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Eduard Morgan (17th century)

Also called Edward Morgan. He served as a mercenary in Germany (in the Thirty Years War) where he married the daughter of the governor of the city of Lippstadt. During the Civil War, in England, he was a partisan of the King, serving in the royalist army with the rank of colonel. After the King Charles’ execution, he exiled himself in Germany. After the Restoration of the Kingship, he was named deputy (with the rank of lieutenant governor) to the new governor general of Jamaica, sir Thomas Modyford. He arrived in the West Indies, for the first time, in the summer of 1664. At the outbreak of the Second Dutch War, Modyford commissioned him to command a privateer’s fleet against the Dutch.

Morgan got together a fleet of nine ships at the Island Pinos. He intended to sail with this fleet to attack Tobago, Saba, St. Eustatius and Curaçao. He was unable to convince the crews of these ships of this plan, however, and was forced to change it. Three ships elected to sail away and attack the coast of Virginia. The rest of the fleet set sail for St. Eustatius where it arrived on 23 July 1665. The pirates disembarked and attacked the Dutch colonists who were unable to put up much resistance. Eduard Morgan, who was quite fat, died at St. Eustatius due to a heart attack. His vice-commander Theodore Cary forced the colonists to choose between accepting the English king as ruler and being forced t leave. The colonists who refused to accept the rule of the English king were robbed of their posessions and transported to the Island St. Maarten. The loot consisted of: 20 cannons, small arms, 840 slaves (Africans and Indians), 300 large cattle, 50 horses, 500 small cattle (sheeps and goats) and 50,000 pounds of cotton. The division of the spoils caused many quarrels and resulted in their refusal to undertake any more attacks on Dutch colonies for the English. When they left the island the Governor of the English colony on the Island of Nevis (which lies close to St. Eustatius) put a military occupation force on the island.

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Part of the information as well as the sources were provided by Raynald Laprise.

Written sources:

Cruishank, E.A.
The life of Sir Henry Morgan / E.A. Cruishank. - Toronto, 1935
Haring, Clarence Henry
The buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVIIth Century / Clarence Henry Haring. - New York : Metheun & Co., 1910
Pawson, Michael + DB
Port Royal, Jamaica / Michael Pawson and David Buisseret. - Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1975






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