Abstract
Documents from UK archives and surviving contemporary journalism provide a wealth of detail (some of it long overlooked) about the 1723 piracy trial of English army officer John Massey. He, along with mutineer George Lowther, ran away in 1721 with the well-armed Royal African Company ship Gambia Castle and went on a short piratical cruise in the Caribbean. The documents and articles shed light not only on Massey, who would be hanged for his crimes, and the taking of the Gambia Castle itself, but also on Lowther and the pirate outfit which the pair spawned, strands of which remained active into the mid-1720s.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.