''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 alias ...

between May 1694 to late 1695.

History

''Fancy'' was initially a 46-gun

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

named ''Charles II'' – after

Charles II of Spain Charles II of Spain (''Spanish: Carlos II,'' 6 November 1661 – 1 November 1700), known as the Bewitched (''Spanish: El Hechizado''), was the last Habsburg ruler of the Spanish Empire. Best remembered for his physical disabilities and the War ...

– in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

service, commanded by a Captain Gibson, and was anchored at

A Coruña A Coruña (; es, La Coruña ; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. A Coruña is the most populated city in Galicia and the second most populated municipality in the autonomous community and ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

. 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 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 ...

. 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 northw ...

, 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''

razee A razee or razée is a sailing ship that has been cut down (''razeed'') to reduce the number of decks. The word is derived from the French ''vaisseau rasé'', meaning a razed (in the sense of shaved down) ship. Seventeenth century During the ...

d, 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 The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

, 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 Thomas Tew (died September 1695), also known as the Rhode Island Pirate, was a 17th-century English privateer-turned-pirate. He embarked on two major pirate voyages and met a bloody death on the second, and he pioneered the route which became kn ...

. Most notable in his captures was '' Ganj-i-Sawai'', a Mughal 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 The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archi ...

, 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 ...

''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 24 ...

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