Basil Ringrose

Basil Ringrose (about 1653) was a buccaneer, navigator, geographer and author.

Early life

Ringrose was christened at St. Martin in the Field 1653.[1]

First voyage

Ringrose crossed the Isthmus of Darien (Panama)in 1680 with a group of pirates.[2] While on this trip he create extensive charts, including islands, soundings, exhaustive nautical instruction and symbols to mark rocks and shallow water. [3] He spoke Latin and French and learned Spanish quickly to act as interpreter.[4]

There are fellow crew members who also wrote of this voyage: Captain Bartholomew Sharp, Lionel Wafer (the surgeon) John Cox, William Dick and William Damper. Damper refers to Ringrose as an apprentice to a planter in Jamaica. At the end of the voyage, Ringrose and several crewmates took the maps and charts to Dartmouth to sell.[5]

Second Voyage

In October 1683, Ringrose sailed on the Cygnet with Captain Swan, as the Supercargo.[2] Damper writes “He had no mind for this voyage, but was necessited to engage in it or starve.” [4] On the Mexican coast in Santa Pecaque the crew looted the village. Capt. Swan sent 54 men with laden horses back to the anchorage, Ringrose being among them. They are set upon by Spanish soldiers and massacred.[6] [7]

Basil Ringrose’s journal, which gives an account of the early part of this trip,[8] is now in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich England. His maps and charts have become “A Buccaneer’s Atlas” By William Hach a noted cartographer in London of the time. <Sullacrestadellonda.it /> Colored, handmade copies of this Atlas were presented as gifts, one of them to Charles II. This volume was reprinted in 1992 as “A Buccaneer’s Atlas Basil Ringrose’s South Sea Waggoner A Sea Atlas And Sailing Directions of the Pacific Coast of the Americas, 1682 edited by Derek Howse and Norman J.W. Thrower.

References

  1. ↑ South Sea Waggonier Pg.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1  Laughton, John Knox (1896). "Ringrose, Basil". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography 48. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. ↑ http://sullacrestadellonda.it
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Preston, Diana & Michael. A Pirate of Exquisite Mind,1952. p. 60
  5. ↑ Lane. Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in The Americas 1500–1750. M.E. Sharpe. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-7656-3083-4.
  6. ↑ Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin; Basil Ringrose (1893). The Buccaneers of America. S. Sonnenschein & Company. pp. 28–.
  7. ↑ David Cordingly pg .73 Pirates Terror on the High Seas-from the Caribbean to the South China Sea 1996
  8. ↑ Jennifer Speake (12 May 2014). Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 138–. ISBN 978-1-135-45663-4.