Benjamin Hornigold is famous for founding the ‘Pirate Republic’ and ‘The Flying Gang’ of Nassau, but probably even more so for betraying the pirate cause. He is said to have been born around 1660 and little is known of his early life. It is thought to have been born in Norfolk, England, although other claims include Jamaica. He might have been married to Sarah Norris in England in 1679, but her fate is unknown. Hornigold was a privateer in The Spanish War of Succession, and later claimed he was continuing this conflict rather than committing acts of piracy. He had a puritan background and was a known patriot, constantly refusing to attack British and Dutch ships. He was also reluctant to take lives and generally treated his captives well.
Hornigold the pirate
Hornigold left Port Royal, Jamaica for Nassau in 1713, starting out in two piraguas, the second captained by John West. Using New Providence as a base, he seized merchant Spanish ships and sold the plunder on Harbour Island, 50 miles north of Nassau. On hearing the Spanish planned to destroy the pirate nest in Nassau, John West quit pirating while Hornigold fled to Harbour island. The attack never came and the pirates soon returned to New Providence. Hornigold sailed for a while on a sloop called the Happy Return, temporarily lent to him by retired pirate Jonathan Darvel. Between 1714 and 1715 he sailed out in a piragua, capturing some small Spanish vessels. Going against his patriotic beliefs, he seized an English sloop called the Mary off the coast of Cuba, which he took back to Nassau. While there he formed the Flying Gang among the ever increasing number of pirates. Hornigold later seized a larger Spanish sloop which he renamed the Benjamin. Life there was made difficult for Hornigold by the arrival of the privateer Henry Jennings.
Despite the threat posed by Jennings, he continued to sail out in search of prizes, capturing a French sloop named the Marianne with £12,000 of cargo in the Straits of Florida. At this time, he was pursued by Jennings, who still believed himself a privateer and pirate-hunter. After leading a mutiny aboard one of Jenning’s vessels, the St. Marie, Sam Bellamy joined Hornigold, taking with him all the treasure stored on board. Hornigold and Bellamy were later joined by the French pirate Oliver La Buse and his sloop Postillion. They spotted an English ship in the Yucután channel, but Hornigold didn’t want to attack it until he was overruled by his crew. They later took more Spanish vessels and commandeered some English sloops to help with careening. On returning to a thriving Nassau, Hornigold sold the worm-ridden Benjamin and bought a smaller 20-ton sloop, calling it the Adventure. He continued to sail with Bellamy and La Buse, but strains in the relationship due to the patriotic Hornigold’s reluctance to attack English and Dutch vessels, caused the other pirates to lose confidence in him. He was forced to leave, but allowed to take the Adventure with him.
He continued plundering Spanish shipping while working on strengthening the defences of Nassau between voyages. His reluctance to seize English vessels waning for a while, he captured a rich English prize, the Bonnet, near Portobello, which he took as his own, giving the original captain the Adventure in return. On returning to Nassau he took another sloop, the Revenge, and over £100,000 worth of pesos, adding to Hornigold’s popularity on New Providence. In April 1717 Hornigold is recorded as operating alongside Captain Napin, looting several ships off Jamaica. The two pirate captains seized three merchant ships in quick succession, a Spanish one carrying 120 barrels of flour bound for Havana, another a Bermudian sloop with a cargo of spirits, and the third a Portuguese ship travelling from Madeira with a cargo of white wine. Eventually, they were chased from the area by the warship HMS Winchelsea. Hornigold is recorded as having attacked an English sloop off the coast of Honduras, but as one of the passengers of the captured vessel recounted, “they did us no further injury than the taking most of our hats from us, having got drunk the night before, as they told us, and toss’d theirs overboard”. Not long after the distressing news of Sam Bellamy’s death in April 1717, an injured Stede Bonnet arrived in Nassau on his battered vessel, the Revenge, after a failed encounter with a Spanish warship. Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was present in Nassau at the time and took command of the vessel. Blackbeard was probably associated with Hornigold from the beginning, possibly arriving in Nassau from Jamaica 1714. It is often stated that Hornigold was Blackbeard’s mentor, but there is little evidence of this. The two pirates did cooperate on many occassions, but Blackbeard reportedly spent very little time in Nassau. Because of this close cooperation, it was often believed they were acting together on occasions when they were in fact hundreds of miles apart.
The pirate republic
Nassau, on the island of New Providence was a failed British colony, which was founded in 1670, originally being called Charles Town. It was located in the Bahamas, a 700-island archipelago near the straits of Florida, and was ideally positioned to intercept ships headed from New Spain to Europe. The island was first attacked by the Spanish in 1684 and was rebuilt and renamed Nassau in 1695. In 1703 it was attacked again by an allied French and Spanish force, after which it was neglected by the English government. Once the pirates started arriving from 1713 onwards, Governor Thomas Walker and many of its inhabitants were driven away after failed attempts to nip the young pirate republic in the bud. Until 1717 Nassau had strong ties with Charles Town in South Carolina and nearby Harbour Island. The town itself was run-down and almost abandoned when Hornigold arrived and proclaimed himself protector of Nassau. Hornigold had a couple of rivals, one being Thomas Barrow, who declared himself governor, but was no real threat. The real threat came when the privateer Henry Jennings, who had just looted the wrecks of the Spanish treasure ships that had gone down in a storm off the coast of Florida, arrived with at least two heavily armed sloops and 200 men under his command. Jennings assumed control of the town, even seizing one of Hornigold’s prize ships. Hornigold stayed on for two months after Jennings sailed out in search of new prizes. The outlaw population was bolstered by the arrival of logwood cutters from Campeche, escaped slaves, smugglers, and prostitutes. Fears of an attack by the English, French, or Spanish led to the strengthening of the fort, which was built in 1697, to ward off further attacks.
Relations remained strained with Jennings, who was now considered by most to be a pirate rather than a privateer, although, like Hornigold, also refused to attack English vessels. Jennings became a respected and powerful figure on the island, but didn’t generally mix with the common pirates. Jenning’s hostility didn’t prevent Hornigold from consolidating ‘The Pirate Republic’, although his presence did make Hornigold’s life difficult. By summer of 1717 it appeared that the pirates were an unstoppable force, the Royal Navy being in no position to deter them. The news of the loss of Sam Bellamy and the Whydah in a storm and the capture and trial of the survivors was a blow for the pirates. An even greater blow was the arrival of news of the King’s Pardon, which eventually reached Nassau at the beginning of 1718. The Pardon undermined the solidarity of the pirates and greatly divided them. Hornigold and the majority accepted clemency, although some did later return to their piratical ways. After a short spell when Charles Vane and those who opposed the Pardon seized control of Nassau, The Pirate Republic was handed over to Woodes Rogers in July 1718.
Hornigold the pirate hunter
In January 1718, Hornigold accepted the King’s Pardon issued under the Proclamation of September 1717 “For Suppressing Pirates in the West Indies” and became a pirate hunter, pursuing his former allies on behalf of the Governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers. When the War of the Quadruple Alliance broke out in July 1718, he was additionally given a commission to hunt down Spanish vessels. As a patriot and with the welfare of Nassau in mind, Hornigold readily accepted the pardon and commission. He tried to hunt down Charles Vane after he had previously persuaded Captain Vincent Pearse, commander of HMS Phoenix, to release him after Vane had been captured by the naval vessel. He apparently did this so as not to antagonise those pirates who might be willing to accept the Pardon. Hornigold failed to capture Vane, but managed to capture his associate, the pirate and smuggler Nicholas Woodall, instead. He also captured John Auger and other pirates. Nassau was secured for the Crown by 1719.
Hornigold’s fate
After Hornigold became a turncoat, Woodes Roger wrote a letter to London claiming that the ex-pirate was a redeemed man. It is likely he fought for Britain as a privateer in the War of the Quadruple Alliance. It is unknown exactly how and when he died, but he must have been relatively old for a sailor. According to A General History of the Pyrates, he was killed when his ship was wrecked on a reef near New Spain during the hurricane season. It is also claimed he was captured by the Spanish and was never heard of again, dying in battle or as a prisoner. Recognised as one of the founding fathers of modern Nassau, he was probably one of the most significant figures in the Golden Age of Piracy, even if his reputation as a pirate is stained by him later becoming a pirate hunter.
If you’re interested in learning more about Hornigold and The Pirate Republic, watch the informative video below by Gold and Gunpowder. I also recommend reading The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard, which contains a detaied account of the pirates of Nassau. You can find a copy of the original proclamation of the King’s Pardon in the London Gazette on the Gazette website.