Death of Bartholomew Roberts — End of the Golden Age
Bartholomew Roberts was killed by a broadside off Cape Lopez on 10 February 1722, and the golden age of piracy is generally dated to end with him. He was Welsh, born around 1682, and had been a reluctant recruit — third mate on a slave ship taken by pirates in 1719, pressed into the crew, and elected captain six weeks later when their commander was killed. He is said to have remarked that if he was to be a pirate it was better to be a commander than a common man. He was the most successful of any of them, taking something over 400 vessels in under three years, from Newfoundland to Brazil to the West African coast. He dressed for it — a crimson damask waistcoat and breeches, a red feather in his hat, a gold chain with a diamond cross — and he drank tea rather than rum, kept the Sabbath, and had articles forbidding gambling, women aboard and fighting between crewmen. His depredations off West Africa were severe enough that the Royal Navy sent the Swallow, a fifty-gun ship under Chaloner Ogle, specifically after him. Ogle found his squadron at anchor, feigned flight to draw off and destroy one vessel, and returned two days later. Roberts's crew had taken a prize the night before and were drunk. He was hit in the throat by grapeshot as he stood on deck in his finery, and his men threw him overboard armed and dressed, as his articles required. Fifty-two of them were hanged.
- Year: 1722 CE
- Category: Military
