John Morris (pirate)

John Morris (fl. 1663-1672) was a British within the Caribbean during early-1660s until the early-1670s. His son, John Morris the Younger, held a command of his own ship during his father's later expeditions against Portobello and Maracaibo. He was one of the commanders in an explosion during a party on-board Henry Morgan's flagship in 1670.

Serving with Admiral Christopher Myngs during his campaign against Spain the the West Indies during the early- 1660s, he would become associated with many future prominent privateers of the era and later bought four captured prizes from Myngs.

One of the early buccaneers participating in the expeditions against Spanish strongholds in Mexico and Nicaragua in late-1663 and early-1664, Morris sailed with Henry Morgan, David Marteen, Captain Jackman and Captain Freeman against Spanish strongholds in the Caribbean under privateering commissions granted by then governor Thomas Modyford.

Arriving off the coast of Mexico, Morris and the others anchored their ships at the mouth of the Grijalva River and proceeded to march 50 miles inland to the capital of the Tabasco Province, Villahermosa, taking the Spanish stronghold completely by surprise. Returning to the coast, the fleet had been captured by a Spanish patrol and, stealing two barques and four Indian canoes, Morris and the other sailed south looting a village before their arrival at present day Trujillo, Honduras. Sailing off with a ship anchored in the town harbor, they eventually hid the captured vessel at the mouth of the San Juan river and travelled nearly 100 miles upriver to Lake Nicaragua where they raided the city of Granada before returning to Port Royal, Jamaica in November 1665.

In 1670, he and Morgan encountered Portuguese pirate Manuel Rivero Pardel, who had long been raiding shipping under a letter of marque from Spain, and boarded his ship, "San Pedro y La Fama", while sailing off the northern coast of Cuba. Although many of his crew were killed by Morris's crew after jumping overboard in panic, Rivero managed to escape during the confusion but was soon killed by Morgan [http://www.privateerdragons.com/pirates_famous6.html] .

Morris would later serve under Morgan in his later raids against Portobelo, Maracaibo and Panama in January 1671, with himself and Lawrence Prince leading the assault. Upon their return to Port Royal following the Panama raid, newly appointed governor Sir Thomas Lynch arrested Morgan whose attack, although commissioned by former governor Thomas Modyford, had taken place following the recently signed peace treaty between England and Spain. Apparently not subject to arrest, Morris was given command of the frigate "Lilly" and commissioned as a pirate hunter with explicit instructions to arrest pirivateers who continued acts of piracy against Spain.

In January 1672, he left Port Royal with the "HMS Assistance" under Major William Beeston and sailed towards Havana in search of privateers. During the voyage, as described in Beeston's logbook, Morris was a skilled pilot who greatly assisted Beeston and other British Captain's unfamiliar with Caribbean waters. During the six-week voyage, the expedition successfully captured the sloop "Charity" under Captain Francis Weatherbourn and the "Mary" under Captain Du Mangles bringing back a total of forty three prisoners.

Further reading

*Earle, Peter. "The Pirate Wars". New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-33579-2
*Rogozinski, Jan. " pirates!: Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction, and Legend". New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. ISBN 0-306-80722-X
*Wood, Lawson. "Shipwrecks of the Cayman Islands". Essex, UK: AquaPress, 2004. ISBN 0-9544060-3-6

External links

* [http://www.kipar.org/piratical-resources/pirate-fame.html#John%20Morris%20(1) Famous Historical Pirates - John Morris]