Battle of Cape Lopez

Black Bart and his crew were drinking when the Swallow reappeared. Illustration from The Pirates Own Book, first published in 1837.

Date	February 10, 1722
Location	Cape Lopez, Gabon, Africa
Result	British victory

Belligerents

Kingdom of Great Britain

Black Bart's Pirates

Commanders and leaders

Chaloner Ogle

Bartholomew Roberts †

Strength

1 ship-of-the-line

1 frigate
1 brig

Casualties and losses

1 ship-of-the-line damaged

3 dead
272 captured
1 frigate captured

The Battle of Cape Lopez was fought in early 1722 during the Golden Age of Piracy. A British man-of-war under Captain Chaloner Ogle defeated the pirate ship of Bartholomew Roberts off the coast of Gabon, West Africa.

Bartholomew was the most successful pirate during the Golden Age; he captured well over 400 vessels ranging from small fishing boats to large frigates. In April 1721, Roberts, also known as "Black Bart", was sailing the coast of Martinique when he came across a French frigate of fifty-two guns and captured her. Aboard the vessel was the governor of the French colony who was hung by Roberts from the yardarm of his ship. This act proved to be his downfall as it was apparently the final straw; in retaliation for Black Bart's repeated attacks on fleets of merchant ships and his killing of the governor, the French Navy and the Royal Navy dispatched several warships to hunt the pirates. Roberts and his men captured the two French warships off the Senegal River's mouth, the sixteen-gun sloop-of-war Comte de Toulouse and a ten-gun brig. Comte de Toulouse was renamed the Ranger and the brig Little Ranger. After taking the two Frenchmen, the pirates sailed southeast for the present day Gabon.

While on the way, off the coast of Pepper Coast Roberts sighted and captured the Royal Africa Company frigate Onslow which he renamed the Royal Fortune. The frigate mounted over forty guns and the crew consisted of about 250 men, black and white. Black Bart's luck was soon to run out though, as two Royal Navy men-of-war began patrolling the waters of West Africa, at about the same time, Roberts anchored in Cape Lopez for careening. The British vessels on patrol were the fourth-rates HMS Swallow and HMS Weymouth, both mounting fifty guns or more but only the Swallow under Captain Chaloner Ogle encountered Black Bart. When Captain Ogle sailed around the cape he sighted four vessels, three of them pirates and one a merchant ship the 'Neptune' belonging to a Captain Hill, which was illegally trading with the brigands. Ogle spotted a sandbar and quickly ordered his ship to turn out of the way, at the same time raising a Portuguese flag. By this time the pirates had spotted the Swallow so Roberts allowed Captain James Skyrm in the Ranger to capture what he thought was a fleeing merchant ship.

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Wikipedia