John Ward (pirate)

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John Ward [Warde], also known as Jack Ward and under his Muslim name Yusuf Reis, was a notorious English pirate around the turn of the 17th century who later became a Barbary Corsair operating out of Tunis during the early 1600s.

Brought up in Faversham, Kent he was from a poor family and lived most of his life as a fisherman. By the end of the wars with Spain he was about 50 years old, and was pressed into a Royal Navy ship in Plymouth. Two weeks later, he defected with thirty other men, who elected him as their captain. They stole a ship and began a successful life of piracy.

Ward and his men sailed to the Mediterranean where he was able to acquire a warship of 32 guns which was renamed The Grift and began attacking merchantmen for the next two years. While at Salé, Morocco in 1605 several English and Dutch sailors, including Richard Bishop and Anthony Johnson, joined Ward's crew and the following year (August, 1606) Ward arranged with Tunisian ruler Uthman Dey to use Tunis as a base of operations in exchange for one fifth of Ward's loot. From this base, Jack Ward was easily able to capture several valuable merchant ships, including the Reniera e Soderina of 60 tons and worth $100,000.

Following his return to Tunis in June of 1607, Ward was informed during the winter that the now rotted Reniera e Soderina had begun to sink. With several of his officers, Ward deserted the ship to one of the French prizes he had captured. The Reniera e Soderina later sank off Greece as 400 crew members, of which 250 Muslim and 150 English, were lost. Ironically, Ward lost his own ship, as well as two others captured by Venice, several weeks later.

While many in Tunisia were angered by Ward's desertion of the Muslim sailors aboard the Reniera e Soderina, Uthman Dey offered Ward a safe haven. Ward however offered James I $40,000 for a royal pardon which was refused and he reluctantly returned to Tunis. Uthman Dey kept his word and Ward was granted protection by Tunis.

During the next year ballads and pamphleteers condemned John Ward for turning corsair (which may have contributed to his later conversion to Islam). He changed his name to Yusuf Reis and married an Italian woman while he continued to send money to his English wife.

Ward continued raiding Mediterranean shipping, eventually commanding a whole fleet of corsairs, and whose flagship was a Venetian sixty-gunner. He profited by his piracy, retiring to Tunis to live a life of opulent comfort until 1622, when at the age of 70 he reportedly died from the plague.

An English sailor who saw him in Tunis in 1608 described him as "very short with little hair, and that quite white, bald in front; swarthy face and beard. Speaks little and almost always swearing. Drunk from morn till night...The habits of a thorough salt. A fool and an idiot out of his trade."