The Pirate Captain Ned Low

His Life & Mysterious Fate

Nicky Nielsen

• Publisher: Pen and Sword History
• Year: 2022
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781399094320
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Edward 'Ned' Low's career in piracy began with a single gunshot. While working on a logging ship in the Bay of Honduras the quick-tempered Ned was provoked by the ship's captain. He responded by grabbing a musket and inciting a mutiny. Then the London-born sailor and a dozen of his crewmates held a council, stitched a black flag and voted to make war against the whole world preying on ships from any nation, flying any flag. Low's name became synonymous with brutality and torture during the 1720s as he cut a swathe of destruction from the shores of Nova Scotia to the Azores, the coast of Africa and throughout the Caribbean. Ned Low's life was one of failed redemption: a thief from childhood who briefly rose in the world after moving to America, only to fall again lower and harder than before. He was feared even by his own crew, and during his life on the wrong side of the law he became infamous for his extreme violence, fatalistic behaviour, and became perhaps one of the best examples of why pirates were classed in Admiralty Law as hostis humani generis: the common enemies of all mankind.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Sources
• Prologue
• Chapter 1 Slavers, Baymen and Buccaneers
• Chapter 2 A Thief from Horseferry
• Chapter 3 The Parting Glass
• Chapter 4 Trouble in Port Roseway
• Chapter 5 Across the Atlantic and Back Again
• Chapter 6 The Marooning of Philip Ashton
• Chapter 7 HMS Greyhound
• Chapter 8 Hanged by the Neck
• Chapter 9 A Vanishing Trick
• Epilogue: The Treasure of Isle Haute
• Members of Ned Low’s Crew Captured by HMS Greyhound
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Plate Section