.

Of Bideford in Devonshire.

At first a pirate with Captain Davis, he afterwards joined Captain
Roberts's crew. Was tried for piracy at Cape Coast Castle in 1722, and
found guilty, but for some reason was reprieved and sold for seven years
to serve the Royal African Company on their plantations.

DERDRAKE, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ JACK OF THE BALTIC. A Danish pirate, of
Copenhagen.

When a carpenter in the King's Dockyard at Copenhagen he was dismissed for
drunkenness. After making a few voyages to London as a ship's carpenter,
his parents died and left their son a fortune of 10,000 rix-dollars. With
this money Derdrake built himself a fast sailing brig sheathed with
copper, and for a while traded in wood between Norway and London. Becoming
impatient of the smallness of the profits in this trade, he offered his
services and ship to Peter the Great. This monarch, as was his custom,
examined the ship in person, and, approving of her, bought her, and at the
same time appointed Derdrake to be a master shipwright in the royal
dockyards on the Neva. The carpenter, always a man of violent temper, one
day quarrelled with one of his superiors, seized an axe, and slew him. His
ship then happening to be in the roads, Derdrake hurried on board her and
made sail, and went off with the cargo, which he sold in London. Arming
his vessel with twelve guns, he sailed for Norway, but on the way he was
attacked by a big Russian man-of-war. The Russian was defeated and
surrendered, and Derdrake went into her in place of his own smaller ship,
giving his new craft the ominous name of the _Sudden Death_. With a fine,
well-armed ship and a crew of seventy desperadoes, one-half English, and
the rest Norwegian and Danish, he now definitely turned pirate. Lying in
wait for English and Russian ships carrying goods to Peter the Great, the
pirates took many valuable prizes, with cargoes consisting of fittings for
ships, arms, and warm woollen clothing. For these he found a ready market
in Sweden, where no questions were asked and "cash on delivery" was the
rule.

Derdrake drowned all his prisoners, and was one of the very few pirates,
other than those found in works of fiction, who forced his victims to
"walk the plank." Not long afterwards the pirates met with and fought an
armed Swedish vessel, which was defeated, but the captain and crew escaped
in the long-boat, and, getting to shore, spread the tidings of the
pirates' doings. On hearing the