John Read (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1683-1688) was an English buccaneer, privateer, and pirate active from South America to the East Indies to the Indian Ocean.

History

Along with navigator and chronicler William Dampier, Read was a crewman aboard John Cook's 1683 privateering expedition which captured a prize ship they renamed ''Bachelor's Delight''. Cook took them around Cape Horn to raid Spain's Pacific territories, joining a flotilla of other buccaneers including Charles Swan's ''Cygnet''. Cook died in 1684, replaced by Edward Davis; Read, Dampier, and others soon transferred to ''Cygnet''. After some unproductive raids Swan headed west across the Pacific in early 1686, his lack of success causing the crew to grow unruly. After a stop at Guam they arrived at Mindanao in the Philippines in June 1686. The crew soon mutinied, ejecting Swan and electing Josiah Teat as Captain, who was himself soon replaced as Captain by Read, setting sail in early 1687. Read sailed Cygnet through the East Indies with little treasure to show for the voyage. In early 1688 they landed on

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Dampier, tired of sailing with Read and his crew, asked to be put ashore in the

Nicobar Islands The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are located in Southeast Asia, northwest of Aceh on Sumatra, and separated from Thailand to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located southeast of the Indian s ...

in 1688. Read sailed to the Indian Ocean, capturing their first lucrative prize ship in the process. On India's southwestern Coromandel coast the crew broke up, with many of the crew leaving to serve on

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

ships. Read then took ''Cygnet'' to Madagascar where more of his sailors joined other pirate crews; Read himself took his earnings and boarded a ship bound for New York to retire from pirate life. The remaining sailors under Teat sailed back to Coromandel “where Captain Teat and his own men went ashore to serve the Mogul,” though ''Cygnet'' itself was in poor condition and finally sank at Madagascar.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Read, John 17th-century pirates Year of birth missing Year of death missing English pirates Piracy in the Indian Ocean

History

See also

Notes

References