''Fancy'' was a 46-gun frigate commanded by pirate

Henry Every Henry Every, also known as Henry Avery (20 August 1659after 1696), sometimes erroneously given as Jack Avery or John Avery, was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the mid-1690s. He probably used several aliases ...

between May 1694 to late 1695.

History

''Fancy'' was initially a 46-gun privateer named ''Charles II'' – after Charles II of Spain – in Spanish service, commanded by a Captain Gibson, and was anchored at A Coruña, Spain. On 7 May

1694 Events January–March * January 16 – Francesco Morosini, the Doge of Venice since 1688, dies after ruling the Republic for more than five years and a few months after an unsuccessful attempt to capture the island of Negropont from the ...

and a few other conspirators organised and carried out a successful

mutiny Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military, of a crew or of a crew of pirates) to oppose, change, or overthrow an organization to which they were previously loyal. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among member ...

and, setting Captain Gibson ashore, left A Coruña for the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

. At this time, ''Charles II'' was renamed ''Fancy''. Upon arriving at the Cape, Every sailed to the island of Johanna (Anjouan) in the

Comoros Islands The Comoro Islands or Comoros (Shikomori ''Komori''; ar, جزر القمر , ''Juzur al-qamar''; french: Les Comores) form an archipelago of volcanic islands situated off the southeastern coast of Africa, to the east of Mozambique and northwe ...

, where he had ''Fancy'' careened – removing barnacles and weed from the section of the hull that was permanently below water, increasing her speed. He also had ''Fancy'' razeed, intentionally removing parts of the ship's

superstructure A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships. Aboard ships and large boats On water craft, the superstruct ...

in order to increase her speed. Following this work, ''Fancy'' became one of the fastest ships active in the Indian Ocean, and Every used this speed to attack and take a French pirate ship, looting the vessel and recruiting approximately 40 of the crew to his own ship, leaving him with a total complement of around 150. Flag_of_Henry_Every_red

Every continued to be active in the Indian Ocean where he worked alongside other famous pirates of his time, including Thomas Tew. Most notable in his captures was '' Ganj-i-Sawai'', a

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

ship under the command of Ibrahim Khan during Emperor

Aurangzeb Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...

's era. Since the Ganj-I-Sawai was mounting 62 cannons and had four to five hundred musket-armed guards, cannon fire from ''Fancy'' was instrumental in Every's victory – the first salvo caused a cannon in the Ganj-I-Siwai to explode, and a number of gunners from the Ganj-I-Siwai were killed. Every's career ended when the crew returned to Nassau in April 1696, in the Bahamas, where Every returned to Britain aboard the

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

''Sea Flower'', arriving in Ireland in June 1696, where he promptly disappeared. Although the fate of ''Fancy'' is unknown, it was rumored that Every gave her to the governor of Nassau as a bribe. There is supporting documentary evidence that the ''Fancy'' was run aground on

New Providence New Providence is the most populous island in the Bahamas, containing more than 70% of the total population. It is the location of the national capital city of Nassau, whose boundaries are coincident with the island; it had a population of 246 ...

and Governor Trott had the guns and everything of value stripped.E. T. Fox (2008) King of the Pirates, The Swashbuckling Life of Henry Every, page 109

References

Sources

* FOX, E.T., King of the Pirates: The Swashbuckling Life of Henry Every, The History press, Stroud, Glos. 2008,

History

References

Sources

Further reading