Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Captain Johnson sparks a media storm
- 2 The day pirates attacked the Morning Star
- 3 A pirate bargain – women and sexual violence at sea
- 4 Pirates of the 1820s
- 5 On the Defensor de Pedro
- 6 Cashing in
- 7 The pirates on trial
- 8 The pirates who came next
- Epilogue
- Select bibliography
- Index
1 - Captain Johnson sparks a media storm
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Captain Johnson sparks a media storm
- 2 The day pirates attacked the Morning Star
- 3 A pirate bargain – women and sexual violence at sea
- 4 Pirates of the 1820s
- 5 On the Defensor de Pedro
- 6 Cashing in
- 7 The pirates on trial
- 8 The pirates who came next
- Epilogue
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Captain Magnus Johnson held news in his hand so distressing there was not a second to lose. It was Saturday, 12 April 1828 and his ship Guildford had just docked in the southern English port of Deal. Instead of overseeing the removal of his cargo from China or walking down to the New Inn for a well-earned pint of ale, Captain Johnson leapt off his ship and rushed into town to find the local Lloyd's representative.
As soon as Johnson found the man and gave him his letter, it was quickly copied and sent to John Bennett, Secretary of the Lloyd's Committee in London. Alarmed, Bennett immediately sent a copy directly to John Wilson Croker, the Secretary of the Lords of Admiralty. This was the branch of the British government that oversaw the nation's maritime affairs. Croker quickly escalated the letter even higher to the Duke of Clarence, the Lord High Admiral and the King's brother. Meanwhile, the press picked up Johnson's news and it spread swiftly across the country. By the time the British brig Morning Star limped into Deal with its bedraggled crew and passengers a few days later, the whole of southern England knew what Captain Johnson had written in his letter: the ship and its passengers had survived a vicious attack by pirates in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Newspapers back then did not employ reporters. Instead, publishers compiled each edition haphazardly with a mixture of personal correspondence, government documents and transcripts, and material from other newspapers. This meant the first news articles about the Morning Star pirate attack published the contents of Captain Johnson's letter to Lloyd's almost verbatim. The power of twenty-first-century historical newspaper archival aggregators showed Captain Johnson's description of events attracted immediate attention of an extraordinary breadth. By 19 April, the story had reached Cornwall, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Cork. As more information from passengers and crew came to light, the Morning Star story spread through newspapers across the world. By the end of 1829, it had reached as far away as the penal colony of Hobart.
Like ghosts, zombies and magic, pirates were already a mainstay of popular culture in 1828. Yet unlike the others, pirates existed as a fantasy and a reality.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Atlantic Piracy in the Early Nineteenth CenturyThe Shocking Story of the Pirates and the Survivors of the Morning Star, pp. 1 - 21Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022