Edward Low

Edward Low, also known as Ned Low (other spellings include Lowe and Loe; c. 16901724), was an English pirate active in the early 18th century during the final years of the Golden Age of Piracy. Low was born into poverty in Westminster and was a thief from an early age. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts, as a young man. His wife died in childbirth in late 1719. Two years later, he became a pirate, operating off the coasts of New England, Nova Scotia, the Azores, and in the Caribbean.

Low captained a number of ships, usually maintaining a small fleet of three or four. Low and his pirate crews captured at least a hundred ships during his short career, burning most of them.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality." The New York Times called him a torturer, whose methods would have "done credit to the ingenuity of the Spanish Inquisition in its darkest days." The circumstances of Low's death, which took place around 1724, have been the subject of much speculation.

Early life According to Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates, Edward Low was born in Westminster, Middlesex, England, in 1690. He was described as illiterate, having a "quarrelsome nature", and always ready to cheat, running "wild in the streets of his native parish". As a young man, he was said to be a pickpocket and gambler, playing games of chance with the footmen of the nearby House of Commons.

Life in Boston As he advanced in age, Low tired of pickpocketing and thievery and turned to burglary. Eventually, he left England, and traveled alone to the New World around 1710. He spent three to four years in various locations, before settling in Boston, Massachusetts. They had a son, who died when he was an infant, and then a daughter named Elizabeth, born in the winter of 1719. At first working honestly as a rigger, in early 1722 he joined a gang of twelve men on a sloop headed for Honduras, where they planned to collect a shipment of logs for resale in Boston.

Following this failed mutiny, Low and his friends were forced to leave the boat. A day later, Low led the twelve-man gang, including Francis Farrington Spriggs, who went on to become a notorious pirate in his own right, to commandeer a small sloop off the coast of Rhode Island. Killing one man during the theft, Low and his crew turned pirate, determined "to go in her, make a black Flag, and declare War against all the World."

Low abandoned his plans of plundering the rich shipping trade off the coast of Brazil and moved on to the Caribbean. George Roberts, captain of a sloop trading from Barbados to West Africa, recounted a meeting with Low aboard the Rose Pink at the Cape de Verde Islands. Roberts' ship was captured by Low's fleet, of which he was now styling himself "Commodore".

Capsizing of the Rose Pink Forty leagues (120 nautical miles or around 220 km) to the east of Surinam, Low and his fleet of two ships (the Rose Pink and the Fancy, captained by a young Charles Harris) dropped anchor to remove growth such as seaweed and barnacles from the outside and bottom of the boats, in a process known as careening; no dry dock was available to pirates.

Still relatively inexperienced, Low ordered too many men to the outside of the boat to work on the buildup, and the Rose Pink tipped too far. The portholes had been left open, and the vessel took on water and sank, taking two men with her. The Rose Pink had been carrying most of the provisions. Low was captaining a schooner, the Squirrel—and his crew were forced to strictly ration their fresh water to half a pint (around 275 ml) per man, per day.

Early 1723

Low's new fleet captured many more sloops, including one that Low kept, naming it the Fortune. During a trial on 10 July 1723 for a number of Low's crew members, a sailor on board the Fortune, John Welland, recalled how Low stripped his boat, including gold to the value of £150, then beat him and cut off his ear with a cutlass.

Following this, Low's fleet captured a Portuguese ship called the Nostra Signiora de Victoria on 25 January 1723. The Victoria's captain allowed a bag containing approximately 11,000 gold moidores (worth at the time around £15,000) to fall into the sea rather than see it captured.

One story describes Low burning a French cook alive, saying he was a "greasy fellow who would fry well"; another tells how he once killed 53 Spanish captives with his cutlass. Historian Edward Leslie described Low as a psychopath with a history filled with "mutilations, disembowelings, decapitations, and slaughter". One failed torture session led to one of Low's crew members accidentally cutting him in the mouth. Botched surgery left Low scarred. When Solgard returned to New York, he was presented with the freedom of the city and a gold snuffbox for his part in bringing some of Low's crew to justice. —in his A General History of the Pyrates, stated that Low and the Fancy were last sighted near the Canaries and Guinea. However, at the time of his 1724 book, no further reports had surfaced. He noted one rumour that Low was sailing for Brazil and another that Low's ship sank in a storm with the loss of all hands. they would go on to sail alongside Spriggs in the Caribbean. Low was subsequently rescued by a French ship. When the French authorities learned of his identity he was brought to trial and was hanged in Martinique in 1724. However, this may have been a mistake and may have been referring to George Lowther; Admiral Edward Vernon reported receiving intelligence from Lowther before his assault on Portobelo, indicating that it was Lowther spotted earlier at Porto Bello, not Low:

The Strafford and Norwich, with all the small vessels being watered, the admiral got out to sea on the 22d, being the better enabled to undertake the expedition as during his stay at Porto Bello, he had got an exact draught of all the coast from Porto Bello to Chagre, and of the mouth of that river, and the shoal before it, from Lowther the pirate, who by this piece of service to his country, took the opportunity of obtaining his pardon, and returning to England.

Flags

Initially, Low used the same flag as his associates Francis Spriggs and Charles Harris: a skeleton holding an hourglass and a spear stabbing a heart on a black field. Later, he used his own flag, a red skeleton on a black background, which became notorious. He first flew his own flag in late July 1723. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his short story "Tales of the High Seas: 3. The Voyage of Copley Banks", described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality". and in 1994 the government of Antigua and Barbuda featured Low and his brigantine Rebecca on a legal tender one hundred-dollar bill made of gold leaf.

"Ned Low" is one of the pirates featured on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the Disneyland theme park in California. A duplicate of Low's flag was used for the fictional pirate Sao Feng in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean films. Tadhg Murphy portrayed Low in the 2015 season of the Starz TV series Black Sails. Bronson Pinchot depicted Low in a 2023 episode of the Max TV series Our Flag Means Death.

Some of Low's haunts, such as the waters around the Isles of Shoals off New Hampshire and Isle Haute in Nova Scotia, attract treasure hunters who seek artifacts from ships he sank.