Lieutenant Fisher claimed he overheard men from Henry Every’s Fancy plotting with Dampier to steal the Roebuck.
1. The Pirate History Podcast episode "Three Kings" follows William Dampier, Lord Archibald Hamilton, and Captain John Jennings through a chain of naval and political connections.
2. Matt hosts the show and uses Dampier’s court-martial, the Cadiz fleet, and Jamaican privateering to frame the story.
3. The episode asks how three men present at Dampier’s June 1702 trial later connect to the rise of privateering and piracy in the Bahamas.
4. Matt opens by saying Dampier returned from his first circumnavigation in 1691 with notes, charts, drawings, and an enslaved Indonesian man named Jolie.
5. He explains that Dampier sold Jolie to a theater man, and the public display of Jolie helped create interest in Dampier’s story.
6. Dampier’s book A New Voyage Round the World, published in 1697, turned into a lecture circuit in London, Glasgow, Paris, Savoy, and Austria.
7. Matt notes that Dampier spoke in salons attended by wives, sisters, mothers, and mistresses of kings and grand dukes.
8. The episode links Dampier’s Glasgow talk to Scottish investment in Darien and his Paris talks to increased French attention to Vietnam.
9. Matt then turns to the Royal Navy’s Roebuck expedition, where Lieutenant Fisher repeatedly challenged Dampier’s orders.
10. Fisher accused Dampier of being a pirate and later claimed he heard men from Henry Every’s Fancy plotting with Dampier in Brazil.
11. Dampier beat Fisher with a cane, put him in irons, and sent him back to London as a prisoner.
12. Fisher’s accusations led to an inquest and then a court-martial for Dampier in June 1702.
13. That trial took place aboard HMS Royal Sovereign, with Admiral George Rook presiding.
14. Archibald Hamilton and John Jennings were among the commanders involved in the proceedings.
15. Matt then revisits the Jacobite revolt of 1689 and the Hamilton family’s divided loyalties.
16. He says Archibald Hamilton was in London as an apprenticeship under the Astronomer Royal while his family navigated the revolt.
17. The episode moves to Bermuda, where Lucy Russell sold land to James Hamilton and where Harrington Sound, Hamilton Parish, and Smiths Parish create the geographic backdrop.
18. Matt connects Bermuda land speculation to the Trott and Jennings families, then suggests those holdings helped shape later Jamaica appointments and privateering commissions.
19. The tone is speculative, historical, and conversational, with Matt repeatedly flagging where the evidence is thin.
20. Listeners interested in pirate-era political networks will get the most from it, while listeners wanting a single self-contained battle story may skip it.
