James Browne

James Browne (died 1677) was a Scottish pirate and privateer active in the Caribbean. He is best known for his hasty execution and its effect on colonial Jamaican government.

History

Jamaican officials had been working to curb rampant privateering in the region since the tenure of Lieutenant Governor (and former buccaneer) Henry Morgan. To the dismay of English lords eager to find allies in Europe, privateers would regularly abuse their legal commissions to attack shipping of all nations.

Using a privateering commission from Governor D’Ogeron of French Tortuga, Browne sailed from Jamaica in October 1676 with a multi-national crew. That May he reappeared in Jamaica trying to sell slaves to local plantations. Governor Vaughn dispatched a frigate to collect most of the slaves from the planters who had purchased them illicitly. He then wrote to the Governor of Dutch Curacao to warn him of Browne's piracy.

The Jamaican Assembly had passed an act in April 1677 forbidding English subjects from serving foreign governments, and shortly after passed a similar act pardoning all privateers who surrendered within a year. Browne and his crew turned themselves in soon afterwards. Upon inspection, his privateering commission from Tortuga was found to be expired: Governor D’Ogeron had been dead for over a year. They were tried and convicted for piracy. The crew were pardoned but Browne was sentenced to be hanged in July. The Assembly's Chief Justice Samuel Long and Speaker (and future governor) William Beeston ordered Browne's execution delayed, but Browne had been hanged only minutes earlier: “Half-an-hour after, the Marshal came with an order signed by the Speaker to observe the Chief Justice's writ of habeas corpus.”

After going through three governors in two years, it took until mid-1679 for Jamaica to repay the Dutch West India Company for the loss of slaves to Browne's piracy, and then only when the Lords of Trade and Plantations forced Carlisle to do so. The following year (1680) Carlisle levied the same charges against Justice Long that Vaughn had, still holding him accountable for the "disorderly" manner in which he had handled Browne's trial.