Jean Hamlin

Jean Hamlin (died 1696, real name likely Pierre Egron) was a French pirate active in the Caribbean and off the coast of Africa. He was often associated with St. Thomas's pirate-friendly Governor Adolph Esmit.

History

Hamlin began his career in 1682, sailing from Jamaica in a small sloop loaded with 120 men, which took a frigate they renamed La Trompeuse (The Trickster), which itself had changed hands between a number of pirates. Given command of the prize, he quickly looted eighteen Jamaican ships, causing Jamaica's Governor Thomas Lynch to send two ships after him. The first missed him; the second, HMS Guernsey, found Hamlin but was outpaced by the freshly careened Trompeuse, which "sailed three feet to his one." Hamlin did not try to hide behind a privateering commission: off St. Thomas a French warship confronted him and asked, "how she dared fire at ships flying French colours? The pirate answered that he was a robber."

Hamlin sailed for Sierra Leone off the African coast in May, capturing seventeen Dutch and English vessels. He had reportedly been very cruel to the crews of captured ships during his African voyages, leading Nevis' Governor William Stapleton to call him "John Hamlin, the arch murderer and torturer." Finally the English captured and burned Trompeuse, which exploded and set fire to another vessel left in the harbor. Hamlin may have sailed with Francois Le Sage for a time. Afterward he reportedly married on St. Thomas in 1688 and lived there until his death in 1696.

The original Trompeuse which burned at St. Thomas was reportedly found by divers in 1990 but its authenticity is disputed.