Matthew Luke
Died1722
NationalityItalian
Other namesMateo Luque
OccupationPirate
Piratical career
Other namesMatteo Luca
Base of operationsCaribbean
CommandsVengeance

Matthew Luke (died 1722, occasionally named Mateo Luque or Matteo Luca[1]) was a pirate active in the Caribbean.

History

Luke, originally from Genoa, had been cruising the Caribbean under commission from the Spanish Governor of Puerto Rico as a guarda costa privateer. With his sloop Vengeance (or Venganza) he had earlier captured four English vessels and murdered their crews.[2] In April 1722 he spotted a merchant ship off of Hispaniola and moved alongside to attack it. The ship turned out to be Captain Candler’s 40-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Launceton (or Lauceston / Lanceston),[3] sent to the Caribbean to replace the scrapped HMS Ludlow Castle.[4]

Candler’s men boarded the Vengeance, whose sailors claimed she was a merchant trader. The paper wrap from a powder cartridge was determined to be a page from the journal of a snow named Crean, whose crew had been murdered.[5] In the ship’s hold they found the rest of the 58-man crew in hiding, all of which were arrested and returned to Port Royal.[6] The Launceton's logbooks note, "25 Apr 1722 - Cape Tiberon - captured boat from Puerto Rico with hiding crew."[7] The crewmen were tried and shown to be pirates, one of whom confessed to killing twenty English men with his bare hands.[5] Despite Spanish objections that the vessel had a legitimate privateering commission,[6] over forty of the pirates were hanged.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ Travers, Tim (2012). Pirates: A History. Stroud UK: The History Press. ISBN 9780752488271. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  2. ^ Gosse, Philip (1924). The Pirates' Who's Who by Philip Gosse. New York: Burt Franklin. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  3. ^ a b Cordingly, David (2013). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. New York: Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 9780307763075. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  4. ^ Shipley, John (2015). Little Book of Shropshire. Stroud UK: The History Press. ISBN 9780750963428. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  5. ^ a b Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE PYRATES. London: T. Warner. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  6. ^ a b Earle, Peter (2003). The Pirate Wars. New York: Macmillan. pp. 199–200. ISBN 9780312335793. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  7. ^ "HMS Launceton 1721-1722". baylusbrooks.com. Retrieved 22 December 2018.
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