Howell Davis

 

 

Howell Davis was a talented seaman who earned the respect of his pirate crew thanks to keen practical skills and a reputation for fair dealing, at least where his fellow pirates were concerned. A master of disguise, he preferred the use of trickery to firepower, but no amount of fast-talking could save him when his true identity was finally discovered.

 

 

Howell Davis was a Welsh pirate whose career lasted only 11 months, from July 1718 to June 1719. No matter how short-lived his piratical spree, Davis seems to have embraced a life of crime on the high seas with real enthusiasm. Davis was a clever and charming man who enjoyed a favourable reputation as a generous and humane person. He preferred to use trickery and disguise in order to achieve his aims rather than violence, but he was also impulsive, and tended to act first and think later, a weakness that would land him at the centre of one scrape after another.

Howell Davis was born in Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, Wales, sometime around the year 1690. He ran away to join the crew of a slaving ship – the Cadogan – at a very young age, and worked his way up to the position of first mate. In the summer of 1718, the Cadogan was attacked and captured by the Irish pirate Edward England off the West African coast. England shared Davis’ aversion to violence, and had a reputation for showing extraordinary mercy toward his captives. In fact, his crew eventually mutinied against him for refusing to kill captives from the ship the Cassandra, and he was marooned on Mauritius for his efforts, so it is doubtful that Davis was forced, on pain of death, to turn pirate. It is much more likely that Davis was impressed by England and welcomed the opportunity to participate in some adventure. He must have shown real skill, not to mention enthusiasm for this new life, because England gave him command of the Cadogan almost immediately, and they set sail for Brazil, where he planned to sell the ship.

The crew, it seemed, were not as enamoured with Davis’ style of leadership. They wanted to keep the ship and decided instead to sail for Barbados and dispose of their cargo, where they were captured and imprisoned on suspicion of piracy. Davis spent three months behind bars, but managed, somewhat surprisingly, to escape sentencing. We do not know whether this was due to lack of evidence, or personal charm, but in those lawless days a resounding lack of evidence rarely deterred the courts from convicting anyone of any crime they pleased, so one must conclude that Davis’ winning character had more to do with him regaining his freedom.

On release from prison Davis’ first destination was New Providence, in the Bahamas. However, he soon regretted this decision when he discovered that the new governor there, Woodes Rogers, had taken a staunchly anti-pirate stance and was in the process of clamping down. He chose instead to sail for the West Indies aboard the Buck, a sloop crewed by many of Rogers’ own men. Once at Martinique, Davis conspired with six other members of the crew and managed to raise a mutiny. Davis was promptly elected captain, and set about conducting piratical raids from a base in Coxon Hole, before crossing the Atlantic to terrorize shipping off the Cape Verde Islands. It was here that Davis stumbled upon and captured the ship that was to head-up his pirate fleet – the 26-gun Saint James.

Once in Cape Verde, Davis underwent something of a makeover. He began to dress as a dandy and to pose as an English privateer rather than a common-or-garden pirate, taking full advantage the local Portuguese governor’s generosity before setting sail for St Maio, where he plundered many ships and recruited many more men. It was under this guise that Davis and two of his trusty crew mates went to the Royal Africa’s Fort on the Gambia River, where the governor invited them to dinner. At the feast, their host was taken prisoner and relieved of £2,000 in gold.

Around this time Davis met and became closely associated with two other pirate captains. The first was Olivier La Bouche, a Frenchman who, like Davis, had also fled New Providence in the wake of Woodes Rogers political war on piracy. La Bouche first encountered Davis and his men whilst they were celebrating the sacking of the Fort at Gambia. Davis’ crew spotted a ship bearing down on them in full sail, and were hastily preparing to fight her when she ran up the black flag. On closer inspection the approaching ship proved to be a French pirate ship of 14 guns and 64 hands, half French in origin and half African. The two captains agreed to sail down the coast together, and when they arrived at Sierra Leone they came across a tall ship lying at anchor, which they attacked with a broadside. This ship also turned out to be a pirate ship, captained this time by an Englishman, Thomas Cocklyn, who was also in the process of escaping from New Providence. The three captains entered into an agreement to join forces and work the seas together, but the relationship proved to be booze-fuelled and tumultuous. They captured a West Africa-bound slave ship, the Bird Galley, at the mouth of Sierra Leone River, and celebrated their victory onboard for nearly an entire month before finally releasing her captain, William Snelgrave, giving him the Bristol Snow as well as any meagre cargo they had left following the crew’s occupation of the ship. The three captains’ working relationship came to an end when a drunken argument, over what to do next, put paid to any talk of further cooperation between them or their men.

When the pirate cooperative parted company, Davis seized four large English and Dutch ships loaded with gold, ivory and slaves. He exchanged the Buck for a 32-gun ship which he renamed the Rover, before successfully capturing three more British slave ships. It was on one of these ships that Davis met a young man named Bartholomew Roberts, who was to become known as the notorious Black Bart, scourge of the seven seas.

It seemed as if the career of Captain Davis was just hitting its stride, but then things took a turn for the worse. He and his crew sailed for Principe, a small island off the West coast of Africa, where he posed, not as a privateer, but as a pirate hunter, even going so far as to seize a French ship as it was coming into harbour because he claimed it had been trading with pirates. Davis had hatched a plan to kidnap the Portuguese governor of the Island, and was on his way to dine with him when the governor’s guards, who must somehow have figured out his real identity, ambushed and killed him. Davis was able to draw his pistols and kill two of his attackers as he bled to death, but that was not enough for his crew. They wanted real revenge and under the leadership of his prodigy, Bartholomew Roberts, they burnt the Governor’s fort and shelled the town in retaliation. Proving that Howell Davis was a tremendously well-liked pirate captain, a man who managed to command a great deal of loyalty from his men even in death.