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Having a roving spirit, Mary ran away and entered herself on board a man-of-war. Deserting a few
years later, she enlisted in a regiment of foot and fought in Flanders, showing
on all occasions great bravery, but quitted the service to enlist in a regiment
of horse. Her particular comrade in this regiment was a Fleming, with whom she
fell in love and disclosed to him the secret of her sex. She now dressed as a
woman, and the two troopers were married, "which made a great noise," and
several of her officers attended the nuptials. She and her husband got their
discharge and kept an eating house or ordinary, the Three Horseshoes, near the Castle of Breda.
The husband died, and Mary once again donned male attire and
enlisted in a regiment in Holland. Soon tiring of this, she deserted, and
shipped herself aboard a vessel bound for the West Indies. This ship was taken
by an English pirate, Captain Rackam, and Mary joined his crew as a seaman.
She was at New Providence Island, Bahama, when Woodes Rogers came there with the
royal pardon to all pirates, and she shipped herself aboard a privateer sent out
by Rogers to cruise against the Spaniards. The crew mutinied and again became
pirates. She now sailed under Captain Rackam, who had with him another woman
pirate, Anne Bonny. They took a large number of ships belonging to Jamaica, and
out of one of these took prisoner "a young fellow of engaging behaviour" with
whom Mary fell deeply in love. This young fellow had a quarrel with one of the
pirates, and as the ship lay at anchor they were to go to fight it out on shore
according to pirate law. Mary, to save her lover, picked a quarrel with the same
pirate, and managed to have her duel at once, and fighting with sword and pistol
killed him on the spot.
She now married the young man "of engaging behaviour," and not long after was
taken prisoner with Captain Rackam and the rest of the crew to Jamaica. She was
tried at St. Jago de la Vega in Jamaica, and on November 28th, 1720, was
convicted, but died in prison soon after of a violent fever.
That Mary Read was a woman of great spirit is shown by her reply to Captain
Rackam, who had asked her (thinking she was a young man) what pleasure she could
find in a life continually in danger of death by fire, sword, or else by
hanging; to which Mary replied "that as to hanging, she thought it no great
Hardship, for were it not for that, every cowardly Fellow would turn Pirate and
so unfit the Seas, that Men of Courage must starve."
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