Richard Brown reports that Collier could on occasions be very cruel, and that he even executed a Spanish friar on the battlefield after quarter had been given to the vanquished. On their return to the coast after the sacking of Panama, Collier was accused, with Morgan and the other commanders, of having cheated the seamen of their fair share of the plunder, and of deserting them, and then sailing off in the ships with the supplies of food as well as the plunder.
COLLINS, Thomas.
This Madagascar pirate was a carpenter by trade, who had by 1716 retired from the sea and lived in splendour in that island. Collins was made Governor of the pirate colony, and built a small fort for its defence, which the pirates armed with the guns taken out of their ship, which had by long use grown old and crazy, and was of no further use to them.
COMRY, Adam.
Surgeon to the ship Elizabeth, taken by Captain Bartholomew Roberts's squadron. Gave evidence at the trial of George Wilson and another sea-surgeon, Scudamore, that the former had borrowed from Comry a "clean shirt and drawers, for his better appearance and reception." When visiting Captain Bartholomew Roberts's ship, Comry was forced to serve as surgeon on board one of Roberts's vessels.
CONDENT, Captain, also Congdon or Conden.
Born at Plymouth in Devonshire.
Condent was quartermaster in a New York sloop, at the Island of New Providence, when Governor Woodes Rogers arrived there in 1718. The captain of the sloop seems to have thought best to leave rather than wait to welcome the new Governor. When only a few days out, one of the crew, an Indian, who had been cruelly treated, attempted, in revenge, to blow up the ship. This was prevented by Condent, who with great courage leapt into the hold and shot the Indian, but not before the latter had fired at him and broken his arm. The crew, to show the relief they felt at being saved from a sudden death, hacked to pieces the body of the Indian, while the gunner, ripping open the dead man's belly, tore out his heart, which he boiled and ate.
Turning their attention from cannibalism to piracy, the pirates took a prize, the Duke of York, but disputes arising, the captain and part of the crew sailed in the prize, while Condent was elected captain of the sloop, and headed across the Atlantic for the Cape Verde Islands, where he found the salt fleet, of twenty small vessels, lying at anchor off the Island of Mayo, all of which he took. Sailing next to the Island of St. Jago, he took a Dutch ship. This proving a better ship than the sloop, Condent transferred himself and crew into her, and named her the Flying Dragon, presenting the sloop to the mate of an English prize, who he had forced to go with him. From thence Condent sailed away for the coast of Brazil, taking several Portuguese ships which, after plundering, he let go. After cleaning the Flying Dragon on Ferdinando Island, the pirates took several more prizes, and then one day met with a Portuguese man-of-war of seventy guns. Coming up with her, the Portuguese hailed the pirates, and they answered "from London bound for Buenos Ayres." The man-of-war, to pay a compliment to the ship of her English ally, manned the shrouds and cheered him, and while this amicable demonstration of marine brotherly feeling was taking place, Captain Condent came up alongside and suddenly fired a broadside and a volley of small arms into the man-of-war, and a smart engagement followed, in which the pirates were worsted, and were lucky to escape.
Sailing away round the Cape of Good Hope, Condent arrived at the pirate stronghold at the Island of Johanna, where he took on board some of Captain Halsey's crew, and, reinforced by these skilled masters in the craft of piracy, took several rich East Indiamen off the Malabar coast.