[Rarebooks] fa: 1687 London Gazette CAPTURE OF THE PIRATE JOSEPH BANNISTER + WEST NEW JERSEY &c.

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 17. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/mnokg2h

Thanks for looking,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

The London Gazette. [London:] Printed by Tho. Newcomb in the Savoy, 1687. One sheet, small folio, (19 x 8 cm.), printed on both sides. Some faint spotting in the margins, light wear and pinholes to the left edge.

Contains the first official announcement, datelined Port-Royal in Jamaica, Feb. 9, of the capture of "one Banister a notorious Pyrat." Captain Joseph Bannister, an English merchantman turned buccaneer, has the distinction of winning one of history's rare pirate victories in an engagement with the Royal Navy. In 1686, while careening his ship the Golden Fleece on the coast of Hispaniola, Bannister was surprised and attacked by two British warships, the Drake and the Falcon. After a ferocious firefight, the navy ships were forced to retire with twenty-three crewmen dead or wounded. On another occasion, while being held over for trial in Port Royal, Bannister made a daring nighttime escape, sailing the Golden Fleece past the harbor's guns before they could be brought to bear. In 1687, however, the pirate's luck ran out. As the notice here explains, he was captured by "Capt. Sprag [Spragg], Commander of the Drake Frigat" who then sailed into Port-Royal harbor "with Banister and three other of his Consorts hanging at the Yard-Arm, a spectacle which gave great satisfaction to the Planters and Merchants of this Island."

This issue also contains a notice that "Ten hundred Parts or Proprieties of that Tract of Land in America called West New-Jersey" will be "Exposed to Sale by the Candle" [i.e., auctioned] by "the Assignees of the Statute of Bankrupt against John Hinde… at the Barbadoes Coffee-house in Exchange Alley… upon Wednesday the first of June next…"

Other features include "the humble Address" of the Independents and Baptists of Glocester (which concludes optimistically if not very presciently, "Long Live and Reign King James the Just"); news bulletins from Leghorn, Rome, Venice, Vienna, etc., many dealing with events related to the Russo-Turkish War; advertisements for runaway apprentices, lost or stolen horses; etc.

The London Gazette, founded in 1665 during the reign of Charles II and still "published by Authority" today, is the official journal of record of the British government and the oldest continuously published newspaper in the U.K.