On the 4th of September, 1720, the sloop Relief was accosted by pirate Captain Bartholomew Roberts while he and his crew were turtling in the Grenadines.
The Relief’s captain, Robert Dunn, would mention in his account that on the 4th of September, that he had been caught off guard:
”…by a pirate ship and sloop commanded by one Roberts of Barbados, about 130 men all told. The remnant of the Royal Rover’s crew are in this gang. The ship they took on the banks of Newfoundland, French-built, and one of 21 vessels they took there. The pirates dismissed deponent after putting on board his sloop some bundles of old rigging and cloth, in return for his tending them with turtles, which they made him do. They said they intended to take Marie-Galante. They intent to take their revenge of Antigua and Barbados, and then go on the coast of Brazil or the East Indies. The would blow up rather than be taken. Every man double armed, and mostly Englishmen.”
Roberts and his crew would afterwards careen at Carricou later in the month, and complete their repairs and recuperation as the month neared its end on September 27th .
(pictured is a period depiction of Bartholomew Roberts, an aerial view of some of the Grenadines islands, and a photo of a sea turtle in the waters of the Grenadines)
