The Pirate and the Ambassador's Butter

Nicolas Wingfield was baptised 20 September 1715 at Hastings, Sussex. He married Hannah Brett there 28 October 1740. The family includes sons Nicholas, George, Richard, Peter, Thomas, Benjamin and Henry and a single daughter Hannah. Nice and normal - except that is for the records regarding his occupation as a "privateer" and his execution for "piracy on the high-sea."

In 1757, the government of King George II allied Britain with Prussia against France, Russia and Austria in what would become known as the Seven Years War. Captains of private vessels were commissioned to search ships of all nations and would (as human greed designed) plunder enemy shipping in a sort of "legal piracy."

Early in 1758, Nicholas travelled to London to acquire financing for a ship. On the 31 January of that same year the Deputy Marshall of the High Court of Admiralty, William Thomas, "certified that John Ogden of Billingsgate (salesman) and William Ogden of Mercers Court, Tower Street (salesman) would stand as securities for Captain Wingfield, commander of the ship ‘The Roebuck’ to the sum of £1500."

01 February 1758, he was granted his official "Marque" or documentation as a Privateer which authorised him "to arm, equip and set forth to sea the ship called the Roebuck with instructions to set upon by force of arms and to subdue, seize and take the Men of War, ships and other vessels and goods, monies and merchandise belonging to the French King or any of his vassals or subjects, but NOT the ships and property of Princes or States in amity with his majesty."

The Roebuck was described as a ship of 50 tons with six carriage guns, four swivel guns. Ammunitions included three chests of small arms, thirty cutlasses (sailor blades), four barrels of powder, twenty pounds of great shot and two-hundred pounds of small shot. Food was provided for three months sailing period, two sets of sails, three anchors, two cables and "ten hundredweight" of spare cords. A crew of forty men included: Nicholas Wingfield (Commander), John Sargent (Lieutenant), John Willis (Gunner), Charles O’Niell (Boatswain), John Page (Carpenter) and John Payne (Surgeon). The cook's name was John his last name lost to history.

At sea, 24 April 1758, Nicholas captured the ‘de Jeffereies Lucia’ the ship of one William de Drurina and a cargo of alcohol. However, upon the discovery that the owner was in no way connected to the French – the ship was returned. On the 15 July 1758 he captured the "Anna Rosina" carrying a cargo of sugar, cotton and coffee. Again, no connection to the French was found as the ship was registered as Dutch. His next error would prove his last.

"On August 11, 1758, Nicholas Wingfield and Adams Hyde, of Hastings, of two privateer cutters, piratically boarded the Danish ship ‘Der Reisende Jacob,’ on board of which was the Marquis Pignatelli, Ambassador Extraordinary from his Catholic Majesty to the Court of Denmark; assaulting Jurgan Muller, the master of the vessel, and stealing twenty casks of butter. The Lords of the Admiralty offered a reward of £500. Nicholas Wingfield and Adams Hyde, with four others, having been betrayed by some of their accomplices, were arrested; and on January 15, 1759, were brought under a strong guard of soldiers, and lodged in the Marshalsea. They were tried at the Admiralty sessions, March 9, 1759, when Nicholas Wingfield and Adams Hyde were found guilty; and on the 28th of the same month, were hung at Execution Dock. The four others were acquitted."

[‘The Life and Dying Words of Capt. Nicholas Wingfield, and Capt. Adams Hyde, who was Executed at Execution-dock, on Wednesday the Twenty-eighth of March 1759, for Piracy on the High-sea.’ T. Bailey, 1759; Pages 1-16.]

It seems that his biggest error was an attack on a noble.

Another account recalls the attack with detail: ‘The vessel having the Marquis de Pignatelli, ambassador from the court of Spain to the King of Denmark was boarded, the hatches forced, the hold rummaged, broke open and his personal trunks rifled. They even cruelly bruised his officers, stripped his domestics and carried off the effects [butter] together with letters of credit and a bill of exchange.’

[Smollett, Tobias. ‘The History of England, Volume II, Chapter XIV]

Hannah, left a young widow, applied for financial help from the Parish of St. Mary in the Castle on 08 August 1760 and married again one Isaac Gallop at St. Clements the next year.

Of interest and irony - his son George became a Riding Officer for the Customs and Excise.