Surgeon-General in Morgan's fleet which carried the buccaneers to the Spanish Main. He wrote an account of the disastrous explosion on board the Oxford during a banquet given to Morgan and the buccaneer commanders on January 2nd, 1669, off Cow Island to the south of Hispaniola, at which the details were being discussed for an attack on Cartagena.
Browne writes: "I was eating my dinner with the rest when the mainmasts blew out and fell upon Captains Aylett and Bigford and others and knocked them on the head. I saved myself by getting astride the mizzenmast." Only Morgan and those who sat on his side of the dinner-table were saved.
Browne, who certainly was not biased towards Morgan in his accounts of his exploits, is one of the few narrators who gives the buccaneer Admiral credit for moderation towards his prisoners, particularly women.
BUCK, Eleazer.
One of Captain Pounds's crew. Tried at Boston in 1689 for piracy and found guilty, but pardoned on payment of a fine of twenty marks.
BUCKENHAM, Captain.
In 1679 sailed from England to the West Indies. He was taken by the Spaniards off Campeachy and carried to Mexico. A seaman, Russel, also a prisoner there, and who escaped afterwards, reported to Lionel Wafer that he last saw Captain Buckenham with a log chained to his leg and a basket on his back, crying bread about the streets of the city of Mexico for his master, a baker.
BULL, Captain Dixey.
Born in London of a respectable family, and in 1631 went to Boston, where he received a grant of land at York on the coast of Maine. Became a "trader for bever" in New England. In June, 1632, while in Penobscot Bay, a French pinnace arrived and seized his shallop and stock of "coats, ruggs, blanketts, bisketts, etc." Annoyed by this high-handed behaviour, Bull collected together a small crew and turned pirate, thus being the very first pirate on the New England coast. Bull took several small vessels, and was not caught by the authorities, who sent out small armed sloops to search for him, and nothing more was heard of this pioneer pirate after 1633, although rumour said that he had reached England in safety.
BULL, Mr.