Charles Vane (c. 1680 - March 29, 1720), was an English pirate who preyed upon English and French shipping. Events 1461 - Wars of the Roses: Battle of Towton - Edward of York defeats Queen Margaret to become King Year 1720 ( MDCCXX) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year starting His pirate career lasted from 1716 - 20. His flagship was a brigantine named the Ranger. In Sailing, a brigantine is a vessel with two masts only the forward of which is Square rigged Originally the brigantine was a small ship carrying both oars and His death was by hanging at Gallows Point, Port Royal, Jamaica. Port Royal, Jamaica was the centre of Shipping Commerce in the Islands of the Greater Antilles which make up the northeastern

Vane was among the pirate captains who established a notorious base at New Providence in the Bahamas after the British abandoned the colony in 1713. New Providence is the most populous island in the Bahamas. While the first European visitors to the Bahama Islands were Bermudian salt rakers gathering The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an independent sovereign English -speaking country consisting of two thousand Cays and When threatened there in August 1718 by Governor Woodes Rogers and two Royal Navy ships, Vane alone resisted them, driving the men-of-war back with a captured French fireship. Woodes Rogers (ca 1679 &ndash 16 July 1732 Nassau Bahamas) was an English Privateer and later the first royal governor of the Bahamas. Vane then escaped in his fast six-gun sloop, the Ranger, defiantly firing on the governor as he passed and threatening to return.

Downfall

He was despised for his cruelty. He also showed scant respect for the pirate code, cheating his own crews out of their fair share of plunder. A pirate code is a Code of conduct invented for governing Pirates.

Vane subsequently traded up ships by capturing first a Barbados sloop and then a large 12-gun brigantine, which he also renamed the Ranger. He evaded his Royal pursuers and in October 1718 even enjoyed a week-long celebration at Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, with Blackbeard and his crew. Ocracoke is a Census-designated place (CDP and unincorporated town located at the southern end of Ocracoke Island, in Hyde County, North Carolina North Carolina ( is a state located on the Atlantic Seaboard in the southeastern United States Edward Teach (tɛtʃ c 1680 – November 22, 1718) better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English Pirate in the Caribbean

Vane then cruised north to New York, seizing yet more vessels, before turning south towards the Caribbean, only for his crew to vote him out of his captaincy for cowardice after failing to engage a larger French warship. Replaced by his quartermaster Calico Jack Rackham, he was cast adrift in a small sloop. Quartermaster refers to two different military occupations In land armies it is a term referring to a military individual or unit who specializes in supplying and provisioning troops John Rackham ( December 21, 1682 – November 18, 1720 in Jamaica) also known as Calico Jack Rackham or Calico Subsequently he set about clawing his way back up the pirate ranks by seizing ever larger ships.

Vane's final blow came after his ship was wrecked in a storm in February 1719 and he and one other survivor were washed up on an uninhabited island in the Bay of Honduras. The Gulf or Bay of Honduras is a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea, indenting the coasts of Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. A ship eventually arrived, months later, but Vane was recognized and both men were clapped in irons, taken to Jamaica, and there tried and hanged. He died without expressing the least remorse for his crimes.

References

• Menefee, S. P. "Vane, Charles," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 56 (2004): pp. 94-95.
• Pickering, David. Pirates. CollinsGem. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY. (2006):p-75.

External links

• http://www.kipar.org/piratical-resources/pirate-fame.html

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