Thomas Henley (pirate)

Thomas Henley (fl. 1683-1685) was a pirate and privateer active in the Red Sea and the Caribbean.

History

Henley set out from Boston in 1683 alongside Christopher Goffe and Thomas Woolerly (or Wollervy), sailing for the Red Sea to plunder Arab ships off the Malabar coast.[1] Some of Henley’s crew left his ship while in the Indian Ocean, sailing back to the Caribbean and then to New England with Woolerly. They were tried for piracy (which they openly admitted) but were acquitted for lack of evidence and witnesses, and were allowed to keep their treasure.[2]

By 1684 he was back in the Caribbean, where buccaneer and privateer Bartholomew Sharp captured him and took his 18-gun, 100-man frigate Resolution, renaming it Josiah.[3] Henley’s ship was formerly called Baldivia when Henley captured it from the Spanish. Sharp was accused of piracy for taking Henley’s ship without presenting it to an Admiralty Court for confirmation, but he was acquitted.[4]

The following year Henley and Goffe put in at Bermuda in possession of a Dutch prize ship, taken on a privateering commission from Governor Lilburne of the Bahamas. Bermudan Governor Coney imprisoned Henley and tried to seize the ship, but everyone from the local militia leaders to the sheriff to the Governor’s own Council members resisted prosecuting Henley and Coney was forced to release him.[5] Coney lamented that “it is the intention of the people to make this island a pirates’ refuge.”[5] Henley was afterwards pronounced a pirate by the government of Jamaica, and warned Cony that more pirates were coming.[5] There are few records of his subsequent activities.

See also
  • Pirate Round – later name for the voyage from America to the coast of Africa, then to the Indian Ocean via Madagascar, a route refined by pirate Thomas Tew.

References
  1. Gosse, Philip (1924). The Pirates' Who's Who by Philip Gosse. New York: Burt Franklin. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  2. Dow, George Francis; Edmonds, John Henry (1923). The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630-1730. New York: Courier Corporation. p. 30. ISBN 9780486290645.
  3. Little, Benerson (2010). How History's Greatest Pirates Pillaged, Plundered, and Got Away With It: The Stories, Techniques, and Tactics of the Most Feared Sea Rovers from 1500-1800. Beverly MA: Fair Winds Press. p. 136. ISBN 9781610595001. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
  4. Little, Benerson (2007). The Buccaneer's Realm: Pirate Life on the Spanish Main, 1674-1688. Dulles VA: Potomac Books, Inc. ISBN 9781612343617. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
  5. Fortescue, J. W. (1899). Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series ...: Preserved in the Public Record Office. London: Great Britain Public Record Office. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
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