Benjamin Hornigold seize other vessels with impunity. Hornigold's second-in-command during this period was Edward Teach, who would later be better known as the pirate Blackbeard. When Hornigold took command of the "Ranger", he delegated the captaincy of his earlier sloop to Teach. In the spring of 1717 the two pirate captains seized three merchant ships in quick succession, one carrying 120 barrels of flour bound for Havana, another a Bermudian sloop with a cargo of spirits and the third a Portuguese ship travelling from Madeira with a cargo of white wine. In March 1717, Hornigold attacked an armed merchant vessel sent to
John Russell (pirate) John Russell (pirate) John Russell (fl 1722-1723) was a pirate active from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean to the African coast. He is best known for his association with Edward Low and Francis Spriggs, and for his involvement with two well-known and well-documented maroonings. Most commonly known as Englishman “John Russell”, his real name may have been Juan or John Lopez; he was in reality a Portuguese Catholic. Like a number of other pirates of the Golden Age, he was a Jacobite who professed support for England’s ousted Catholic King James II over his Protestant successors. Various sources paint him