The Hunt for the Pirate Ned Low

On the morning of 10 January 1722, while risking the wrath of Spain by entering the Bay of Honduras to make an illegal logwood purchase, Captain Benjamin Edwards of the British-flagged merchant ship Greyhound found himself with more to worry about than the Spanish authorities. He was growing increasingly concerned about a large vessel looming on the horizon. She flew no flag and seemed loaded down with men and some 20 guns. As the strange vessel drew alongside, a warning shot flew over Edwards’ head, and a black flag now flew: a pirate flag.

Rather than strike his colors, Edwards put up an impressive fight. He had a crew of 14 facing off against 80 men in the main pirate vessel, which was now joined by a sloop carrying an additional 25 pirates. Edwards managed to hold them off for nearly an hour, exchanging broadsides until the Greyhound was in danger of foundering.

Despite fighting back against the pirates, Edwards’ life was spared. The victors gifted him a smaller vessel in exchange for the Greyhound (which they burned and sank). And before he left the scene of the battle, Edwards was able to meet the two pirate leaders who had bested him: George Lowther and Edward “Ned” Low.

From Family Man to Desperate Man

The two pirates were originally from London, but Low had moved to Boston 11 years prior to the fight in the Bay of Honduras. He had married and had a daughter, settling down for a quiet life as a ship rigger.

But the untimely death of his wife had sent Low into a self-destructive spiral of drinking and violence. He had been sacked from his position and had sought hire on board a sloop heading to the Bay of Honduras. While there, in December 1721, Low was provoked by the sloop’s captain and led the crew in a mutiny. Now in control of the sloop, Low and the remaining crew had elected to turn pirates and, in the words of the seminal pirate author Charles Johnson, declare “war against all the world.”

A few days later, Low joined up with Lowther, who himself had recently led a crew into mutiny and piracy, stealing the Royal African Company ship Gambia Castle and sailing her across the Atlantic to the Bay of Honduras.

After plundering the Greyhound, Lowther and Low took several smaller prizes as they made their way north from the Bay of Honduras to the Eastern Seaboard, including a vessel off Bermuda that, to the absolute delight of the pirates, carried a cargo that included 16 hogsheads of rum—nearly 800 gallons. They confiscated the rum and hauled it aboard the Ranger, as the pirates had renamed their ship.

By late May 1722, Low and Lowther had reached the busy shipping lanes near Philadelphia. There they took the ship Rebecca, plundering her thoroughly and sending her passengers home in another ship. The capture of the Rebecca allowed Lowther and Low to split up. Lowther took the Ranger and headed toward New York. Low took the captured Rebecca and made for Newfoundland. His intention was to capture crewmen from the Grand Banks fishing fleet then cross the Atlantic to the Azores.

By this time, Low’s antics were being noticed by colonial authorities, and when he brazenly took three sloops within hours of each other in early June near Block Island, the governor of Rhode Island, Samuel Cranston, had had enough. He ordered that “the drums beat about town for volunteers to go in quest of the pirates; and by 3 of the clock the same day, there were two large sloops under sail, equipped and manned.”

The Pirate Chase Is On

The two pirate-hunting vessels carried between them 140 men and 16 guns—more than enough to blow Ned Low and his 40-man crew out of the water. Governor Cranston sent messages to nearby colleagues, including Governor Samuel Shute of Massachusetts, asking them to equip similar expeditions.

These actions constituted the first in a long line of dismal failures as various colonial authorities and the Royal Navy attempted to apprehend Low and stop his piratical rampage. But the truth of the matter was that many of the stakeholders in the American colonies, including merchants and political leaders alike, had little interest in stopping men like Ned Low. They certainly disrupted shipping, but they also traded the goods they stole for less than their face value, meaning that local communities and smugglers came to view the pirates in a favorable light. (This positive attitude toward the pirates was so widespread on Rhode Island that it was dubbed “Rogues Island” by Bostonians.) Several political leaders, such as New York Governor Benjamin Fletcher in the 1690s, even accepted large bribes from pirate crews to look the other way and ignore their antics.

Perhaps Governor Shute was similarly inclined. He certainly did not jump to the aid of Governor Cranston. Rather, he prevaricated to such a degree that the publisher of the newly established New-England Courant ran an article wherein he mocked Shute’s lack of action. Shute was not amused, and the Courant’s publisher, James Franklin—the older brother of Benjamin Franklin—was arrested and thrown in prison for slander.

Cranston would receive no help in his attempt to capture Ned Low. And, despite his rapid reaction to Low’s presence in his shipping lanes, the attempt quickly failed. The two sloops returned within days to report that Low and the Rebecca were nowhere to be found. He had wisely decided not to hang around.

In mid-June Low captured a number of whaling sloops out of Nantucket and senselessly tortured and hanged two members of the Wampanoag tribe on Cape Sable Island. Arriving in Port Roseway, Nova Scotia, on 15 June 1722, he quickly captured a dozen Marblehead fishing vessels one by one as they arrived at the anchorage. Among the fishermen captured was the young Captain Philip Ashton, who would remain a sullen hostage of Ned Low’s for nearly a year and later would pen the most detailed description of Low and his crew.

Low used his brief stop in Port Roseway to change ships, commandeering the schooner Mary and renaming her the Fancy. Low and his crew, including the reluctant Ashton, left Port Roseway on 19 June, heading up the coast of Nova Scotia bound for Newfoundland.

Low was able to act with complete disregard for any official repercussions while in Port Roseway. Another pirate captain, Bartholomew Roberts, had acted in a similarly brazen fashion two years prior when he had captured dozens of vessels in the Newfoundland harbor of Trepassey. The Royal Navy historically had been unwilling to spend resources on protecting the hundreds of vessels that fished the Grand Banks, and there was little by the way of official authority, let alone military authority, in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland. While the situation had improved a little from 1720 to 1722, there were still only three Royal Navy ships present on the Grand Banks during Low’s sojourn there: HMS Solebay, Panther, and Falmouth. Any of the three would have been more than capable of stopping Low in his tracks, but they simply were spread too thinly.

Low did come close to capture in late June as he approached St. John’s, Newfoundland, in a heavy fog. The Fancy’s lookout saw a large vessel lying at anchor in the harbor. Low concluded it was a merchant ship resupplying the fishing fleets. Low’s men were ecstatic; “they looked upon [her] as a boon prize for them,” Ashton later would recall in his memoirs.

Low decided that trickery would be a better strategy than brute force. He concealed most of his crew when approaching the harbor. When he came within hailing distance, he identified himself as a humble fisherman and asked the mystery ship her purpose. He received the reply that she was a Royal Navy man-of-war on patrol duty. Low panicked, aborted his approach, and ran away as quickly as possible. Another chance to apprehend Low had been squandered.

A Larcenous Escape Artist

Low escaped the Grand Banks unharmed and set course across the Atlantic, arriving in the Azores before sailing for the Cape Verde Islands. Everywhere he went, he claimed prizes and slipped away before the local authorities could react. Rather than chasing Low, the Portuguese administration on St. Michael in the Azores took out its frustrations instead on a small group of former captives who had escaped from Low and sought refuge on the island. These innocent men were accused of piracy and spent months in horrible conditions in the dungeons of the Forte de São Brás.

Low reached the coast of Africa then sailed back across the Atlantic, arriving in the Caribbean by the end of 1722. Running low on water, he made for the French colony of Grenada. Wary of the newly built Fort Royal guarding the mouth of the harbor, Low approached Grenada disguised as a merchant. While most of his pirates hid below, representatives of the French governor Jean Balthazard du Houx came aboard to inspect the Fancy. The authorities did not suspect Low of being a pirate, but they did believe him to be a smuggler. Rather than confront and arrest him, they decided to seize his ship. While Low was overseeing the refilling of the Fancy’s water casks, they secretly equipped a sloop-of-war with 30 armed men. The plan was to overwhelm then impound the sparsely crewed suspected smuggler.

The plan would have worked—had it not been for the 90 or so pirates hiding belowdecks in the Fancy. As soon as Low spotted the trap he called his men on deck, and they captured the French attackers. Low, now with his water casks filled and protected by 30 hostages, sailed out of the harbor right under the guns of Fort Royal while its commander no doubt gnashed his teeth but did not open fire.

Less than two months after his escape in Grenada, Low came close to capture again, this time on a crossing between Cartagena and Porto Bello. At this point in his career, he commanded two main ships, the Ranger and the Fancy, and well more than 100 pirates. During the crossing to Porto Bello, the lookout notified Low of two sails approaching on the horizon. Low assumed that both were merchant vessels and eagerly set off in pursuit.

Only when he drew closer to his prey did he realize that he had made the same miscalculation as at St. John’s. The two ships were in fact a heavily armed slaver and HMS Mermaid, a 50-gun fourth-rate ship-of-the-line.

Realizing he was being stalked by pirates, the commander of the Mermaid, Digby Dent, set off in pursuit. Low, commanding the Fancy, instructed his lieutenant Francis Spriggs on board the Ranger to split off and run out to sea. Captain Dent made a split-second decision and set off in pursuit of Low in the Fancy, leaving the armed slaver to run down the Ranger. Unfortunately, Low knew the coastline better than Dent. He tricked the Mermaid into a game of cat and mouse until the larger ship ran aground on the shoals. Low slipped away again.

Meanwhile, the captain of the slaver had not reacted at all, unwilling to risk his ship in a fight with the Ranger.

Spiraling Out of Control

Low had made another narrow escape, but his luck could not last forever. At dawn on 10 June 1723, Low was in Delaware Bay on board his new flagship, the Fortune, in company with his new lieutenant, Charles Harris, in command of the smaller Ranger. In the faint light, Low spotted the silhouette of a vessel on the horizon. As he had done dozens of times before, he ordered his crew to set off in pursuit of what he believed to be a harmless merchant. There was little wind in the bay, and as the sun rose, the Fortune and Ranger only slowly closed the gap with their prey.

If any of the pirates had felt misgivings, they did not influence Low. He doggedly pursued the unknown vessel that by now had turned about and made a great show of fleeing the approaching pirates. Around 0800 the pirate vessels fired warning shots and hoisted their black flags, signaling to their fleeing prey that they demanded immediate surrender. The pursued vessel made no move to surrender, so after half an hour, Low ordered the black flags flying from the mastheads of the Fortune and the Ranger to be replaced with blood-red banners—indicating that the fleeing crew could now no longer expect any quarter or mercy.

As Harris’s sloop Ranger moved within boarding distance of the fleeing vessel, Low ordered a few guns fired directly at her. To the shock of both Low and Harris, however, the fleeing vessel suddenly threw all its gunports wide open, ran up British ensigns, and fired a deadly broadside directly into the Ranger. The weight of shot at point-blank range made the pirate vessel shudder.

Low immediately turned the Fortune around, realizing that, once again, he had misidentified a vessel. They had not been chasing a harmless merchant, but the brand-new Royal Navy sixth-rate HMS Greyhound, commanded by a wily young officer named Peter Solgard. The Royal Navy finally had decided to respond to the complaints about pirates from colonial authorities such as Governor Cranston, and Solgard had been gathering intelligence on Ned Low and his crew for weeks.

His trap worked beautifully. The only slight wrinkle in the plan was that he could not chase after both the Fortune and Ranger at the same time. In the end, he chose to board the Ranger, which was more heavily damaged. After a short fight, Harris and his pirates surrendered. They were taken to Newport, Rhode Island, where most of them faced the noose before the month was out.

Low escaped by the skin of his teeth, but the close call caused him to unravel even further. His cruelty spiraled, placing stress on the relationship between the captain and his crew. In the early months of 1724, a vote was taken and Low was replaced as captain. He was allowed to leave the crew in peace and even given a small sloop. But when he asked who would follow him, only two out of the nearly 100-man crew volunteered.

Whereabouts Unknown

Ned Low’s final escape was, in many ways, his most audacious. He surfaced again in 1726, two years after his dismissal, and was sighted in the Bay of Honduras by the Royal Navy ship HMS Diamond. Yet again, he escaped their clutches, even though he was sailing a simple dugout canoe, and slipped into the jungle. Speculation was rife that he was murdered by members of the indigenous Miskito nation.

A single newspaper article from the Boston Evening Post published in March 1740, however, contained a fascinating alternative story. In describing the sack of the Spanish fort at Porto Bello in 1739, the writer claims to have spotted him: “The famous Ned Low, formerly well known here for his piracies on this coast and in the West Indies, was gunner of one of the Spanish forts.”

Could it really be that Low’s final escape saw him not just avoid the rope but actually be accepted—presumably under an assumed identity—into the service of the Spanish Crown? Sadly, there are no corroborating witness accounts, so the truth likely will never be known.

But if this were the case, then it was simply the last in a long line of daring escapes caused directly or indirectly by hesitation, unwillingness, or simple incompetence on the part of the authorities—British, Portuguese, French, and Spanish—of whom Ned Low ran afoul. And those recurrent and daring escapes of his were helped as well, of course, by a healthy dose of luck.