Royal Fortune · The Flying Gang

Royal Fortune was less a single ship than a name — one Bartholomew Roberts carried with him from prize to prize. Like several successful captains he traded up whenever a better vessel came within reach, giving his current flagship the same name each time. Over three years there were at least four Royal Fortunes, each larger and better armed than the last.

Trading up

Roberts began with modest sloops and brigantines in the West Indies, but his ambitions ran to heavier ships that could stand and fight rather than merely run. He took French and English prizes off the Caribbean and Brazil, pierced them for additional guns, and shifted his flag aboard whichever carried the most metal. By the time he crossed to the African coast he commanded a squadron rather than a single ship.

The last Royal Fortune

The final and most famous Royal Fortune was a captured French vessel mounting around forty guns — a genuine warship, more than a match for most of the merchantmen and slavers she hunted along the Guinea coast in 1721 and 1722. From her deck Roberts took prizes almost at will, sometimes several in a single day, until the Royal Navy sent HMS Swallow under Captain Chaloner Ogle to find him.

Cape Lopez

On 10 February 1722, off Cape Lopez on the coast of present-day Gabon, Swallow approached the Royal Fortune disguised as a merchantman. Much of Roberts's crew were drunk on captured Madeira, and by the time they understood their danger the warship had already swung broadside. The first volley of grapeshot struck Roberts in the throat and killed him. His men, honoring his wish, weighted his body and cast it overboard before the boarders could reach the deck; then the Royal Fortune struck her colors.

The ship was taken into Cape Coast Castle, where fifty-two of her surviving crew were hanged — the largest mass execution of pirates in history, and the moment often taken to mark the end of the Golden Age.