Pirates & Privateers: Len Travers's Books

While on a shake-down cruise, HMS Greyhound patrols the waters south of Long Island. She is a sixth-rate warship under the command of Captain Peter Solgard, and he is getting a feel for his new crew. On 10 June 1723, the lookout spots two sloops. Aware that a notorious pirate is loose in these waters, Solgard attempts to trick the scoundrels into thinking his is a merchant ship. Edward Low and his men take the bait, but soon discover that this time there will be no prize and only some will escape with their lives.

The goal of this book is to sift through the old myths that surround Low to determine whether he really was as brutal and ruthless as he has been portrayed in various historical accounts, including newspapers and Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of Pyrates. The author feels that much of Low’s life has been based on rumors and gruesome imagination, so he reexamines and questions what we know about this pirate using unpublished primary source material found in the United Kingdom’s National Archives. He also evaluates “how British Crown authorities used the Royal Navy and new anti-piracy laws to reclaim a measure of authority over North American colonies that attained a worrisome degree of autonomy.” (xiv)

Black-and-white illustrations and quotations open each chapter. Maps and diagrams are also included, as are end notes, a bibliography, index, and four appendices (Low’s Articles of Agreement in 1723, Solgard’s report to the Admiralty, the prisoners Greyhound captured and what happened to them, and excerpts from a minister’s diary).

Travers begins with an examination of pirate history in the Americas, starting with the buccaneers, and shows how they went from being acceptable associates of colonists to criminals who needed to be brought to justice. The brunt of the book discusses Edward Low’s life and how even if he was a sadistic pirate, this was not how he began life or even his piratical career. Like much of pirate history, he evolved and changed. Born in the 1680s, Low eventually made his way to Boston where he got a job, married, and raised a family. Events in his life altered that reality and, in time, set him onto the irreversible path of piracy.

Travers offers readers a thought-provoking, riveting examination into the realities of piracy in colonial America and how the agendas of different people affected what appeared in print about Edward Low and his piracies. The author poses questions and evaluates what is and is not included in such contemporary accounts as Philip Ashton’s narrative of his time as one of Low’s captives. Those seeking a compelling look into the reality of one man’s descent into a criminal life and how the truth was sometimes manipulated to make him a poster child for evil should read The Notorious Edward Low.