At the Point of a Cutlass: The Pirate Capture, Bold Escape, and Lonely Exile of Philip Ashton

by Gregory N. Flemming

Overview

A handful of sea stories define the American maritime narrative. Stories of whaling, fishing, exploration, naval adventure, and piracy have always captured our imaginations, and the most colorful of these are the tales of piracy. Called America’s real-life Robinson Crusoe, the true story of Philip Ashton—a nineteen-year-old fisherman captured by pirates, impressed as a crewman, subjected to torture and hardship, who eventually escaped and lived as a castaway and scavenger on a deserted island in the Caribbean—was at one time as well known as the tales of Cooper, Hawthorne, and Defoe. Based on a rare copy of Ashton’s 1725 account, Gregory N. Flemming’s vivid portrait recounts this maritime world during the golden age of piracy. Fishing vessels and merchantmen plied the coastal waters and crisscrossed the Atlantic and Caribbean. It was a hard, dangerous life, made more so by both the depredations and temptations of piracy. Chased by the British Royal Navy, blown out of the water or summarily hung when caught, pirate captains such as Edward Low kidnapped, cajoled, beat, and bribed men like Ashton into the rich—but also vile, brutal, and often short—life of the pirate. In the tradition of Nathaniel Philbrick, At the Point of a Cutlass expands on a lost classic narrative of America and the sea, and brings to life a forgotten world of ships and men on both sides of maritime law.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611685626
Publisher:	University Press of New England
Publication date:	06/03/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

GREGORY N. FLEMMING is a former journalist who holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He lives with his family in New England. His website is www.gregflemming.com.

Table of Contents

Prologue: July 19, 1723
The Rebecca
The Capture
To the Azores
Dangerous Waters
Roatan
The Baymen
The Bay of Honduras
As One Coming from the Dead
Ashton’s Memorial
Pirate Executions and Pirate Treasure
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/17/2014
Flemming relates the story of the capture by pirates of Philip Ashton in 1722, and in the process he reveals a fascinating history of pirates during the first decades of the 18th century, “the golden age of piracy.” Ashton, a fisherman, was taken captive during a raid off the coast of Nova Scotia by the pirate crew of the notorious Edward Low, a captain more vicious than Blackbeard. Ashton survived his capture for nine months before escaping on a deserted island in the Caribbean where the ship had stopped for water. He spent 16 months there, alone, before he was rescued. By the time he made it home to Marblehead, Mass., he’d been away three years. Ashton’s account was written down and published by his minister, John Barnard—a less severe protégé of fire-and-brimstone Puritan preacher Cotton Mather—and Flemming’s detailed contextualizing of pirate life was taken from court records, survivor narratives, newspaper accounts, and logbooks. From battles with warships to the way the pirates split their plunder, Flemming’s focus on individual actors adds a welcome depth to the history of piracy with this engaging and harrowing account of “America’s real-life Robinson Crusoe.” Illus. (June)

Publishers Weekly