Edward Davis (buccaneer)

Edward Davis or Davies (fl. c. 1680–1688) was an English buccaneer active in the Caribbean during the 1680s and would lead successful raids against Leon and Panama in 1685, the latter considered one of the last major buccaneer raids against a Spanish stronghold. Much of his career was later recorded by writer William Dampier in A New Voyage Round the World (1697).

Possibly of Flemish ancestry, he is first recorded as one of the members of the Pacific Adventure led by Bartholomew Sharp and John Coxon in 1680. But first and foremost he emerges in the Caribbean on a French privateer commanded by Captain Yanky. He was transferred to Captain Tristian's ship, the crew mutinied at Petit-Goâve, southwest of Port-au-Prince in Saint-Domingue (Haiti). Davis then sailed under Capt John Cook arriving in April 1683 at Chesapeake Bay, where he met William Dampier.

Briefly serving as a navigator, he and several others including James Kelly left the expedition within a year and returned overland through Panama with John Cook.

On 23 August 1683, while selling captured prizes in Virginia, he agreed to join a privateering expedition as a quartermaster under John Cook. Sailing eastward, they soon captured the 36-gun Delight (or Bachelor's Delight) shortly after arriving off West Africa at Guinea. Sailing to the Pacific in November 1683 by way of Cape Horn, Davis and the others were joined by John Eaton before raiding Spanish cities along the coast of South America.

In March 1684, Bachelor's Delight met Nicholas, Capt John Eaton's ship off Valdivia. They sailed to the Juan Fernandez Islands where they were greeted by a Mokito indian, who had accidentally been left behind in January 1681 by Capt Bartholomew Sharp. On 3 May, Captains Cook and Eaton headed for the Galapagos Islands.

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