The Fall of Piracy in Canada (Part 2)

Climb back aboard to witness the turbulent end of “The Golden Age of Piracy” in Canada. From the most notorious pirate to have sailed the seas of the North Atlantic, to the most infamous pirate trial in Halifax’s history, we find out how East Coast piracy declined and…turned legitimate.

Clarifications:

Ned Low arrived at St. John’s during his ill-fated pillaging attempt BEFORE he spent time raiding the ships around the Grand Banks—before word got out to Louisbourg’s governor. It was just simpler to relay the tale in the order we did.

The Fortress at Louisbourg was most assuredly not BUILT to defend against pirates alone—but it was armed to. Louisbourg was a fort that saw many ups and downs, multiple invasions, and its construction went through a variety of phases. It just so happens that the first real push toward its eventual power over the St. Lawrence was motivated by the threat of pirates like Ned.

The Miꞌkmaq flags that rise on ships are sideways, but typically the flag is vertical. It was just difficult to animate them vertically and through research we found that flying them in both directions are legitimate.

Extra Tidbits:

We never really had a chance to better explain what the Grand Banks were/are for those who don’t know. It’s an area of ocean, kilometres off the coast of NFLD, with a relatively shallow sea floor. This makes it perfect for cod fishing. At the same time, the Grand Banks are smack-dab in the middle of the main transatlantic sea passage. Spanish Treasure Ships regularly came north from the Caribbean and crossed the Atlantic in an arch that would have them pass right over its fertile waters. The Grand Banks was a perfect place for pirates to spend months pillaging.

Edward Jordan’s tale has recently seen a spike in interest. We unfortunately didn’t have the time to go through his story in great detail, so we've compiled a few things here.

Jordan was almost on his way with The Three Sisters when he was tracked down—his plan had nearly worked. At the time of his arrest, he and his wife were trying to collect crewmen for a sail back home to Ireland from Newfoundland. When he was captured, Jordans quoted as saying: “The Lord have mercy on me, what will my poor children do?” We would have loved to figure out where they eventually ended up, after the city of Halifax collected money for their passage back to Ireland.

Interestingly, tampering with a gibbet was a serious offence, so Jordan’s body sat in it for roughly 30 years (it’s difficult to find a precise count on that). Legend has it that the gibbet was only taken down (and buried) when the Lieutenant-Governor’s daughter came across the horrific sight, while on a leisurely ride around Point Pleasant Park. Jordan’s skull, still tightly bound in the rusted iron, was dug up in 1844 when a new piracy trial renewed interest in his sad tale. It was donated to the forerunner of the Nova Scotia Museum.

The skull is at the centre of a contemporary moral debate about museums displaying the remains of historic figures. The concept of publicly-owned remains, displayed for perceived entertainment, regardless of educational value, without the permission or guidance of descendants (whether or not they are traceable) is a discussion that’s not about to end any time soon. For the time being, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is understandably restricting access to Jordan’s skull—we were not allowed to film it.

If you're wondering what the meaning behind the Liverpool Packet's original name ('The Black Joke') was, well it's apparently a very common gaudy ship name from a raunchy old song. We'll leave it at that.

The War of 1812 is clearly a subject we need to tackle one day.

Privateering was abolished in 1856 with the Declaration of Paris. The vast majority of major international powers signed it...except for the United States. Legally, the American Government can still sign Letters of Marque if they ever want to get revenge for the Liverpool Packet.

We will definitely come back to stories of pirates one day!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

This is Louisbourg — an old French fortress in Nova Scotia, famous for the pivotal role it played as the French and British Empires battled for control of the continent. But 300 years ago, this impressive bastion was just a small port — not much of a fortress at all.

That was about to change.

In the early 1700s, the East Coast of Canada was a frightening place — there were skirmishes with pirates, battles between the British and French, attacks by Mi'kmaq raiders who resisted the European invasion of their lands by commandeering ships, capturing & ransoming colonists.

But for the governor of Louisbourg, the most pressing threat of all was Loathsome Ned Low.

Low was a new breed of pirate; one much more vicious, with a code far less civil. You don’t get a nickname like "Loathsome" for no reason. With authorities clamping down, pirates were fighting back, growing ever more violent, but Ned took it to a whole other level.

To avoid capture, he took no prisoners; for his own pleasure, he tortured those he killed. They were often disemboweled, or beheaded, or stripped naked, whipped & shot. He made some hold lit cannon fuses until they burned their hands to the bone; others he burned alive. He cut off lips & noses, and once sliced off a captain’s ears and seasoned them with salt & pepper before frying them and forcing the man to eat them.

As reports of the merciless pirate terrorizing the Grand Banks filtered into Louisbourg, the governor ramped up construction on the fort, erected new defences armed with dozens of cannons, and built the pivotal Island Battery, too.

So, this impenetrable fortress wasn’t ORIGINALLY armed to defend against the British; it was fortified to defend against pirates like Ned Low.

And it wasn't just Louisbourg. Britain and France were fed up with piracy. And they were cracking down — HARD. One misty morning, just months after Black Bart was killed, Loathsome Ned sailed into the mouth of THIS well-protected harbour: St. John's, Newfoundland. He thought he'd spotted the perfect target: a massive merchant ship just waiting to be captured

But he was in for a very big surprise.

As Ned grew closer, just before he was about to raise his black flag, he realized his mistake: The merchant ship wasn't a merchant ship at all. It was the HMS Solebay — a British warship sent to protect against pirates.

Loathsome Ned made a quick escape. But the Solebay wasn't about to give up its prey. Low was chased out of Newfoundland and eventually the Maritimes. When he tried to return, he was driven out again.

No one really knows how his story ended, but there ARE rumours: that his crew, disgusted by his deeds, finally mutinied and set him adrift, leaving him to be captured & hanged. 

The colonists were fighting back.

By the beginning of the 1800s, the fun was over. Draconian anti-piracy laws, criminal courts, and many, MANY more warships were sent to Newfoundland and the Maritimes. Pirates were being rounded up and hanged by the hundreds, punished even more harshly than murderers. And nowhere was that more visible than here in Halifax.

As you sailed into the harbour, you were forced to pass through dangling corpses of pirates, left on public display on EITHER SIDE of the channel: a gruesome warning to anyone who might dare follow in the footsteps of Peter Easton, Black Bart or Loathsome Ned.

 And one of those bodies, hanging on Black Rock Beach, was a lonely figure in an iron gibbet…

His name was Edward Jordan. He wasn't much of a pirate — he had none of the bravado, flair OR menace. He only ever stole one ship, but he was treated like the worst of the worst.

He was a fisherman from Gaspe Bay who'd taken a loan from some Halifax merchants to start his business, but when he wasn’t able to pay them back, they seized his ship.

Now unemployed, Jordan and his family were forced to head to Halifax, hoping he might find work THERE — given a lift on the very same ship he'd just had repossessed.

It was all too much. After a few days at sea as a passenger aboard his OWN ship, Jordan broke. He and his wife shot and killed two crew members — wounding the captain, who jumped overboard to escape.  

The story caused a sensation. The notorious Edward Jordan was public enemy #1. He & his wife were quickly hunted down and arrested.

She was soon released — everyone assumed she'd been forced to do it by her villainous husband. The public even took up a collection for her and the kids. But Jordan would face the full might of a new court system specifically set up to prosecute pirates.

He was hanged on the spot where Pier 21 now stands, and then given the buccaneer special: his corpse tarred and put in a gibbet. 

You can still see the marks the cage left on his skull; it's kept here at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. It used to be on public display but is now being reassessed as attitudes towards exhibiting human remains evolve.

Edward Jordan was left hanging at Black Rock Beach FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS. And while he wouldn’t be the last pirate hanged in Halifax, it was clear piracy was no longer the threat it once was.

 But the Age of Sail was far from over; there were still ships to capture & fortunes to be made. It's just that now it would have to be done a little more... legitimately.

By the 1800s, privateering had exploded in popularity once again. Governments were giving LICENSES to plunder and steal — happy to have anyone attack their enemies on their behalf. And the biggest prizes came when the War of 1812 broke out: American ones. 

 That’s when vessels like THIS ruled the seas of the East Coast.

This was originally an American slaving ship called the Black Joke — but when the British navy seized it, they brought it to Halifax for auction. Originally an American slaving ship called the Black Joke—it was seized by the British Navy, brought to Halifax for auction, and bought by a man named Enos Collins. And it was bought by a man named Enos Collins.

A Nova Scotian born and bred, Collins started out as a privateer by stealing French and Spanish riches in the Caribbean. And he quickly realized just how lucrative it could be: colonial governments didn’t mind if he kept the ships, cargos, and profits for himself — just as long as their enemies suffered.

So, when this quick and nimble ship was auctioned off, Collins and his partners snapped it up. He renamed it after his Nova Scotian hometown: The LIVERPOOL Packet was a name that would soon strike fear in American hearts.

When the U.S. declared war on Britain and the Canadian colonies in 1812, Collins seized his opportunity, captaining the ship with a fellow Nova Scotian, Joseph Barss Jr. — the greatest privateer of his time. They turned this wretched schooner into one of the most profitable privateering vessels ever. And New England’s worst nightmare.

For two years, they attacked American ships, capturing them and auctioning them off one after another after another — lining Collins' pockets with American gold. All told, at LEAST 60 American ships were captured by The Liverpool Packet — and it was probably more like 100.

Collins and Barss Jr. weren't alone. Privateers from Nova Scotia brought American trade and military operations in the Atlantic to an absolute standstill.

They helped win the war. And they made themselves very, very rich in the process. The merchants of Halifax seized SO much loot they had to build these warehouses to store it all.

Collins and his partners got SO rich, they took their earnings and created one of Canada’s first banks. The Halifax Banking Company was headquartered here, in one of his warehouses.

It cemented Enos Collins as one of the most successful business tycoons in Canadian history. It would eventually merge with a few other banks to form the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. CIBC.

Collins’ bank was SO successful that rivals chartered their own to compete, the government-backed Bank of Nova Scotia. Scotiabank. 

When Collins died, the old privateer was the richest person in Canada.

By then, privateering had been outlawed, closing the chapter on 300 years of piracy in these waters. Those swashbuckling days were over; the pirates were gone. 

But they'd left a legacy behind. And in time, true stories were embellished and exaggerated, history evolving into myth and legend, becoming folk tales of headless ghosts and buried treasure… a romantic echo of the REAL pirates who once ruled these waves — and left a lasting mark on these shores.