Edward Coates

Who is Edward Coates?

Edward Coates was a colonial American privateer in English service during the King William's War and later a pirate operating in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean during the mid-1690s.

In 1689, Coates originally signed aboard the Jacob as a sailor in a privateer expedition, then under the command of a Captain William Mason, and commissioned by the colonial officials in New York to raid French shipping off the coast of Quebec "to war as in his wisdom should seem fit". However, unable to find French vessels, Mason began raiding English shipping and distributing the spoils among his crew, including Coates, eventually adding up to 1,800 pieces-of-eight per crewman.

Apparently withholding a portion of the crew's shares, Mason disappeared after stopping at an uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean. Coates, later suspected to have murdered Mason, assumed command of the ship, stopping at St. Mary's Island along with the 16-gun Nassau in October 1692, before returning to New York.