Walter Kennedy (pirate)
Encyclopedia
Howell Davis
Captain Howell Davis was a Welsh pirate. His piratical career lasted just 11 months, from July 11, 1718 to June 19, 1719, when he was ambushed and killed. His ships were the Cadogan, Buck, Saint James, and Rover...
and Bartholomew Roberts
Bartholomew Roberts
Bartholomew Roberts , born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate who raided ships off America and West Africa between 1719 and 1722. He was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy. He is estimated to have captured over 470 vessels...
.
Kennedy served in the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
during the War of Spanish Succession, where he heard tales of pirates from Henry Morgan
Henry Morgan
Admiral Sir Henry Morgan was an Admiral of the Royal Navy, a privateer, and a pirate who made a name for himself during activities in the Caribbean, primarily raiding Spanish settlements...
to Henry Every
Henry Every
Henry Every, also Avery or Avary, , sometimes given as John Avery, was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the mid-1690s. He likely used several aliases throughout his career, including Benjamin Bridgeman, and was known as Long Ben to his crewmen and associates...
, and dreamed of becoming a pirate himself. He was a crew member on the sloop-of-war
Sloop-of-war
In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...
Buck, part of the fleet that Woodes Rogers
Woodes Rogers
Woodes Rogers was an English sea captain, privateer, and, later, the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas. He is known as the captain of the vessel that rescued the marooned Alexander Selkirk, whose plight is generally believed to have inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.Rogers came from an...
took to the Bahamas
The Bahamas
The Bahamas , officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a nation consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets . It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola , northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States...
in 1718 to suppress piracy there. Woodes sent the Buck to Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
with a letter for the Spanish governor assuring that official that he was not a pirate, but was in Nassau to suppress piracy. Some recently pardoned pirates were added to the crew of the Buck, and before it reached Havana they, along with some of the original crew, including Kennedy, mutinied, killing the captain, Jonathan Bass, and other crew members who did not join the mutiny.
Howell Davis, another mutineer, was elected captain. Kennedy was with Davis on the island of Principe
Príncipe
Príncipe is the northern and smaller of the two major islands of the country of São Tomé and Príncipe lying off the west coast of Africa. It has an area of 136 km² and a population of approximately 5,000. The island is a heavily eroded volcano over three million years old, surrounded by other...
when his party was ambushed by the Portuguese. He was the only member of the shore party to escape back to the ship alive. With Davis dead, Bartholomew Roberts was elected as his successor. When Roberts and forty of the crew chased a possible prize in a captured sloop off the coast of Surinam, Kennedy was left in charge of Roberts' ship, the Royal Rover, and a large part of its crew. He took advantage of this to abandon Roberts and proclaim himself captain.
Kennedy headed for Ireland, but having no skill in navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
landed on the north-west coast of Scotland instead. Seventeen of the crew were arrested near Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
and put on trial for piracy, with nine of them being hanged. Kennedy himself was able to reach London where he is said to have kept a brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
in the Deptford Road. When one of his prostitutes accused him of theft, he was sent to the Bridewell Prison, where he was denounced as a pirate by the mate of a ship he had taken. Kennedy was transferred to the Marshalsea
Marshalsea
The Marshalsea was a prison on the south bank of the River Thames in Southwark, now part of London. From the 14th century until it closed in 1842, it housed men under court martial for crimes at sea, including those accused of "unnatural crimes", political figures and intellectuals accused of...
prison and put on trial for piracy. He was hanged at Execution Dock on July 21, 1721.