Edmund Cooke (pirate)
Edmund Cooke | |
---|---|
Pirate | |
Years active | 1673–1683 |
Known for | Sailing against the Spanish alongside Bartholomew Sharp, John Coxon, Basil Ringrose, Lionel Wafer, and other famous buccaneers |
Piratical career | |
Commands | Virgin |
Edmund Cooke (fl. 1673–1683, also named Edward / Edmond or Cook) was a merchant captain, buccaneer, and pirate. He is best known for sailing against the Spanish alongside Bartholomew Sharp, John Coxon, Basil Ringrose, Lionel Wafer, and other famous buccaneers. Cooke's flag was red-and-yellow striped and featured a hand holding a sword.[1]
Career
Merchant
Cooke's 130-ton merchant vessel Virgin was bound to Jamaica from London when Irish pirate
In mid-1673 an “Edmund Cooke” led a mutiny aboard the trading vessel St. Anthony.[4] Whether this is the same Edmond Cooke is not known, though the events fit the pattern of his later activities. The St. Anthony sailed from Lisbon but the mutineers took it to New England, sailing into the Piscataqua River. They tried to dispose of the ship's cargo near Plymouth but were caught and tried. They were convicted but pardoned in December 1673.[4]
By 1679 Cooke was back in the Caribbean hauling logwood when he was caught by Spanish warships off
Buccaneer
He joined a flotilla of buccaneers led by John Coxon and Bartholomew Sharpe which sailed from Jamaica to
Sharpe's crew mutinied, placing
When the buccaneers finally returned to the Caribbean in 1682, Cooke was among the party who petitioned the governor of Antigua for permission to come ashore.[4] His further activities are not recorded, though it is possible he continued his piracy. In 1683 Governor William Stapleton of the Leeward Islands wrote to London that “Captain Carlile goes this very day to look for one Cooke[a] and one Bond, two English pirates fitted from Saint Thomas. I have furnished him with men and powder lest he should be overpowered. He should be able to hunt them all down.”[1]
See also
- Henry Morgan, buccaneer who raided some of the same locations as Sharpe's expedition and who was Governor of Jamaica when they returned.
References
- ^ ISBN 9780313395635. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
- ISBN 9780674034037. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
- ^ Sainsbury, Noel (1889). America and West Indies: July 1674 | British History Online (Vol7 ed.). London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. pp. 594–603. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g Jameson, John Franklin (1923). Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period by J. Franklin Jameson. New York: Macmillan. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
- ^ a b c Ringrose, Basil (1685). Bucaniers of America the second volume : containing the dangerous voyage and bold attempts of Captain Bartholomew Sharp, and others, performed upon the coasts of the South Sea, for the space of two years, &c. : from the original journal of the said voyage / written by ... Basil Ringrose, Gent., who was all along present at those transactions. London: William Crooke. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
- ISBN 9780752488271. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
Notes
Further reading
- The voyages and adventures of Capt. Barth. Sharp and others, in the South Sea: : being a journal of the same, also Capt. Van Horn with his Buccanieres surprizing of la Vera Cruz to which is added The true Relation of Sir Henry Morgan, his Expedition against the Spaniards in the West-Indies, and his taking Panama. – Supplementary material to Exquemelin's book on Buccaneers, beginning with an extensive review of Sharp's actions, including his interactions with Cooke.