured English Captain named Price in return.
Beeston was not swayed: “that shall not hinder me from causing Grubbin to suffer whatever the law may condemn him in, nor do I think that Mons. Ducasse will venture to do anything to an innocent man for the punishment of a criminal.”
See also
*
John Bear - another English pirate who switched sides, first aiding the Spanish, later the French.
Notes
Further reading
”No Quarter” a series of fictionalized novels featuring Golden Age pirates, Grubing among them.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grubing, Nathaniel
17th-century pirates
Year of birth missing
Year of death missing
French pirates
Caribbean pirates