Betagh was captain of marines on the Speedwell, one of two privateers sent in 1719 to cruise against the Spaniards in the Pacific, the other being John Clipperton’s Success. His account of the voyage is above all an indictment of his commander George Shelvocke, whom he accuses of losing the ship on purpose and of cheating the owners, set against Shelvocke’s own published version.
A vivid, partisan document of eighteenth-century privateering and its quarrels. Download the free EPUB.