Ward, John [called Issouf Reis, Captain Wardiyya] (c.15531623?), pirate, was said to have been a fisherman at Faversham, Kent, perhaps (from an informant's estimate of his age as fifty-five in 1608) born about 1553. He was later at Plymouth, where he joined the Royal Navy, and may have been on privateering voyages to the West Indies. Apparently he served as a petty officer on the Lion's Whelp, built in 1601. His career of piracy seems to have begun in 1603 with an abortive attempt to seize the considerable wealth a recusant was reported to be carrying over to France. More successfully, he captured a large French ship (renamed the Little John). During 1604 Ward succeeded Edward Fall as leader of this pirate band, and after putting into Cawsand Bay on the coast of Cornwall to recruit more crew, he sailed for the Mediterranean, plundering as he went.
Arriving off Algiers, Ward received a hostile reception and so continued east, in December taking prizes at the mouth of the Adriatic. In 1605 he was at Salé, a nest of corsairs on Morocco's Atlantic shore, but by mid-1606 he had adopted Tunis as his base, commanding a 28-gun ship and other vessels with crews numbering 500. He was thus one of those European renegades who introduced the Barbary corsairs to the advantages for piracy of the berton or heavily armed square-rigged ship from northern waters. Later in 1606, accompanied by a pinnace of 50 tons, he cruised the eastern Mediterranean in a Flemish flyboat of 200 tons aptly named the Gift, manned not only by English, Dutch, and Spanish Christians but also by Turks. On this cruise he made his fortune by the capture of the Rubin, a Venetian argosy of 300 tons from Alexandria with a cargo of pepper, indigo, flax, and 3000 pieces of gold. Ward then fitted her out as a man-of-war, used some of his new wealth to redeem and recruit seamen from the prisons of Tunis, and put to sea again. In April 1607 he captured a second Venetian argosy, the Reniera e Soderina, ship and cargo being reputedly worth one hundred times a thousand pounds (Ewen, 56) and then in June took a third. Ward sold the cargoes to Osman Bey, commander of the janizaries and de facto ruler of Tunis, turned the Soderina into a berton mounting sixty guns, and with a crew of 250 Turks and 150 Englishmen joined at least five other Dutch corsairs. Over-gunned, top-heavy, slow, and with rotting timbers, the Soderina proved impractical as a warship. Ward transferred to a captured prize, leaving the Soderina to founder and her crew to drown off Cerigo early in 1608. Despite other reverses Ward was in both the eastern and western basins of the Mediterranean that year, capturing a Venetian galleon off the Peloponnese in March and bringing prizes into Algiers later in the year.
A description of Ward at this time records that he was: very short, with little hair, and that quite white, bald in front; swarthy face and beard. Speaks little, and almost always swearing. Drunk from morn till night. Most prodigal and plucky. Sleeps a great deal, and often on board when in port. The habits of a thorough salt. A fool and an idiot out of his trade. (Ewen, 8) Nevertheless about this time he was negotiating to retire to Tuscany with a fortune of 150,000 crowns.
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Date: 2017-04-01 11:59 pm (UTC)Arriving off Algiers, Ward received a hostile reception and so continued east, in December taking prizes at the mouth of the Adriatic. In 1605 he was at Salé, a nest of corsairs on Morocco's Atlantic shore, but by mid-1606 he had adopted Tunis as his base, commanding a 28-gun ship and other vessels with crews numbering 500. He was thus one of those European renegades who introduced the Barbary corsairs to the advantages for piracy of the berton or heavily armed square-rigged ship from northern waters. Later in 1606, accompanied by a pinnace of 50 tons, he cruised the eastern Mediterranean in a Flemish flyboat of 200 tons aptly named the Gift, manned not only by English, Dutch, and Spanish Christians but also by Turks. On this cruise he made his fortune by the capture of the Rubin, a Venetian argosy of 300 tons from Alexandria with a cargo of pepper, indigo, flax, and 3000 pieces of gold. Ward then fitted her out as a man-of-war, used some of his new wealth to redeem and recruit seamen from the prisons of Tunis, and put to sea again. In April 1607 he captured a second Venetian argosy, the Reniera e Soderina, ship and cargo being reputedly worth one hundred times a thousand pounds (Ewen, 56) and then in June took a third. Ward sold the cargoes to Osman Bey, commander of the janizaries and de facto ruler of Tunis, turned the Soderina into a berton mounting sixty guns, and with a crew of 250 Turks and 150 Englishmen joined at least five other Dutch corsairs. Over-gunned, top-heavy, slow, and with rotting timbers, the Soderina proved impractical as a warship. Ward transferred to a captured prize, leaving the Soderina to founder and her crew to drown off Cerigo early in 1608. Despite other reverses Ward was in both the eastern and western basins of the Mediterranean that year, capturing a Venetian galleon off the Peloponnese in March and bringing prizes into Algiers later in the year.
A description of Ward at this time records that he was:
very short, with little hair, and that quite white, bald in front; swarthy face and beard. Speaks little, and almost always swearing. Drunk from morn till night. Most prodigal and plucky. Sleeps a great deal, and often on board when in port. The habits of a thorough salt. A fool and an idiot out of his trade. (Ewen, 8)
Nevertheless about this time he was negotiating to retire to Tuscany with a fortune of 150,000 crowns.