Chapter 1
Thomas Anstis: Thomas Anstis was born somewhere in England near the turn of the eighteenth century. For a while, he served under Captain Howell Davis, and later Captain Bartholomew Roberts before he set out on his own raiding shipping on the eastern coast of the American Colonies, then turned his attentions on the Caribbean.
The first record of him is crewing the sloop Buck sailing from Providence Rhode Island in 1718. During the voyage, Anstis enacted a mutiny with six others with intentions to sail southward as pirates. The crew elected Howell Davis as captain, and after Davis’ death, the forced navigator Bartholomew Roberts was elected to replace him. Anstis later commanded one of the prize ships, the brigantine Good Fortune.
During the night on April 18, 1721, Roberts’ headed his ships for Africa, but Anstis and his crew of the Good Fortune slipped away in the night and continued to operate in the Caribbean between Hispaniola and Jamaica. Aboard one plundered vessel, the Irwin, Anstis’s crew committed gang rape and murder against a female passenger. After which they stopped to careen their vessel.
Continuing towards Bermuda, Anstis spotted the Morning Star treasure ship out from Guinea bound for the Carolinas. After capturing the ship, he outfitted her with 32 guns and placed the ships gunner John Fenn in command. Anstis kept command of the smaller and more maneuverable Good Fortune due to its superior handling. The two ships continued to sail along the southeastern coast of the colonies until fighting began to break out among many of the forced crewmembers, and they decided to petition George I of Great Britain for a pardon, claiming they had been forced into piracy by Anstis and Roberts.
Sailing to an island off Cabo San Antonio Cuba, they awaited word from the British government on their request for nine months. In August 1722, they received news from their courier ship that their pleas had not only fallen on deaf ears, but the king had sent Admiral Sir John Flowers after them.
Traveling south, they encountered the Grand Caymans in a storm and the Morning Star ran hard aground. As the crew of the Good Fortune worked to rescue the survivors, they were sighted by HMS Hector and HMS Adventure. Anstis was forced to cut his anchor cable and run. When the fresh wind subsided, they turned to oars and were finally able to make good their escape.
More than forty of Anstis’s men were lost on Grand Cayman to the two Royal Navy vessels under Flowers command. Anstis and Fenn then sailed to the Bay of Honduras capturing three or four prizes on the way adding the captives to their depleted crew. Once near the bay, they careened the Good Fortune on an offshore island.
In early December 1722, Anstis set sail for the Bahaman Islands capturing a sloop on the way he named Antelope, then a 24-gun ship he entrusted to Fenn. Putting in at Tobago in April 1723, they began to careen their new vessels when they were surprised by the British man-of-war HMS Winchelsea commanded by Admiral Sir John Flowers. Anstis and his men were forced to burn the ship and the sloop and flee into the island’s interior, but they were overtaken and captured by the crew of the Winchelsea. Anstis escaped again in his swift brigantine Good Fortune, but members of his crew, discouraged by their losses, murdered him as he slept in his hammock, and took prisoner all who remained loyal. The mutineers surrendered to Dutch authorities in Curacao where they received amnesty, while their prisoners hanged.
