7 - Henry Glasby: Atypical Pirate or a Typical Pirate?

Summary

Abstract The pirates of the early eighteenth century fascinated their contemporaries and continue to enthral generations. Historical studies of pirates have prioritised the same influential rogues’ gallery, but we rarely examine the lived experience of the thousands of pirates who avoided notoriety. This chapter seeks to reassess the “Golden Age” of piracy (1716–1726) through the career of Henry Glasby. Glasby's tenure as a pirate saw him progress from captive prisoner, to elected officer, to turncoat who served King's evidence. Although men like his commander, Bartholomew Roberts, are seen as emblematic of pirate life, Glasby's trajectory offers a contrasting portrait. Glasby's time aboard reveals a crew riven by division, ambivalence, and hierarchy. His dramatic exit from piracy illustrates that his experience was common.

Keywords: Atlantic; Authority; Desertion; Eighteenth Century; Golden Age; Piracy; Social dynamics

In the summer of 1720, Henry Glasby was the chief mate of the Samuel, a merchant vessel bound from London to Boston. On this particular voyage, however, Glasby's path crossed with that of one of the most prolific pirates of the early eighteenth century, Bartholomew Roberts. Forced aboard the pirates’ vessel, Glasby spent the next eighteen months with Roberts’ crew. Glasby's experience of piracy was fraught with ambivalence, conflict, and deception. After his forcible integration into the crew, Glasby eventually rose to become the master of Roberts’ flagship the Royal Fortune. During that same time, however, he made several concerted efforts to desert, plotted with prisoners to escape, and harboured deep misgivings about his involvement in piracy. In the critical moments after Roberts’ death in battle, Glasby emerged as a crucial leader within the crew, orchestrating a coup to surrender the vessel peacefully. After being acquitted at trial, Glasby went on to serve as the key witness in the trial of scores of his former ship mates, proceedings that revealed the hidden inner workings of the crew he had lived and worked in for well over a year.

Henry Glasby was a relatively unknown and unimportant figure in comparison to his commander. Bartholomew Roberts’ open embrace of criminality, his spectacular run of successful attacks, and his violent, defiant death have made him an emblematic figure of early eighteenth-century piracy.